The first  day saw 11 witnesses give testimony of evidence regarding both genocide and ecocide, from the likes of Raji Sourani from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Dr. Omar Nashabe of Lebanon, and Maria Zendrera with the Global Sumud Flotilla. The proof of intent on the deliberate destruction of Gaza’s environment at-large, the destruction of all means of the ability to sustain life beyond the complete blockade, and the day-to-day impact on the Palestinian people was highlighted in the evidence delivered.

The second day of the Tribunal explicated on much of the same topics and included 5 witness testimonies. With the court in session, the prosecution began with the effects on women in a written testimony on Day 1 from Nadia Bakri, a feminist and human rights activist that served as director of the Women’s Affairs Staff in Gaza for 30 years before being forcibly displaced to Egypt due to the genocidal war. “There has been a deliberate targeting of women’s health centres and clinics in order to stop Palestinian people from reproducing, in line with Zionist strategy,” stated Suzanne Adely of the National Lawyers Guild, the Tribunal prosecutor representing Bakri.

The jurors then intervened with their own line of questioning to Raji Sourani and Dr. Omar Nashabe in order to clarify different aspects of their testimonies.

Sourani was asked by the prosecution about the recent historical precedent behind the UN Security Council’s recent vote around Trump’s ‘peace’ plan. He responded with, “There isn’t one word about the unalienable right of Palestinian people, the occupation is institutionalized, and supported more by the American presidencies who are involved directly with the genocide and supporting Israel directly. . . 30 years ago, we were extremely critical about the Oslo Accords which did not mention anything about ending the occupation and self-determination – and that was intentional.”

Dr. Nashabe added during his portion that it is not only a genocide or ecocide stating, “I’d like to reiterate that the ecocide and genocide is a fundamental part of this policy of total extermination. It can’t take place by just killing people, but you have to kill all forms of life that will allow the people to rebuild. It is a metacide, the destruction of everything.” Furthermore, he spoke about the schism within the United Nations due to this ‘peace’ plan and the deep crisis within the intergovernmental body, “What other kind of creative, destructive, violent tactics can [Israel] come up with now when they haven’t been able to achieve their vile, obscene objective? We are going through a crisis in international law never seen before – this is like George Orwell’s 1984 on an unseen scale.”

After the jurors’ line of questioning, the five witnesses testified on the stand either in-person, over Zoom, or through pre-recorded videos on the collective punishment, deliberate targeting of entire families, intentional blockades of food and water, direct targeting of farmers and fisherfolk by airstrikes and settler mobs, and even direct evidence of systematic repression and silencing of Palestinian voices by other states in collusion with the Zionist government.

Mushier Ek Farra, an activist and filmmaker that was in the midst of a project centring on the plight of Gaza’s fisher people until 2023, was the first witness on the stand. He spoke on the collective punishment inflicted in Gaza right from the beginning of the genocide, as soon as October 9th, 2023. He stated, “In one instance, 67 people were killed and 52 houses were destroyed to target a Hamas operative. That is collective punishment which even one of the accused [Joe Biden] has condemned.”

After Ek Farra, two written testimonies from Gaza – first a collection of testimonies from an activist, then a worker – were delivered by the prosecution. The collection of testimonies were procured through great difficulty due to the chilling effect from 172 journalists deliberately killed in their role of revealing the truth to the world. One of the Palestinian farmers willing to testify stated, “Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered the land to destroy and raze it again, cutting irrigation networks, destroying water sources like agricultural ponds and wells, and shredding the remnants of the trees into very small pieces with massive machines.” In line with that, the testimony of the worker from Gaza illustrated the strategy behind this destruction, “The aim was to inflict the largest possible number of deaths and injuries among civilians and medical personnel to force them to leave northern Gaza.”

Three real-time Zoom testimonies along with videos of Palestinian farmers and fisher people conducted by a journalist who gave his own written testimony followed. Throughout the video testimonies, the strategy of complete destruction – not just of killing people en masse, but destroying the basic means to assure their existence – were exhibited throughout. In particular, the dire situation and sheer destruction of Gaza’s sole port was illustrated, compounding on the complete blockade that Israel has imposed, “The port, heavily bombarded with roughly 26 rockets on the third day of the war, was split in half. About 95% of fishing boats were destroyed. There is a deliberate strategy to create famine: the occupation closes crossings, blocks the entry of food supplies, and prevents fishermen from feeding our people.”

The real-time Zoom testimonies began with Mohammad el Bakri, an engineer specializing in agricultural infrastructure and board member of the Urban Agriculture Forum, “They have destroyed [the crops], there is nothing now. In the north and south of Gaza, all this land is agricultural land and Israel has not allowed anybody to access or reach this land. There is no income, there is no water as its polluted — the sewage water has gone into aquifers directly.” Founder and director of the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability at Bethlehem University, Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, added to this point in his testimony and illustrated how this is connected to the strategy of occupation of Israel in the West Bank as well, which has escalated to unprecedented heights since 2023. He stated, “In the West Bank, they are draining the wetland of the Hula, redirecting waters of the Jordan River to their settlements, and uprooting millions of indigenous trees to plant an invasive monoculture of European trees. This squeezes remaining indigenous Palestinians into “concentration areas” and refugee camps increasingly surrounded by environmentally damaging walls and military infrastructures.”

As the environmental aspects of ecocide and the many aspects to genocide aside from mass slaughter being thoroughly investigated, Dr. Diana Nazzal’s testimony touched on the devastating health impacts from the forced starvation, and hyperinflation along with targeting aid recipients as an aspect of the starvation. “The hair becomes thin and lost, the nails become brittle, the concentration and mental health of people become very poor, and their whole life becomes about how they can get their next meal,” stated Nazzal. “The hospitals would always prepare for when the Gaza Humanitarian Fund was providing ‘aid’ because children were deliberately killed – it was another example of using humanitarian aid to commit genocide.”

A kilogram of the following foodstuff had risen to these exorbitant prices, showcasing the impact of the complete blockade through land, air, and sea aside from the ecocide:

• Tomatoes: 163 euros in the North; 17 euros in the South
• Meat: 175 euros in the North; 95 euros in the South
• Flour: 1000 euros in the North; 90 euros in the South
• Sugar: 46 euros in the North; 40 euros in the South
• Coffee: 135 euros throughout Gaza

Throughout the testimonies around the massive destruction of Gaza’s environment, the massive loss of life and ability to sustain life, and the countless violation of international humanitarian law, the experts and witnesses all resolved that the true solution to end the horror inflicted by the Zionist entity is the struggle of the Palestinian people for self-determination. From the witnesses and experts:

• Mushier Ek Farra: “[Those killed through collective punishment] are people I knew who were not even part of the resistance, I would have supported their resistance, but they were just civilians. . . We need support out of solidarity, not charity. This is a political matter, we must extend our political support first and then sympathize. The same oil, mining, and timber companies destroying Gaza are destroying the rest of the world.”
• Dr. Diana Nazzal: “We want to have our land and right to self-determination and be left alone. We are able to build our own society but we aren’t given the chance to do so.”
• Mazin B. Qumsiyeh: “Only we, the Palestinian people, can challenge against our corrupt leaders and the occupation”

After the testimonies came to a close, the lead prosecutor – Jan Fermon – delivered his final statement:

• “I would say, from a broader perspective, we do have to say that this is even beyond genocide and ecocide–and that is metacide: the destruction of everything. I think that terminology is absolutely appropriate with what we’ve been hearing and witnessing. . . The liberation of Palestine is the work of the Palestinians. The work of the rest of us is solidarity. Nazism was brought down by the resistance of the people of the world. The US intervention in Vietnam was ended by the struggle of the Vietnamese people and the solidarity of the people of the world. Apartheid was brought down by the struggle of the South African people and the solidarity of the people of the world.”

At the end of the jurors’ deliberation, they delivered the verdict: finding Israel, the United States, and other complicit entities guilty of genocide, ecocide, and forced starvation – finding Israel as the principal perpetrator of these crimes and the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany complicit in aiding, abetting, and enabling the crimes found in the verdict. “Free, free Palestine!” rang through the hall, with attendees celebrating the decision, and committing to use the findings to exact justice and accountability in the streets through mass mobilizations and action in solidarity with the Palestinian peoples’ struggle for self-determination.

Earlier today, organisers and attendees of the Tribunal took a copy of the full verdict produced by the jurors to the Zionist consulate and held a demonstration. Representatives of the Zionist occupation refused to attend the Tribunal and subsequently refused to receive a copy of the verdict.

Throughout the two days of testimonies and evidence, the final guilty verdict of the International People’s Tribunal stands in line with what international institutions have also determined, but have either moved too slowly on or have wholly ignored. The verdict, based on a mountain of evidence showcasing Israel’s and US’s clear intent and exposing the ecocide rarely touched in the mainstream narrative, has put the power into the hands of the people to exact justice and accountability in solidarity with Palestinian people’s right to and struggle for self-determination.

The verdict serves only as a start. True justice will only be found through continued movement building and mass actions in the streets and in any venue possible if advocacy efforts will have any hope of contributing to justice and accountability. What the Tribunal proved is that true justice belongs with the people, and the people will fight for it until the end of all economic, political, military, and diplomatic support from Israel.

There will be more activities and campaigns in relation to the Tribunal in the coming months available for press to cover.

About the International People’s Tribunal for Palestine:

The IPT for Palestine is a civil society initiative organized by the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), International Peoples’ Front, and the Peoples’ Coalition on Food Sovereignty, with the cooperation of endorsers including the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) and Palestine Land Studies Centre, among others. It aims to establish a historical record of crimes against the Palestinian people, mobilize international solidarity, and exert moral and political pressure on complicit governments and international institutions.

Watch the full Tribunal recording here: https://bit.ly/IPTPalestineRecordings

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How AI mistook Chhattisgarh truce move as religious leaders’ appeal for Israel-Palestine peace!

Former DU Professor, Achin Vanaik, stands by his lecture on Palestine despite pressure

The post Israel, United States & and other complicit entities guilty of genocide, ecocide, and forced starvation in Palestine: International People’s Tribunal appeared first on SabrangIndia.

According to the United Nations, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

• Killing members of the group;

• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Over time, the world has seen several instances of a complete loss of humanity that resulted in such heinous crimes. Here are some of the most shocking genocides from across the world.

The Holocaust

The Holocaust was a state sponsored killing of 6 million Jews in the Nazi Germany under the leadership of Adolf Hitler at the time of the second World War. The Nazis who came to power in Germany in January, 1933, believed that Germans were of a ‘superior race’. Hitler’s ‘final solution’ meant complete elimination of the Jews. Concentration camps were built in occupied Poland for enslavement, torture and systematic mass murders. Approximately 2,20,000 to 5,00,000 Romani people were also killed during this period as they were also seen by the Nazis as ‘inferior’ races.

Holodomor

Holodomor means ‘to kill by starvation’. It was a man-made great famine in Soviet-Ukraine from the year 1932 to 1933 to break the will of the Ukrainian people who resisted giving up their own land and working on Government land. Food was confiscated from homes, outside aid was rejected and people were not allowed to move out. It was a part of the larger Soviet famine which impacted the major agricultural regions. Death toll is estimated to be at 12 million. The surviving generations were forbidden to speak of it It is recognised as a famine since 2006 by Ukraine and 15 other countries as a genocide.

Rwandan Genocide

Approximately 6,00,000 Tutsis were slaughtered in Rwanda after the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994. The Arusha Accords signed on August 4, 1993 with the Tutsi dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) to end the Rwandan civil war came to a sudden end with his death. The next day onwards soldiers, police and militia owing allegiance to Hutu extremists started a systematic mass murder of Tutsis, Twas and some moderate Hutu leaders. Many were in fact killed in their own villages by their neighbours. There were also reports of atleast 25,000 instances of sexual violence. The genocide ended when RPF assumed control of all government territory and drove the perpetrators of the genocide into exile in Zaire.   

Cambodian Genocide

This genocide went on from 1975 to 1979, and led to the deaths of 1.5 million to 2 million people. It was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge under the brutal leader Pol Pot, who pushed Cambodia towards Communism. Religion was outlawed, schools and factories shut down, everybody irrespective of their age and gender were made to work on collective farms  and anybody educated was killed.

Armenian Genocide

Started by the Turkish Government to remove the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians living in Ottoman Empire, this genocide was a systematic murder of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians between 1914- 1923. Since the Armenians were Christian by faith, the Ottoman Caliphate feared that they would side with other Christian countries in the region, particularly in times of war, and therefore, wanted to eliminate them. Turkey to this date refuses to accept the Genocide.

Bosnian Genocide

After Yugoslavia broke up, the Bosnian revolution followed from 1989 to 1993. Muslims were the largest group and the Serbs and Croats were in minority in 1971. With  the help of the Serb dominated Yugoslav army, the Serbs attacked the Muslims and Croatians, leading to the extermination of 1 lakh people. At Srebrenica (a UN protected town) the Bosnian Serbs committed heinous sexual crimes on women while killing the men at mass killing sites. It was declared a genocide in 2001 by the International Court of Justice. 

Kurdish Genocide

This genocide took place under the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, in 1978- 1988. Iraq was a Shia majority country with the Kurds as a minority and anti-Kurd sentiments prevailed. During the Al Anfal campaign in Northern Iraq led by Ali Hassan Al- Majid, a cousin of the dictator, aerial bombing, mass deportation, firing squads and chemical warfare were used on the Kurds during the Iraq-Iran war. It killed between 50,000 to 182,000 Kurds. Among others killed were Assyrian Christians. It led to the displacement of 3.5 million Kurds. Saddam Hussein was facing trial for the Anfal campaign when he was executed. 

Bangladesh Genocide

With the launch of Operation Searchlight, the genocide in Bangladesh began in March 1971, to supress East Pakistan’s (now Bangladesh) calls for self determination the genocide was carried on by the West Pakistan’s (now Pakistan) army and Jamat-E-Islami the militant group. Mass gendered crimes and rapes were carried out against Bengali women declaring them as ‘public property’. Around 3,00,000 people were killed and 8 to 10 million mostly Hindus migrated fearing their lives. 

Guatemalan Genocide

Also known as the Silent Holocaust, the Guatemalan Genocide lasted 34 years, starting from 1962 to 1996. It was characterised by forced disappearances, massacre, torture and sexual violence carried out by the state in a bid to maintain the economic and political power of the social elite. The Civil War started in Guatemala in the 1960s due to the social and political inequalities. Mayan people began protesting in 1970 against the repressive government policies demanding greater knowledge and inclusion of the Mayan language and culture. In 1980 the Guatemalan army instituted operation Sophia targeting the Mayan population. 200,000 indigenous Mayan people were prosecuted.

Darfur Genocide

This genocide has so far led to the deaths of 4,80,000 people and left approximately 2.5 million people displaced. It began in 2003 when Janjaweed militia armed by the government began a violent campaign of violence against the region’s non-Arab population. According to World Without Genocide, “The complexities of desertification, famines, and the civil war raging between North and South Sudan contributed to a rise in regional tensions during the 1980s. Similarly, as oil was discovered in western Sudan, the Sudanese government and international contributors became increasingly interested in the land in Darfur.” The scarce resources coupled with the Civil War between the Northern and Southern parts of the country between multiple rebel and rival groups proved to be such a potent poison, that despite several peace talks, very little success has been achieved in bringing peace to the region. 

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A concentration camp in Poland. AkzuzkA/shutterstock.com

What’s more, this history is often told in figures too large to comprehend on the human scale. Large numbers – like the infamous 6 million people murdered – obscure the significance of key operations that shaped this genocide, leaving instead just a vague characterization of a massively devastating event.

In a digital age, mathematics, data science and visualization can help make sense of these events for new generations. By examining a rare and neglected dataset of human train deportations from the period, my study, published on Jan. 2, begins to uncover the true scale of slaughter.
 

Operation Reinhard

My work investigates a period in 1942, referred to as Operation Reinhard, when the Nazis efficiently shuttled about 1.7 million victims, often whole Jewish communities, across the European railway network in train carriages to Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor. Almost all of those who arrived at these death camps were murdered, usually within hours, in the gas chambers. Because the Nazis destroyed nearly all records of the massacre, it is important to try to uncover what actually happened at the time.

My study looks at the “kill rate,” or murders per day. This reveals a sudden massive slaughter after Hitler “ordered all action speeded up,” as one SS officer put it, on July 23, 1942. Approximately 1.5 million Jews were murdered in only 100 days, including in shootings outside the death camps, with nearly 500,000 victims killed each month during August, September and October. That’s approximately 15,000 murders every day.

The slaughter then soon terminated, as there were hardly any Jews remaining in the area to kill.

The full scope of this genocidal slaughter appears to be undocumented in history. Available information before this study was mostly reconstructed indirectly, partially conjectured, and usually given on an annual timescale, rather than daily or monthly. That meant completely missing the three-month slaughter.

My analysis was based on carefully compiled train records presented in a 1987 book by Holocaust historian Yitzhak Arad. Arad documents approximately 500 transportations from some 400 different Polish Jewish communities, recording for individual days the location, number of victims of each transportation and final death camp destination.

My analysis required carefully sorting and working with the dataset, as well as including other surviving data. In addition, I generated a spatio-temporal map and film of the data. These visualizations plotted the 400 communities on a map of Poland and indicated the time sequence of all deportations to the death camps over the whole year 1942.

While Operation Reinhard is considered the largest single murder campaign of the Holocaust, the extraordinary speed at which it operated to obliterate the Jewish people has been poorly estimated in the past and almost completely unknown to the general public. This massacre of unparalleled scale took place in just three short months, and was only captured through analysis of Arad’s dataset.

This minimal time indicates the enormous coordination involved by a state machinery responsive to the Fuhrer’s murderous will to eradicate a people. The train records show how zones were emptied of Jewish communities one by one in an organized manner and how intense kill rates were achieved in targeted areas that only slowed as victims ran out. My plots of the data highlight the pace and frenzy of this mass murder.
 

Measuring genocide

Despite more than 70 years of research into the Holocaust, this appears to be the first attempt to graph aggregated data of the genocide, chronologically and spatially. My data-driven approach captures Operation Reinhard in a different perspective to the volumes of historical reports.

Genocide scholars often compare rates of recent genocides to the rate at which the Nazi Holocaust occurred, treating the latter as a kind of benchmark for genocide severity. As such, currently many social scientists maintain that the Rwandan genocide was the most “intense genocide” of the 20th century, with a sustained period of murders occurring at a rate three to five times more rapid than the Holocaust.

However, my work shows that while the Rwanda massacre killings were 8,000 victims per day for a 100-day period, the Holocaust was nearly double this rate during a similar 100-day period in Operation Reinhard.

That suggests that Holocaust kill rate has been underestimated on an order of six to 10 times. In my view, these sorts of comparisons have limited usefulness, and clearly diminish the Holocaust’s historical standing.

The Holocaust stands out as a demonstration of how the efficient machinery of government was turned on people in an unparalleled way. It transcended in its ruthlessness and systemic efficiency. This is the key lesson of the Holocaust that I believe must not be forgotten.

Lewi Stone, Professor of Biomathematics, RMIT University
 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Seventy years after the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide came into force, its effectiveness is disputed.

Skulls of those murdered by the Pol Pot regime in the Killing Fields of Cambodia in a shrine to the dead. Shutterstock

Jewish laywer and Polish refugee, Raphael Lemkin, coined the word “genocide” in 1943 to describe the killing and destruction of peoples, deriving the word from the Greek “genos” (people, tribe or race) and the Latin “cide” (killing). Against the backdrop of the Holocaust, this had been, in the words of Winston Churchill, a “crime without a name” – at least officially. But on December 9, 1948, the international community formally adopted a definition of genocide within the 1948 convention – essentially enshrining the message of “never again” in international law.

But questions over whether the convention has achieved what it set out to do focus on three key failings. First, the very application of the term “genocide” is applied too slowly and cautiously when atrocities happen. Second, the international community fails to act effectively against genocides. Third, too few perpetrators are actually convicted of their crimes.
 

Failure to define

Consider how many genocides have occurred since the 1948 convention and its ratification in 1951. Now consider that only three have been legally recognised – and led to trials – under the convention: Rwanda in 1994, Bosnia (and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre), and Cambodia under the 1975-9 Pol Pot regime.

The widespread killing and displacement of Yazidi by IS and Rohingya in Myanmar are ongoing and recognised by the UN as a whole, but have yet to be officially recognised as genocides by some individual states. Similarly, 13 years after atrocities took place in the Sudanese region of Darfur, criminal investigations continue but no official charges of genocide have been made under the convention.

Perhaps more broadly applied than the legal definition is the academic one – something which changes subtly depending on who is defining it. Criminologist Nicole Rafter, for example, also specifically named the Indonesian genocide of 1965-66 and the Guatemalan genocide of 1981-83.

Political scientist Adam Jones, meanwhile, also names the genocides committed under Saddam Hussein against the Kurds in 1988-91 in Iraq, and by West Pakistan forces against Bangladeshis in 1971. He also highlights crimes committed during Stalin’s “Great Terror” and by China in Tibet.

And the list of “genocides” that might fall under the UN definition is frighteningly long. The International Criminal Court is investigating several states in which human rights violations and war crimes “may” have occurred.

Myanmar already is under criminal investigation over its treatment of its Muslim Rohingya minority, and the genocide against the Yazidi has been defined by the UN as such. Other “genocides”, such as that involving Australia’s “stolen generations”, are academically debated but have never formally or legally been recognised as such. Indeed, many states may not acknowledge a genocide when others do. The US, for example, famously never officially recognised the 1915 Armenian genocide as one.

In her 2018 Nobel lecture, Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad, a survivor of the most recent (Yazidi) genocide, referred to several other instances when the Yazidi people have been victims of the same crime, but these atrocities have never officially been recognised.
There is, it seems, an ongoing distinction between “genocide” and genocide.
 

Failure to act

Prevention is a critical part of the convention and parties can call upon the UN to intervene when they have evidence of a genocide. The actual application of this, however, has been woeful.

Former UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, acknowledged, for example, that UN troops were pulled out of Rwanda “when they were most needed” and further acknowledged that the innocent at Srebrenica were “abandoned to slaughter” in 1995.

Atrocities committed by government troops against Tamils in Sri Lanka between 1983 and 2009 were never officially recognised as a genocide, but UN troops stationed there also stood by impotently as thousands were massacred, and the world watched in apparent indifference.

Names of victims inscribed on the National Memorial to the victims of genocide in Kigali, Rwanda. Shutterstock

On December 15, 2018, The US House of Representatives formally labelled the crimes against the Rohingya in Myanmar as a genocide but still there is inaction to support those displaced in Bangladesh and help them to rebuild their lives. Meanwhile, Myanmar remains unsafe for them. The status of Yazidi refugees is also still in a state of flux and many are fearful of returning to their homes.

Some criminal investigations are underway while the genocides continue. And when the physical evidence of killings is uncovered, evidence of the criminal intent for genocide must also be gathered, and the ringleaders identified and caught.
 

Failure to prosecute

The true number of perpetrators in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and Cambodia is unknown, but still only a handful have been convicted. So far, 93 Rwandans and 161 former Yugoslavian perpetrators have been indicted. But there have been only two UN-backed prosecutions of Cambodian perpetrators of genocide. Indeed, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were already serving life sentences for their crimes against humanity in Cambodia when they were convicted, while countless others live freely in the country, untouched by international law. Surely more must be done.

In thanking the Nobel committee for her peace prize, Murad stated that “the only prize in the world that may restore our dignity, is justice and the prosecution of criminals”. With so few convictions to date, the international community has much catching up to do if Murad’s wish for a more peaceful future is to be realised.

Seventy years after the UN Convention, genocide remains ever present in our global society. For Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, “never again” was “a prayer, a promise, a vow”. Unfortunately, this vow is all too often broken.
 

Rachael Burns, Associate Lecturer in Criminology, University of York

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Pinochet’s detention marked a turning point in the development of international law and international relations

General Augusto Pinochet. Photo credit: The Conversation

It became an address to remember: 20 Devonshire Place, Marylebone. For it was here, behind the front door of The London Clinic, that former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet was arrested on the night of October 16, 1998. Pinochet, who was 82, was in the UK recovering from back surgery at the time, but was woken up by police and informed that he was under arrest for crimes against humanity on the basis of an international warrant issued by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón.

The specific allegations concerned not only human rights abuses committed against Spanish citizens in Chile during the military regime established after the coup of September 11, 1973, but also the murder, torture, hostage-taking and genocide of Chileans and other nationals.

Overnight, the London Clinic arrest became a symbol of hope for justice and redress. For Pinochet – who died in 2006 – was, first and foremost, one of the most infamous dictators of the 1970s and 1980s. Pinochet’s 1973 military coup overthrew Chile’s democratically-elected president, Salvador Allende, and installed a brutal and repressive mandate in his place. Indeed, the dictatorship’s abuses gave rise to one of the largest human rights campaigns in the world.

Following a dramatic legal battle, the British courts rejected Pinochet’s claim that he was entitled to immunity as a former head of state and ruled that he could be extradited to Spain to stand trial. Although this never occurred – UK home secretary, Jack Straw, ultimately allowed Pinochet to return home after 503 days of arrest on the grounds of ill health – Pinochet’s detention marked a turning point in the development of international law and international relations.

Why it matters

It set two important precedents. First, it revitalised the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows states or international organisations to prosecute individuals regardless of the place where the crimes were committed and the nationality of the perpetrators and victims. Second, it withdrew the immunity of heads of state or ex heads of state for human rights violations.

Although the Geneva Conventions of 1949 requested that states establish and exercise universal jurisdiction for war crimes and crimes against humanity, this principle had not been widely invoked in national tribunals prior to Pinochet’s UK arrest. Apart from the trial of the German-Austrian Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Israel there were few examples of cases brought to courts on the basis of such a doctrine before 1998.

But as a result of the Pinochet case, the notion of sovereignty, traditionally understood as the right of a state to respect the independence of other states, had to be redefined. The idea that governments are unaccountable to courts located in foreign states for their domestic policies changed, so that all states now became subject to fundamental human rights norms. Never again could tyrants use immunity as a means to avoid criminal responsibility.

But 20 years on from that landmark event, what does it mean for global justice today? Has it really affected the prospects of holding political leaders to account for human rights abuses?

Undoubtedly, the Pinochet arrest in London offered an enormous window of opportunity to activists, lawyers, victims and non-governmental organisations to establish transnational networks to pursue human rights accountability.

A policeman stands on duty during a demonstration against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London’s Trafalgar Square on November 7, 1998. EPA Images

Not only were Chilean courts persuaded to reexamine amnesties that protected many senior individuals in domestic legislation, but other Latin American countries, such as Argentina and Uruguay, also reopened human rights investigations into perpetrators of atrocities. The decision of the UK’s House of Lords to narrow the charges against Pinochet only to cases of torture, also gave particular visibility to Chile’s torture survivors, driving the creation of a Chilean National Commission to investigate those crimes.

A fairer new world?

In Europe, meanwhile, Spain turned its attentions to addressing crimes committed during the Franco era, while courts in Belgium, France and Germany extended the Pinochet precedents to human rights violations that had taken place beyond their territorial borders. The tireless efforts of human rights activists and victims that led to the 2016 conviction of the former dictator of Chad, Hissene Habré, for crimes against humanity, for example, was unquestionably inspired by the Pinochet arrest in London. Habré was arrested and tried in Senegal and sentenced to life imprisonment.

This rapid expansion of international and domestic trials to hold political leaders to account for human rights abuses forms part of a trend that political scientists have called the “justice cascade”. This does not mean perfect justice, but it has helped to legitimise the norm of individual criminal accountability for human rights violations.

The initial enthusiasm unleashed by the Pinochet case has been replaced, however, by growing scepticism in the last decade. States such as Belgium and Spain, once considered pioneers in embracing the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, have limited the power of their courts to pursue criminals outside their frontiers. In both cases, these limitations came in response to the demands of powerful states, such as the US, Israel and China, who are reluctant to see their own citizens stand trial overseas for such crimes.

The international community’s inability to end the massacre of civilians in Syria, for example, has also reinforced the pessimistic idea that human rights only prevail when the strategic interests of major state actors are not at stake.

But there is reason for hope. A report published in March 2018, by Trial International, paints a more optimistic picture. Reviewing 58 cases involving 126 individuals, the study shows a sharp increase in the number of cases brought to court based on the principle of universal jurisdiction. Indeed, the significant limitations of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to pursue human rights prosecutions – Russian and Chinese UN Security Council vetoes prevented Syria being referred to the court, for example – seems to have triggered a vigorous resurgence in the application of this doctrine via the national courts of third countries.

The promise of effective global justice that came with Pinochet’s detention in London hasn’t yet been realised. But the positive changes triggered since 1998 were made possible thanks to transnational networks of activists, lawyers, victims and human rights institutions who were able to exert pressure on states to change how they defined justice. The lesson is that while moments such as the Pinochet arrest can open windows of opportunity, the world also needs individuals, organisations and governments that are willing to make the most of them – and change things for the better.

Veronica Diaz-Cerda is Teaching Associate, Aston University

This story was first published on The Conversation. Read the original.

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Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s civilian leader and de facto president, is under fire from all sides. Domestically, she is facing growing criticism for stalled economic and political reforms, glacial progress on policy and service improvements, and the suppression of freedom of expression and press freedom.
 

Aung Sun Suu Kyi is now seen as an enabler of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Mick Tsikas/AAP

But it is her international reputation that is most in tatters.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, imprisoned for 15 years over a 21-year period in her struggle for human rights and democracy, has suffered a swift and dramatic fall from grace as a global icon. She is now widely seen as an enabler of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

In just the last few days, Canada stripped Suu Kyi of her honorary citizenship and the Malaysian prime minister stated publicly that she has lost his support.

As the Brussels-based International Crisis Group put it recently:
 

Rarely has the reputation of a leader fallen so far, so fast.

Failures of Suu Kyi’s government

Suu Kyi has been the subject of much criticism since taking power 2½ years ago, but the most recent and vociferous condemnation has centred on two events: the jailing of two Reuters journalists who exposed a massacre of Rohingya civilians by the military, and her government’s failure to respond to international investigations into allegations of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

In September, the two Reuters journalists were convicted of possessing official secrets, despite testimony by a policeman that they had been entrapped.

The journalists had reported on a 2017 massacre of Rohingya Muslims by security forces, which resulted in the eventual conviction of seven soldiers for murder

It is notable that it was Suu Kyi’s civilian government that prosecuted the journalists, not the military. Suu Kyi could have ordered the charges dropped, as she did for student protesters during her early days in office. Instead, before the trial was over, she commented that the reporters were guilty of violating the Official Secrets Act, and once even allegedly referred to them as “traitors”.

Reuters journalists Wa Lone (center) and Kyaw Soe Oo (top left) are escorted by police after their first trial in January. Lynn Bo Bo/EPA

The second great disappointment has been the government’s response to the UN Human Rights Council’s report into the violence that drove almost 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh last year.

The report, released in full in September, found conclusive evidence that security forces had indeed engaged in mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya, with genocidal intent. It went on to accuse Suu Kyi and her government of contributing to the atrocities through “acts and omissions”.

The HRC recommended the UN Security Council refer the Myanmar commander-in-chief and five generals to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The UN Human Rights Council also set up a body to prepare evidence for trials.

Rather than pledge to cooperate with the investigation, however, Suu Kyi has consistently defended the military action against the Rohingya and repeatedly pointed to a lack of understanding of the complexities of the situation.

Her only concession to the increasing international condemnation of her government has been this muted statement:
 

There are, of course, ways in which, with hindsight, we might think that the situation could have been handled better.

Limitations on Suu Kyi’s power

The military remains a very powerful force in Myanmar. It has the power to appoint its own personnel to a quarter of the seats in parliament and oversees the three powerful ministries of Home Affairs, Defence and Border Affairs.

The government has no power to hold the military accountable for actions against the Rohingya. Suu Kyi is therefore in a very weak position.

She has nonetheless gone out of her way to not just defend the military, but praise it. In Singapore last month, she made headlines when she declared that the three generals in her cabinet were “rather sweet”.

Suu Kyi has stressed that her government’s aim of removing the military from politics would eventually be achieved through negotiation, keeping in mind the need for national reconciliation. However, her dream of constitutional reform depends entirely on military approval.

This would appear to inhibit any ability for her to censure the military. She also has no means to compel the military to cooperate with international investigators.

Around 700,000 Rohingya refugees have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh since last year. Nyein Chan Naing/EPA
 

A path to redemption

Suu Kyi still has considerable moral authority within Myanmar, and the military is still widely unpopular. Thus, despite the severe limitations on her power, she does have other options to lead effectively on issues like human rights, the Rohingya and press freedom.

Suu Kyi and her government should start by recommitting themselves to a belief in universal human rights. She should also express empathy with the victims of the atrocities in Rakhine state, which may begin to shift popular opinion against the actions of the military and engender more public sympathy for the Rohingya.

Further, Suu Kyi needs to pledge full cooperation with the ICC investigation into the serious allegations of ethnic cleansing and genocide, and call for a genuinely independent domestic inquiry to pave the way towards true reconciliation.

Suu Kyi may not be able to compel military cooperation with the ICC investigation, or even unfettered access to the country for investigators. But drawing on her moral authority could go a long way to help. She could pave the way for visas and travel approval, for instance, both of which were denied to investigators by her government.

Finally, the government must develop robust, urgent repatriation plans for the Rohingya – in cooperation with Bangladesh and the UN – that guarantee their security, human rights, a pathway to full citizenship and an end to segregation in Rakhine. They need a plan for inclusive development policies in the state, and to restore both media freedoms and humanitarian access to the region.

The opportunity for such moral leadership is quickly evaporating.

Suu Kyi and her government were elected by a landslide in 2015, winning about 80% of seats up for election. Polling released last week showed that only about half those surveyed believe the rights of people have improved in the 2½ years that she has been in power and less than half the population feel there has been any political or economic improvement.

There have also been increasing complaints about the performance of the government.

With her support eroding both home and abroad, Suu Kyi appears to have a limited window to adequately address the Rohingya crisis and regain her moral authority. Otherwise, Myanmar risks slipping back into isolation and again becoming a pariah state.
 

Anthony Ware, Senior Lecturer in International & Community Development, Deakin University and Costas Laoutides, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Deakin University

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Returning Rohingya people to the hands of their persecutors not only violates international law, but raises fundamental questions about how the world protects those fleeing the most heinous crimes and abuses.

A deal done: the foreign minister of Bangladesh, Abul Hassan Mahmud Ali, visits Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. EPA/Myanmar Ministry of Information

Many Rohingya people who have fled the ethnic cleansing in Myanmar are now living as refugees in Bangladesh. And now, the two countries have reportedly struck a deal to return them home. Returning Rohingya people to the hands of their persecutors not only violates international law, but raises fundamental questions about how the world protects those fleeing the most heinous crimes and abuses.

This deal comes just days after Ratko Mladic was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the Srebrenica massacre, which took place in Bosnia even as news cameras broadcast footage around the world – in much the same way as they have documented this latest crisis of ethnic cleansing.

As far as Myanmar is concerned, the deal will ease the increasing pressure it faces from both the United Nations and its Asian neighbours. The Myanmar government has no interest in welcoming Rohingya refugees home with open arms; those Rohingya who remain in Myanmar are treated as an alien people, denied citizenship and basic rights, and systematically persecuted. The Myanmar government maintains that the recent spike in violence did not amount to ethnic cleansing, that it was not state-sponsored, sanctioned or condoned, and that the Rohingya are safe to return. But those words are empty.
Abundant first-hand reports and documentary footage all point to the same thing: ethnic cleansing conducted by state actors. Top UN officials have been using the term “ethnic cleansing” for some time, and the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, is now using it too.

Given that Myanmar is refusing to take responsibility for the atrocities, let alone to provide guarantees of protection and justice for the Rohingya, it beggars belief not just that the country is asking those refugees to return, but that Bangladesh would provide its support.

Under international law, refugees who flee atrocities are afforded fundamental protections. Above all, they are protected by the principles of offering asylum and of non-refoulement – protection against return to a country where a person has reason to fear persecution.

Bangladesh will of course insist that Myanmar wants these people to return, and that only those choosing to do so voluntarily will be returned. But that ignores the facts on the ground. Rohingya refugees’ options are bleak: remain in the squalid camps, somehow escape into Bangladeshi society with no formal documentation or status, or return home and face persecution.

Bleak future

Bangladesh has not acceded to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. The country has no law to regulate the administration of refugee affairs or guarantee refugees’ rights. And despite many decades of persecution and abuses in Myanmar, Bangladesh has never allowed the Rohingya to claim asylum. Those who make it to Bangladesh are placed in overcrowded camps without basic provisions, and there they remain unless they choose to return to Myanmar.

The idea of voluntary return stems from a 1993 agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar, under which those Rohingya who can prove their identity must fill in forms with the names of family members, their previous address in Myanmar, their date of birth, and a disclaimer that they are returning voluntarily. But those who do choose to return will face extortion, arbitrary taxation, and restrictions on freedom of movement. Many will be required to undertake forced labour, and some will face state-sponsored violence and extrajudicial killings.

A refugee camp in in Coxsbazar, Bangladesh. EPA/Abir Abdullah

Those who remain in Bangladesh, on the other hand, face a lifetime in camps where human rights abuses are rife, with insufficient and inadequate food, water, housing or healthcare. Fleeing these camps leaves them undocumented and vulnerable to trafficking, exploitation and abuse.

Whatever individual Rohingya people in Bangladesh might decide to do, their future is bleak. And that’s not good enough. The international community has long known about the systematic persecution of this people. The international community has long ignored the atrocities perpetrated against them. And the international community has long tolerated the cover-ups and excuses from the government of Myanmar. This time it needs to be different.
Bangladesh should step up and provide refuge to those who have been seeking it for 25 years. Myanmar’s neighbouring states and allies should help properly resettle the hundreds of thousands of undocumented Rohingya who have fled Myanmar, and Myanmar itself should be held to account for the atrocities it commits. There’s no point saying “never again” unless action is taken.

Rosa Freedman is Professor of Law, Conflict and Global Development, University of Reading

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The former Bosnian Serb army general has been convicted of genocide and persecution, extermination, murder and the inhumane act of forcible transfer in the area of Srebrenica in 1995.

Former general Mladić during proceedings in January. UN ICTY, CC BY

Ratko Mladić has been convicted of genocide and persecution, extermination, murder and the inhumane act of forcible transfer in the area of Srebrenica in 1995. He was also found guilty of persecution, extermination, murder, deportation and inhumane act of forcible transfer in municipalities throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina and of murder, terror and unlawful attacks on civilians in Sarajevo.

In addition, the former Bosnian Serb army general was convicted for the hostage-taking of UN personnel. But he was acquitted of the charge of genocide in several municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.

The events that occurred in and around the Srebrenica enclave between July 10-19 1995, where an estimated 8,000 Bosnian Muslims, mostly men and boys, lost their lives, are well documented. These atrocities, culminating in the “biggest single mass murder in Europe” since World War II, not only resulted in a tremendous loss of life and emotionally scarred survivors, it also left behind a landscape filled with human remains and mass graves.

Forensic investigations into the Srebrenica massacre assisted in convicting Mladić, who stood accused for his involvement in implementing and orchestrating the forcible transfer and eventual elimination of the Bosnian Muslim population from Srebrenica. For the Srebrenica investigations, between 1996 and 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) conducted exhumations at 23 sites, while a further 20 mass graves were probed to confirm that they contained human remains.

Srebrenica. Martijn.Munneke/ Flickr, CC BY-SA

The investigative objectives for these investigations were to: * Corroborate victim and witness accounts of the massacres; * Determine an accurate count of victims; * Determine cause and time of death; * Determine the sex of victims; * Determine the identity of victims (a process that is ongoing with the help of DNA analysis); and * Identify links to the perpetrators.

The task of locating and exhuming mass graves in Bosnia continues, as does the general quest of locating the missing in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. And this evidence still matters for the ICTY. Evidence on hundreds of bodies exhumed from the Tomašica mass grave near Prijedor in the north-west of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was presented in the Mladić trial.

The summary judgment read out in the court room in The Hague made this very clear:

During several weeks in September and early October 1995, senior members of the VRS [Army of the Bosnian-Serb Republic] and the MUP [Ministry of the Interior] attempted to conceal their crimes by exhuming their victims’ remains from several mass graves, and then reburying those remains in more remote areas in Zvornik and Bratunac municipalities. Their attempt to cover up the Srebrenica massacres ultimately failed.

Such attempts at hiding crimes by digging up mass graves only to dispose of the bodies in so called “secondary mass graves” results in commingled and mutilated body parts rendering identification and repatriation of human remains all the more difficult. This causes further and prolonged distress to the survivor population and can be seen as intent to cause suffering.

Properly investigated forensic evidence from mass graves, the presentation of such physical evidence, the testing of expertise, independence and impartiality of the accounts in court, is likely to result in more reliable findings. In the case of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić forensic evidence helped confirm the crimes committed – it can be assumed that the same is the case for Mladić; at the time of writing the judgment in its entirety is not available yet.

It is well worth remembering that the information from forensic mass grave investigations has another purpose and does not only speak to a court of law. The work on the ground through organisations such as the International Commission on Missing Persons will continue as there are “too many people who are still searching for their children’s bones to bury”. Those forensic findings will have a value and meaning for family members and survivors that judgments such as the Mladić one cannot have. It offers them information on their lost loved ones and, hopefully, the return of their human remains.

Melanie Klinkner is Senior Lecturer In Law, Bournemouth University.

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President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace have become increasingly divisive figures in Zimbabwe. Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo

The consequences of her vengeance may have led to a coup headed by Zimbabwe’s army chief General Constantino Chiwenga, who is commonly perceived to be Mnangagwa’s protégé. But ex-freedom fighter Mnangagwa has his own presidential aspirations.

Mnangagwa has been exiled from the party in which he has served since he was a teenager. But he is not just skulking in the political wilderness. On arrival in South Africa he issued a statement calling those who wanted him out “minnows”. He promised to control his party “very soon” and urged his supporters to register to vote in the national elections next July.

As if to back Mnangagwa, on November 13 General Chiwenga announced that he and his officers could not allow the “counter-revolutionary infiltrators”, implied to be behind Grace Mugabe, to continue their purges.
 

Factions and purges

Chiwenga declared that the armed forces must ensure all party members attend the extraordinary Zanu-PF congress next month with “equal opportunity to exercise their democratic rights”. He flashed back through Zanu-PF’s history of factionalism, reminding his listeners that although the military “will not hesitate to step in” it has never “usurped power”. Chiwenga promised to defuse all the differences “amicably and in the ruling party’s closet”.

Although this airbrushed more than it revealed about the party’s rough patches when leadership vacuums appeared, the statement appeared more as a cautionary note than a clarion call to arms. It’s not often a coup is announced before it starts; but once in motion direction – and history – can change. Grace Mugabe may have unleashed a perfect storm and her own undoing.

Soldiers stand next to a tank on a road in Harare. Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo

All the “shenanigans” that have inspired the generals to consider a coup have set the stage for an extraordinary Zanu-PF congress this December instead of in the expected 2019: that is, before rather than after the July 2018 national elections.

This suggests some people were in a hurry to settle the succession issues for the president, who is now showing every one of his 93 years. Maybe Robert Mugabe won’t rule until he is 100-years-old. If not, and members of his family or party wanted to keep their dynasties alive, they had to work quickly lest some similarly inclined contenders are in their way.

These contenders include Mnangagwa and a slew of his “Lacoste” faction consisting of war veterans and the odd financial liberal. The best-known of these is Patrick Chinamasa. This former finance minister tried to convince the world’s bankers he could pull Zimbabwe out of the fire. He was demoted to control cyberspace and then fired. Perhaps he may make a comeback in the wake of the semi-coup.

The pro-Grace faction includes the members of Generation 40, or “G-40”. Many are well over 40. But in Robert Mugabe’s shadow they appear young, as does the 52-year-old First Lady. Without a base in the liberation-war cohort, they resorted to working with the Mugabe couple: sometimes their ideology appears radical, espousing indigenous economics and more land to the tillers.

If the history of their best-known member – the current Minister of Higher Education Jonathan Moyo – is indicative, however, they are pragmatic; or less politely put, opportunist.

But with Grace Mugabe sans Robert, they would have to muster inordinate amounts of patience and manipulation to steer the sinking ship to the shores of stable statehood and incorporate yet younger generations who cut their political teeth as Robert Mugabe’s rule faltered.
 

Perfidious ‘saviours’

Yet the possible plan for the upcoming congress – to create a third vice-president – appears not to move far beyond the cold hands of the old. Phelekezela Mphoko would be pushed to third vice-president status. Grace would be the second vice-president.

The current defence minister, Sydney Sekeramayi would be first vice-president and so, next in line for the presidential palace. He is a quiet but no less tarnished member of the Zanu-PF old guard; especially when one remembers the massacre of thousands of Ndebele people during the Gukurahundi.

When performing the calculus necessary to rectify Zimbabwe’s graceless imbalances, remember that Mnangagwa was perhaps the key architect of the nearly genocidal Gukurahundi, now chronicled in archival detail in historian Stuart Doran’s Kingdom, Power, Glory: Mugabe, Zanu, and the Quest for Supremacy. Among the scores implicated therein are the British, condemned by Hazel Cameron, another meticulous archivist, as exercising “wilful blindness” during what Robert Mugabe has dismissed as a “moment of madness”.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that many are suspicious of Mnangagwa’s relationship with the UK. Many suspect he has been swimming with perfidious Albion for a very, very long time.

Those waters, in the shadow of Mugabe’s heritage, will take a few more generations of hard political work to clear. It hardly seems propitious that a coup, and the same generation that has ruled since 1980, starts it off.
 

David B. Moore, Professor of Development Studies, University of Johannesburg

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Alicia de la Cour Venning, ‎Research Associate, International State Crime Initiative, Queen Mary University of London

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