[THS] Genocide and crimes against humanity: Tony Blair Stands Accused

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25290.htm

Tony Blair Stands Accused

Malaysia must not allow this mass murderer to be immune from justice.

By Prof SHAD SALEEM FARUDI

April 22, 2010 "The Star" - - IT IS distressing to note that former British Prime
Minister Tony Blair has been invited to Malaysia as an honoured guest of an NGO
when he stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by many
learned and independent scholars of international law.

The case against him looks rock solid, especially after his confession to the BBC and
the Chilcot Inquiry that he would have gone to war to topple Saddam Hussein
regardless of the issue of Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Indictments around the world:

The international criminal court to which Britain is a signatory has received a record
number of petitions against Blair.

The World Tribunal on Iraq held in Istanbul in 2005 heard evidence from 54
witnesses and published rigorous indictments against Blair, former US president
George W Bush and others.

The Brussels War Crimes Tribunal, the Blair War Crimes Foundation and the American
international law jurist Richard Falk have amassed impressive evidence of Blair’s
complicity in international war crimes.

Spain’s celebrated judge Baltasar Garzon (who indicted former Chilean dictator and
president Augusto Pinochet) has called for Bush, Blair and former Spanish Prime
Minister Jose Maria Aznar to be prosecuted for the illegal invasion of Iraq, which
Garzon has condemned as “one of the most sordid and unjustifiable episodes in
recent human history”.

Many UK jurists have described the invasion as a devastating attack on the rule of law
that left the United Nations in tatters.

Here at home, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, after two years of
meticulous investigation, received first-hand evidence from Iraqi victims of war that
there have been grave violations of the international law of war in Iraq.

Last year, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, consisting of several international
jurists – including Richard Falk from the US, Alfred Webre from Canada, and Niloufer
Bhagat from India – unanimously adjudicated that Bush and Blair do not enjoy any
immunity in international humanitarian law.

The main charges against Blair relate to his collusion with Bush in an illegal war of
aggression against Iraq in 2003.

Crimes against peace:

Blair repeatedly and deliberately deceived the UN, his allies and his own people that
Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that could be rained on anyone within 45
minutes. In deceit and conspiracy, he incited passions for an illegal war.

The resulting amassing of an American, British and Australian invasion force outside
Iraq and the invasion of March 20, 2003, were flagrant acts of lawlessness and an
international crime.

The Charter of the UN contains a general prohibition against force as a means of
resolving disputes. The unleashing of the horrors of war on innocent populations is
permitted in only two circumstances by the Charter. First, legitimate self defence,
under Article 51 in the event of an actual armed attack. Iraq had not attacked the
US, the UK, Spain or Australia, and the argument about self-defence had no
credibility.

Second, specific Security Council authorisation of force as a last resort to maintain
peace and security under Articles 39 to 42 of the Charter. There never was such a
resolution. The US and UK had tried to bulldoze one through but the Security Council
was divided and the attempt failed, rendering the subsequent invasion a crime
against peace.

Genocide and crimes against humanity: The Anglo-American alliance is also guilty of
the heinous crimes of war, genocide and crimes against humanity.

The misadventure in Iraq has up to now caused 1.4 million deaths, four million
refugees and countless maimings and traumas. Two to three million Iraqis are
mentally and physically disabled. Iraq today is a land of five million orphans and one
to two million widows.

There is near-total devastation of basic infrastructure, health, cultural and
educational systems. Water systems have been contaminated. Iraq’s assets have
been looted by the Allies.

In the prosecution of the illegal and racist war, indiscriminate rocket attacks were,
and still are, being rained on civilian centres, killing thousands of innocent women
and children.

In 2004, the entire population of Fallujah was expelled, save for young men of
military age. Banned radioactive ammunition like depleted uranium, white
phosphorous and cluster bombs have been used. Torturing of prisoners of war has
been practised on a large scale.

These crimes of complicity by Blair are punishable under the United Nations Charter,
the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Nuremberg Principles,
Article 146 of the 1949 Geneva Convention and Article 3 of the 1907 Hague
Convention.

What is also notable is that Blair has expressed no remorse whatsoever. Instead, he
struts around the world as an apologist for the US in the Middle East and Israel. He
recently received an Israeli “peace prize” worth US$1mil (RM3.2mil).

Malaysia must stand up and be counted among the community of civilised nations. It
must not allow this perpetrator of epic crimes, who fakes faith in democracy and in
“God’s work and God’s will”, to touch our soil ever again.

(Blair, who gave a talk at a local university in 2008, has been invited to head a line-up
of speakers at the 2010 National Achiever Congress in Subang Jaya this weekend.)

If he does enter this country again we should arrest him. Regrettably, Malaysia has
not yet ratified the Rome Charter, but we do have a Penal Code. Murder is a crime.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission has countless reports from Iraqi survivors
against Blair for complicity in mass slaughters, tortures, looting and other war crimes.
The police must act on these reports and arrest this mass murderer.

In addition, citizens’ groups must file complaints against Blair with the United Nations
General Assembly and with the Attorney-Generals of countries like Spain, Germany,
Belgium, France and the UK which have “universal jurisdiction” statutes to pursue
and prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A tribunal like the one that tried Nazis at Nuremberg and several Yugoslav and
African warlords since then needs to be constituted.

The world needs to be reassured that international humanitarian law is not applied
and enforced in a racist and selective way against Asian and African tyrants only.
Imperial politicians from the West who destroy millions of lives should not, any more,
be immune from justice.

Shad Saleem Faruqi is Emeritus Professor of Law at UiTM and Visiting Professor at
USM.