MEDIA ALERT
US and UK Politicians Overlooked in Crimes Against Humanity
9 July, 2001
Should US and UK politicians be brought to account for
alleged crimes against humanity in Iraq, Serbia, Vietnam, Cambodia and
elsewhere? Last week’s appearance by Slobodan Milosevic, the former leader of
Yugoslavia, in front of the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, was the spur
for an Independent on Sunday ‘Focus’ news report by Raymond Whitaker entitled,
‘Who could follow Slobodan into the dock?’ (8 July). But while the usual
suspects of Indonesia’s Suharto, Chile’s Pinochet and Uganda’s Amin were all
profiled, there was no mention of the US’s Kissinger, Bush (Sr. or Jr.),
Clinton, or Britain's Thatcher and Blair.
To his credit, Whitaker
mentioned that the proposed International Criminal Court has not been ratified
in Washington ‘fearing that a president, say, might be indicted for his role in
Nato action’. But there was no explanation or context provided for this remark.
For example, Nato’s 78-day bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999, in which
President Clinton, Prime Minister Blair and other western leaders played a major
role, contravened international law. According to Amnesty International, the
Nato action represented ‘serious violations of the laws of war leading in a
number of cases to the unlawful killings of civilians’.
Amnesty focused
in particular on the April 23 1999 bombing of the headquarters of Serbian state
radio and television, which left 16 civilians dead, describing it as 'a
deliberate attack on a civilian object' which therefore 'constitutes a war
crime.' The report also noted that the requirement that NATO aircraft fly above
15,000 feet to provide maximum protection for aircraft and pilots 'made full
adherence to international humanitarian law virtually
impossible'.
Meanwhile, the US and UK are the main proponents of ongoing
economic sanctions against Iraq, imposed in the wake of the Gulf War, which
according to UN and other authoritative observers, have led to the deaths of
over one million Iraqi civilians. Over 4000 Iraqi children under the age of 5
are continuing to die every month. Madeline Albright, then Secretary of State,
said that ‘[W]e think the price is worth it’ (60 Minutes, CBS, May 12, 1996),
when asked about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children as a
result of the sanctions.
In September 1998, Denis Halliday, the UN
Assistant Secretary-General, resigned after 34 years with the UN, declaring the
US and British sanctions regime imposed on Iraq 'genocidal'. Halliday, who ran
the UN's 'oil for food' programme in Iraq, continues to openly place blame for
the excess deaths of 600,000 Iraqi children under five, as reported by the
United Nations Children's Fund, squarely on the shoulders of the US and British
governments. In February 2000, Halliday's successor as UN Humanitarian
Coordinator in Iraq, Hans von Sponeck, also resigned after 30 years with the UN,
asking, 'How long should the civilian population of Iraq be exposed to such
punishment for something they have never done?' Halliday said recently:
'Washington, and to a lesser extent London, have deliberately played games
through the Sanctions Committee with this programme for years - it's a
deliberate ploy. That's why I've been using the word genocide, because this
is a deliberate policy to destroy the people of Iraq. I'm afraid I have no other
view at this late stage.'
SUGGESTED ACTION
Please ask The Independent on Sunday why, given these accusations of grave human
rights abuses - and even genocide - by authoritative voices, they did not name
any US or British politician in their article asking ‘Who could follow Slobodan
into the dock?’
CONTACT: Independent on Sunday
--Letters to the
editor
email to:sundayletters@independent.co.uk
--Simon O’Hagan,
Readers Editor
email to: readerseditor@independent.co.uk
The
Independent on Sunday article could not be found online at www.independent.co.uk
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