Raza Academy Protests Ariel Sharon's Visit to India

Sharon Not Welcome

Our current rulers-by-default, who can effortlessly pull down historical monuments, instigate communal riots, engineer pogroms, poison millions of minds, change foreign policy at will, can also invite a war criminal as a State guest, at a time very few countries in the whole world would extend him an invitation.

Their guest is a man who was indicted by an official commission of enquiry in his own country for his role in the heinous crime of Sabra and Shatila when about 3000 defenceless Palestinian refugees were massacred over three full days in September 1982 while his forces laid siege to the area after giving solemn assurances to all and sundry, including the US, that civilian life will be safe after the departure of the PLO from Beirut. But breaking pledges comes as easy to the unwelcome guest as his eager hosts.

The Kahan Commission (named after the then president of the Israeli Supreme Court) that investigated the massacre in 1983 concluded that "Minister of Defense bears personal responsibility" and should "draw the appropriate personal conclusions arising out of the defects revealed with regard to the manner in which he discharged the duties of his office." The commission recommended that Prime Minister Menachem Begin remove him from office if he did not resign. He did resign in disgrace, though he subsequently sneaked back into political positions.

This man is Ariel Sharon, a retired general of "Israel Defence Forces", which since its inception has indulged only in aggression and expansion at the cost of its neighbours. Like the IDF, Sharon's past and present history is blood-soaked. He had committed dozens of massacres before Sabra and Shatila, and many more after Sabra and Shatila. He sparked the current intifadah in occupied Palestine by defiantly visiting Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam's three holiest religious sites. Bombing defenceless Palestinians, "targetted killing" of Resistance fighters, pulling down countless homes, placing civilians under a never-ending routine of curfew, uprooting orchards and now erecting an apartheid wall at the cost of Palestinian lands, are some of the later ‘achievements’ of this war criminal.

One of his earliest exploits was a raid against the Jordanian border town of Qibya, blowing up 45 houses and killing 69 villagers, about half of them women and children, in the night of October 14-15, 1953. It was in retaliation for the murder of an Israeli woman and her two children by Palestinian freedom fighters who slipped across from Jordan. The then Israeli foreign minister Moshe Sharett, a former prime minister, wrote about the colonel in his diary in the morning of Oct. 15, ''Which of the two souls that battle between the pages of the Bible will gain the upper hand here, the dark and barbaric or the noble?''

Umpteen demands have been made to bring this war criminal to justice. This seemed possible in Belgium where a progressive law allowed prosecution of war crimes and genocides anywhere in the world. "There is abundant evidence that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed on a wide scale in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, but to date, not a single individual has been brought to justice," said Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

HRW said that "what happened at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity…all those responsible need to be brought to justice. Enough questions are raised by the Kahan Commission report to warrant a criminal investigation…[and] proceedings in a criminal court in Israel or elsewhere that will bring to justice those responsible for the killing of hundreds of innocent civilians…" (http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/06/isr0622.htm)

The case filed in Belgian courts last year against Sharon and other criminals could not be pursued because Sharon enjoys immunity as a head of government. The case may be revived once the war criminal is out of office. Israeli and American arms-twisting ensured that the case could not proceed to its logical end.

The 1998 request for the extradition of Augusto Pinochet and the legal battles that ensued demonstrated a heightened interest in bringing persons involved in grave crimes to justice. The Pinochet case reaffirmed the principle that human rights atrocities are subject to "universal jurisdiction" and can be prosecuted anywhere in the world. Two rulings by the UK House of Lords found that Pinochet did not enjoy immunity from prosecution even though he was head of state at the time the crimes were committed.

Ariel Sharon's personal history is intertwined with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Cases such as those of Slobodan Milosevic, the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, and others, provide compelling precedents for action against Sharon. He should be indicted for the crimes in which he bears responsibility as the first step in a process of accountability that will bring justice to his victims and their families. Instead, this war criminal is to be feted to red carpet welcome by like-minded people in our country who have forged strong ties with the usurper state and talk of building an axis with that country against terrorism.

Sharon is coming to Delhi on 9 September. Let sons of a brave people who drove away the British and gave the world the concept of non-alignment, make this war criminal feel unwelcome in Bharat.

Zafarul-Islam Khan

India Rolls out the red carpet for Sharon

By ND Jayaprakash

It is absolutely shocking to note that the Government of India has extended an invitation to Mr. Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel, to pay an official visit to India. This fact was first revealed by Mr. Brajesh Mishra, India's 'National Security Advisor', on 8 May 2003 in New York, while addressing the gathering at the Annual Dinner held by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), a rabid Zionist organization [1].

Promoting better relations with the people of Israel is one thing but trying to white-wash the heinous crimes of Ariel Sharon, and those of the fascist Likud Party he represents, is quite another. By extending an invitation to Ariel Sharon to visit India, the Indian Government has committed the cardinal sin of bestowing honour on a war-criminal, who is deeply detested by the vast majority of the global community because of his unsavoury reputation. In fact Sharon cannot travel to most countries even in Europe because of the extreme passions such a visit would arouse. It cannot be that the Government of India is unaware of the criminal record of Ariel Sharon or of the notorious Likud Party he has been leading. Therefore, the motives for inviting Ariel Sharon to India are highly suspicious.

During his speech at the said Annual Dinner of the AJC, Mr. Brajesh Mishra had rightly claimed that India "is one of very few countries in the world with no history of anti-Semitism." However, Mr. Mishra very conveniently forgot to add that India was one country that had been consistently anti-Zionist since the early days of its national movement under Mahatma Gandhi. It is primarily after the right-wing BJP [Bharathiya Janata Party]-led alliance assumed office that the Indian Government has started taking an increasingly pro-Zionist stance.

Mr. Mishra had also gone on to add that: "India, the United States and Israel have some fundamental similarities. We are all democracies, sharing a common vision of pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity." Since when has Israel started promoting "a... vision of pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity"! ? Is it not a fact that the bulk of the Palestinian population were violently displaced from the area allocated to Israel under the UN Partition Plan of 1947? Is it not a fact that the Palestinian people are under the brutal occupation of Israel, especially since 1967? Is it not a fact that more than half the 8 million Palestinian population are forced to live as refugees both inside and outside Palestine? Is it not a fact that the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP, a committee consisting of 25 UN members including India) has repeatedly voiced its grave concern at the horrendous treatment of the Palestinians by the occupying Israeli Defence Forces (IDF)? [2] Then by what yardstick is Mr. ! Mishra claiming that the State of Israel has been promoting "pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity"?

Mr. Mishra's claim of shared vision obviously rests on the ignoble Sangh Parivar's (self-proclaimed group of fanatical "Hindu" organizations) version of history [3]. According to them: "Just as the Hindus of India are fighting for their survival in the very land of their origin and forefathers, so too are the Jews of Israel confronting the very same threats to the nation that is theirs by historical and religious birthright. Hindus and Jews both face exactly the same danger: Islam.... The desire to reassert what is their rightful pride in land, culture and religion has awakened in the heart of the common Isra! eli and Indian. The results are obvious, the unabashedly Jewish Likud Party was voted into power in Israel and the political party that represents the reemergence of Hinduism, the BJP has been voted into power in India.... Considering the import of shared experiences, ideas and situations that link Indians and Israelis, it is about time that solid chains of friendship were forged." [4] Kowtowing to such pressure sullies not only the image of the Indian Government but that of the entire Secular Democratic Republic of India. The Sharon visit will also create utter dismay in the Sout h Asian region as a whole and will be disastrous for peace and democracy in the subcontinent.

There is little doubt, therefore, that it is the BJP's fascistic ideological affinity with the Likud Party which is the driving force behind this attempt to forge "solid chains of friendship". Just as the BJP emerged out of the erstwhile Bharathiya Jan Sangh, the Likud ("Unity") Party too emerged out of the erstwhile Tnuat Haherut ("Freedom") Party. The "Freedom" Party was headed by Menachem Begin, who also later went on to head the Likud Party. The Likud Party first came to power in 1977 with Begin as Prime Minister. It may be noted that nearly 30 years earlier many eminent US intellectuals of Jewish origin, including the noted scientist Albert Einstein,! had protested against the visit of Begin, while he was in the United States in 1948 on a fund raising campaign, for his role in the Deir Yassin massacre (see below). In their protest letter, which was published in the New York Times, they spoke plainly urging the US citizens not to support Begin or the fascist political movement he represented. The letter stated as follows:

"Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the emergence in the newly created State of Israel of the "Freedom Party" (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine. ...Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions...the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of <Mr.Begin>'s and his movement. ...Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state.... A shocking example was their behaviour in the Arab village of Deir Yassin.... On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES) terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, killed most of its inhabitants--240 men, women and children--and kept a few of them alive to parade them as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdulla of Transjordan. .... But the terrorists far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicised it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin. The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character of the Freedom Party....The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism." [5]!

As mentioned above, it is the same fascist "Freedom" Party that has re-emerged as the Likud Party, which has been ruling Israel for the last several years. At least three of its members who have occupied the Prime Ministerial post--Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir (who had plotted the murder of the UN mediator for Palestine, Count Bernadotte, on 17 September 1948 [6]) and Aerial Sharon--have blood on their hands. It is undisputed that, when he was just 25-year old, Sharon was directly involved in the massacre of some 69 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank village of Qibiya during the night of 14-15 October 1953 as the bloody operation was carried out by an Israeli army unit led by him [7]. Later, as the Defence Minister of Israel, Sharon was instrumental in plotting the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. There are various reports that vividly describe the result of his ruthless actions in Lebanon. According to the information compiled by the US Library of Congress:

"Beriut suffered grievously between June 6, 1982, when Israeli troops first crossed the Lebanese border, and September 16, when they completed their seizure of West Beirut. Normal economic activity was brought to a standstill. Factories that had sprung up in the southern suburbs were damaged or destroyed, highways were torn up, and houses were ruined or pitted by artillery fire and rockets. Close to 40,000 homes--about one-fourth of all Beir! ut's dwellings--were destroyed. Eighty-five percent of all schools south of the city were damaged or destroyed." [8]

The same report further added: "Taking stock of the war's toll, Israel announced that 344 of its soldiers had been killed and over 2,000 wounded.... Lebanese estimates, compiled from International Red Cross sources and police and hospital surveys, calculated that 17,825 Lebanese had died and over 30,000 had been wounded." [9] But this was not all. "On the evening of September 16, 1982, the IDF, having surrounded the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, dispatched approximately 300 to 400 Christian militiamen into the camps to rout what was believed to be the remnant of the Palestinian forces. The militiamen were mostly Phalangists under the command of Elie Hubayka (also seen as Hobeika), a former close aide of Bashir Jumayyil, but militiamen from the Israeli-supported SLA were also present. The IDF ordered its soldiers to refrain from entering the camps, but IDF officers supervised the operation from the roof of a six-story building overlooking parts of the area. According to the report of the Kahan Commission established by the government of Israel to investigate the events, the IDF monitored the Phalangist radio network and fired illumination flares from mortars and aircraft to light the area. Over a period of two days, the Christian militiamen massacred some 700 to 800 Palestinian men, women, and children." [10] Palestinian sources, however, claim that the death toll was over 3500.

Due to his despicable role in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, efforts were on to try Sharon as a war criminal in a Belgian court of law [11]. On 18 June 2001, 23 survivors of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres lodged a case in Belgium accusing Ariel Sharon (then Defense Minister and currently Prime Minister of Israel) with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide related to the massacres committed during 16-18 September 1982. The other accused include Amos Yaron (then Brigadier Genera commanding the Israeli division's forward command post in Beirut which was located just 200 metres from the Sabra and Shatila camps and currently Director General of Israel's Ministry of Defense), Elias Hobeika and other Lebanese Phalangist militia leaders. (The Sabra and Shatila survivors lodged the charges under 1993 and 1999 Belgian legislations that incorporates the principle of Universal Jurisdiction for war-crimes and crimes against humanity into Belgian criminal law.) Even the BBC has produced a documentary on Sharon titled "The Accused", which deals with his complicity in the Shabra and Shatila massacre [12].

According to activists who are campaigning to indict Sharon: "The central figure is unquestionably General Ariel Sharon, then Israeli Defence Minister, who personally directed the military operations in Lebanon and who was in Beirut at the time of the events.....Certain information indicates that Mr Sharon, although preferring to allow his local collaborators to perform the massacre in the camps, might have planned it with a view to terrorising the entirety of the Palestinian population of the Lebanon into leaving, or retreating to the north of the country.....Concerning the Phalangist militia, they could be considered de facto auxiliary forces to the military power occupying South Lebanon and Beirut at the time. These militia were armed and trained by Israel. Their leaders would not have been able to take any initiative that contradicted the will of the occupying power [Israel], and the operations they carried out were devised and prepared in collaboration with the Israeli military leaders." [13]

It is rather unfortunate that because of intense pressure from the US Government, the Belgian Government has now agreed to change its laws in such a way that Sharon and his co-conspirators cannot be tried in Belgium for war crimes anymore [14]. But despite this setback there is unlikely to be any letup in the efforts of the survivours of the Sabra and Shatila massacre to put Sharon on trial. It may, however, be noted that Sharon was indeed castigated for his role in the massacre by Israel's own commission of enquiry headed by the then President of the Israeli Supreme Court, Yitzhak Kahane, and he was forced to resign from his post as Defense Minister in 1983 [15]. Nevertheless, the situation in Israel is such that Sharon had little difficulty in bouncing back to power within a short time.

Meanwhile, Israel has had the dubious distinction of attaining "pariah" status in the UN because of the despicable deeds of its government. According to American Jewish Committe's (AJC) own admission: "... since the fall of 1996... the world body has entered a new and regrettably familiar phase, reminiscent of the UN in the 1970s and 1980s.... In this vast and strife-torn world, no other country is subject to the relentless, indeed obsessive, attention that is focused on Israel, ! year in and year out, in the General Assembly and other UN bodies. No other country is the subject of an even remotely similar number of critical resolutions, agenda items, committees of the Secretariat, and intolerant remarks"[16]. Seven years later the AJC could not but add that: "There are many others ways in which Israel has been singled out for special treatment at the UN, making it a pariah state." [17]

According to another Zionist sympathiser, only the United States "can be counted on to quickly and unambiguously express its understanding of Israel's situation and defend Israel's right to strike back.... Europeans by contrast stumble all over themselves, trying, but never convincingly, to show sympathy for the Israeli victims, but unable to hide their profound antipathy for the Sharon-led government and their general dislike of military responses to what they believe to be political problems." The same report also went on to add: "...the Geneva-based Commission on Human Rights, for example, was able to devote about 35 percent of its time at this year's six-week session to bashing Israel. It passed no fewer than eight anti-Israel resolutions, when no other problematic regional situation was the object of more than one resolution, if that." [18]

Zionist Israel is despised the world-over precisely because of its forcible occupation of Palestine and its most inhuman treatment of the Palestinian people for the last 55 years. Ariel Sharon's infamy goes back even further. Sharon has never lost an opportunity to spill the blood of Palestinians ever since he joined the Haganah, the terrorist wing of the Zionist movement, way back in 1942. The scale of his cruelty has only increased with time. Thus, Sharon's current role as Prime Minister has been equally appalling. The massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps in the West Bank town of Jenin in April 2002 is yet another example of the brutality with which IDF under Sharon has been treating the hapless Palestinians. It is this bloodthirsty leader of the Likud Party that the Government of India has chosen to bestow an honour by inviting him to India at this juncture. This thoughtless decision of the Indian Government stigmatises all conscientious Indians.

Under the circumstances, if the Government of India does not withdraw the said invitation to Ariel Sharon forthwith, it would be a severe blot on the entire Indian nation. Any hesitancy on the part of the Government of India to do so would only mean that the Government has chosen to turn a blind eye to the horrendous crimes being perpetrated by Ariel Sharon and his fascist clique on the unfortunate people of Palestine, who are under the yoke of Israeli occupation. It would also mean that the present Government has chosen to completely overturn the principled policies followed by all previous governments in India, which have fervently supported the just cause of the Palestinian people.

It was reported that Ariel Sharon is scheduled to visit India from 9 to 11 September 2003, but the Government of India, however, claims that the dates are yet to be finalised [19]. If the dates are never finalised, it would save the Indian Government the embarrassment of inviting a war criminal to India. But unless enough public pressure is mounted on the Indian Government to stick to its earlier principled stand, the pro-Zionist lobby will not desist from imposing its will. (Asia Times)

References:

[1] See http://www.indianembassy.org/i

[2] See The Palestinian Saga.

[3] On June 2, 2001, The New York Times reported in its New York Report Section ("Two Unlikely Allies Come Together in Hatred of Muslims," Page A13), that a group of extremist Queens-Long Island Hindus (HinduUnity.org), who presume to speak for all their fellow believers, have joined forces with the Brooklyn followers of the late Rabbi Meir David Kahane (<Kahane.org>). The two groups have agreed to share their resources and strategies even as they help each other to maintain their hate websites. (See Amritjit Singh: "Is Islam Really a Problem for Jews and Hindus?"

[4] Aditi Chaturvedi, 'India and Israel--Destined for true friendship', March 22nd, 1999, at < (This website is funded by yet another Zionist organization: The Freeman Center for Strategic Studies, Huston, Texas, USA)

[5] Albert Einstein and twenty-eight others, New York Times, 4 December 1948

[6] For more details see: http://www.us-israel.org

[7] See http://electronicintifada.net/ and

http://www.palestinefacts.org/ (a Zionist web-site)

[8] (US Library of Congress / Federal Research Division / Country Studies / Area Handbook Series /Lebanon / Chapter 3 / The Economy / Recent Economic History / Invasion and Trauma, 1982-87, Para1)

[9] (US Library of Congress / Federal Research Division / Country Studies / Area Handbook Series /Lebanon / Chapter 5 / National Security/The 1982 Israeli Invasion And Its Aftermath /The Siege of Beirut, Para 5)

[10] Ibid, Para 9

[11] For more details, see http://www.indictsharon.net

[12] See http://news.bbc.co.uk/ (BBC Panaroma, 17 June 2001)

[13] (The Case Against the Accused / Responsibilities)

[14] See Reuters 12 July 2003 at and The Hindu, Delhi, 14 July 2003. Also see The Daily Star, Beirut, 21July 2003.

[15] Israel's Foreign Relations, Selected Documents, 104. Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the events at the refugee camps in Beirut, 8 February 1983.

[16] American Jewish Committee, 23 September 1997.

[17] http://www.ajc.org/Israel/IsraelAndTheUN.asp, 29 May 2003

[18] David A. Harris, 'Israel nearly alone in its war for survival', Miami Herald, 3 September 2002.

[18] See The Hindu, Delhi, 22 July 2003

N.D.Jayaprakash is a member of the Delhi Science Forum and can be reached at: jpdsf@hotmail.com

The Sabra and Shatila Case in Belgium: A Guide for the Perplexed

The case against Sharon

By Laurie King-Irani

Is a war crimes case against Ariel Sharon, Amos Yaron, and other Israelis and Lebanese still being pursued in Belgium's courts?[1] Or have dramatic legal decisions coupled with blunt political pressures rendered the case lodged by 23 survivors of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre an interesting but failed attempt at obtaining international justice? If the Belgian Supreme Court found in favor of the plaintiffs' motion on 12 February 2003 to overturn a lower court's ruling halting the case, why did world news headlines proclaim the following day that "the case against Ariel Sharon has been thrown out by Belgium's highest court"?[2] If investigations have already been launched by Belgium's judiciary to determine how and why more than one thousand innocent Palestinian and Lebanese civilians met such gruesome deaths 21 years ago, why did Ariel Sharon's government return its ambassador to Belgium with an official statement expressing Israel's satisfaction that the Belgian authorities had finally halted a "cynical attempt" to politicize and exploit its courts? And why did Sharon and Yaron, a few weeks later, withdraw from all judicial proceedings after engaging in two years of legal battle?

Surprising court decisions in Brussels and the Hague, taken in a particularly volatile international political context, have ensured that those working on and following this landmark case have remained perched on the edge of their seats, experiencing one judicial cliff-hanger moment after another. As an exasperated observer noted, "If you aren't manic-depressive when you start following all the dramatic ups and downs of this case, you soon will be!" It is no surprise, then, that even seasoned journalists and well-informed policy analysts are unsure of the precise status of this case, particularly since no small amount of media spin has been devoted to minimizing the case's significance, or even obfuscating what has really been happening in Belgium's courts and parliament.

Furthermore, many observers are uncertain about how recent Belgian legislative developments might affect this case. The Belgian Parliament passed an interpretative law in April that updates Belgium's 1993 and 1999 universal jurisdiction laws (also known as "Anti-Atrocity laws"), under which the Sabra and Shatila survivors filed their complaint. So far it looks unlikely that these changes will negatively impact the Sabra and Shatila case, though some of the new changes introduced by this legislation (discussed below), pose the risk that Belgian and/or foreign political pressures may be brought to bear on this and similar cases in the future.

The levels of analysis required to understand this rapidly evolving case are multiple -- local, national, and international; legal, historical, and political -- as well as dynamic and constantly interacting. Regardless of its final result, the repercussions of this case are already global. Ultimately, the Sabra and Shatila case is not simply about a specific massacre in Beirut in September 1982, it is also about the future trajectory, significance, and use of a compelling and controversial principle to halt impunity for the most horrific crimes known to humankind: that of universal jurisdiction.

The principle of universal jurisdiction, encoded in the Fourth Geneva Convention, international customary law, and the 1984 Convention on Torture, is grounded in an international legal consensus that some crimes are so heinous that they threaten the entire human race. The jurisdiction for prosecuting such violations must therefore be universal, not simply territorial. The Geneva Conventions specifically state that all signatories to the Convention have not only the right, but also the duty, either to prosecute individuals guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, or to make sure they are extradited to a jurisdiction where they will be properly and fairly tried.

Given the progressive evolution of international criminal law, which has gradually placed more emphasis on defending the rights of individual victims over the rights of states and state officials to enjoy immunity from prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity, a major collision of opposing ideas, interests, and visions was inevitable. Much of the background story of the Sabra and Shatila case is a narration of that collision.

Good News...

Reports announcing the death of this case have been greatly exaggerated and persistent, but to date, categorically false. For supporters of the growing global campaign against impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the good news is that the case lodged by the Sabra and Shatila survivors is still very much alive, although it has been affected by rulings of the International Court of Justice, wear and tear on Belgium's bi-lateral ties with the US and Israel, and a global political context that has sharpened debate about war crimes, impunity, and the limitations and requirements of international criminal prosecution.

Although they knew they were initiating something out of the ordinary and quite dramatic when they lodged the case two years ago, neither the plaintiffs nor their lawyers could have imagined what sort of roller coaster ride awaited them. Nor could the Israelis and Lebanese accused of the crimes have imagined, as the stench of death spread over a refugee camp in Beirut two decades ago, that some of the impoverished and stateless refugees wailing over the corpses of their loved ones on that hot September morning would eventually be empowered by a European legal system to demand answers from them in a Brussels courtroom.

Although Ariel Sharon, as sitting prime minister of the State of Israel, enjoys temporary immunity from prosecution for the atrocities committed in Sabra and Shatila, his former military aides and assistants are starting to feel the heat of international justice. Israeli leaders are very worried that legal proceedings may reveal new and disturbing facts concerning the extent of the Israeli Defense Forces's (IDF) involvement in the massacre. Investigation has already begun concerning the roles of top IDF officials such as retired Generals Amos Yaron and Rafael (Raful) Eitan during the massacre. Most observers of the case assume that a key focus of investigation will be the fate of hundreds of men and boys from Sabra and Shatila who were rounded up by the Phalangists and held at a nearby sports stadium under the eyes and with the cooperation of Israeli military and intelligence officials before being trucked away, never to be seen again. Ascertaining the fate of these individuals and the final location of their bodies is a psychological necessity for their families, but discovering the degree and nature of IDF involvement in these disappearances is a pressing legal need for international justice.

Lebanese Phalangist leaders are also the subjects of Belgian investigations, although some key suspects have met mysterious and gory ends since the case was first lodged. Elias Hobeika was killed on 23 January 2002 by a massive car bomb in East Beirut just days after he made it clear that he would be willing to go to Belgium to testify about who did what before, during, and after the massacre.

If nothing else, universal jurisdiction in Belgium's courts has enabled victims of grave human rights violations, such as the Sabra and Shatila survivors and the victims of Chad's Hussein Habre, to turn Thucydides' ancient adage about the calculus of war upside down: In war the strong may still do as they will, and the weak may continue to suffer as they must, but the latter will eventually see the former in court. The 12 February 2003 Supreme Court ruling enabled a number of other pending cases to move forward to the trial stage, most notably the case against Hussein Habre and cases filed by families of Belgians killed in Guatemala and Rwanda.

The next hearing in the Sabra and Shatila case is scheduled for 10 June 2003. Lawyers for the plaintiffs, in a 28 May Press Release announcing that Ariel Sharon and Amos Yaron had judicially capitulated by dismissing their legal counsel in Belgium, sounded a note of cautious optimism in describing their expectations for the case from this point forward:

"A request for indefinite postponement of the case, lodged by Mr. Adrien Masset, counsel for Messrs. Ariel Sharon and Amos Yaron, was rejected by the Appeals Court's decision of 6 May 2003. On the very eve of the new hearing of 27 May, Mr. Masset has just announced that his clients will no longer participate in the pre-trial hearings before the Appeals Court in Brussels... "In effect, the lawyer for the Israeli accused has just announced their judicial capitulation. This latest move stands in sharp contrast to the adamant claims made by the defense of Sharon and Yaron in September 2002, when they accepted the legal debate with the conviction that their legal arguments would prevail. Now that they have failed judicially, the accused are resorting to pressures on the purely political level.... "We expect any newly formed Belgian government to remain outside legal proceedings despite the open and persistent pressure of the Israeli government to derail the course of justice. Since the case was lodged on 18 June 2001, we have respected and protected, on behalf of our clients, the judicial character of these proceedings. Justice was consecrated in the decision of the Court of Cassation (Belgium's Supreme Court) in the plaintiffs' favor in its historic decision on 12 February 2003, and the investigation should now proceed accordingly."[3]

...and Bad News

Unfortunately, recent legislation in Belgium, inspired partly by negative reactions to the Sabra and Shatila case, has weakened Belgium's admirably progressive universal jurisdiction law; it is now considerably less universal. The new interpretative law passed in early April erects some new and formidable obstacles to the prosecution of future cases by requiring a nexus with Belgium. Either the victims or the alleged perpetrators must now have some Belgian connection. Civil parties hoping to file cases as victims of crimes against humanity, genocide, or war crimes occurring outside Belgium can now only bring such cases if they have lived in Belgium for three years.

The public prosecutor may have been given discretion, under the reinterpreted anti-atrocity legislation, to reject some cases. (Belgian officials stress that will be the exception, not the rule, however.) If the accused lives in a democratic country with an impartial judiciary capable of rendering a just ruling to the victims in a fair trial, then Belgium will refer the criminal complaint back to that country, or to the International Criminal Court (ICC) if the crimes occurred after 1 July 2002 and in a country that has ratified the ICC.

Perhaps most troubling, human rights activists and legal analysts fear that the new legislation may unduly politicize cases by breaching the necessary separation between Belgium's judicial and the executive branches of government; the latter can now weigh in on cases in which the accused is from the aforementioned class of "democratic" countries. We have already witnessed the first demonstration of the workings of this new procedure: Belgium refused to investigate or prosecute a case lodged by several Iraqi citizens against US Army General Tommy Franks for war crimes committed in Iraq in March and April of this year on the grounds that the US, despite its refusal to sign the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, could be trusted to follow up on these accusations in its own courts. Ironically, it was accusations about the potential politicization of the Belgian courts by foreign interests under the original 1993 and 1999 anti-atrocity legislation, coupled with fears that Belgium was arrogating to itself the role of the "world's policeman," that prompted the revisions encoded in the new interpretative law. It appears that politics -- real or perceived -- are inescapable when the pursuit of international justice for war crimes is at issue.

The newly interpreted anti-atrocity law may narrow the possibility of seeking justice for war crimes committed prior to the establishment of the ICC last July. Recent moves to limit cases of human rights violations brought under the Alien Torts Claims Act (ACTA) in the United States would also deny victims of war crimes yet another means of pursuing international justice through national courts.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?

In addition to being the most high-profile case ever brought before the Belgian courts under the 1993 and 1999 anti-atrocity laws, the Sabra and Shatila case has also been a bellwether case for international criminal prosecution, a thorn in the side of those interested in preserving smooth EU-Israeli, US-Israeli, and EU-US relations; and a rallying point for a wide variety of organizations, causes, and groups.

The Israeli government and its friends in some sectors of the media made sure to trumpet the death of the case on three separate occasions -- following the 14 February 2002 decision by the ICJ in the Congo v. Belgium case (concerning Belgium's issuance of an arrest warrant for Congolese Foreign Minister Yerodia Ndombasi), a controversial ruling which confirmed that sitting heads of state and foreign ministers enjoy temporary immunity from prosecution; following the 26 June 2002 Belgian Appeals Court decision that the Sabra and Shatila case could not proceed because the accused "were not found on Belgian soil"; and most recently after the Belgian Parliament reinterpreted and limited the 1993 and 1999 universal jurisdiction law in response to the need to update the legislation in light of the establishment of the ICC while adding filters to prevent the filing of spurious cases. These alleged near-death experiences inspired premature and rather cheery eulogies from parties obviously unnerved by the ghosts of Sabra and Shatila, but public response outside Israel was far less supportive and credulous than the Sharon government had hoped.

Shock and Awe at the Belgian High Court

On 12 February 2003, the Belgian Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation) brought much needed and welcome clarity to the case by siding with the Sabra and Shatila plaintiffs on the clear strength and intent of the 1993 and 1999 anti-atrocity laws. The massacre survivors had petitioned the Supreme Court to review and reverse the 26 June 2002 Appeals Court ruling that the accused had to be present on Belgian soil for an investigation and trial to go forward. And the Supreme Court did just that, awing human rights supporters while shocking the case's detractors, who, arrogantly assuming that the Supreme Court would find in favor of the more powerful party, had appeared in force in the courtroom expecting to celebrate a victory for Sharon, Yaron and others.

Scholars, activists, lawyers, and judges who have followed the trajectory of universal jurisdiction for the last decade, not to mention thousands of survivors of grave rights abuses throughout the world, saw the 12 February Belgian Supreme Court ruling as comparable in its implications and reverberations to Spain's bid to extradite Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet from the UK in 1998. Another corner in the global campaign against impunity had been turned, another precedent set in the living, growing, and tumultuous body of laws, court decisions, and commentaries that constitute the dynamic field of international criminal prosecution.

Yet Another Cliffhanger Moment?

One month after the plaintiffs and their lawyers were vindicated by the Supreme Court decision, however, reports of a new case, one even more controversial than that lodged against Ariel Sharon and others, were on all lips in Brussels. On 18 March, a case was brought with great publicity against present and former high-level US government officials. This time the accused included President George Herbert Walker Bush and Colin Powell, who were named as the responsible parties in a U.S. attack on the al-Amiriyya shelter in Baghdad, where some 400 Iraqi civilians died during the 1991 Gulf War. The mover and shaker behind this case was allegedly none other than former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. What Iraqi plaintiff, after all, would have dared to bring a case without the Baghdad authorities' permission? Who else would have known full well that the case would go nowhere, and be simply an embarrassment to the Belgian government? Every supporter of universal jurisdiction for war crimes and crimes against humanity, every defender of Belgium's right and duty to pursue such cases through its courts, was immediately put on the defensive by local and international media and angry US officials.

Bitter accusations about the vulgar politicization of judicial proceedings in Belgium quickly replaced the previous month's accolades from human rights organizations and official Israeli innuendo about the Belgians' allegedly anti-Semitic character and past.[4] Some US spokespersons and media pundits noted with relief how fortuitous it was that President George W. Bush had had the foresight to withdraw the US from the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court...

Belgian officials found themselves on the receiving end of harsh lectures and alarming threats from US diplomats and defense department emissaries who were then haunting the halls of European capitals in the run-up to America's mid-March attack on Iraq. US Secretary of State Colin Powell threatened to move NATO headquarters to Poland if "politicized" cases against the US and its close allies in Belgian courts were not halted forthwith.

Such arm-twisting helped to sway a number of Belgian MPs' views about interpretative legislation that had already been initiated to update and fine-tune the 1993 and 1999 anti-atrocity laws. MPs from centrist parties who had earlier given verbal support for minor changes to the 1993 and 1999 universal jurisdiction law now changed their minds and voiced approval for more far-reaching and radical changes to the law. Belgium's right-wing parties, largely representing Flemish regions, attempted to parlay the new international balance of forces to their own local and national advantage. Thanks to unrelenting US and Israeli pressures, these parties were suddenly empowered to curtail the 1993 and 1999 anti-atrocity legislation to a degree that few watching Belgian politics could have predicted just two months earlier.

The Will and the Way: Politics are Inescapable

Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the principle of universal jurisdiction in practice, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have both stressed the crucial role of national governments' political will in aiding the successful prosecution of international crimes in national courts. Recent events in Belgium have illuminated some important socio-political dimensions of the rapidly transforming international criminal prosecution environment. Although the role of states' governments and foreign emissaries has already been discussed, such political pressures from above and beyond are not the whole story. Grassroots pressures from below have been equally crucial in shaping Belgium's universal jurisdiction legislation, and played no small part in the events that led to last February's dramatic decision by Belgium's Supreme Court.

The 26 June 2002 ruling by the Belgian Appeals court that Sharon, Yaron and others could not be tried since they were not present in Belgium sparked an unprecedented joint initiative by local, transnational, and international human rights organizations as well as members of the Belgian Parliament and government to save and strengthen Belgium's 1993 and 1999 universal jurisdiction law.[5] The subsequent emergence of a grassroots, multi-party legislative initiative did not bear all the fruits it seemed to promise, largely as a result of sudden and unexpected US pressures following the attempt to try former President George H.W. Bush. Yet this grassroots initiative served as a good illustration of the key ingredients required for the collaborative construction of the necessary political will to prosecute war crimes, from the ground up.

Not only states, but also individuals and non-governmental organizations, have a stake in the future of international criminal prosecution. To be heard, they will have to organize, collaborate, initiate and delegate. In other words, they will have to participate politically as advocates and educators, not only on the international level, but even more so at home.

The goal of advocates of halting impunity for war crimes must not be to bring more and more cases to Belgium, but rather, to increase and widen venues for the prosecution of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, whether by incorporating the principle of universal jurisdiction formally into more states' national criminal codes, or by urging more states to become signatories to the treaty establishing the ICC.

As a result of the many lessons learned and the various legal corners turned over the past two years, the International Campaign for Justice for the Victims of Sabra and Shatila www.indictsharon.net will soon metamorphose into "The International Campaign for Justice in the Middle East", in recognition of the fact that an initial aim of the campaign, the indictment of Ariel Sharon, was effectively achieved when the Belgian public prosecutor brought the case forward on two separate occasions in the early and late Summer of 2001, and the competence of the Belgian courts to look into the hideous crime perpetrated in September 1982 was confirmed by the 12 February Supreme Court ruling. Our campaign will still focus heavily on the continuing Sabra and Shatila case in the Belgian courts, but will also collect, analyze, summarize and disseminate information about international criminal prosecution with a special focus on prosecuting and preventing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in the Middle East.

We aim to recognize and responsibly address the fact that politics cannot be separated entirely from the pursuit of international justice at the local, national, or international levels. We will aim to assist others in building the political will and the political coalitions -- from the ground up -- to halt war crimes and other grave violations of human rights in the Middle East, be they authored by states or non-state actors. All crimes directed against non-combatants will be our target.

Acting as a clearinghouse of information and ideas more than as an initiator of actions, we will endeavor to foster and facilitate multi-national and broad-based alliances of individuals and groups -- Arab, Iranian, Israeli, Turkish, European, Latin American, African, and North American -- who share a common concern to halt the toxic effects of continuing impunity in this most volatile region of the contemporary world, and who are ready to engage in an honest, open, and self-critical dialogue about the legal, moral, political, cultural, and historical dimensions and prerequisites of the search for justice in the Middle East.

Just as this campaign began when a group of friends and colleagues in the US, Lebanon, Belgium, and Latin America -- Christians, Muslims and Jews -- inspired by Spain's attempt to extradite Augusto Pinochet, decided to launch an email petition calling for a judicial inquiry into the Sabra and Shatila massacre, we hope that the courage of the Sabra and Shatila survivors and the unstinting efforts of their lawyers will inspire individuals and groups throughout the Middle East to bring other authors of atrocities to account.

To that end, the transformed campaign's web site will feature updates on and analyses of the Sabra and Shatila case as an object lesson in the pursuit of international justice in national courts, but will also branch out into new terrain by encouraging policymakers, activists, scholars, journalists, and lawyers throughout the Middle East to strive to bring their own countries' policies and judiciaries into compliance with the Geneva Conventions, the Convention against Torture, and the Genocide Convention, while also urging more countries in the region to ratify the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court. The legal struggle continues in Belgium's courts, while further efforts are just beginning on the ground in the Middle East.

Laurie King-Irani is North American Coordinator for the International Campaign for Justice for the Victims of Sabra and Shatila.

Notes

1. The case lodged in Belgium on 18 June 2001 by 23 survivors of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres charges Ariel Sharon, former Israeli defense minister and Israel's current prime minister, retired Israeli Defense Forces Gens. Amos Yaron and Rafael Eitan, as well as other Israelis and Lebanese, with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide related to the massacres committed between 16-18 September 1982 in two refugee camps in Beirut. The central argument of the case hinges upon Ariel Sharon's and other Israelis' Command Responsibility as General and high officers of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), which were in full control of Beirut when the massacres took place in the contiguous refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Although the killings of between 1000-2000 unarmed Lebanese and Palestinian civilians were carried out by Lebanese militia units directly or indirectly affiliated with the Israeli-allied Christian Lebanese Forces (the Phalange), the legal, military, and decision-making responsibility for the massacre ultimately rests with Ariel Sharon under established and recognized principles of International Law, most notably the Fourth Geneva Convention.

2. The Court of Cassation (Belgium's Supreme Court) on 12 February 2003 upheld the competence of Belgian courts under the 1993 and 1999 universal jurisdiction laws to address serious violations of international humanitarian law, namely war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, regardless of where the plaintiff is or any other condition not specified by the law. It thus reversed the 26 June 2002 decision of the Court of Appeals and sent the case back for correction (by the Court of Appeals, but with a different composition than the earlier court), allowing the investigation and trial to go forward. The Court drew a clear distinction, however, between Ariel Sharon and the rest of the accused. For the former, being Prime Minister of Israel, enjoys procedural immunity from prosecution under international customary law so long as he holds that position. The others accused do not, however, enjoy immunity, and their trial can go forward.

3. For the complete text of the 26 May 2003 Press Release by lawyers Luc Walleyn, Michael Verhaeghe, and Chibli Mallat, see the website of the International Campaign for Justice for the Victims of Sabra and Shatila at www.indictsharon.net

4. The day after the Belgian Supreme Court's ruling, lawyers for the plaintiffs were forced to issue an Open Letter to Israeli Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to halt his incendiary public and official comments about the Belgian Government and those who had brought the Sabra and Shatila case to the Belgian Courts. Part of this letter is provided below. For the full text see www.indictsharon.net

[letter to the Israeli foreign minister]

Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu

Minister of Foreign Affairs

Israel

Dear Mr. Netanyahu,

Yesterday you declared that the Belgian Supreme court made "a scandalous decision, which legitimizes terror and harms those who fight it. This turns the tables -- when those who fight terror turn into the accused and the terrorists are victorious."

As counsels of the plaintiffs, 28 Palestinian and Lebanese survivors of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, we cannot accept your language, tone, or characterization of yesterday's landmark ruling.

Our clients are not "terrorists," but ordinary people who were raped, tortured, and wounded; who were forced to witness -- and relive everyday since -- the slaughter of their children, parents, husbands and wives, or who had their close relatives "disappeared." By calling these victimized survivors "terrorists," after all that they have endured for over twenty years, you have brought shame upon yourself as Foreign Minister, and upon your country, which, to its great credit, acknowledged the responsibility of Israeli politicians and military in this crime against humanity two decades ago, yet has never gone one additional and crucial step further by legally prosecuting the perpetrators and compensating the victims.

As Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel, you should not accuse the Belgian Supreme Court of legitimizing terrorism simply because it accepts the principle that Belgian courts have universal jurisdiction over perpetrators of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity.

5. See "Universal Jurisdiction: Still Trying to Try Sharon," by L. King-Irani on the website of the Middle East Research and Information Project: http://www.merip.org/mero/ mero073002.html

Human Rights Watch to the Belgian government:

Do not dismiss the Sabra & Shatila war crimes case

Today's vote in the Belgian Parliament to amend Belgium's landmark anti-atrocity law will create political and diplomatic hurdles to the prosecution of many human rights crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. Some key cases which had been stalled, however, including that against Chad's exiled former president, Hissene Habre, will now move forward.

The Belgian law, which permits victims to file complaints in Belgium for atrocities committed abroad, has come under attack as a result of a growing number of filings against foreign leaders. The Belgian Supreme Court, in a February decision on a complaint by victims of a 1982 massacre of civilians in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla, upheld the law against legal challenges, while ruling that top sitting state officials, such as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, enjoyed immunity from Belgian courts.

Human rights organizations have long proposed establishing "filters" to prevent frivolous cases and render the law more politically viable. A controversial new provision adopted today, however, goes much further by allowing the government, in cases in which the victim is not Belgian, and where the accused's home state upholds the right of a fair trial, to step in and send the complaint to that state. This provision was pushed through after a complaint was filed on March 19 against former U.S. President George Bush, and other senior figures by the families of Iraqi victims of a U.S. attack on a Baghdad shelter in the 1991 Gulf War which left over 400 persons dead.

In practice, said Human Rights Watch, this provision will subject the government to diplomatic pressure when a complaint is filed.

"Everyone agrees that Belgium should be a court of last resort for atrocity victims, not a dumping ground for political grievances," said Reed Brody, Special Counsel with Human Rights Watch. "But today's amendment opens the door to political and diplomatic negotiations over almost every case that is filed. The government has promised that it would step in only in exceptional cases. We will be holding their feet to the fire to keep that promise."

Human Rights Watch noted that today's vote ensures that several stalled cases in which there are Belgian victims can now go forward. These include the cases of Belgians killed in Guatemala and Rwanda as well as the case against Chad's exiled former president, Hissene Habre. A Belgian judge and police team visited Chad last year to investigate the charges against Habre who lives in exile in Senegal, where he was indicted three years ago on atrocity charges before the Senegalese courts ruled that he could not be tried there. Senegal is holding Habre pending an extradition request from Belgium and the government of Chad recently told Belgium that it would waive any immunity that Habre might seek to assert. The Habre case is not subject to government intervention because a number of the victims are Belgian and because Chad does not offer the possibility of a fair trial.

"It is now clear that the case against Habre can go forward," said Brody. "We hope that Habre will be indicted soon and then extradited from Senegal to stand trial in Belgium."

Human Rights Watch also called on the government not to dismiss the Sabra and Shatilla case. "There is abundant evidence that crimes against humanity were committed in the massacre of over 700 civilians, but not a single individual has been brought to justice," said Brody. "Sending the case to Israel is just a recipe for continued impunity."

Under other amendments adopted today, before a victim can file a case directly in the future, there must be some link with Belgium, either because the suspect is on Belgium soil, because the crimes took place in Belgium or because the victim is Belgian or has lived in Belgium for three years. If there is no such link, the victim can take the case to the state prosecutor who must bring the case unless it appears unfounded or unless an international court or the courts where the crimes took place or of the suspect's home state offer a fair, independent and more effective avenue to justice. The victims can appeal the prosecutor's decision not to act. (Brussels, 5 April 2003)

Never forget?

The forgotten slaughter of 9/16

By Mike Carlton

Exhausted, perhaps, by the media orgy of commemoration for September 11, the world somehow managed to forget another grim anniversary this week.

It fell on Monday. Twenty years ago, troops and tanks of the Israeli Army had surrounded two Palestinian refugee camps not far from Beirut, now known to history as Sabra and Shatila. They had checkpoints to monitor who came and went.

On September 16, 1982, about 150 killers of the South Lebanese Christian Militia, sometimes known as the Phalange, were waved through by the Israelis. They stormed into the camps, ostensibly to search for PLO terrorists who had assassinated their leader, Bashir Gemayal, in a car bomb two days earlier.

What followed was a hell of rape and murder. For three days and nights the militia rampaged through Sabra and Shatila, shooting indiscriminately. Some survivors claim they heard the murderers talking about using axes to kill, to lessen the noise. Houses were fired and demolished. Nobody knows how many were slaughtered: estimates range from 800 up to 3000.

The Israeli Defence Minister of the time was General Ariel Sharon, now, of course, Prime Minister, but then the commander of Operation Peace for Galilee to drive the Palestinians out of Lebanon in alliance with those Christian Phalangists. In 1983, Sharon was forced to resign after an Israeli inquiry, the Kahane commission, found that he bore some responsibility for the massacre by "having disregarded the danger of acts of vengeance" when allowing the militia into the camps.

Last year, survivors of Sabra and Shatila charged Sharon with war crimes before a court in Belgium, where the law would allow him to be prosecuted for such things. Surprise, surprise, in January this year the chief witness against him, the former Christian militia intelligence chief Elie Hobeika, was killed by a car bomb. The Belgians then dumped the case on a technicality.

I thought this worth remembering even at the risk of upsetting the howling harridans of our very own media phalange.

HONESTLY, you could have knocked me down with a feather when I heard the frightful news that dear old Dr Jim Cairns had actually bedded Junie Morosi all those years ago.

Who would have thought it? Who could have imagined such a thing? In 1975, the Whitlam government was thundering headlong to its destruction, chaos all about. Now we learn, no doubt to widespread astonishment, that the treasurer and deputy prime minister - bewitched, besotted - was actually bonking his luscious personal assistant as Rome fell. (Not that this useful euphemism had been minted then, but bonking it most certainly was, despite the frosty official denials at the time.)

"I don't think the ordinary person thought I was wrong or a fool in going to bed with Junie Morosi," said Dr Jim, unburdening himself to an ABC radio interviewer last Sunday, admitting that he'd known all along that we'd known. "They thought it was a pretty good thing: 'I wouldn't mind doing it myself'."

Indeed. I remember a stirring of the loins when - callow youth - I interviewed the sultry siren for television at the height of the uproar.

Those were the days for Labor when Party meant party. In January 1975 the ALP staged its riotous, never-to-be-forgotten national conference at a resort hotel in Terrigal, where the wicked old Sydney Sun photographed Jim and Junie together and obligingly confessing to "a kind of love" for each other.

Bob Hawke, still in ACTU bodgie mode, was snapped tanning the bod in rolled-down Speedos and, topless again, being whipped by a buxom wench at Old Sydney Town; Don Dunstan's coterie of gilded aides de camp whiled away the hours "wrestling" in the pool; and the party president, Queensland's Jack Egerton, was heard to shout over the unending conference din: "For f---'s sake, will delegates at the rear of the bloody hall sit down and f---ing well shut up!"

I am not making this up. Later, after the fall, the steatopygic Egerton gracelessly snatched a knighthood for services to I can't remember what. Gough, outraged at such apostasy, referred to him ever after as Sir Toby Belch. With Labor's horrible showing in the opinion polls again this week, I urge a return to those carefree days. Devoid of policies or even ideas, the Opposition is in such a slough of despond that almost any frivolity would be worth a try to attract the punters' attention.

Over to you, Mark Latham. Simon Crean being flogged in Speedos might just be a winner.

STILL six months to the state election, but already the law and order auction between Government and Opposition is rattling along at a thrilling pace.

There was a minor glitch on Wednesday when a red-faced John Brogden discovered he had accidentally reduced a maximum sentence for child abuse by five years, but we can be sure that won't happen again as he gets the act together.

Labor's soon-to-be-released policy of reintroducing the transportation of convicts to Norfolk Island in broad arrow, ball and chain will be popular, I predict, although probably trumped by the Liberals' plan to tie down felons in the desert, their bodies smeared with honey for the ants, the crows to ravage their whitening bones.

Bob Carr, though, may well top that with the electric chair or perhaps public hangings on A Current Affair with Mike Munro. Corpses swinging from gibbets at Circular Quay would make us all feel safer.

Meanwhile, Radio 2UE and The Sydney Morning Herald are offering you a once-in-a-lifetime chance to bring a crook to justice. Yes, you could be judge, jury and executioner by completing this sentence in 25 words or less: I would like to join a firing squad because ...

It's off to war we go - but not with the chicken hawks

As the drums of war sound for Iraq, it is always worth remembering that those most eager to start the fighting are those least likely to be taking part. Alexander Downer, for instance.

Conversely, those who have been to war are the most reluctant to begin another one. Colin Powell, for instance. Or two of our own former defence chiefs, General Peter Gration and Admiral Alan Beaumont, who were both quoted this week warning against a rush to send Australians against Saddam Hussein.

The tyrant's devious offer to allow the return of UN weapons inspectors may have postponed an American attack, but soon enough the hawks in Washington will be ascendant again.

They are led by the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, his old buddy and now Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, and the saturnine figure of Richard Perle, one of those hard-right Republican policy wonks who glides from think tank to think tank and who rejoices in the nickname of the Prince of Darkness.

Each of these men somehow managed to absent himself from the Vietnam War, rather like their President, who conducted his fight against Ho Chi Minh in the Texas National Guard.

In Washington these days they call them the chicken hawks. (Sydney Morning Herald, September 21 2002)

Massacres Don't "Just Happen"

Laurie King-Irani

On a hot and muggy Saturday morning twenty years ago, a shocking reality came to light in Lebanon. People approaching the contiguous refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila on the outskirts of Beirut that day suspected that dark deeds had taken place in the alleyways, homes, and streets of the camps for a day or more. Three days earlier, Israeli troops and tanks had surrounded the camps as the area came under constant artillery fire.

Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers, commanded by General Ariel Sharon and assisted by Generals Rafael Eitan and Amos Yaron, had prevented anyone from entering or leaving the camp -- anyone, that was, but Israeli-backed, -armed, and -supplied Phalangist militiamen, infamous for their murderous hatred of Palestinians. At night, IDF soldiers had launched illumination flares into the sky to assist these militiamen in their gruesome tasks, the results of which would appall the world by the evening of that September Saturday two decades ago.

Yet even before the journalists, diplomats, Red Cross personnel and others had entered the camps that morning, their worst fears were confirmed by the nauseating smell of putrefying flesh and the audible drone of feasting flies, the only sound to break the stifling silence before the anguished screams of survivors shattered the air. Hardened journalists vomited. Grown men fainted. Seasoned Red Cross representatives were dazed.

"I divide my life into before and after Sabra and Shatila," said Elias, a former Red Cross volunteer with whom I worked in Lebanon. "I was not the same person after I saw the severed bodies of babies and the corpses of women with their stomachs ripped open. For weeks, I imagined I could still smell all those bodies stinking in the heat of that morning. It completely altered my view of human nature."

Only seventeen at the time, Elias was among the youngest of those to discover one of the worst atrocities of the post-World War II era in the refugee camps on September 18, 1982. Now approaching his forties, he will never forget that date or its significance.

Massacres don't "just happen." They are not natural disasters, like earthquakes, tornadoes, or tidal waves. Massacres require thought, planning, and coordination. Massacres arise from calculated strategies and the cunning manipulation of emotions, facts, and rationales. They require a particular set of interlocking social roles and a specific pattern of behaviors. Every massacre has its own political organization, propped up by a set of motivating beliefs and legitimating ideologies.

Massacres don't erupt spontaneously, like barroom brawls. When an army is involved--as was clearly the case 20 years ago in Beirut, a divided city under Israeli military occupation--massacres also require a chain of command. Orders are given, tanks are deployed, papers are checked and approved, passage is denied, roads are blocked, exits are sealed, flares are launched, soldiers are transported across demarcation lines, murderers are provisioned, mass graves are dug, corpses are concealed, people are disappeared, and then stories are spun, excuses are offered, and--always-- facts are denied. The first casualty of every war and the last casualty of every massacre is the same: the truth.

Under international law, specifically the IV Geneva Conventions, command responsibility for war crimes ultimately rests upon the shoulders of the highest-ranking military officers present. In the case of the Sabra and Shatila massacres, that person was and remains General Ariel Sharon. The fact that, 20 years later, Sharon is a sitting head of state enjoying the perquisites of power and prestige while the dead of Sabra and Shatila lie forgotten in unmarked graves should be cause for widespread alarm and outrage. The absence of such is sinister; it comprises evidence of other, ongoing and metaphorical, murders.

The Dangers of Impunity

Massacres have authors; they are crimes that must be investigated and prosecuted. For the bereaved, massacres never end until justice is done. Every day since that horrific Saturday in 1982 has been September 18th over and over again for the survivors of Sabra and Shatila. To forget a massacre is to kill the dead a second time; to forget the dead is to condone the crime and to excuse the killers. And the dead of Sabra and Shatila have been killed many, many times. Every time another anniversary passed and no one marked it, every time garbage desecrated the mass grave site, every time the Lebanese authorities refused to investigate or prosecute the crimes, not only the dead, but also the tormented survivors, were murdered again and again.

Every time Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who, according to an official Israeli commission of inquiry "bears personal responsibility" for the massacres, is warmly welcomed in Western capitals and heralded as a "man of peace," the truth is murdered once more. This is how impunity flourishes, how laws are rendered meaningless, and how the delicate fabric of human social and political affairs gradually erodes.

Continued impunity for the Sabra and Shatila massacres is not only morally reprehensible and psychologically unbearable, but also politically dangerous because of the precedent it sets and the hearts and minds it poisons. He who is denied justice will seek revenge. The evil of a crime condoned festers and spreads, eventually touching others, even miles away and decades later.

An Agonizing Anniversary

Today, the 20th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres, may well be the most painful to date for the bereaved. Last year, 23 courageous survivors lodged a case against Ariel Sharon, Amos Yaron, and other Israelis and Lebanese in a Belgian court under the principle of Universal Jurisdiction in the hopes of finally attaining justice for the dead and closure for the living. The principle of universal jurisdiction, encoded in the IV Geneva Conventions, international humanitarian law and the 1984 Convention on Torture, is based on customary law as well as a consensus, strengthened by the horrors of World War II, that some crimes are so heinous that they threaten the entire human race. The jurisdiction for prosecuting these crimes must be universal, not simply territorial.

The Geneva Conventions specifically state that all signatories to the convention have not only the right but indeed the duty to either prosecute or extradite individuals guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. In 1993, the Belgian Parliament formally incorporated the principle of Universal Jurisdiction into Belgium's criminal code, thereby enabling Belgian courts to hear war crimes cases having no connection to Belgium.

Despite careful documentation and extensive testimonies, despite the consistent support of the Brussels Attorney-General for the arguments presented by the massacre survivors, not those of the lawyers representing the accused, during the pre-trial hearing; and despite new evidence further implicating IDF personnel in the massacres as well as in the disappearance of hundreds of men and boys in the immediate aftermath of the killings, a Belgian Appeals Court threw the case out last June on an absurd technicality: The case could not proceed to trial because the accused were "not present on Belgian soil."

International legal specialists, no less than Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, noted that this ruling made a mockery of the principle of universal jurisdiction for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yet another murder has now emanated from the Sabra and Shatila massacres: the murder of popular faith in the principles, processes, and efficacy of international law.

Criminal Biography of Ariel Sharon