Klfcw Vol 1 No3 by Futri Salleh

Criminalise War, Energise Peace.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal

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

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

“

WAR IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY AND THAT IT IS NOT THE BEST SOLUTION TO SETTLE CONFLICTS BETWEEN NATIONS. STUDENTS AS FUTURE LEADERS NEED TO BE ACTIVE AND COURAGEOUS IN FULFILLING THIS NOBLE AGENDA OF CRIMINALISING WAR IN THE FUTURE AND ENERGISING PEACE AMONGST MANKIND.

”

- Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali Founder of Criminalise War Club (Malaysia Chapter)

JULY 2013 CRIMINALISE WAR

Vol. 1

No. 3

July 2013

Publisher 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

Editor G.S. KUMAR Editorial Board ALA AAZRAA MERICAN AZIMAH NOR HAMZAN NUR QISTINA GANDING Design & Layout FUTRI NAJLA SALLEH

Printer INDAH MULTIPURPOSE TRADING & SERVICES

CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

FOREWORD BY H.E CHEA LEANG

FROM THE DESK OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

CRIMINALISE WAR CLUB (CWC) LAUNCH

THE FOUNDER SPEAKS HER MIND

THE FIRST EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION IN THE WORLD TO ESTABLISH A CRIMINALISE WAR CLUB (CWC)

THE RIGHT TO RETURN

UNDERSTANDING THE RIGHT OF PALESTINIANS TO RETURN

AL-NAKBA PALESTINIAN HOLOCAUST

THE SYRIAN CONFLICT - NO END IN SIGHT

INTERNATIONAL PEACE INITIATIVE FOR SYRIA INTERVIEW

A PUBLIC STATEMENT OF THE INITIATIVE PEACE IN SYRIA

THE IRAQ WAR IS NOT OVER - ODE TO AN UNKNOWN IRAQI

UNIVERSAL JURISDICTION OF DOMESTIC COURTS AND THE FINDINGS OF THE KUALA LUMPUR WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL

EDITORIAL

KUALA LUMPUR WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL HEARING ON PALESTINE 2013 - CHARGES

ESSAY : GLOBAL PEACE AND JUSTICE BEGINS AT HOME

CHILDREN’S CHARTER TO CRIMINALISE WAR

CRYING OVER REALITY

DOWN MEMORY LANE WITH OUR GALLANT IRDINA IZZUDIN SHAH

VIEWPOINT OF AN ISRAELI PEACE ACTIVIST

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FOREWORD BY Her Excellency Chea Leang

he work of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW) is to be commended especially when it faces too many prejudices and stumbling blocks. Yet it serves as a constant reminder that people care about the plight of others, no matter which part of the world. As one who witnessed first hand atrocities, I am glad that someone in Malaysia is paying attention to crimes against humanity.

Children have always suffered the most in any human conflict. Defenceless as they are, they are most vulnerable when mighty armies or cruel regimes impose their will on the less mighty. Many of these young and innocent children have been maimed for life owing to the atrocities committed against their parents and siblings. We must never let that happen again, and we must never leave those who have committed such acts to escape punishment. I am also pleased that I witnessed the launch of the Criminalise War Club while I was in Malaysia. Its aims are noble enough and positive step towards creating a society that shuns from war. Most importantly, these members of the Clubs will understand why war solves nothing â&#x20AC;&#x201C; only negotiations and a positive nature can help create lasting peace and harmony. Malaysia has taken the lead in forming such a club with a Charter. It is my hope that this simple message can spread across the region to even my country, so that our children will never ever have to undergo such harsh treatment. With the pioneering work being done in Malaysia, I remain confident that in a relatively short time, the Criminalise War Clubs will become embedded features in our schools. I express my best wishes to the CWC and the magazine.

CHEA LEANG National Co-Prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)

CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

“Gone are the days when those who commit international crimes, could be cleansed of their atrocities through a mere hand shake and a scribble of their initials on a piece of paper which purports to bind them to conditions that they have no intention of ever observing.

My challenge is to consolidate what has been achieved, to build on from it, and to answer victims’ calls for justice. That is the promise made in Rome and that is the promise we cannot fail to fulfill”. - Ms Fatou Bom Bensouda The Gambian-born newly appointed Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, during the 38th FIDH Congress in Istanbul which celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Rome Statute which created the ICC.

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FROM THE DESK OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

very now and then we enjoy moments of extreme happiness when a part of our work gets going. Even if it’s only a beginning there is pride in our hearts. In many ways the launch of the Criminalise War Club (CWC) at Tunku Kurshiah College on 11 April 2013 was such a moment of pride.

Not only was this the first such club to be officially launched in the country, and may I add anywhere in the world, but it was also graced by the presence of the Founder of CWC, Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali who was accompanied by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. The rousing reception, the splendid display by the students and the keenness shown by many present, were indeed a moment of joy. This is only the start, as the real work begins. Towards that end we have established a committee that will help the CWCs plan their activities and to get pioneer members to understand the true meaning of criminalising war. We look forward to many more such CWCs opening up in other parts of the country. Eventually as they mature in status, they will reach out across borders and link up with like-minded clubs in distant places. In this issue, we are fortunate to have an exclusive interview with Tun Dr Siti Hasmah herself, who shares her personal belief and commitment towards spreading the word that war is a crime. She is especially keen in helping children who are victims of war and conflict. There are touching moments that grieved her personally especially when she travelled to the very places where such grievous crimes were committed. The Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW) itself has been gearing up for the Tribunal sittings in August.

CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

The charges against the accused, in this IsraeliPalestinian war - are found in this issue of the magazine. We are sure that the hearings will bring about greater interest from the public, not just here in the country, but in other parts of the world as well.We are fully aware that this is a “battle” being fought by us. Be assured that nothing will disrupt or dissuade us from what we have set out to do. Our resolve is even greater since we have already held two such Tribunals that have found the accused guilty of crimes against humanity. There is already widespread interest in the Palestinian issue. This has been among the longest conflicts with no end in sight. Too many atrocities have been committed, too many lives lost and too many children have become victims. This killing has to stop. The sitting of the Tribunal itself will not bring about a solution, but it will signal to the world that someone is keen on justice.

DR YAACOB HUSAIN MERICAN Secretary-General Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War Inc 10 JULY 2013

“

WE BELIEVE WE ARE THE FIRST NATION TO TAKE THIS BOLD STEP TO ADVOCATE ‘WAR IS A CRIME’ AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE, WHILE THEY ARE IN SCHOOLS. BE THEY BOYS OR GIRLS, THEY ARE OUR FUTURE AND IN THEIR HANDS LIE THE DESTINY OF THIS NATION THAT WE CHERISH.

”

TUN DR. SITI HASMAH MOHD ALI during the Criminalise War Club Launch at Tunku Kurshiah College 11 April 2013

JULY 2013 CRIMINALISE WAR

CRIMINALISE WAR CLUB (CWC) LAUNCH Criminalise War Club (CWC) Launch - a major event organised by KLFCW / TKC (Tunku Kurshiah College) on 11 April 2013.

MAIN OBJECTIVES OF CRIMINALISE WAR CLUB : The main objectives of Criminalise War Club, as stated in the Handbook, are as follows : ͻ

Forge understanding and sense of responsibility amongst the students to oppose wars and armed ĐŽŶŇŝĐƚƐ

ͻ Inculcate high moral values that war is a crime against humanity and global peace. ͻ /ŶƐƉŝƌĞ ĐŽŵƉůŝĂŶĐĞ ŽĨ ƐĐŚŽŽů ƌĞŐƵůĂƟŽŶƐ ĂŶĚ ƚŚĞ ůĂǁƐ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ŶĂƟŽŶ͘ ͻ &ŽƌŵƵůĂƚĞ ŐƵŝĚĂŶĐĞ ƚŽ ĞŶĐŽƵƌĂŐĞ ƐƚƵĚĞŶƚƐ ƚŽ ĐĂƌƌǇ ŽƵƚ ĂĐƟǀŝƟĞƐ ƚŽ ƉƌŽŵŽƚĞ ƉĞĂĐĞ ĂŶĚ humanity. ͻ Create a student community ready to accept its responsibility towards religion, people and the ŶĂƟŽŶ͘

On 11th of April 2013, Criminalise War Club Launch was held at Tunku Kurshiah College, Bandar Enstek, Seremban.

CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

Let us take the bold step to spread the word that war solves nothing, that conflict causes greater harm, that negotiations are the better path to follow. - Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali

Launch of the second issue of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW) magazine.

Criminalise War Club Badge

The principal of TKC, Puan Che Kamaliah Endud, seated with the Board of Trustees of KLFCW.

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JULY 2013 CRIMINALISE WAR 11

THE FOUNDER SPEAKS HER MIND... Once in a while there comes an opportunity to speak to people with vision, passion, compassion and a commitment to do good for other less fortunate people. Often these are leaders who have held high positions in life and who now feel that its time to give back to society. This does not have to be in cash or massive donations, but in starting something that brings about lasting peace and stability to all. Two such people walk with us these days. And their work and dedication have provided fuel to the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW) to undertake what no other government or country has had the courage to do. While some in the West pay scant attention to the sittings of the Tribunal that has already found George W. Bush and Tony Blair guilty of crimes against humanity for their action in invading Iraq and Afghanistan and causing the deaths of thousands of innocent people, women and children included, and then carving up the spoils of war among themselves. The plight of children, who always suffer the most, is a matter that concerns Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali, a trustee of the KLFCW and the founder of the Criminalise War Club (CWC). From the onset, it is clear that this 80 plus lady has passion in her, she chooses her words carefully, she speaks from the heart. 12 CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

“I have always fully supported my husband, and we often talk about our work with the Foundation.” The CWC was launched last November to an international audience and graced by the presence of the Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak and the Founder of the KLFCW, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. The first such club was then officially launched on 11 April 2013 at the Tunku Kurshiah College. In launching the club, the founder reminded the children that: “We in Malaysia are the first nation to advocate “War is a Crime” among young people, and while they are in schools, be they boys or girls, they are our future and in their hands lie the destiny of this nation that we cherish.” Speaking to this lady, you are immediately touched by her manner, which is honest and straight forward, especially when she admits that “at my age, there is not that much more that I can do.”

She noted that thus far the KLFCW has conducted its work trying to bring justice to people around the world who have suffered in one way or another. “So far we have been targeting only the adults. Maybe it’s because we have been very sensitive about young children, not to worry them, but the effects of war affect them as well. They are the ones who suffer together with the adults. So we thought that it was about time that we introduce the concept that War is a Crime and we will never get peace, real peace if conflicts persist and aggression is used in seeking solutions. “But to me, I can never forget a picture of a young Japanese boy in Hiroshima, he must be been about 10 years old, and he was carrying his younger brother on his back, but the brother was dead. He was going to a place where all the dead bodies were to be sent. That picture saddened me. Until today I can see that picture in my mind, of the boy carrying his lifeless brother. He must have lost his parents, after all they had bombed the place. “What happened to the boy who carried his dead brother? No one knows.”

“Another picture was of the girl, running around naked in Vietnam because her clothes and body were burnt when napalm was dropped nearby. She is now a grown up girl and a UNESCO envoy. But that is another picture in my mind, and it had an international audience.” (Criminalise War, in its first issue carried visuals of Kim Phuc Phan Thi) – Editor’s note “So its time we took this message to our children…to educate them, since most are now smart enough and can understand things. But we need to tell them what war does, why it is a crime, why wars solve nothing and the suffering that young children undergo every time there is a conflict. They can get to the Internet for more details, but before they do that, they must understand that conflict never creates a better world. Children who lose their mothers and fathers and family members are left alone in the world, to fend for themselves. “So this inspired me to join in with my husband when he formed the KLFCW, I totally supported him. We have always attended the Memorial Day ceremony in Hiroshima, except for the last two years because it coincided with the Fasting Month. But it’s so sad when we were there at the ceremony just thinking about the suffering that war caused.”

Q: You have been really affected by what you have seen? “Yes because of what we saw…we were not there of course when it happened, but we saw the pictures. And we have been to those places, like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And we have also been to Bosnia, those places where conflicts took place, where thousands of people were killed, where children were also slaughtered, where destruction has taken place. “It hurts us when we see children suffering. Why should they suffer when they are our future generation?”

The picture of the boy taking his dead brother to the cremation pyre at Hiroshima. JULY 2013 CRIMINALISE WAR 13

“We are fortunate in this country, relatively peaceful and a developing nation. How do we tell our children and members of the CWC about all this suffering in various parts of the world? “Our country is blessed with a peaceful surrounding, we don’t have wars, but at the same time we must have “insaf” – [in Malay which is to realise] - we must realise that other people are not blessed with all this good fortune that we enjoy. “And when you “insaf” you are grateful to Allah the Almighty for all the good that you have. And once you have this “insaf” you will create the sympathy needed to understand the sufferings of others. “So in creating these CWCs in schools, we are getting the children to realise that the poor in the country do not have what they themselves enjoy and take for granted. “Our children will realise that many people

“Unfortunately our schools (local) do not have programmes for children during holidays, whereby some activities are created

We must have “insaf” – [in Malay : which is to realise], we must realise that other people are not blessed with all this good fortune that we enjoy. And when you “insaf” you are grateful to Allah the Almighty for all the good that you have. And once you have this “insaf” you will create the sympathy needed to understand the sufferings of others. do not have food, they live in poverty and in some places not even a roof over their heads. “Our children have classes on civics and religious lessons and they will understand what it is to not have. “All religions teach values of peace and harmony, of understanding others, of doing good. With these lessons being taught in our schools, our children will learn and understand.”

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for them to participate in – such as doing charity work and so on. This only happens with International Schools, whereby children are sent to many parts of the country, especially the rural areas, where they can work with the locals, thereby learning themselves the way of life of these people. “That is why having clubs like this would be rather useful. It is not necessary that there must be conflicts, even in peace time, good charity work can be done.”

Q: Creating interest and maintaining the interest in the CWC is vital. How is this going to be done? “The KLFCW already plays this role of coordinating to ensure that the clubs are run properly. We have the approval of the Ministry of Education and they have given guidelines on how activities must be run. Even the Prime Minister has given his blessings. For now, we have to rely on school principals and teachers. But we will have a coordinating group that will lend support, help organize functions, talks, and so on. In this way, we are confident that the clubs will function properly. “Another thing that I would like to see happening is for members of the clubs, once they are fully established and running, to have overseas exposure. Let them see the real situation in the troubled spots. Otherwise it would be rather difficult to truly understand the sufferings of people, especially young ones like themselves, in other parts of the world, less fortunate than ours. This could be an incentive. “Of course it will mean a lot of coordination and funding. But this is something that we should aim for.” Tun Dr Siti Hasmah was just as open and forthright when talking about her own life. “I remember my own feeling of anger with a classmate of mine way back in St Mary’s. I was the only Malay girl in class. There was this Chinese girl, Kim Neo, who took my eraser and did not return it to me. That made me very angry that I did not want to be her friend any more. (Ta’ mau kawan dia lagi– is the term she used, which is Bahasa Malaysia for “Did not want to be her friend any more”) But then later as I thought about it, why should I not befriend her? “All my classmates were my friends, so why not her. The next day, I went and made the approach to her and we remained friends. So there are instances in our lives, when we become angry, annoyed and perhaps even want to take “revenge”…that is what

happens with those who commit road rage… we had a recent very unfortunate incident on the Penang Bridge. These are lessons that our young ones can learn from. You want friendship more than animosity. There is nothing to fight about. We must share, give and take, especially when we are in a multi-racial country like ours.”

Q: How confident are you that the CWC will become a success.

“As I have said, it’s a slow and long process but I am very confident that we will succeed. “We have to provide them with guidance, with ideas, so that they themselves will take the initiative. “They will understand the true meaning of war is a crime. “And as I mentioned, we need to take members to places that have had conflicts in recent times. Cambodia, Vietnam and even Timor Leste, are all places that are not too far away. “On June 3rd, we went to Jogjakarta, where the Mahathir Global School of Peace has been established. “We can perhaps link up with that school.” In her concluding remarks at the launch of the CWC at Tunku Kurshiah College, Tun Dr Siti Hasmah reminded all that: “Remember though, that history is history. Never erase any event or twist facts. Instead understand why it took place, its causes and effects, and why such mistakes must never be repeated.” She made it very plain that the children must be exposed to the truth, that they must understand reasons for conflict, that seeking arbitration is far better than raising a fist in anger.

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THE FIRST EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION IN THE WORLD TO ESTABLISH A CRIMINALISE WAR CLUB (CWC) Tunku Kurshiah College (TKC) has long been established as one of the premier local residential all girls school in the country. Named after the first Queen, they now have a sprawling campus in Bandar Enstek, with a lot of unfinished and yet to completed development aspects. But this has not hampered the college in any way, and as its Principal, Che Kamaliah Endud completes her six year in office, many changes have taken place. It seeks to retain its premier position in the country. That perhaps also explains why Kamaliah was keen to start the Criminalise War Club (CWC) in TKC, thus making it the first college to have such a club. “I am a product of this college and so naturally I am most keen to maintain our status as the premier residential college in the country. We have always produced good and able leaders who have gone on to excel in their respective fields. Thus my decisions will have a profound effect on the students. The staff have to guide them (students) so that they truly develop their potential and understand the environment not just here in the campus, but in other parts of the country and the rest of the world itself. “Thus when I heard about the CWC and when I learned about its aims and goals, I was most keen to have it here in TKC. You must realise that in every college, especially residential colleges, a certain amount of bullying takes place. It may look harmless, but it can have a lasting and sometimes traumatic effect on children. It is all done in the name of creating discipline and respect for elders. But even this can get out of hand at times. “So the CWC can play an important role in encouraging these students to look up historical events, wars and why they were fought, to understand why conflicts have taken place. We all realise that none of our children have suffered or undergone the pangs of war, perhaps not even their parents would have actually seen war. Most of us only know what we see on television or what we now can read on the Internet. So this is a challenge, how to get the members to accept the tasks that the CWC will bring about. So it’s no longer bullying, but working together, older and younger or newer students for a common goal. “My decisions, can have an impact on the students and my staff as well. I want to ensure that each and every student here has rich and fulfilling education. They are our future leaders, and many ex-TKC students have proved it. So now it’s their time. The children at present have no real idea of war or conflict. I hope to take some of them to Cambodia soon, so that they can have an idea of what such conflict can cause.” 16 CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

“Thus when I heard about the CWC and when I learned about its aims and goals, I was most keen to have it here in TKC. You must realise that in every college, especially residential colleges, a certain amount of bullying takes place. It may look harmless, but it can have a lasting and sometimes traumatic effect on children.” - Puan Che Kamaliah Endud, Principal of Tunku Kurshiah College

Among the students at TKC is one girl who in many ways played inadvertently an important role in the setting up of the CWC. Puteri Arina Merican had drawn and written about the suffering of children in other parts of the world. (see Vol 1, No: 1) “I remember my granddad bringing home pamphlets, the one with the dead children, and bombs all over the place. I could not explain how I felt, so I had to pour it down somewhere, I drew instead. It was actually my diary but I don’t know how it got out.” “I think the programmes should be about raising more awareness about criminalising war. For instance, field trips and later we can do charity dinners like we’ve already done. Then maybe reaching the media might help.” - Puteri Fateh Arina Merican Student of Tunku Kurshiah College

Q: Over the years, do you want to change anything there? “I think my 7 year-old message should just be kept.” Q: Have you got any ideas as to what kind of programmes the CWC should have? “I think the programmes should be about raising more awareness about criminalising war. For instance, field trips and later we can do charity dinners like we’ve already done. Then maybe reaching the media might help.” “I don’t think the students know how serious war is. Especially when we are brought up in a peaceful environment where everything is provided and accessible. I feel that it is my responsibility to make the kids aware that it is serious for them to know what war actually is.” - Norafiqah Rifhan Ramlan, English Teacher & Advisor of Criminalise War Club at Tunku Kurshiah College

Norafiqah Rifhan is the advisor of CWC at TKC, and she has a host of ideas to get the club started. There are plans to invite speakers to remind members of the horrors of war and to get members to truly understand what criminalising war is all about.

I don’t think the students know how serious war is. Especially when we are brought up in a peaceful environment where everything is provided and accessible. I feel that it is my responsibility to make the kids aware that it is serious for them to know what war actually is.”

“To be frank, before I was selected to be the advisor of the club, I was not really aware of the true meaning of criminalising war. But I listened and read up and after being briefed by the Secretary General of the KLFCW, I finally came to understand.

As the pioneer CWC in the country, much will be expected of this TKC venture. But with dedicated people like the principal and teachers, there is every hope that the long term goals will be achieved. JULY 2201 JULY 2013 0133 CRIMINALISE WAR 17

THE RIGHT TO RETURN The conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis began in the early 20th century and is still on-going. With the creation of Israel in 1948, carved out of land that was owned and occupied by the Palestinians for centuries, a host of problems emerged. Among them, the right of return for the Palestinians, the freedom of movement in their own lands. Instead there is a major refugee problem at present and an ever more oppressive and militarily superior Israel that determines the fate of ordinary Palestinians. Several feeble attempts have been made, brokered by Western powers to a peace settlement. Among them a two-state solution, involving the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside an independent Jewish state. For a time there was hope that such a settlement could be achieved. However this was never to take place. Palestinians continue to suffer at the hands of the Israeli military. A measure of relaxation has taken place, at least Palestinians can go further out to sea to fish as there has been a partial lifting of restrictions. These little gestures are not the real solution.

Malaysia has played an active role in highlighting the plight of Palestinians. A recent exhibition cum lecture session was held on Palestinian Right of Return : Handala – Bring Him Home

HANDALA

Bring Him Home !

Handala is the most famous of Palestinian political cartoonist Naji al-Ali’s characters. Depicted as a 10 year old boy, he first appeared in 1969. But in 1973, he turned his back to the viewer and clasped his hands behind his back.

He wears ragged clothes and is barefoot, symbolising his allegiance to the poor. Handala remains an iconic symbol of Palestinian identity and defiance.

The artist explained that the 10-year old Handala represented his age when he was forced to leave Palestine and would not grow up until he could return to his homeland; his turned back and clasped hands symbolised the character’s rejection of “outside solutions.”

Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF) commemorated the 65th Al-Nakba by having an exhibition and showcase highlighting the right of Palestinian refugees who were denied their right of return since 1948.

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Al Nakba is translated as â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Catastropheâ&#x20AC;? by Palestinians in remembrance of their forced diaspora. By the end of the 1948 war, hundreds of entire villages had not only been depopulated but obliterated, their houses blown up or bulldozed. During the creation of the Zionist state in 1948, approximately 750,000 Palestinians were forced to become refugees. Together with their descendants, more than 4.3 million of these refugees are registered with the United Nations;while over 1.7 million are not. On the first day, a dialogue covering a wide range of Palestinian issues with panel consisting of First Secretary of Palestinian Embassy, Dr Ahmed Metani, Palestinian Cultural Organisation Malaysia (PICOM) Chairman, Muslim Abu Umar and former manager of Perdana Global Peace Organisation (PGPO), Mr Ram Karthigasu was moderated by PGPF Executive Director, Dr Zulaiha Ismail. The informal nature of the event on both days saw international peace activists showcasing their talents with songs and even a rap performance by a Palestinian student studying locally.Award winning movies and documentaries such as Tears of Gaza and 5 Broken Cameras were also shown at scheduled times during the event. The Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW) in its efforts to energise peace organised a delegation from the Criminalise War Club of Tunku Kurshiah College to the exhibition. One of the students, Ili Rawaida Mohd Radhwan, gave an acoustic performance which received calls for an encore. Another student, Puteri Fateh Arina Merican, was interviewed by the international television network, Al-Jazeera. A vital requisite to achieving peace for Palestine is exposure of violation on human rights and basic freedoms by aggressive occupiers on a daily basis which also impacts the region. PGPF will continue its efforts to create similar awareness programmes in the hopes that appreciation of Palestinian rights acknowledged and supported by action from the public.

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Understanding THE RIGHT OF PALESTINIANS TO RETURN

The roots of the Palestinian Nakbah (Catastrophe) go back to more than two centuries, when the European hatred for the Jewish community reached the level of posting notices on the doors of restaurants reading “Jews and dogs not allowed”, while the Muslim World was paying a lot of sympathy to the European Jewish community fleeing the hatred wave prevalent in Europe, to live among Muslims. One could easily claim that history did not register a single attack on the small Jewish community which was living in Palestine before the start of the Zionist project under the British Mandate. In this environment Zionism came up with the theory that states “A land without a people for a people without a land”. This idea clearly tallies well with the wishes of the European elite of that time, to get rid of Jews from Europe. In brief, there were two ways to get rid of Jews from Europe, the Anglo-Franco way of transferring them outside the European continent and the German way of suppressing them, since the community created problems for Europe irrespective of where they were. Both European communities started implementing their strategies directly after the First World War. By creating Israel in 1948 - the only state in the world created by a resolution of the United Nations (UN) - we are met with new facts on the ground, a Western project, built and sponsored by the West in the Middle East on one hand, and on the other hand a huge community of refugees uprooted from their homes and fields. As a result, a new status quo was created, and pressure was started on the side of the victims to accept it. Despite the fact that Israel was created by United Nations and recognized almost instantly, by the major powers of the world, the presence of a large number of Palestinian refugees who had no place to live and practice their lives freely, undermine the legitimacy of Israel. Although, the Palestinian representative in the peace process, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), accepted and recognized the presence of Israel on the territories occupied in 1948, the recognition by the PLO did not solve the Palestinian refugee issue because the Zionist entity did not and still do not accept the right of the Palestinians to return to their homes which is an individual right that nobody can compromise, as stressed by UN resolutions. Many politicians make the mistake of looking at the Palestinian refugees issue from an Israeli point of view, asking where the Israelis will go if the Palestinians were given the right of 20 CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

return? The answer is very simple; the Palestinians will go to their homes and fields occupied illegally by Israelis. Here, the issue of the legitimacy of the occupation rises again, be it in the territories occupied in 1948 or in 1967. Moreover the legitimacy of the settlements, as Israel continues building in the West Bank, is going to create another legitimacy tangle for the Israelis in the future, for these settlements are already declared illegal by international legal and political forums of the world. The tragedy of the Palestinians continued even in the diaspora, especially in the troubled Middle East because of the illegal creation of the state of Israel on the Palestinian soil. The continued turmoil in the Middle East proved again and again that there is no solution for the Middle East problem without providing justice for the Palestinians. It is those who created the project of Israel who must find the solution for it. Palestinians have paid a big price for the Western adventures on the land of others; indeed the crime committed by the Europeans by transferring the Jewish community to Palestine is in no way less than that manifested in the Holocaust. History has shown that no solution can put an end to the Palestinian tragedy other than the return of the Palestinian refugees to their villages and towns. The story of an old engineer from Haifa tells it all. His family was forced to leave to Jordan in 1948 and then left to Iraq once the fighting erupted between the Palestinian revolutionaries and Jordan forces in 1971; in 2003 they left Iraq for Syria because of the turmoil that erupted as a result of US and British invasion of Iraq. Now after the civil war in Syria, he and his family are looking for food and shelter in Malaysia, but then Malaysia is not his homeland and their future seems uncertain. The conclusion is that, the Palestinian right of return is a collective and an individual right ensured by the international community and common laws of nations. Only occupiers reject this right, and for a common individual Palestinian refugee he does not build his strategy on destroying Israel or accepting it, he is struggling for his simple right of return that understandable by every person and accepted by any law. It is his absolute right to keep the keys of his home and the documents of his land as a tool to prove the illegitimate Israeli occupation.

Samer Allawi Palestinian journalist and writer, with a Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Degree of Law ( LL.M), was arrested and interrogated for 50 days by the Israeli intelligence services in 2011. He has served in dangerous places like Afghanistan, and now he is the correspondent of Aljazeera Channel in Malaysia.

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a b k a Al-N n a i n i t s e l a T he P t s u a c Holo By Dr. Zulaiha Ismail

Much has been documented in great detail of the events that unfolded when a grand plan was hatched more than 100 years ago to create a homeland for the Jews by carving out the heart of Palestine. It was on the 14th of May 1948 that the state of Israel came into being literally with blood on its hands as a result of the forcible seizure of villages and land from the Palestinians who had lived there from historical times. The Zionist disinformation machinery propagated the view that a land without people should be given to a people without land. Thus, the Palestinians were slaughtered and ethnically cleansed so that their land could be transferred to the Jews who were supposedly in need of a homeland. In May 1949 the United Nations invited the newly created state of Israel to become a member while the erstwhile state of Palestine was relegated to oblivion. The Palestinians had become an indistinct mass of refugees â&#x20AC;&#x201C; not a nation, not a political entity - only a problem, and not a major one at that! The Palestinians from then on were seen as just a problem, which the UN agency, UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) could very well manage and handle.

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If ever the United Nations, led by Zionist stalwarts Britain and USA were sincere in being fair to both states in this partition plan, surely they would have recognised the state of Palestine as well. When a wrong becomes acknowledged by an august world body, to the detriment of the sovereignty of a nation and its people that had existed in the history of time. Over the last 65 years the Israelis have succeeded in telling the world that their State is beleaguered, facing the onslaught of Arab aggression! Ilan Pappe of Haifa University has documented how Plan Dalet, spearheaded by David Ben-Gurion in March 1948, succeeded in expelling 800,000 people, and destroying 531 villages and 11 urban neighbourhoods in six months. This was a clear cut case of ethnic cleansing involving cold blooded mass murder and other atrocities such as bombardments on a civilian population. It has been reported that the British army under the Mandate closed one eye and allowed another 250,000 Palestinians to be expelled. The Palestinians have termed this the Nakba or Catastrophe, which till today remains an unresolved crime against humanity. The Holocaust lasted

six years and the Nakba has been going on for more than 65 years! The pro-Israel nations were quick to hold a tribunal at Nuremberg to try Nazi war criminals but has any International Court done anything to bring justice to the Palestinian victims?

been made to pay a heavy price. George Galloway referred to the “original sin” of the Balfour Declaration that led to the birth of the illegitimate state of Israel. The Jewish orthodox group, Naturei Karta (Guardians of Faith) have chosen to live in exile in Britain and USA rather than migrate to Israel as the birth of Israel was not by divine decree but rather by a Zionist ideology that rejected many of the teachings of Judaism. This sect looks forward to the day when a free Palestinian state is established, one in which they would most readily reside.

The Seige of Gaza

A Palestinian woman holds a placard and a symbolic key to her family house during a Nakba Day rally in Gaza City on May 14, 2013.

The present day political quagmire of Palestinian disunity, i.e. Hamas in Gaza and the Fatah in the West Bank only serve to highlight the empirical adage of debasement of human nature to the point of ‘when dog eats dog’! The exploitation of Palestinian disunity and blatant manipulation of using Palestinians to wipe out Palestinians is a game that has been perpetuated through centuries of colonisation wherein natives were pitted against natives. It is plain to see the intra-Palestinian murderous conflict going on now is just a case of history repeating itself.

Sir Gerald Kaufman, who was an early advocate of Zionist ideology acknowledged in Parliament some years earlier that Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism. He further elaborated that Today we have a situation in which the Israel exploited the world sits on its hands and watches while a continuing sense of guilt felt democratically elected by the West as justification for Hamas government which The pro-Israel nations won 76 of the 132 seats in the the slaughter of Palestinians, the massacres of Deir Yassin in were quick to hold a internationally monitored 1948 and Sabra and Shatila in tribunal at Nuremberg Palestinian election is rejected 1982, to name a few. boycotted by most to try Nazi war criminals and world leaders and the United but has any International Nations. Is this not a case of Palestinians have always been advised to forget the past and Court done anything to abiding by Israel dictates? start anew wherever they may Former US President Jimmy bring justice to the be. The paradox is that they Carter was present during this Palestinian victims? live out the consequences of election exercise and respects the past every day as oppressed the decision of the Palestinian people under a violent military people. He urged President occupation; as a powerless minority in Israel, Obama to recognise the Hamas government to no or as marginalised exiles in refugee camps avail. in neighbouring countries. Yet the Israelis will not allow the world to forget the Holocaust And so doublespeak about democracy still rears its and ironically it is the Palestinians who have ugly head.

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Even UN sanctuaries, clearly marked and constantly communicated to the Zionist forces were not spared. Television footage and web-based media recorded the gory details of this carnage, providing proof that the invading forces had made abundant use of depleted uranium, white phosphorous, D.I.M.E and other nuclear-based illegal weapons, not to mention F-16’s and other sophisticated weaponry supplied by the USA. All this was unleashed on an already emasculated population, most of whom depended on food aid from shoestring agencies since unemployment had exceeded 60 per cent. In November 2012 the Israelis launched the 8 day Operation Pillar of Cloud which struck more than 1500 sites in the Gaza strip and resulted in 133 deaths, 840 wounded and untold carnage in the already devastated territory. Once again the major world leaders expressed support for what they saw as Israel’s right to defend itself in the face of Hamas rocket attacks on Israel. And once again the United Nations Security Council did nothing! Israel’s publicity stunt in 2005 when it withdrew 8,000 settlers from Gaza was just a smokescreen to tighten its control over Gaza’s air, sea and land spaces. The terrorising of the Gazans continue with nightly assassinations and incursions. Gaza’s strategic and economic value (especially with the discovery of gas reserves offshore) was too high for the occupying force to ignore. So when the people voted in a Hamas government, Israel and its allies instituted a crushing blockade of Gaza, imposing a stranglehold over its 1.5 million people such that it has become the world’s largest concentration camp. A ceasefire initiated by Hamas was broken by Israel in November 2008 with the killing of several Palestinians. This provoked a Hamas response which the Israelis welcomed with the unleashing of the most brutal and murderous onslaught on the people of Gaza at the end of year. This lasted for over three weeks, with more than 1,300 dead (mostly civilian men, women and children) and several thousand permanently maimed and injured. The whole of the Gaza strip was reduced to a rubble. Against this horrific Palestinian tally, only 13 Israelis were killed, most of whom were invading soldiers!

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And So the World’s Open Concentration Camp Continues… The present scenario presents an even more dismal future, if indeed there is a future. The reconstruction of Gaza continues to be obstructed by the Zionist blockade despite the fact that the perpetrators would have benefited from the profits accruing from token redevelopment projects funded by the so-called sympathetic governments who preferred this route to that of outright condemnation of Israel. After the merciless attacks on Gaza, the people of Israel continue to vote in a decidedly right-wing coalition as if to signal the coup de grace attempt at a peace process. Indeed there is now the unashamed declaration to increase the number of illegal settlements and a defiant open campaign to confiscate Palestinian properties around Jerusalem, thus completing the Judaisation exercise. Sad to say, President Obama (who had during his first Presidential campaigning,

urged a halt on new settlements), has not taken any measures to reprimand, let alone censure this blatant act of defiance. Dr. Salam Abu Sitta, at the return of the Palestinian Right of Return Coalition in San Francisco in 2006, summarised the Palestinian struggle in the following manner: “In the 90th year in the Palestinian struggle for freedom and peaceful life in our homeland of Palestine since 1996 – a campaign of Genocide has been waged against the Palestinian people...

A Genocide of killing A Genocide of elimination A Genocide of exile and banishment A Genocide of decapitating organisations by assassinating their leaders A Genocide of slow death by cutting sources of food water and medicine A Genocide of civilised life by destroying schools, universities and hospitals A Genocide of oblivion by destroying the national identity and denying the rights for citizenship and nationality.”

Needless to say, the pain of the Palestinian people is a pain that all peace loving people throughout the globe share. It is the pain caused by unbridled injustice at the hands of modern day barbarism. It is the pain of the entire Muslim ummah, who together with the oppressed people throughout the world, suffer the hypocrisy of a supine leadership whose main agenda is to appease the aggressors. The Al Nakba is a reflection of the catastrophe being played out in the various theatres of war in the Muslim world. Witness the aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan, the destabilisation of Pakistan, the targeting of Iran, the dismemberment of Bosnia and Sudan, the destruction of Libya, the degradation of Somalia and the destruction of Chechnya. Syria is today the victim of such military imperialist design. Where Israel is concerned, political correctness prevails everywhere and diplomatic decorum stands in the way of the bully’s nose getting bloodied, even when the bully has contemptuously violated UN resolutions for the last 40 years. It is a slap in the face for the dysfunctional world body when Israel refuses to allow any form of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The UN cannot guarantee the passage of ships carrying humanitarian and medical aid in the international waters off Gaza.

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1946

UN PLAN 1947

1949 1967

2007

Yet no one in the United Nations has ever condemned or called for the removal of the Zionist state from its membership. The UN Security Council has never ever taken any action with respect to Israeli war crimes as member states know full well that USA and Britain would shamelessly use their powers of veto to protect the rogue state. Most humiliating and painful is the fact that the remaining Palestinians who continue to cling to the remnants of their homeland, are slowly but surely being strangled and suffocated through a process of physical, economic and cultural genocide. A parallel injustice is the 4.5 million refugees, many of whom live in squalor in neighbouring Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, who are still awaiting their right of return. Even UNRWA is displaying reluctance to carry on its mandated obligations to the Palestinians. If fatigue has set in for aid agencies, imagine the consequences of this 65 year catastrophe on the Palestinians!! Al Nakba is the continuing saga of the Palestinian people up to today. Al Nakba illustrates the condition where the credo of ’might is right’ leads to the corruption of the soul of those who are guilty of perpetuating the dispossession of Palestinians from their rightful homeland. And so the Palestinian tragedy remains the greatest moral blight on the conscience of the world today.

Dr. Zulaiha Ismail Former Professor & Dean of the Graduate centre, UiTM, Dr Zulaiha Ismail has for the most part of 20 years actively partnered Palestinian NGO’s to ameliorate the conditions of refugee life in the camps, especially in Lebanon. She is currently the Executive Director of the Perdana Global Peace Foundation and is a Trustee of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War.

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The Syrian conflict has raged for two years now. Neither side, those loyal to the Syrian Ba’ath Party government and those seeking to oust it, have come any nearer to a negotiated settlement. Casualty figures are now way past the 90,000 figure by UN estimates. The conflict began as part of the wider Arab Spring in April 2011, with protestors demanding the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, whose family has held the presidency in Syria since 1971. By all accounts, the conflict has no clear fronts with clashes taking place in many towns and cities across the country. Even the capital, Damascus, one of the oldest cities in the world, now has suffered severe damage. The largest city, Aleppo has had world heritage cities destroyed. Now once again, the US has played its card. It wants to supply arms and weapons to the forces that are seeking to topple the regime. Even the Russian President Putin has warned that such action can prove to be a costly mistake. But the US insists that the use of chemical weapons in Syria has forced its hand. Of course, like all other conflicts the world over, the US has all the “proof” that such banned weapons were used. Looks like the US just cannot remain a peaceful nation with its troops on “home leave and duty.”

The Syrian conflict devolved from peaceful protests seeking political reform to a confrontation between ethnic and religious groups. The Syrian conflict has been marked by a continuous but unequal escalation of armed violence throughout the country. Levels of violence have varied geographically due to the interplay of a number of factors: the strategic importance of a particular area, the deployment and strength of Government forces, the sectarian composition of the local population and anti-Government armed groups’ organisation and access to logistical support. The conflict continues to be waged by both Government forces and anti-Government armed groups with insufficient respect for the protection of the civilian population, in clear violation of international humanitarian law. The Government continues its indiscriminate shelling and aerial bombardment of civilian areas, while in several instances anti-Government armed groups have located military objectives within or near densely populated areas. Is there an end in sight? In this issue, we have two articles relating to the Syrian conflict. It needs close and careful reading:

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INTERNATIONAL PEACE INITIATIVE FOR SYRIA INTERVIEW

By Yazan al-Saadi The second anniversary of the Syrian uprising has come, and Syria likely faces another year of death and destruction. Nearly 50,000-60,000 Syrians have perished, an estimated 2.5 million Syrians have been become refugees, and the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economic future seems set to be a maelstrom of debt and uncertainty. Both the Syrian regime and the main armed opposition groups, including foreign fighters, are absolutely consumed with a military solution, rather than considering a negotiated settlement, as a means to achieve victory. This internal impasse is reinforced by an international deadlock between various political powers; each of which is motivated in maintaining its respective interest regarding Syria, and overall the region, as the post-Arab Uprising era forges ahead. Beneath the political theatre, and far away from the ponderous gaze of the media, Wilhelm Langthaler and three European political activists headed to Lebanon and Syria in September 2012 and conducted their own fact-finding mission to gauge how viable a political solution would be. This short visit resulted in a report, which in turn spawned the International Peace Initiative for Syria. According to the website, the initiative calls for â&#x20AC;&#x153;a delegation of high-ranking personalities of the international public to go to Syria with the aim of opening a national dialogue between the main political and social forces involved in the

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ongoing armed conflict to pave a way for a political solution.” In addition, the group rejects any kind of military intervention, stresses respect for democratic and social rights of Syrians through complete inclusivity, and supports initiatives promoting interconfessional tolerance for all. The writer conducted an interview with Langthaler about this initiative, in which he explained its purpose and what he, and his colleagues, hoped it would achieve. Yazan al-Saadi: Could you tell us your full name and background? Wilhelm Langthaler: My name is Wilhelm Langthaler and living in Vienna, Austria. I am author of several books and a long-time activist in the struggle for the rights of the oppressed people. I have been supporting the Arab struggle against Zionism and their resistance against the American empire, and [worked] in the defence of the Muslim people against the waves of Islamophobia which swept Europe in the last 15 years. YS: Are you politically active in Austria? Is this your job or volunteer? WL: It’s an activist work. Professionally I am an engineer, working as an electrical engineer. YS: What organization are you involved with? WL: There are several organizations. One more politically articulated is the AntiImperialist Camp [AIC], which is a network of various organizations across Europe. I am also involved in an organization called “Gaza must live” and an organization called Austrian -Arab Cultural Center. And [now], we set up this initiative for a political solution in Syria. YS: Why was the International Peace Initiative for Syria established and how? WL: We saw a total paralysis in the anti-war and the anti-imperialist movement in

regards to Syria. On one side, people were sympathetic to the democratic movements, but on the other side, we have a record of 20 years of imperialist military intervention under the guise of democracy, human rights, and etc. People were very suspicious when the United States and Europe speak of helping the Syrians. So between those two poles of argument came the paralysis. Nobody knew how to move on and come out from this quagmire. We saw that there is a very important need for civil society initiatives to spring up and take action to try and resolve this problem. We believe it is possible to support the democratic rights of the people [and] at the same time continue with the tradition of popular resistance against the American world order. From this point of view, we set up an initiative and contacted people across Europe and in the world on whether they wanted to join us. Also, we went to all the involved parties in Syria. We went to Damascus to speak with the government, we met the Muslim Brotherhood, we met the Syrian National Council, we met the democratic opposition of Michel Kilo, Haytham Manna, and others inside Syria. We went to study the sentiment and context, to see the events on the ground. All these activities helped us build this initiative and we hope that with joint actions, it’ll become stronger. YS: When you say ‘we’, who are you talking about? WL: We are a convener committee of four people. Besides me, there is a Greek friend of ours called Vangelis Pissias, who was one of the main organizers of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. There’s Leo Gabriel, who is the founding member of the World Social Forum. [The fourth member is Fernando Romero Forsthuber, a video media producer]. JULY 2013 CRIMINALISE WAR 29

We were the initial group, but now there are much more people involved in each country of Europe. These are people who are working on an activist level to bring in more prominent people to sign in or go with us to Syria in order to show this commitment to the world. By now we have a wide range of Nobel price laureates, MP, intellectuals from different walks of life and with very different political background. The opinions expressed here are therefore my own ones and do not necessarily correspond with our endorsers.

meeting people? Did you feel like you could move freely without being monitored?

YS: When was the committee officially formed?

We will see when we ask for this upcoming bigger delegation to meet a much broader part of the opposition and civil society prominent actors. Nevertheless, our aim is neither to interfere nor to behave in an arrogant way.

WL: We started in the middle of 2012. It took us a lot of time to work on an equilibrated platform. Then we were in Damascus in September. From Damascus, we really started out. We had discussions with high-ranking governmental officials and we saw that there’s a margin on the regime’s side that such an initiative is possible. That kicked it off. YS: Was it difficult to get into Syria and contact members of the regime or the opposition? WL: We started to ask for a visa from the embassy in Vienna in late June 2012 but it seemed to be very long. So we had to go to Lebanon to insist there. Initially, it was quite difficult, but probably this is also due to the extraordinary situation which creates big suspicion across all parts of the conflict. We had to go via different channels in order to arrive finally at the point we were received in Damascus. But I believe that the more weight we can get; the more the initiative will be recognized by both sides.

WL: We submitted our request to meet people to the government and they accepted to meet the leaders of the National Coordinating Body-related opposition without the government. The government did not follow us. This was possible. But further meetings were not possible, but it was the only first visit. Speaking in general, they did not make trouble. They facilitated our visit [but] it was a small visit, it was not a full scope visit.

YS: According to the statement on the website, it states that your organization sees a negotiated settlement as indispensable to ending the conflict. Could you elaborate? WL: It is important to understand that we will not be the mediator of a negotiated settlement. What we believe our task is to have a public initiative, a civil society initiative, preparing the ground for an open and efficient dialogue between the main actors which could lead to a negotiated settlement. Our task is also to inform the public opinion in a more objective and non manipulated way. YS: When you say public opinion, are you speaking of Syrian public opinion or international public opinion?

We feel that both sides have a certain interest not to close all doors – to keep this channel open in order to take when the situation seems appropriate.

WL: International public opinion. Because, we believe that foreign powers play a very important role in the Syrian conflict. They are highly responsible for the bloodshed. It is very obvious that there is a strong geopolitical aspect within this conflict.

YS: When you were in Syria, were there any difficulties in getting around and in

One side, as always, is the West which is trying to score points, to rebuild its regional influence

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which has been negatively affected by the Arab democratic movement, of which the Syrian one is a part, which has a kind of anti-imperialist characteristics against the established order, control by the US. But the Western governments try to take any occasion to rebuild their influence, via different proxies such as the Gulf, Turkey, and other countries around, who all have their own different interests.

very difficult to find a solution. We believe that this war can go on for a long time because of the geopolitical support on both sides and also from the fact that the population itself is spilt. There is, I think, a part of the population that is still behind the regime. If the war continues, it seems that it will turn more and more into a confessional, sectarian conflict. This is not dominant now, but there is a strong element of it.

On the other side, Russia and Iran, with influence in the region as well, are trying to keep a friendly, cooperating regime. We believe that on those two sides, we have to pressure in order to get them to agree on a negotiated settlement respecting the sovereignty of Syria and the wishes of the Syrian people.

If no political solution comes about, we can see another year, two years, three years – we don’t know how long. We saw in Lebanon that a conflict dragged on for one and a half decade. Even if they do not find a solution in one, two, three months, the logic of the situation is that the only possibility to stop this war is by a political solution in order to dampen down the sectarian aspect of it. Because if you sit at a table to discuss things instead of killing each other, the confessional groups as such will be less frightened weakening the sectarian interpretation of the conflict all together.

YS: How will this be done? WL: One element is that we want to get important figures of public opinion to speak out for this. We want to also stage action, such as demonstrations and public meetings, in order to develop this pressure. This is the main level of our activities. Secondly, we want to show the public opinion that on the Syrian level, there are forces trying to go in this direction despite the appearance that the two sides are unable to find solutions. We believe that with certain conditions, they are able to find a solution and that the majority of the Syrian people in the end will be very much interested to have a political solution to stop the bloodshed. YS: Suppose one argues that both sides are too entrenched in war to be swayed by public opinion or consider a negotiated settlement at this point of time. How do you think the organization can get through to them? WL: Certainly it is a very difficult situation. As Lakhdar Brahimi [UN special envoy on Syria] has said, and we agree with this, it is

The political reading of the conflict then can prevail again, gathering the necessary majority across all confessional communities for a democratic process, a democratic transformation. This is the deeper meaning of the struggle for a political solution – beside the obvious necessity to bring the international backers also to a geo-political compromise. YS: How has the reception towards the initiative been so far? WL: We are very positive and optimistic that the reception will grow. We had quite a good reception. We got important figures of the peace movement and opposition movement and other figures of the public life. We do not deny that there is one side – an element of the Left – which continues to give strong support to Assad, and there is an even much stronger public opinion speared by our governments, which is interventionist and is trying to follow the old idea of humanitarian JULY 2013 CRIMINALISE WAR 31

intervention. We are differentiating ourselves from both sides.

YS: Does this include funding of foreign groups?

YS: How have you dealt with these challenges from both sides?

WL: We are including funding of groups. We are against the funding of groups, but we believe that this funding of groups can only be stopped through a political solution. It is part of the political solution for the parties involved to stop this funding.

WL: It is the same pattern we believe that is important to be used in Syria itself â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to keep the door open, to keep the table for dialogue. We do the same here. We are discussing with both sides, and explaining the arguments. With regards to the people on the Left who support Assad, there is a problem of Islamophobia behind it. They believe that Islam is a very big danger and that Islamic movements are completely in the hands of the Western governments. We do not believe this is true. We believe that there is a genuine popular movement and Islamic movements have been part of this genuine popular movement. In the entire region, it is necessary that Islamic forces to be part of governments. In regards to Syria, the Islamic tendencies need to be integrated in a solution. Without integrating them, there will never be a solution. And within the Left the necessary principled opposition to US rule is expressed in purely geo-political terms the will and the interest of the people do not exist. The bigger and much more dangerous strand is the one arguing for the so-called humanitarian military intervention, because we saw these military interventions in many places â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in Libya [and] we saw the very big war on Iraq which killed many people. This type of military intervention is always to the detriment of the [local] people and always driven by the geopolitical and economic interest of the West. The refusal of any foreign intervention is a main point in our initiative. We totally refuse military foreign intervention under any conditions, because it is never for the use or wellbeing of the people.

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The ceasefire is the most important next step. A ceasefire must be achieved and the first responsibility is the Syrian government. The government has to make the first step. People are very much disappointed that the democratic movement [in Syria] is being suppressed and is being crushed, and in order to regain the people, the government must make a bold step to make a ceasefire possible. YS: What is the next step for the initiative? WL: The next step is to submit a list of people ready to go to Syria within the next month to meet the government and the opposition again. Also, we will ask for a civil society dialogue in Damascus, where we as a civil society initiative can discuss with people from both sides, not just from the same mainstream political forces, but from different groups, in order to have a better view of the situation there. YS: How will all this activity be funded? WL: The funding is a very big problem because as activists it is our own funds and on donations from friends. There is no state involved. There are no parties involved. It is a very, very low budget initiative. YS: Are there people giving donations? WL: Very few for the time being, but the expenses for the time being was not so big. But for the delegation, we will ask for donations from the activist movement.

YS: How big is the new delegation planned to be? WL: It will be between fifteen to twenty people. YS: How long will the delegation stay in Syria? WL: The idea is roughly to be there for one week, and we hope they will be able to not only stay in Damascus but also another city. But the exact schedule has not been established so far. YS: Are you not worried about security? WL: Certainly, we are worried but it will not stop us from going.

a conference somewhere in Europe where both sides can come together – maybe not first level political actors, but political organizations and civil society key representatives – to prepare ground for a meeting of the two sides to discuss the conditions for a political solution. We had very strong signals from both sides that there is an interest in this. We met the head of the Syrian National Council, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, Michel Kilo, NCB, and other main currents of the opposition and submitted our proposal.

YS: After monitoring for the week, what is the step after that?

We explained it to them and we invited them – they said they will discuss it and take further steps. No one closed the door. We interpret that the possibility of negotiations remains.

WL: We hope that this trip will have an impact on both sides. One idea is to facilitate

This is our big hope and we will continue to work on this.

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A PUBLIC STATEMENT OF THE INITIATIVE “PEACE IN SYRIA” No idea and no ideal, however heroic it might be, can possibly justify the death of thousands of innocent people. Nothing is important enough to justify the fact that millions are fleeing their homes just because they want to survive. And no war should continue if it results in the destruction of one’s own country. This is the lesson of nearly every war and this is also the lesson of the war in Syria, which already took the lives of 70,000 Syrians. However, the big question remains: How to stop this vicious circle of violence, which has dominated the country since almost two years? Syria is situated in a multicultural environment; there are many people on both sides of the political spectrum who just want democracy and social justice to be built from the ground in their urban and rural communities. But just this right of self-determination is systematically denied by those who erroneously consider war the only way to achieve their political goals. Some efforts have been made to break the spiral of violence from the outside, especially by the United Nations, which demanded a cease-fire and negotiations aiming at the eventual formation of a transitional government. Such a transitional government could promote and ensure a political process leading to free elections, in which the real will of the Syrian people would find expression. So far those efforts have not been very successful, which is to a large extent due to the fact that they are essentially relying on the geostrategic balances and imbalances of the so-called global powers as well as the regional states which are stakeholders in the conflict. We, a movement of peace activists, intellectuals and members of the international civil society, have been following a different logic: instead of waiting for the big and small powers of the region and of the world to find an equilibrium which enables them to generate a cease-fire from the outside, we 34 CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

established contacts with those Syrian political forces that are willing to engage in a POLITICAL DIALOGUE under conditions which eventually could lead to a cease-fire and a political transition acceptable to all people who truly want peace in Syria and in the whole area. We also established contacts with members of the Syrian civil society and people on the ground. In our pursuit of this common goal we wish to show, first of all, our solidarity with the victims of the war. Therefore we have constituted a delegation of renowned members of the international civil society, elected parliamentarians and peace activists from all over the world to go to Damascus with a number of concrete proposals which aim at protecting and supporting the civilian population in their daily struggle for survival:

7KH FUHDWLRQ RI GHPLOLWDUL]HG ]RQHV ZLWK access for humanitarian organisations, 7KH UHOHDVH RI SROLWLFDO SULVRQHUV DQG 7KH HVWDEOLVKPHQW RI WUXFHV RQ WKH ORFDO and regional levels.

All this in order to create the conditions for a

genuine cease-fire and political negotiations regarding the transitional period. Not very long ago these goals seemed to be completely utopian, since neither side inside Syria displayed any serious willingness to start political negotiations. Since about one month this situation suddenly started to change: first, a high-ranking personality of the regime broke the silence of more than one year, declaring overtly that a military victory is impossible to achieve and that the government should seek a political solution. And now even Washington seems to look for possibilities of a negotiated settlement.

being killed, amongst them many children. More than half a million are living in inhuman conditions in refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, and approximately 1.5 million are desperately seeking refuge inside the country. This is also the main reason why the undersigned members of the international civil society believe that these efforts from above should be accompanied by a solid, coherent, representative and sincere PEACE-MAKING PROCESS FROM BELOW in order to arrive at a negotiated settlement for a democratic transition.

On the other side, the Co-ordinator of the Syrian National Coalition declared all of a sudden that he was ready to start a dialogue even with the Assad regime under the condition that it would release the prisoners it has been keeping in jail since the outbreak of the conflict, whereupon president Assad himself said he was ready for a “dialogue without preconditions.” Other opposition personalities as well seem to be ready to contribute to a dialogue process. However, also in this case historical experience has proved that a negotiation process from above, imposed from the outside, has often been very long-winded, hampered by many ups and downs, essentially when:

7KH DFWRUV LQYROYHG JLYH SULRULW\ WR WKH geopolitical or local balance of power interests and neglect the people’s real need of peace and a just political solution.

We should realise that the war is going on and is even intensifying at a horrible pace. Not a single day passes without 150 to 300 persons being killed amongst them many children. We, therefore, continue our efforts, preparing - as a first step - our visit to Damascus in the near future in order to meet civil society representatives of all sides, to express our support and solidarity to all those who strive with political means, to present to them our main ideas and to exchange our thoughts. Last but not least, to offer our services:

7KH ORFDO FLYLO VRFLHW\ DQG WKH LQWHUQDWLRQDO civil society do not participate actively and effectively in those negotiations, but rather create their own sphere of political rationality, defending their own objectives and visions.

Meanwhile, we should realise that the war is going on and is even intensifying at a horrible pace. Not a single day passes without 150 to 300 persons

We wish to demonstrate that the times of war could come to an end, and that there is still some hope for the surviving victims who already have been waiting too long for this moment to come.

)RU D WUDQVLWLRQ WRZDUGV GHPRFUDF\ $JDLQVW WKH VHFWDULDQ FLYLO ZDU )RU SUHVHUYLQJ 6\ULDCV QDWLRQDO VRYHUHLJQW\ and for opposing foreign military intervention

JULY 2013 CRIMINALISE WAR 35

Signatories: Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Price Laureate, Argentina

Gretta Duisenberg, Free Gaza Movement, Stop the Occupation, Netherlands

Raúl Vera, Catholic bishop, Mexico Manolis Glezos, Resistance fighter against Nazi occupation, Greece Hans von Sponeck, retired university professor, Germany

Jan Myrdal, writer, Sweden

Paul Larudee, Free Gaza Movement, Free Palestine Movement, Global March to Jerusalem, USA

diplomat,

Walden Bello, MP Akbayan, professor for sociology, Philippines Norman Paech, Professor for Int’l Law University Hamburg, MP for the “Linke”, Germany

Pedro Rojo, president of Foundation Al Fanar, member of CEOSI, Spain Alejandro Bendana, sociologist, UN-officer for peacemaking, Nicaragua Francois Houtart, sociologist of religion and co-founder of the World Social Forum, Belgium

Annette Groth, MP for the “Linke”, Germany Odysseas Voudouris, MP, Greece Vicent Garcés, Diputado Europeo, Spain Andrej Hunko, MP for the “Linke”, member of PACE, Aachen, Germany

Gilberto López y Rivas, social anthropologist, Mexico Leo Gabriel, social anthropologist, journalist, member of IC of the World Social Forum, Austria

Jesus Iglesias Fernández, senator, Spain

Vangelis Pissias, professor, leading organiser of Gaza Freedom flotilla, Greece

Manuel Garcia Fonseca, former MP and speaker CSCA (Committee for the Arab Cause), Spain

Mireille Fanon Mendès-France, journalist and activist, France

Gaspar Llamazares Trigo, MP, Spain

Werner Ruf, Germany

Lyssaridis Vassos, former President of Parliament, Cyprus Nikolaos Houndis, member of EU Parliament, Greece Santiago Alba Rico, writer, Spain / Tunisia

retired

university

professor,

Carlos Varea González, CEOSI, www.iraqsolidaridad.org, Spain Heike Hänsel, MP “Die Linke”, Germany Reiner Braun, International Association Of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, Germany

Tariq Ali, writer, Britain

February 18th, 2013 International Peace Initiative for Syria ¿§¦®°¨ ¦¾²¾¦¿ ¦¾®Â¾Ä¨ ¾²Â°Ä¦

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The Iraq War Is Not Over Ten years ago, a massive US led force invaded Iraq, claiming that there were weapons of mass destruction and it was part of the “axis-of-evil”. Of course no such weapons were ever found, but it was of little consequence, for the slogan had been changed to “regime change.” Once the invaders got what they wanted, especially the country’s natural resources and a “friendly” regime established, the US and British troops left. But till this date, Iraq remains a very unstable country, with killings and bombings happening in many parts of the country. Sectarian conflicts continue and innocent people are still being killed. We have two articles on Iraq which are compelling and serves to remind readers of what the war was all about.

ODE O DE TO TO A AN NU UNKNOWN NKNOWN IRAQI IRAQI (Note: This‚ ‘Ode’ was originally written in 2003 shortly after the It remains as valid in 2013 as it was ten years ago!)

US/UK invasion into Iraq.

What we have done to you in the name of freedom and democracy has no parallel in history. We have trampled the truth concerning your suffering, we endeavoured to solicit allies through bribery and ruthlessly marginalized those who objected to our imperial intentions. Brute force became the substitute for the promise of 1945 “to save future generations from the scourge of war”. It was you who paid the price.

Will you ever forgive us? The torture of dictatorship was terrible for you; we added the sword of sanctions. The curse of double punishment for something you had not done was the verdict against you. Two millions of you died during those years, perhaps more. The figure does not really matter. None should have died because of us; everyone had the right to live, as we do, in peace. Let us not forget the many who are still alive may never live again, maimed and traumatized forever, reduced to empty human shells. We never really wanted to share with you the dream of freedom and democracy. All we were willing to pass on to you was naked hypocrisy.

Will you ever forgive us? The camera of life takes real pictures. Lest we choose the wrong lenses they tell us the truth. We cannot pretend that we did not know of your plight. We can but admit that we have contributed to your suffering with unsurpassed ferocity. We knew of the malnourishment of your children. We knew of their deaths in the thousands and felt no guilt. Our vision was properly priced, we thought. We did not hesitate a moment to block ever increasing amounts of supplies you needed for survival. They might be used for weapons of mass destruction we argued. Ultimately we had to admit that the sanctions we imposed on you were the most effective weapons of mass destruction deployed. JULY 2013 CRIMINALISE WAR 37

Will you ever forgive us? For a long time we limited the amount of oil you could sell, and took from this limitation funds to pay for wealthy governments and firms in compensation for losses they said they incurred when your government was the aggressor in Kuwait. We know that many of your children would not have died had these funds come instead to you. We refused to allow you resources to maintain your schools, hospitals, roads and bridges, to pay for your civil servants, doctors and teachers. We did not even shy away from withholding the meager travel money you wanted to pay your hajjis so that they could pray in Mecca.

Will you ever forgive us? It was our mandate to follow the impact of our policies on your lives. We severely neglected this responsibility. Intimidated by the power of the moment, we closed our eyes and ears and ignored your pain. We decided that the oil for food programme, the fig leaf of our conscience, was good enough to give you what you needed. Your suffering therefore had nothing to do with us, we pretended. Our former ally, your dictator, was declared the sole source of your misery. Whoever among us protested on your behalf was pronounced unpatriotic, declared a social outcast, was belittled, maligned and even arrested. This was democracy in action.

Will you ever forgive us? Of course, it did not escape us that the most innocent and most vulnerable among you, your children, the nation’s leaders of tomorrow, were also the most severely punished. Your children did not get the education you and we have had. We purposely blocked the repair of your printing presses and even introduced postal regulations to prevent sending you learning materials, including sheets of music. As one of you said, we destroyed your economy and continued to destroy your minds. Again and again we withheld what you needed to make your water safe to drink and to keep your rivers clean. Contaminated water was a major reason why your children died. We did not care, they were not our children. Drought, pests and epidemics joined the forces of your dictator and our sanctions. We could have increased the pittance we gave to combat these menaces but chose not to do so.

Will you ever forgive us? There was indeed an axis of evil, an alliance of governments, think-tanks, media and corporations erecting a massive wall of disinformation. Iraq and Al Qaeda, weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, we told the world, were a lethal combination. Hundreds of tons of biological and chemical agents, missiles, rockets and hordes of terrorists were ready to destroy us. An imminent threat existed that only a preemptive strike could avert. All those who pleaded for peace, humanity, reason and law were subjected to and punished with ‘shock and awe’ tactics before ‘shock and awe’ was rained upon you. With cynicism we declared that 170 UN bureaucrats and three white helicopters were not up to the job of disarming Iraq. Falsified documents, plagiarized reports, invented intelligence helped us to make our case for war by instilling fear among the innocent and convincing our parliaments to concur. We pretended to care for your sovereignty, yet, in direct contradiction we unlawfully established no-fly-zones in your country and announced that our pilots were there on dangerous missions, risking their lives on your behalf. Instead they came to further weaken you and risk your lives, not ours, before declaring war.

38 CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

Will you ever forgive us? For a long time our spin doctors tried to keep us hostage as we watched the tragedy of of war and illegality coming closer to your borders. Deep were the divisions among us. Many feared for you while others could not wait to begin a war that had been decided long ago. Our leaders needed to distract us from urgent and numerous social and economic problems. Our eviction from your next door neighbour was imminent. Without your oil the strategy for global domination would not work.

Will you ever forgive us? We told our young men and women in uniform that they were fighting evil and defending the good. Years of hard work spent refining the technology of death and costing millions of dollars gave us the confidence that the losses would be on your side and not on ours. We ensured that the reports from the war front would portray us as heroes and you as the villains, extensions of an evil dictator. As predicted the most uneven war in history did not last long. Our new weapons were simply too good. While we continued our lives in the comfort of peace, we watched you suffering the horror of war. Honest reporting of a war that was killing your sons and daughters and ours as well could have meant the end of a career for a journalist.

Will you ever forgive us? There were few flowers, flags or smiling faces. Where were those weapons of mass destruction we assuredly would find? We suffered no guilt and made no apologies. Unfortunately for you, no plan was made for starting the healing. Victors are victors. Chaos suited us wellâ&#x20AC;Ś but we made certain that the oil administration was safe. Our concerns were not yours, quite to the contrary. We watched and encouraged your anger and hate. Yes, your dictator deserved it. However, the greed, yours and ours, raped our common heritage. Your museums are empty, your libraries burnt, your universities destroyed. Only your pride is still thereâ&#x20AC;Ś. and our guilt.

Will you ever forgive us?

Geneva 1 June 2003

H.C. Graf Sponeck UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (1998-2000)

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UNIVERSAL JURISDICTION OF DOMESTIC COURTS AND THE FINDINGS OF THE KUALA LUMPUR WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL Recent history of mankind has far too many atrocities. The First World War, the Second WW, Hiroshima, Rwanda, the creation of Israel on someone else’s land, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and Gaza are but a few examples. However for the last 22 years Iraq has singularly been subjected to crimes of war, its people to genocide and war crimes. Future generations will wonder why did they happen, why did we allow them. How morality, justice and law were trampled over by the UN Security Council, states and people? Many attempted to stand up and object. Some by demonstration, campaigning, writing, lecturing and some took legal action when possible. On the legal front there were formal tribunals and cases before the courts. There were also the ad-hoc and popular tribunals. The formal tribunals and courts were generally confined to domestic courts, as the International community was coerced into abandoning its responsibility. The International Criminal Court (“ICC”) has been so politicised that so far failed to hold any country engaged in invasions and wars such as the USA, UK, France, and Israel responsible. It took steps against weak and developed countries such as Sudan, Libya, Syria. The dossiers seem to be confined to Muslim, Arab or African leaders. Domestic courts and tribunals relied on one of two systems. The first under ordinary domestic jurisdiction in cases where the offence was committed by a national or the victim was one. The second was under the universal jurisdiction of the domestic courts. This is when the illegal act which took place outside the jurisdiction of the domestic courts, amounts to a war crime or a crime against humanity and without the need that the culprit or victim being a national of that country. There are a number of examples of cases based on the domestic law. In the USA a number of cases were brought before the US courts by US citizens against US service men and women or US contractors for death or abuse of their loved ones. In a number of instances the courts ordered damages, compensation or other forms of redress. When the same US military units or contractors were sued by the families of Iraqi victims, who were killed, tortured, abused, or denied their human rights almost none got any redress. Haditha massacre, Abu Graib prison, killing of journalists in cold blood are some of the events that will colour this period with blood. Under English law hundreds of Iraqi families took action before the English courts, against British soldiers who were serving in Iraq. There are two important cases: Baha Musa, an Iraqi tortured

JULY 2201 2013 0133 40 CRIMINALISE WAR JULY

to death by British soldiers. That case was won against the Ministry of Defence which was ordered to pay compensation. The second referred to as Skeini case, concerned the deaths of six Iraqi civilians in Basra in 2003 where the UK was an occupying power. The families of the victims complained to the Strasbourg court that the UK authorities had refused to conduct an independent and thorough investigation into the circumstances of the killings. The Court rejected the arguments put forward by the UK government that as the deaths occurred outside UK territory, the requirement under the European Convention for Human Rights to conduct an independent and thorough investigation did not apply. The European Court said on 7 July 2011 that the UK violated rights of the Iraqis killed and ordered investigation of UK abuses in Iraq. Britain can’t claim its soldiers have no human rights duties once they are in another country. The British government should now finally accept human rights law applies to its acts anywhere in the world and ensure a full and independent inquiry into all these killings.

First there was the “Hutton Inquiry” in August 2003 following the very suspicious death of David Kelly. He was a weapons inspector who told the BBC about the lies of the British Government. He was found dead. This inquiry was labelled a “White wash”. The second “Butler inquiry” began on 3 February 2004; to consider the part played by the intelligence services in the decision to go to war and also relating to Iraq’s WMD capacity. The Government relied on disinterested Iraqi dissidents, and for constructing the “doggy dossiers”. It was more critical of the government and the intelligence community than Hutton’s. Then came the “Chilcott Inquiry”. The decision is still awaited after more than one year since its conclusion, which is already raising grave concerns. There were many important revelations made before the inquiry and some lawyers are waiting for the results to demand a judicial inquiry.

Universal Jurisdiction The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, in that case (Al-Skeini and Others v. the United Kingdom), found that the UK’s human rights obligations apply to its acts in Iraq, and that the UK had violated the European Convention on Human Rights in the failure to adequately investigate the killings of five Iraqis by its forces there.

In the aftermath of the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes an outraged international community demanded justice. A demand that resulted in the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the introduction of the new legal concept of universal jurisdiction.

Therefore unlike the USA in the UK some Iraqis did get some redress from the British Government.

Justice, it seemed, would be impartial and hiding places for criminals scarce.

On the other hand, the British Governments since the invasion of 2003 faced serious criticism for it “economy with the truth”. The Labour Party lost the election and its leader Tony Blair. There were so far three public inquiries relating to the invasion of Iraq.

Universal jurisdiction is a simple concept. Deriving its authority from Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, it places an obligation upon all states “to respect and ensure respect” for the laws of war, effectively requiring all states to prosecute suspected war.

JULY JU LY 2201 2013 0133 CRIMINALISE WAR 41

The fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949 oblige states to either prosecute or extradite war criminals. Although most States have ratified these Conventions almost none applied them.

condemned the UK government amended the law on universal jurisdiction so that in future only the Director of Public Prosecutions can authorize the arrest of a suspected war

Britain can’t claim its soldiers have no human rights duties once they are in another country. The British government should now finally accept human rights law applies to its acts anywhere in the world and ensure a full and independent inquiry into all these killings.

Regarding the application of the Universal Jurisdiction of the domestic courts, there are varied experiences. Since the end of the Second World War, more than 15 countries have exercised universal jurisdiction in investigations or prosecutions of persons suspected of crimes under international law, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Senegal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. In recent years however, many countries are circumventing the principles by variety of legislative and administrative means.

criminal (“Tories make life easier for war criminals,”Liberal Conspiracy,30 March 2011).

In the UK the judicial system allowed private parties and individuals to present their own evidence of war crimes before a magistrate who could then, if he felt the case was strong enough, issue a warrant for the suspect’s arrest. Consequently, in 2005 retired Israeli General Doron Almog only escaped arrest by not leaving the aeroplane and flown back to Israel. In 2009 Tzipi Livni the ex-Minister of foreign affairs of Israel left the UK before an arrest warrant is served on her. Other senior Israeli figures decided to stay away from Britain.

And certainly it is also at odds with the assessment by retired South African judge Richard Goldstone that “The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible war crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an environment that fosters violence” (“Goldstone defends Gaza war crimes report,” Ynet News, 29 September 2009).

This means of achieving justice was revoked. In response to Israeli protests the UK government chose to change the law rather than see Israelis arrested. Amnesty International,

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However, the UK’s retreat from the implementation of universal jurisdiction is not a lone example of the power of the Israel lobby to affect states’ domestic legislation. A similar shameful episode ensued when Ariel Sharon was indicted before the Belgian courts, in that instance not just Israel but also the United States brought pressure to bear, Donald Rumsfeld going as far as to threaten to move NATO headquarters from Belgium.

Sadly, however, while Ilana Stein of the Israeli foreign ministry celebrated — “We are glad that Britain has made the right choice” — it seems that the lessons of the Holocaust have still to be learned.

Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal Many books have been written on the war crimes committed against Iraq and its people by the USA and Britain in particular with most European countries joining what the USA termed the (coalition of the willing). Most countries were coerced by the USA to do so including Japan which sent troops in contravention of its own constitution just give the crime popularity (instead of legitimacy). All human rights organisations, human right lawyers and learned lawyers and politicians have condemned the atrocities. Many films have documented some of the crimes, even by the perpetrators themselves such as the abuses at Abu Graib gulag. Additionally there have been serious and professional ad-hoc tribunals. The first important one was the Brussells Tribunal. That Tribunal opened 14 -17 April 2004, in Brussels Belgium and finished in Istanbul Turkey. The Tribunal was the earliest and very serious and professional one. It followed the Bertrand Russell culture of fairness, ethical and professional conduct of tribunals. It had very highly respected participants and listened to credible witnesses and learned lawyers. In 2011 and 2012 the even more professional and judicially structured Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal commenced its proceedings with a list of judges and lawyers of impeccable reputation. They sat as a court of law with a prosecution team and a defence team and listened to legal arguments and eye witnesses. The proceedings, legal opinions and judgement are now available in two volumes. It would be a great opportunity lost if these proceedings should remain as books and records. I believe that having spent so much time, effort, and indeed money practical steps must follow. An area that needs to be seriously considered (even taking into account political ramifications) would be to consider commencing legal proceedings before the courts of Malaysia. The Penal Code 1936 amended 2006; Geneva Conventions Act 1962 and the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 may be the starting point. Further there must be a serious attempt to use the Universal Jurisdiction of any country that still allows its application. Last but not least is to actually consider the domestic jurisdiction in the cases where the victims are also citizens say in the USA and Britain. Obviously this short article is meant simply to highlight these three possibilities. They require careful and objective evaluation by a team of international lawyer which should include lawyers practising in the USA and Europe.

Sabah al-Mukhtar President Arab Lawyers Association (UK) London 15 January, 2013 arablaw@btinternet.com

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Editorial The momentum seems to have picked up as more people have become aware that there is such a publication, Criminalise War. Many are discovering for the first time that this publication is the official organ of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW). Some have vague recollections of some Tribunal hearings over the last two years. In many ways this is the Power of Print - if you don’t make it to the mainstream media, then you get little notice. Many have asked: Why? Why the publication or why the KLFCW? Simple answer to both. Why not? Just because we live in relative safety, far from the killing fields or the blood diamond mines, are we to ignore the plight of fellow human beings? Just because we are a small nation, it does not preclude us from our humane duties! In fact, with the coming sitting of the Tribunal, an even greater impact will be made on the world scene. Is the “social media” then the alternative to reach the masses? We have recently seen the power of this new fad and the devastating impact it made. Even grown-ups seem to pay great attention to what comes out on these hand-held devices. Rumours spread not by word of mouth, but what is sent via mobile phones, tablets and the like, and such great speed. It is a tool well worth looking at, if it can get the message across. The winds of change are upon us. Even Israelis are questioning the Zionist zeal. If China could have successfully implemented, One Country, Two Systems, then perhaps the solution in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is just that: one country, two systems! The Middle East remains the major hot spot in the world. Syria has now known two years of conflict and perhaps the deaths of about 100,000 lives. Daily killings continue. We have specially devoted pages to these conflicts and their brutal effects on people. This year is also the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq - a war that should never have been fought and the hundreds of thousands of lives should never have been sacrificed. War mongers got their day, today they live on in shame at the deceit they propogated. The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal found some of them guilty of crimes against humanity. But we remain powerless to enforce judgement. However, we will continue to be the voice of reason, so that oppressed people all over the world will find a source where their grievences can be heard and taken up. To many, a listening ear is justice enough. Malaysians had a taste of skirmishes and bloodshed, when a crazed self proclaimed sultan sent followers into Lahad Datu in Sabah to press with his claim for rights over payment and sovereignity. What followed were a few weeks of protracted negotiations and then a bloody battle when Malaysian security forces were murdered in a brutal manner. This led to a military response and the insurgents driven away. Was there a better way? Could we have saved lives? Could we not have talked? Yes and No. Yes, we could have saved lives, as there are no legitimate claims to Sabah state that any sultanate can make. So, this should never have taken place!!! But once someone holds a knife at your throat, what can your response be? Violent reaction? This was a provoked response on 44 CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

the part of the Malaysian Armed Forces. But no amount of provocation deserved that kind of retaliation. This is the very lesson that we are trying to teach our young, who are members of the Criminalise War Clubs. No killing can be justified, even if in some cases law courts may find an accused innocent of such a crime. In this case, in Lahad Datu, the Rubicon had been crossed, and there was no turning back. “Justice” had been meted out. It’s a pity, but a fact that all of us have to live with.

The official launch of the Criminalise War Club. From left : Tunku Sofiah Jewa, Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali, Dato’ Dr. Rosli Mohamed (Ministry of Education), Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.

But on a more pleasant note, the crowning glory was the launch of the Criminalise War Club by the Founder at the Tunku Kurshiah College. Now we have one club up and running, another slated for later in the year. For now the residential schools will receive all the help to get their clubs orformed. Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali, the Founder, has reminded all members that it will be a long and hard road ahead for the members. Our lead story in this issue carries an interview with Tun Dr Siti where she poured out her own feelings, of how she was affected by what she had seen and why she is now such a staunch supporter of the Ciminalise War movement. She will serve as the guiding light to the CWC, a figure held in high esteem for her humble disposition and the sincerity with which she has undertaken her tasks. So it’s a clarion call to all members of the CWC to get their clubs up and running, to devise plans of action, to truly understand why war is a crime. The stage has been set, now the movement must take strides to get going.

The Editor 12 JULY 2013

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KUALA LUMPUR WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL HEARING ON PALESTINE 2013 The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal will sit again on 21-24 August 2013. Two separate charges will be heard at the Tribunalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Courthouse, on 2nd Floor, at No 88 Jalan Perdana, Taman Tasik Perdana, 50480 Kuala Lumpur. The Tribunal had two earlier sittings in November 2011 and the other in May 2012. The Tribunal returned guilty verdicts against the accused, namely George W. Bush, (former US President) Anthony L. Blair (the former Prime Minister of Great Britain); and also several others who were involved in the invasion of Iraq. The Tribunal recommended that the names of the convicted persons be entered and included in the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commissionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Register of War Criminals and be publicised accordingly. The panel of judges will be headed by former two-term ad litem judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Republic of Yugoslavia (ICTY), Judge Lamin bin Hj Mohd Yunus (President Malaysia), Judge Alfred Lambremont Webre (Canada), Judge Salleh Buang (Malaysia), Judge Eric David (Belgium), Judge Tunku Sofiah Jewa (Malaysia), Judge Michael Hourigan (Australia), and Judge Shad Saleem Faruqi (Malaysia). Now, the Tribunal will be having its third sitting and the charges against the accused are found below:

THE KUALA LUMPUR WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL Case No. 3-CHG-2013 The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commissions Against Amos Yaron CHARGE The Chief Prosecutor of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission pursuant to Article 7 of the Charter of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission charges: Amos Yaron Individually, For WAR CRIMES, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, AND GENOCIDE as follows: The defendant Amos Yaron perpetrated War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, and Genocide in his capacity as the Commanding Israeli General in military control of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Israeli

46 CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

occupied Lebanon in September of 1982 when he knowingly facilitated and permitted the large-scale Massacre of the Residents of those two camps in violation of the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare of

1907; the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949; the 1948 Genocide Convention; the Nuremberg Charter (1945), the Nuremberg Judgment (1946), and the Nuremberg Principles (1950); customary international law, jus cogens, the Laws of War, and International Humanitarian Law; and their related provisions set forth in articles 9, 10 and 11 of the Charter of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission. Particulars of the Charge: 1. Commencing on June 6, 1982, the Israeli Defense Forces (I.D.F.) of the State of Israel commenced a large- scale invasion of the State of Lebanon, and by June 14 had taken over the suburbs of Beirut and joined with Lebanese Phalangist forces controlling East Beirut. The I.D.F. lay siege to West Beirut, and through massive aerial bombardment attempted to dislodge the forces of Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization present in West Beirut. 2. The Israeli siege and bombardment of West Beirut continued throughout the summer of 1982, causing grievous devastation to the civilian population, but did not succeed in its goal of defeating or dislodging the Syrian and P.L.O. forces. 3. With the negotiating assistance of the United States through Ambassador Philip C. Habib, on August 19, 1982, an agreement was reached between Lebanon, the United States, France, Italy, Israel, and the P.L.O. for the evacuation of the P.L.O. and Syrian forces under the auspices and protection of a multi-national force. The agreement further provided that the Israeli Defense Forces would not attempt to enter or occupy West Beirut following the evacuation of the P.L.O. and Syrian forces. 4. Pursuant to that agreement the multinational American, French, and Italian force oversaw the evacuation of the P.L.O. and Syrian forces until completed on September 1, 1982. The multinational force left Lebanon from September l0-12, 1982, after the completion of the evacuation. 5. On or about September 14, 1982, following

receipt of word of the assassination of Lebanese President Bashir Jemayel, a Phalangist, in East Beirut, Israeli Prime Minister Begin, Prime Minister of Defense Sharon, and Chief of Staff Eitan, decided that the Israeli Defense Forces would immediately enter and occupy West Beirut. It was further agreed that the Lebanese Phalangist forces would immediately enter and occupy West Beirut. It was further agreed that the Lebanese Phalangist forces, following the I.D.F.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s occupation of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;West Beirut, would be sent into the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps. 6. Pursuant to the decision, on September 15, 1982, the I.D.F. entered West Beirut under the command of Brigadier General Amos Yaron, the defendant in this case. The I.D.F. established a forward command post on the roof of a fivestory building southwest of the Shatila camp, and defendant Brigadier General Yaron commanded I.D.F. forces from that post. The area surrounding the camps was thereafter under the command and control of the I.D.F., and all forces in the area, including the Phalangists, were deemed to be operating under the authority of the I.D.F. and acting according to its instructions. 7. Simultaneous with the entry of the I.D.F. into West Beirut, senior Israeli officials including Chief of Staff Eitan, Minister of Defense Sharon, and Major General Drori directed the Phalangist commanders to have their forces enter the Sabra and Shatila camps with their entry coordinated with the defendant Brigadier General Yaron at the forward command post. The control by the I.D.F. of the area surrounding the camps and the decision to send the Phalangist forces into the camps was confirmed at a meeting in the earlier morning hours of September 16, 1982 among Chief of Staff Eitan, the Israeli Director of Military Intelligence, Brigadier General Saguy, and the chief aide to Defense Minister Sharon, at which Eitan announced: the whole city is in our hands, complete quiet prevails now, the camps are closed and surrounded, the Phalangists are to go in at 11:00-12:00. Yesterday we spoke to them...The situation now is that the entire city is in our hands, the camps are all closed. JULY 2013 CRIMINALISE WAR 47

8. Prior to September 16, 1982, the defendant Yaron, as well as other Israeli officials had reason to know that the Phalangists were likely to attempt to perpetrate massacres and other atrocities against the civilian population of the Sabra and Shatila camps. 9. At 11:00 am. on September 16, 1986, Major General Drori and the defendant Brigadier General Yaron met with Phalangist commanders to coordinate their entry into the camps. The defendant Yaron set up lookout posts on the roof of the forward command posts to monitor the entry of the Phalangist forces into the camps. The Phalangist unit that entered the camps was an intelligence unit headed by one Eli Hobeika, who did not himself enter the camps but remained on the roof of the Israeli forward command post throughout the night of September 16. 10 At approximately 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 16, 1982, the Phalangists entered the camps, initially entering the Shatila camp from the west and southwest as directed by the I.D.F. At the request of the Phalangist liaison officer on the roof of the I.D.F. forward command post, I.D.F. personnel under the command of the defendant Yaron provided mortar, and subsequent aircraft, illumination for the Phalangists in the camps throughout the night. 11. At approximately 7:00 p.m. on September 16, Israeli Lieutenant Elul overheard, while he was on the roof of the command post, a transmission over the Phalangists’ communication set to Eli Hobeika. He heard a Phalangist officer from the forces in the camp tell Hobeika that “there were 50 women and children, and what should he do,” Hobeika replied, “This is the last time you’re going to ask me a question like that, you know exactly what to do,” this remark being followed by “raucous laughter” among the Phalangists on the roof. The defendant Brigadier General Yaron, who was also present on the roof, asked Lieutenant Elul what he had overheard and Lieutenant Elul reported to him the above information. 12. At approximately 8:00 p.m. another report of indiscriminate killing by the Phalangists was 48 CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

made in the presence of the defendant Yaron. The Phalangists liaison officer known as “G” told various people in the command post dining room, including the defendant Yaron and I.D.F. officers, that about 300 people had been killed in the camps, including civilians. Shortly thereafter “G” reduced the number of casualties he reported from 300 to 120. No action was taken by the defendant Yaron, or any other I.D.F. official to ascertain the circumstances giving rise to the report that the Phalangists had killed either 300 or 120 persons in the camps within hours after their entry. 13. At approximately 8:40 p.m., the defendant Yaron convened a meeting of I.D.F. officers at the forward command post for an update briefing on the Phalangists’ entry into the camps. At this meeting, an Israeli intelligence officer relayed a report he had received at 8:00 p.m. that evening from the Phalangist liaison officer. The Phalangist liaison officer had heard via radio from a Phalangist inside the camps that he was holding forty-five people and had asked the liaison officer what to do. The Phalangist officer replied, “Do the will of God” or words to that effect. The intelligence officer went on to express his concern regarding the Phalangists’ actions toward civilians in the camps, including women, and children and older people, but the defendant Yaron cut him off and the matter of the Phalangists’ actions against civilians in the camps was not mentioned again. 14. During the night of Thursday, September 16, and in the early morning hours of Friday, September 17, the reports about killing of civilians by the Phalangists in the camps began to circulate among the I.D.F. officers under the defendant Yaron’s command at the forward command post. Yet the I.D.F. forces at the forward command post, following a request from the Phalangist liaison officer for more illumination of the camps, provided more illumination for the actions of the Phalangists then taking place. 15. The following morning, Friday, September 17, 1982, the defendant Yaron was contacted by his superior officer Major General Drori for a

report about various matters relating to the military actions in West Beirut. The defendant Yaron did not inform Major General Drori of any of the reports he had received regarding the Phalangists’ killing of civilians in the camps. 16. Following defendant Yaron’s rebuff of his report of killing of, civilians in the camps at the aforementioned briefing at the forward command post on Thursday evening, September 16, the same intelligence officer between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. contacted his own superior officer and reported the Phalangist officer’s statement that 300 terrorists and civilians had been killed and that he had subsequently reduced the number to 120. By 5:30 a.m. on Friday, September 17 the report had been conveyed to the Israeli Director of Military Intelligence in Israel. 17. At 8:00 a.m. on Friday, September 17, the Director of Military Intelligence ordered that it be ascertained what was happening in the Sabra and Shatila camps. No confirmation was obtained, and as a result, the report of killing of civilians was treated as unreliable. 18. The I.D.F. soldiers under the command of the defend ant Yaron in the morning of Friday, September 17, detected more killings and abuses of civilians in the camps. For example Lieutenant Grabowsky, stationed 200 meters from the camp on an earth embankment, saw that the Phalangist soldiers had killed a group of five women and children and later saw another killing of a civilian by a Phalangist. He was deterred from making a report to his superiors by the other soldiers, who told him that the battalion commander had already been told civilians were being killed and he had only replied “We know, it’s not to our liking, and don’t interfere.” 19. Yet, at 9:00 a.m. on Friday September 17, the defendant Yaron met with the Phalangists at the forward command post to discuss sending an additional force of Phalangists into the camps. 20. At 11:00 am. on Friday, September 17, Israeli journalist Ze’ev Schiff met in Tel Aviv with Minister Zapori and conveyed to the Minister a report of “slaughter” in the camps that he had received

from an unidentified source in the General Staff of the I.D.F. Minister Zipori in Schiff’s presence called Foreign Minister Yizhtak Shamir to discuss Schiff’s report. Minister Zipori told Minister Shamir of the reports he had received regarding killing by the Phalangists in the camps, and asked Shamir to check the report with the United States and Israeli officials with whom Shamir was to meet at 12:30. 21. At 12:30 p.m. on Friday, September 17, Foreign Minister Shamir met in his office in Tel Aviv with United States Ambassador Morris Draper, other United States representatives, Minister of Defense Sharon, the Director of Military Intelligence Saguy, and others. No one in the meeting made any mention of the Phalangists in the camps. The meeting ended at 3:00 p.m.; Foreign Minister Shamir went home and took no further action on the report. 22. At 11:00 a.m. on Friday, September 17, the defendant Yaron and Major General Drori again met and discussed the actions of the Phalangists in the camps. Although the accounts of Yaron and Drori differ as to the content of the meeting, either Yaron or Drori contacted the Phalangist commanders and conveyed an order that the Phalangists were to stop where they were in the camps and to advance no further. At this same meeting, Drori telephoned Chief of Staff Eitan, told him that the Phalangists had perhaps “gone too far,” and that he had ordered the operation halted. No action, however, was taken by the defendant Yaron on Friday, September 17, to monitor the actions of the Phalangists in the camps or to secure compliance with the order that they advance no further. 23. The same Lieutenant Grabowsky, who had witnessed the Phalangists’ treatment of civilians from the earth embankment outside the camps, was continuing his own inquiry that afternoon. One of his soldiers at this request asked one of the Phalangist soldiers in Arabic why they were killing civilians. He was told “the pregnant women will give birth to terrorists and the children will grow up to be terrorists.” Throughout the afternoon the I.D.F. soldiers under the defendant Yaron’s command saw the Phalangists’ treatment JULY 2013 CRIMINALISE WAR 49

of men, women, and children and heard complaints and stories of the killing. One soldier said he heard a report made to the battalion commander of the Phalangists “running wild.” Lieutenant Grabowsky left area at 4:00 p.m. and later that afternoon related what he had seen to his commander and other officers. They referred him to his brigade commander to whom he conveyed again at 8:00 p.m. what he had seen earlier in the day. 24. At 3:30 p.m. on Friday, September 17,the defendant Yaron, Chief of Staff Eitan, and Major General Drori met and travelled together to a meeting with the Phalangist commanders at Phalangist headquarters. Major General Drori told Chief of Staff Eitan what he knew of the Phalangists’ actions and that he had ordered them to refrain from advancing further in the camps. Eitan did not see fit to ask any questions about the Phalangists’ actions or the order halting them. 25. At 4:00 p.m. the defendant Yaron, Eitan, and Drori met with the Phalangist staff at Phalangist headquarters. In this meeting, despite Drori’s earlier order halting the Phalangists and report on their actions, Chief of Staff Eitan “expressed his positive impression received from the statement by the Phalangist forces at their behavior in the field” and concluded they “continue action, mopping up the empty camps south of Fakhani until tomorrow [Saturday] at 5:00 a.m., at which time they must stop their action due to American pressure.” At this meeting neither defendant Yaron, Chief of Staff Eitan, or Major General Drori asked the Phalangists any questions or debriefed them about what happened in the camps. 26. At this same meeting, the Phalangists requested the I.D.F. to provide them with a tractor for use in the camps “to demolish illegal structures.” Defendant Yaron has acknowledged in testimony under oath that at the end of the meeting it was “clear” that “the Phalangists could still enter the camps, bring in tractors and do what they wanted ....”, and in fact the Phalangists continued to operate unchecked in the camps through 50 CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

out the night of September 17 and the early morning hours of September 18. I.D.F. forces under the defendant Yaron’s command supplied the Phalangists with a tractor from which I.D.F. markings had been removed. During the night and the following morning the Phalangists used tractors and bulldozers to pile up and bury in mass graves the bodies of hundreds of men, women, and children they had killed in the camps. 27. The Phalangists did not leave the camps at 5:00 a.m., Saturday, September 18, 1982, as ordered. At 6:30 a.m. the defendant Yaron gave the Phalangist commander an order that the Phalangists must vacate the camps “without further delay.” 28. Defendant Yaron took no steps to enforce his order, however. Between 6:30 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. a group of Phalangist soldiers entered the Gaza Hospital in Sabra and took a group of doctors, nurses, and foreign national workers out of the hospital under armed guard. They were interrogated by the Phalangists and then were taken to the I.D.F. forward command post from which they were later released. It was not until approximately 8:00 a.m. that the last of the Phalangists had left the camps. 29. A burial of the dead was done by the Red Cross which counted 328 bodies, including Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians, Syrians, Pakistanis, and Algerians. Some family survivors buried their family members. Truckloads of bodies were removed by the Phalangists. Other bodies are believed to be under the ruins or in mass graves dug by the Phalangists. The I.D.F. itself estimates that 700 to 800 persons were killed by the Phalangists in the camps. In his definitive account of the massacre Sabra & Shatila: Inquiry Into a Massacre (1984), the Israeli investigative journalist Amnon Kapeliouk of Le Mondé Diplomatique arrived at a sum total of about 3000 killed victims. 30. The Kahan Commission, established by the Government of Israel to investigate the responsibility of Israeli officials for the Sabra and Shatila massacres, found that the defendant Brigadier General Yaron, in performing his

duties as the commander of the I.D.F. forces occupying the area of the camps, (1) did not properly evaluate and did not check reports that reached him concerning the acts of killing and other irregular actions of the Phalangists in the camps, (2) did not pass on that information to the General Operations Command to the Chief of Staff immediately after it had been received on September 16, 1982, and (3) did not take appropriate steps to stop the Phalangists’ actions and to protect the population in the camps immediately upon receiving the reports. The Commission found he had committed a “grave error” in “breach of the duties incumbent upon him by virtue of his position,” and recommended that he not serve in the capacity of a field commander in the Israeli Defense Forces for three years. 31. No further action was taken by the Israeli Defense Forces or any other branch of the State of Israel regarding the defendant Yaron. In August of 1986, Israel appointed Yaron to serve as their military attaché to the United States, which accorded Yaron full diplomatic privileges and immunity from a lawsuit brought by the undersigned Associate Prosecutor on behalf of several survivors of the 1982 Massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. In December of 1999, Israel appointed General Yaron to serve as Head of its Defense Ministry. Over the years, two attempts have been made to hold General Yaron accountable for these international crimes in the courts of the United States and Belgium, respectively. The undersigned Associate Prosecutor also served as an adviser and counsel to the Belgian lawyers suing defendant Yaron and others for the massacre at Sabra and Shatila. Both lawsuits failed because of interference by the governments of the United States and Belgium, respectively. In the professional opinion of the undersigned Associate Prosecutor who has been pursuing General Yaron since 1986, there is no realistic alternative court available anywhere in the world for the purpose of holding defendant Yaron fully responsible and make him accountable for the international crimes he perpetrated against the residents of Sabra and Shatila but the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal.

32. The State of Israel, through its military arm the Israeli Defense Forces (I.D.F.), was the occupying power of West Beirut, including particularly the area containing the Sabra and Shatila camps, on the dates of September 16 through 18, 1982, in that the I.D.F., under the command of the defendant Yaron, was actually in control and was exercising authority over this area. 33. The Phalangists acted as the agents of the I.D.F. in entering and acting in the Sabra and Shatila Camps from September 16-18, 1982, in that the Phalangists entered the camps at the instigation of Israeli officials. Without the acquiescence and assistance of the I.D.F., the Phalangists’ entry into the Israeli surrounded camps would have been impossible. The defendant Yaron, as commander of the I.D.F. forces in West Beirut, had control of and could exercise command of the actions of Phalangists in the camps from September 16-18, 1982. 34. Civilian residents of the Sabra and Shatila Camps, were “protected persons” within the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, and whose persons and property were protected by the Hague Convention of 1907 Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land. 35. The State of Israel, as occupying Power of West Beirut, and the defendant Yaron, were responsible under the Fourth Geneva Convention for the protection of the civilian population therein. Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention stipulates that the civilian population must be protected, especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof. Article 32 prohibits causing “physical suffering or extermination of protected persons,” and article 33 prohibits reprisals against protected persons. Article 29 provides that the party charged with protecting the civilian population is responsible for the treatment caused to them by its “agents” without regard to any individual agent’s responsibility. 36. Thus, the State of Israel was responsible for the actions of the Phalangists taken against the residents of Sabra and Shatila.

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37. The defendant Yaron was further individually culpable for the actions of the Phalangists taken against the residents of Sabra and Shatila, under the Nuremberg Charter (1945), Judgment (1946), and Principles (1950) which are recognized by both the United States and Israel and the entire world as authoritative expressions of the customary law of nations. The Nuremberg Charter is an international agreement that establishes the customary law of nations with respect to personal responsibility for the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. 38. Nuremberg Charter article 6(b) defines the term “war crime” to include “murder, ill-treatment... of civilian population of or in occupied territory, ...plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, town or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.” Article 6(c) of the Nuremberg Charter defines the term “crime against humanity” to include “murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population.” Article 6 also provides that leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan. Article 7 of the Nuremberg Charter denies the applicability of the ‘act of state” defense by making it clear that the official position of those who have committed such heinous crimes “shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or mitigating punishment.” Finally, article 8 provides that the fact an individual acted pursuant to an order of his government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mitigation of punishment if justice so requires. 39. The United States Supreme Court has affirmed and applied these principles, in the case of Application of Yamashita, 327 U.S. 1 (1946), in holding that an official or commander who has actual knowledge or should have knowledge through reports received by him or other means that troops or other persons subject to his 52 CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

control are about to commit or have committed war crimes, and fails to take the necessary and reasonable steps to ensure compliance with the Law of War, is responsible for such crimes. Accord, U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10, “The Law of Land Warfare,” par. 501 (1956). At all relevant times, this Yamashita test was at the time and still is today the current standard for defendant’s Command Responsibility under international criminal law for all the international crimes perpetrated against the residents of Sabra and Shatila. 40. The defendant Brigadier General Yaron, as the commander of the I.D.F. forces into whose control had fallen the Sabra and Shatila camps, as well as the State of Israel as Occupying Power, were thus criminally responsible for murders and devastation visited upon the civilian population by the Phalangist forces, in that defendant Yaron received reports of the killings of women and children on Thursday evening, September 16, 1982, yet did not check the reports, did not pass the reports on to his superiors, continued to provide logistical and material assistance to the Phalangists for their operations within the camps, and did not take appropriate steps to stop the Phalangists and protect the civilians. 41. On 16 December 1982, the United Nations General Assembly in Resolution 37/123 determined that “the large-scale massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps... was an act of genocide” as follows: The General Assembly, Recalling its resolution 95 (I) of 11 December 1946, Recalling also its resolution 96 (I) of 11 December 1946, in which it, inter alia, affirmed that genocide is a crime under international law which the civilized world condemns, and for the commission of which principals and accomplices - whether private individuals, public officials or statesmen, and whether the crime is committed on religious, racial, political or any other grounds - are punishable, Referring to the provisions of the Convention on

the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the General Assembly on 9 December 1948, Recalling the relevant provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, Appalled at the large-scale massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps situated at Beirut, Recognizing the universal outrage and condemnation of that massacre, Recalling its resolution ES-7/9 of 24 September 1982, 1. Condemns in the strongest terms the large-scale massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps; 2. Resolves that the massacre was an act of genocide. 42. As a result of the defendant Yaron’s grave breaches of duty, war crimes, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and genocide the residents of Sabra and Shatila suffered large-scale death and damages by reason of the wrongful deaths of them, and their relatives, and further suffered severe emotional distress and suffering and loss of property,

any otherwise arguably applicable statute of limitations, in that customary international law provides that there shall be no statute of limitations with respect to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide because of the particularly grievous nature of such violations. 45. On November 21, 2012 the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission heard live witness testimony from a survivor of the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila, Ms. Chahira Abouardini. Her direct examination was conducted by the Chief Prosecutor on the basis of her Statutory Declaration Number 8. A complete transcript of her testimony can be found from pages 127 to 158 of the Commission’s Notes of Proceeding (November 2012). A succinct summary of her testimony is as follows: 46 She testified, “On 14 September 1982, the Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel was assassinated. After that incident, there were a lot of aircraft flying around Beirut. My husband told me that the situation may get worse, and to prepare the children so that we could leave. On 16 September we went to my father’s brick house on Sabra Street. There were other family members as well - my father, my sister (17 years old), my brother (24 years old) and his pregnant wife and 2 children, and my cousin and his wife and 2 children.”

43. The defendant Yaron is not entitled to any immunity from accountability by virtue of a claim of diplomatic immunity or otherwise. Article 146 of Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 is an express waiver of diplomatic immunity with respect to those alleged to have committed grave breaches as defined by Article 147. Moreover, under the Nuremberg Principles and the principle of customary international law known as jus cogens which has been incorporated into the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, governments cannot agree to immunize a war criminal from account ability for his acts.

47. Chahira who broke down while giving testimony said, “In the evening beginning from about 5pm, flares were thrown to light up the area. This went on throughout the night. The camp was full of light throughout the night. We did not know what was happening outside.” We heard shooting and screaming outside. At about dusk, my sister ran out into the street to see what was happening. She was shot dead by armed militia. When my sister was shot, she shouted for my father. My father came out of the house to see what had happened to my sister. He was also shot and killed. Their bodies were left on the street. Later I found out that those who shot my sister and father were Lebanese Phalangist militia.”

44. The defendant Yaron is not entitled to any immunity from accountability arising out of

48. In the early hours of the morning, about l6-17 armed soldiers entered her home and shot her JULY 2013 CRIMINALISE WAR 53

husband, brother and cousin dead in front of her and children. She related that militia entered homes and shot at every one including children and animals. 49. She said, “Along the way to the stadium, I saw my cousin’s daughter who was pregnant lying dead. The murderers had opened her body and taken out her baby and put the baby on her. The child was dead as well. She was lying on the street.” 50. “Along the streets there were a lot of dead bodies. Hundreds of bodies were strewn all over. We climbed a hill to the stadium. At the nearest houses I could see bodies of children. Between the houses, which had been half destroyed, there were bodies of men, and also women and children and animals.” 51. She testified, “In 36 hours, up to 3,500 to 5,000 people from Shatila and Sabra had been massacred. There are also people unaccounted for who had disappeared. The Phalangist militia worked together with the Israelis. They were known to be puppets for Israeli forces. Israelis used them to go into our houses, because these soldiers knew the place, and could speak Lebanese. The Israelis were afraid to go in themselves.” 52. She concluded, “What I want is justice to be done and that those who killed my family members and all the people at Shatila and Sabra to be punished for their crimes.” 53. The Chief Prosecutor then called Anne Sunde, a 66-year-old Norwegian who is residing in Belgium. She was working as a volunteer social worker for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Beirut in the Sabra and Shatila camps. Her testimony can be found on pages 167 to 193 of the Commission’s Notes of Proceedings (November 2012). A succinct summary of her testimony is as follows: 54. She related, “On 4 June 1982, I visited my friend in Fakhani. While we are chatting in the building, which housed the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) offices, we heard loud noises of planes flying over. We rushed to the shelter 54 CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

in the basement of the building. Then we heard bombing nearby our building. It was loud. The building shook and I was expecting to die under it. It was my first experience of direct violence. One becomes aware of what life is. The bombing seemed eternity.” 55. She said, “After a few days the PRCS set up a hospital in La Houd School, Hamra. Since nobody among the volunteers wanted to do cleaning (janitor), I volunteered. I did this together with Kurdish refugees.” 55. She said, “Finally I decided to go back to Belgium on 15 September 1982 via Damascus. However, since it was the morning after Bashir Gemayel’s (the then President-elect) death, there were no taxis to take me to Damascus. Great nervousness was felt in town. I returned to the PRCS headquarter in Hamra where most of the foreigners were located.” 57. She then proceeded to relate her harrowing experiences of the killings at the Sabra and Shatila Camps. She further related that when she went to the Shatila Camp she saw many dead bodies of adults and children, both male and female, in strange positions. I also saw dead animals. The bodies were already decomposing and bloated in the summer heat. The smell, she said, was unbearable and there were flies all over. 58. She added, “It was a horrible scene and they were digging mass graves to bury the dead.” 59. In their Executive Summary, Findings and Recommendations of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission Hearing on Palestine (PWTC: 20-21 November 2012) the Commission officially determined in relevant part as follows on pages 13- 15: 60. 6th witness - Ms. Chahira Abouardini The witness, 54 years old, was born in B’albuq, Lebanon. Her parents were born in Palestine, and they moved to Lebanon in 1948 when Israel under the United Nations took their hand in Palestine. Thereafter her parents lived in refugee camps. The witness has lived and grown up these

54 years in the refugee camps (Shatila). She has three children.

actually at the first point where they started to kill and they expand it all the way to Sabra...”

61. On May 5, 1982, the Israeli army attacked the refugee camp. The attack lasted 3 months. The witness (together with his parents) managed to escape to Beirut, returning to the camp only after the attack was over.

68. Asked by the Prosecutor on the number of people killed, the witness said that during that one and half day massacre in Sabra Shatila between 3,500 to 5,000 people were killed. The exact number is not known, because some bodies were never found.

62. The witness said that on the evening of September 16, 1982, her parents’ home was attacked by the Israeli army. Her 17-year-old sister and 65-year-old father were both shot as they went out of the house. They both died. 63. At 6 am the next morning, 16 to I7 Israeli soldiers carrying weapons entered the house. They asked the men to go outside the room. The soldiers searched them and seized everything from themvaluables, any watches or anything. And then they ordered them to face the wall. When the men had done that, the soldiers opened fire - killing the witness’s husband, brother and cousin. They all died. 64. After the men were killed, the soldiers herded the women outside. They were deciding who would shoot the women, but finally decided not to do it because there were children with them. The women were then taken (marched at gun-point) to a nearby sports complex. On the way to the place, the witness saw her cousin who was killed. 65. This was what she said in her testimony “Before they went to the sport complex, as they were walking down the street, I saw my cousin who at the time was 20 years old and she was 9 months pregnant. I found her on the side of the road, with her stomach open and the baby was placed over her chest - was taken out of her womb and placed over her body. Of course the child was dead too. My cousin was dead and nude...” 66. “All along the way there were dead bodies everywhere,” the Witness said. “Hundreds of dead bodies ....adults, children, all ages.” 67. Asked by the Prosecutor whether the Israeli soldiers “entering homes (were) killing people all the time,” the witness replied “Yes. We were

69. The witness also said that Italian forces had previously signed an agreement to protect the civilians and they were stationed at the camp. However, one day before this massacre started, they all left. Some weeks later, after the massacre was over, the Italians returned. 70. Asked by the Commission Chairman, Musa, whether these Italians were UN peace keepers, whether they were wearing blue berets, the witness said that she could not remember. 71. The witness said that the killing was carried out by the Phalangist militia, who were recruited by the Israelis. “There were known to be the puppets for Israeli forces. Israelis used them to go into our houses, because these soldiers knew the place, and could speak Lebanese.” 72. Asked by Commissioner Denis Halliday whether these Phalangists were Christian militia, the witness said she recognized some of their names as Christian names, but she cannot confirm that all are Christians. 73. The witness said that apart from Ariel Sharon, the “person who was commanding the forces at that time, that attacked Sabra Shatila, was ... General Amos Yaron.” 74. 8th witness - Ms. Anne K. Sunde The witness, who holds a Norwegian passport, is a resident of Belgium (since 1968). She was voluntary social worker with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Beirut when the Shatila Sabra massacre occurred.

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75. In her testimony, the witness showed the Commission the geography and terrain of the Shatila Sabra area where the massacre occurred and where the Israeli soldiers were stationed. The witness said that in the Shatila camp, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I saw dead bodies of adults, children, male, female in all kinds of positions. Dead.â&#x20AC;? Conclusion Wherefore, it is respectfully submitted that the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal must convict the defendant Amos Yaron for War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, and Genocide in violation of the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare of 1907; the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949; the 1948 Genocide Convention; the Nuremberg Charter (1945), the Nuremberg Judgment (1946), and the Nuremberg Principles (1950); customary international law, jus cogens, the Laws of War, and International Humanitarian Law; and their related provisions set forth in articles 9, 10, and 11 of the Charter of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission.

Dated at Kuala Lumpur this 30 May 2013

..................................................... Gurdial S Nijar Chief Prosecutor Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Legal Team (Established by the Charter of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission)

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THE KUALA LUMPUR WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL Case No. 4-CHG-2013 The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission Against The State of Israel ………..Defendant CHARGE The Chief Prosecutor of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission pursuant to Article 7 of the Charter of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission charges: The State of Israel For the Crime of Genocide and War Crimes as follows: From 1948 and continuing to date the State of Israel (hereafter ‘the Defendant’) carried out against the Palestinian people a series of acts namely killing, causing serious bodily harm and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction. The conduct of the Defendant was carried out with the intention of destroying in whole or in part the Palestinian people.These acts were carried out as part of a manifest pattern of similar conduct against the Palestinian people. These acts were carried out by the Defendant through the instrumentality of its representatives and agents including those listed in Appendices 1 and 2. Such conduct constitutes the Crime of Genocide under international law including the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide 1948 (‘the Genocide Convention’) in particular Article II and punishable under Article III of the said Convention. It also constitutes the crime of genocide as stipulated in Article 10 of the Charter of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission. Such conduct by the Defendant as an occupying power also violates customary international law as embodied in the Hague Convention of 1907 Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. Such conduct also constitutes War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity under international law. Particulars 1. From 1945 to 1948 the Defendant embarked on a plan to expel and eliminate the Palestine population then residing in Palestine by the following acts: a. The preparation and launch of military plans in 1945, 1947 and culminating in the 1948 Plan Dalet to conquer and ‘ethnically cleanse’ the country then

occupied by the Defendant. The Plan referred to the ‘destruction of villages’ and the ‘expulsion of the [village] population to territory outside its borders’. b. In furtherance thereof, the Defendant carried out wanton acts of expulsion, massacre, destruction and rape. c. In 1948 there was destruction of 500 Palestinian villages and 11 urban neighbourhoods; 700,000 Palestinians were expelled; and countless thousands were massacred. d. One such incident was the massacre at Deir Yassin where Jewish forces indiscriminately shot at inhabitants, then rounded up and shot the remaining inhabitants. This was followed by the blowing up of houses of the inhabitants of four nearby towns and the expulsion of its inhabitants. e. Half the population of the indigenous Palestine population were driven out, half of their villages and towns were destroyed and only very few of them ever managed to return. f.. These actions evince the Defendant’s intention to execute a policy to eliminate the Palestinians from the territories occupied by the Defendant in a form and manner that constitutes acts of genocide under international law. g. As a result, at the time of the 1949 Armistice,the Jewish population of Mandate Palestine rose from 26% to 80%; and its land ownership rose from 7% of the total land to 77% of such land. 2. The Defendant has since then carried out further intensification of its settler colonial process through genocidal acts as evidenced by among others: a. The massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps JULY 22013 JULY 00113 13 CRIMINALISE CRIM CR IM MIN I AL A ISSE WA WAR AR 57 5

at Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon in 1982; b. The massacre of Palestinian refugees and others in Jenin and Nablus in 2002; c. The Summer Rains Operation and thereafter of 2006; d. Cast Lead I Operation in Gaza in December 2008; and e. The Cast lead II Operation in Gaza in November 2012. 3. The Massacre at Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon in 1982; a. The Defendant who was in control of the Sabra Shatila camps allowed admission to the camps of Christian Phalangists from September 16 – 18 1982 who then proceeded to kill, maim and seriously injure its Palestinian and other inhabitants. Estimates of those massacred range from 300 to 3000 people. b. The Defendants knew or, in any event, should have known, that the Phalangists would kill or cause serious harm to the Palestinian refugees. Many of those listed in Appendix 1 knew or should have known a massacre would take place. In particular the Minister of Defence and the Chief of Staff have admitted to knowledge that killings would take place.

c. In one appalling and extensive operation, the IDF demolished, destroyed by explosives, or flattened by army bulldozers, a large residential area of Jenin refugee camp, much of it after the fighting had apparently ended. d. Throughout the period 4-15 April, the IDF denied access to Jenin refugee camp to all, including medical doctors and nurses, ambulances, humanitarian relief services, human rights organizations, and journalists. e. By 12 April residents said that the continuous curfew had led to an acute food and water shortage. In some cases children were drinking waste water and became sick as a result. One resident from the edge of the camp said that: “the camp smells of death due to the scattered bodies, some bodies are buried under the rubble, others crushed by tanks, and the rest are left lying in the streets.” f. In the old city area of Nablus, the situation was quite similar: lack of food and water and the fact they were unable to move from their houses. Occupants even watched the body of an unknown Palestinian die; then they watched dogs eat the body as it decomposed. g. The form, manner and severity of this conduct by the Defendant its servants or agents, amounts to genocide under the Genocide Convention and international law.

c. In the event the Defendant was responsible for, and complicit in, the massacres.

5. Two major offensives by the IDF: 27 February and end June 2002

d. The Defendant was, in any event, under an affirmative duty to protect the civilian population in the refugee camps and failed abysmally to do so. Such failure, coupled with its knowledge through its agents, of the intent by the Phalangists to kill, constitute direct and public incitement to commit genocide, complicity in genocide or conspiracy to commit genocide, punishable under Article III of the Genocide Convention.

a. In the four months between 27 February and the end of June 2002 – the period of the two major offensives by the armed forces of the Defendant(IDF) and the reoccupation of the West Bank - the IDF killed nearly 500 Palestinians unlawfully and at least 16% of the victims, more than 70, were children. More than 8,000 Palestinians detained in mass round-ups over the same period were routinely subjected to ill-treatment and more than 3,000 Palestinian homes were demolished.

4. The massacre of Palestinian refugees and others in Jenin and Nablus in 2002 a. On 29 March 2002 the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) launched a new offensive, Operation Defensive Shield, in Palestinian residential areas. b. In Jenin and Nablus a tight cordon of tanks, armoured personnel carriers and soldiers was thrown around the areas where the IDF carried out operations: Jenin refugee camp and Nablus old city. Houses were intensively attacked by missiles from Apache helicopters.

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b. The Defendant failed as the occupying power of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, to fulfil its obligation to respect and protect the human rights of all people in these areas. c. Instead, between April and June 2002, the IDF carried out the following heinous acts: i. unlawful killings; ii. the use of “human shields”; iii. torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of people detained;

iv. blocking of medical assistance, food and water; and

of the distinction between civilian and non-civilian targets. This turned the civilian population at large into a legitimate military target.

v. the destruction of property, including damage or destruction of the civil infrastructure, commercial buildings, historic and religious buildings and homes.

c. Secondly, every possible killing machine was used.

d. The nature extent and severity of these acts constitute genocide under the Genocide Convention and international law, and war crimes under international law.

e. Finally, the military operations became a strategy to deal with Gaza and its population.

e. The Defendant also employed various contrivances to keep its conduct shielded from internal and external scrutiny. 6. The Summer Rains Operation of 2006 and thereafter a. Operation Summer Rains commenced on June 28, 2006 and ended in November 2006. b. It was the most brutal attack in Gaza since 1967 The army invaded the Strip from land, sea and air and bombarded the most densely populated civilian centre in the world. c. Daily civilians were killed by the Israeli army. For example, on September 2, 3 citizens were killed and a whole family wounded in Beit Hanoun. By evening many more were killed. d. In September, an average of 8 Palestinian died daily in Israeli attacks, many of them children, hundreds were maimed, wounded and paralysed. In 2006, 660 citizens were killed including 141 children. e. In Gaza, Israeli forces demolished almost 300 houses and slew entire family. f. This meant that since 2000 Israeli forces killed almost 4000 Palestinians a large number of them children; more than 20,000 were wounded. 7. Operation Autumn Clouds in November 2006 On November 1, 2006, in less than 48 hours, the Israeli killed 70 civilians; by end of November, almost 200 were killed, half of them children and women. 8. Operations from Summer Rains to Autumn Clouds become a strategy a. Israel followed a policy of militarisation toward the Gaza Strip from 2005 with the initiation of Operation First Rains. b. From then until Operation Autumn Clouds the killing escalated in every aspect with the disappearance

d. Thirdly, the number of casualties increased dramatically.

9. Killings in 2007 a. In 2007, 300 people were killed in Gaza, dozens of them children. b. The Strip was encircled by barbed wire and walls. Flour, cement, medicine, dairy products and rice were barred, and movement in and out of Gaza restricted. c. The choice was if the Palestinians did not repudiate their lawfully elected government, they will be strangled and starved; alternatively, they could adopt the politics Israel wanted in which case they would suffer the same fate as that of the West Bank: life without basic human rights. 10. New Doctrine implemented in October 2008 a. In 2008, the IDF embarked on a new doctrine in relation to Gaza: an adaptation of the Dahiyya Doctrine applied to Lebanon. b. This meant the total destruction as punitive action and infliction of damage â&#x20AC;&#x153;that would take ages to recover fromâ&#x20AC;?. Gaza was to be hammered and wiped out with all the might that the IDF could muster. This was followed by the IDF tightening the blockade on Gaza in 2008. This resulted in genocidal realities: lack of basic food, absence of elementary medicine, denial of building material, cut out of water and electricity supplies, and no source of employment. c. In June 2008, IDF attacked Gaza from the air and ground daily in violation of the then cease fire. d. These actions constituted genocide under international law. 11. The Cast Lead I Operation in Gaza in December 2008 a. The attack upon Gaza had been planned for over 6 months; b. It commenced without warning on 27 December 2008 and lasted for 3 weeks;

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c. Some 1,500 Palestinians were killed, including some 300 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians; large areas of Gaza was reduced to rubble rendering thousands homeless and the economy even more dire than ever before. d. On January 4, 2009, in the Zeitoun district, the Samouni clan were ordered out of their houses by Israeli soldiers and finally forced to move to a building, with over 100 members in one home. On January 5, Israelis began demolishing the wall of the house. The house was later hit by missiles fired by the Israeli Air Force. 49 members were killed, mainly women, children and the elderly. e. In another attack Israeli soldiers deliberately shot at another family house; and shot the owner repeatedly, about 20-30 times. He and his four year-old-son were killed. f.

In another incident, 45 members of the Samouni family were placed in one room; three of the men were ordered by soldiers to “walk to Gaza City” and to not “come back”. One killed Samouni member was found on the street on January 4. His hands were cuffed.

b. The Wall has placed Palestinian communities under ‘a virtual siege’. c. The ICJ impacts in a seriously negatively way the right of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories to live in accordance with fundamental rights accorded to human beings. d. Palestinians from the Occupied Territories are banned from traveling on main roads and checked – and often turned back - at the Israeli-manned barrier outside every town. e. Since May 2002 a Palestinian cannot travel from one town to another in the Occupied Territories without a special pass. Most Palestinians do not have permits and thus do not travel. f. Gaza is cut off from the West Bank and entry to Jerusalem is prohibited without special permission to all Palestinians from the Occupied Territories. As a consequence the Palestinians cannot properly worship at the Al Aqsa Mosque and their Christian Holy Sites. 14. Right to Water

g. The manner and form of the acts and barbarity, as well as the employment of such fierce military force in a narrow civilian space (‘nowhere in Gaza was safe for civilians’), amounted to genocide as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity under international law.

a. The Defendant has through various acts restricted and deprived the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories access to and control over water.

12. Physical debilitation

c. Some 90-95 % of the water supplied is contaminated and not fit for human consumption.

a. The Defendant has since May 2008 imposed a blockade in Gaza. The fishing zone for Palestinian fisher folk of Gaza has been substantially reduced; a buffer zone which incorporates 35% of Gaza’s arable land has been established. This has caused a tight closure of Gaza’s economy. b. This has seriously debilitated its economy. 70% of Gazans live in poverty with 44% unemployment rate. c. This policy to keep the Gazans impoverished is part of the Defendant’s deliberate policy to prevent sustained growth. 13. No Freedom of Movement a. The Defendant has placed severe restrictions of movement for Palestinians through a variety of factors, including the blockade, checkpoints and a Wall that cuts through farmers’ lands in the West Bank. More than 80% of the Wall is within the West Bank and has been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

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b. The amount of water supplied falls well below WHO standards.

d. Between 2000–2006, the IDF wilfully destroyed 244 wells in the Gaza Strip including 2 drinking water sources. e. The restrictions on fuel and electricity have also led to the periodic paralysis of water and waste-water services, affecting water wells and agricultural wells. f. Age-old water cisterns in rural communities have also been destroyed. g. Right to water is a fundamental human right and essential to the survival of Palestinians. h. All these measures by the Defendant endanger life and health of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and are subordinated to the criminal intent to destroy and cripple permanently the Palestinian populace. 15. Children a. 1,518 Palestinian children were killed by Israel’s

occupation forces from the outbreak of the second Intifada in September 2000 up to April 2013, the equivalent of one Palestinian child killed every 3 days for almost 13 years. b. The number of children injured for the same period has now reached 6,000. c. Palestinian children are still subject to attacks by the Israelis and Jewish settlers on an almost daily basis. d. 9,000 Palestinians under 18 years old have been arrested since the end of September 2000. Almost 250 Palestinian minors are being held in prison by Israel; 47 of them are children under 16 years of age. e. These statistics and the various acts described hereinbefore in relation to children especially their wanton killings and causing them serious bodily and mental harm including by the perpetration of heinous acts in their presence also constitute a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (Article 19). CONCLUSION a. The cumulative intent and effect of the serial pattern of acts of the Defendant as hereinbefore outlined and particularised amount to the initiation, intensification and continuation of a settler colonisation genocidal process begun in 1948 and continuing even to date. These acts of persecution have escalated into extreme form of wilful and deliberate acts designed to destroy a group or part of a group of the Palestinian people. Such conduct amounts to genocide under the Genocide Convention as well as international law. b. In any event the acts taken singly or otherwise, also amount to a violation of customary international law as embodied in the Hague Convention of 1907 Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. c. These acts also amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity under international law and under Articles 9 (crimes against humanity), 10 (genocide) and 11(war crimes) of the Charter of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, in Article 9.

Dated the 4th day of June 2013

…………………………… Gurdial Singh Nijar Chief Prosecutor Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Legal Team (Established by the Charter of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission)

Appendix 1: Agents of the Defendant In respect of the acts committed in Sabra and Shatilla: Menachem Begin,then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, then Defense Minister Yitzhak Shamir, then Foreign Minister Rafael Eitan, Lieutenant General, then Chief of Staff Yehoshua Saguy, Major General, then Director of Military Intelligence Amos Yaron, Brigadier General. then Division Commander Avi Duda’i, then personal aide to the then Defense Minister Appendix 2: Agents of the Defendant Cast Lead I Operation Ehud Olmert, then Prime Minister Ehud BarakthenDefence Minister Tzipi Livni, then Foreign Minister Gavriel Ashkenzi, General, then Chief of Staff Moshe Katsav, then President Appendix 3: Agents of the Defendant Cast Lead 2 Operation Shimon Peres, then President Benjamin Netanyahu, then Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, then Foreign Minister

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“A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.” - Mahatma Gandhi

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Global Peace and Justice Begins at Home Every leader in the world aims to find a lasting solution to the problems that beset our planet so far, peace on earth has continued to be an elusive dream. There are many movements, conferences, brotherhoods, and fraternities all over the world that promote the idea of world peace. Philosophers, theologians, politicians, and other great thinkers from the present have offered so many formulas and ideas for achieving peace but no one has yet come up with a solid answer to the question. Why is world peace so difficult to achieve? Perhaps the answer lies with oneself? What have we done to make the world a better place to live in? How have we treated our brothers and our neighbours? If we look at the philosophies and teachings of great men and the number of world peace movements that have risen out of nowhere, the issue assumes even more layers and textures than the original idea. Is it possible to achieve world peace? Some great thinkers believe so. But if you are asking whether it can possibly happen in our lifetime, then that is something no one can answer. Only time can tell. But as long as everybody makes a conscious effort to work for it, then maybe we stand a chance of seeing the first signs of world peace happening. There are different ideas as to what constitutes world peace. Some people think it is the resolution of conflict that will bring about world peace. Others think that absence of hunger, deprivation or social justice would be a sign that world peace is finally happening. It is like looking at the forest without seeing the trees instead of the other way around. The perennial question will always be where to start. If we strive to treat other people like a brother, living harmoniously with one another, treating each other justly and fairly, there would be no conflict and the rest follows. For this reason, in order to achieve world peace, we have to start with ourselves. We have to be agents of change and ambassadors of good will. We should learn to live with our neighbours peacefully and do business with each other fairly and with honesty. When we start with doing good to other people, we can inspire others to do the same. By paying the good deeds forward, we can multiply the number of people we touch with our goodwill and eventually it will spread and infect others. We cannot expect peace in the world unless we give that which in our heart we are prepared to sacrifice. If we take time to read the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Confucius or take a few minutes to look at the Bible, the common denominator lies with the “Golden Rule” which teaches “not to do onto others what we do not want others to do onto us.” This teaching rings true even today when we look at how people are treated in some parts of the world. War, violence, famine and social injustices are all handmaids of the devil. Angel Lee (13) Cempaka International School

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TITIO

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

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In tthis heart-rending essay, Nurfirzanah bt Ahmad Firdaus (left) and Raihan bt Amirr Rashidi (right). Fifth formers of the Tunku Kurshiah College, remember Irdina Izzudin Ras n Shah (1994-2011), their schoolmate and her moving letter to her brother just monthss Sha before her death. bef befo

ng over reality. Crying over reality. Irdina Izzudin Shah, our senior at Tunku Kurshiah College, was only 17 years old when she lost her battle to cancer. But in her short span here on earth, she left a lasting impression with many of her friends. Despite her pain, she had a cheerful outlook.

“And the tears come streaming Down your face When you lose something You can’t replace When you love someone, But it goes to waste

Could it be worse? Lights will guide you home nes And ignite your bones And I will try to fix you” - Fix You, by Coldplay oldplay

She experienced a rocky road, an agonising journey which is known ass tumour. iving, like That was it, a war she had to fight to be able to do something called living, other people. Fortunately, she did it. She lived her life by embracing what thee world offered her. From the day she was born, she always saw a hero o with an n eternal spirit standing by her side, guarding her weak soul. Therefore, truly ruly gifted d in so many ways, her talent was able to compel us with beauty and nd mixed d es, all you u emotions. No one can dispute that whilst going through the trying times, really need is the people who make you feel like you are at your strongest. Ev Eventually, she took a special moment to write about her brother, about someone omeone wh who ho mad made her forget about the medicines, needles and hospital beds for awhile and instead, he ma made her feel like home. She finally wrote about all the little things that meant eant the world to her. Her poignant message read as follows :

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Dear brother, Whenever we buy ice cream, you always order vanilla and I always choose chocolate. You always hated books ; I have my personal library. You always got called in for bad grades ; I always received awards. You always stayed home; I always went to birthday parties. You always hesitate to talk ; I always went right up to say ‘hi’. Whenever it was sunny, you sat inside and played Playstation and I went out to the playground. You’re good at computers ; I can’t install an external hard drive. You’ve had two girlfriends ; I’ve been single all my life. You’re gushing about action movies ; I’m crying over reality. You’re no longer afraid of rebelling; I still hide in my shell. Whenever a ‘moment’ occurs, I turn my head to look at you and always find you looking back. You laugh at the same jokes I do. You take photos of random things, just like me. You share the same love for Japanese comics. You endured the same pain when we were young.

We...neither of us play anyy kind of sports. You’ve always been healthyy ; I’ve been sick for four years. We both prefer BBQ potato chips to sour cream and onions. Our differences don’t matter er because otherwise, we’re the same.. You missed your classes to donate your blood despite your exams being the he following week. You have to bunk on the sofa fa bed while I get the foam mattress but you never er complained. You were told I was dying but you acted like it was okay though I know you u were sad, too. You never voiced out what you wanted so I always asked for things for you instead. stead. You treated me like a normal mal person when everyone else handled me like a cracked doll of porcelain. You’re trying to mend things gs with our father – something I’m not sure I can n ever do. You counter my ballads with h random funny songs to brighten up the mood – even if it’s my room. You’re my older brother by over a year and a half. You’re a late bloomer and down right lazy when it comes to studying. You’re awake ‘till five and d you sleep way past noon. You’re unsure about your future but you don’t have a care in the world.

Whenever I take out my guitar, you’ll take your turn and I always do the same when you take out yours. You agree that Justin Bieber sounds like a girl. You keep my secrets and I keep yours too. You think up comments as sarcastic as mine. You listen to Korean music because of me. You’re afraid of heights ; I love thrill rides. We both missed the cherry tree we climbed as kids. You’re a human trash can ; I have a small appetite. We both threw popcorn in the cinema the day we watched Twilight. You suck at drawing ; I get A’s for my art.

You’re my brother, my friend, the twin I never had. You’re strong and funny and independant...more than me, anyway. You’re struggling right now but I know you’ll shine through. You’ve sacrified a lot for me and I hope to do the same someday, for you.

We both tend to lose track of time. You especially. You love pink and black stuff; I prefer blue and white.

You’re so precious to me... I don’t know what to do! Just hope you know I love you and hope you love me too.

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f o t n i o p view t s i v i t c A e c a e P i l e a r s I An Miko Peled is an Israeli who turned his back on his Zionist upbringing and has become a peace activist. Born and raised in Jerusalem in 1961, Peled grew up in a prominent Zionist family; his grandfather signed Israel’s Declaration of Independence. His father, Mattityahu Peled, fought in the 1948 war and served as a general in the war of 1967; later, after the Israeli cabinet ignored his investigation of a brutal 1967 Israeli war crime, he became a peace activist and leading proponent of an Israeli dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Miko Peled followed his father’s footsteps at first, joining Israel’s Special Forces after high school and earning the red beret, but he soon grew to regret his decision. He surrendered his status as soon as he earned it, becoming a medic, and finally, disgusted by the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, he buried his service pin in the dirt. He lost his 12-year old niece in a 1997 suicide attack in Jerusalem. His sister insisted that it was caused by the occupation of Palestinian lands and that in turn prompted Miko to re-examine the history of Palestine and Israel, the starting point of peace activism. He was in Putrajaya, Malaysia recently as part of a lecture tour, talking about his book, The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine. He also explained that many Israelis themselves reject Zionism and want peace with their neighbours. They are pushing for a two-state solution.

“I don’t think there will be change in Israel itself, as they feel that they have all the rights to the lands there. To them, the Palestinians are terrorists, that’s their perspective at the moment. But I think they will be forced to change their perspective when they have to face the realities. Take for instance what has happened in South Africa, where the white minority now have to live the new realities. We have seen other tyrants being toppled in many parts of the world. So change will come. We are now on the road to peace. That is the roadmap that we are on. Democracy will eventually take hold and changes will take place. Zionists don’t really care about my book or my views at the moment – that is not what they want to hear or read. But in time, we will see changes and eventual peace.”

- Miko Peled

Miko came to the conclusion that the two-state solution his father had promoted would no longer suffice, and he now advocates for the creation of a single democratic state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians. He claims that the current situation is an apartheid regime that must go, and that a single-state solution is closer than many people think because of the changing mindsets of many Israelis, American Jews, and holocaust survivors.

“ I embrace my former captors and my former oppressors, I believe in one nation, and I believe in judging people on the basis of their character and not their colour.” - Nelson Mandela 68 CRIMINALISE WAR JULY 2013

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. - Bertrand Russell

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Choosing the Right Side Begins at Home by Shamiha Khadija Saan Cempaka International School

Kuala Lumpur Foundation To

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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

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