War Crimes

Punishing The Perpetrators
I, as a citizen of the world, love peace. I say No to War.
I will help to spread the message that war is a crime against humanity, war kills, those who initiate wars or war mongers are murderers and war is not an option to settle disputes and disagreements.
I will be part of that international machinery to mobilise the second superpower -- the power of public opinion -- to make the world reject war, war mongers and any notions of war.
If, all of us, bloggers do that, we can make it happen.
The three-day Perdana Global Peace Organisation conference and exhibition ended yesterday (Wednesday, February 7) at the Putra World Trade Centre.
Aware that the media in the land of the mighty USA had been biased on the war in Iraq and will continue to be on this, our former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who chaired the conference, called on bloggers to help in mobilising world public opinion against war and war mongers.
"We need the help of bloggers and the internet. Help to tell the truth and to make a case for us," he told the Press conference after the end of the conference.
As reported, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission has been set up to study the complaints by 17 war victims - nine from Iraq, five from the Palestinian territories and three from Lebanon.
The commission will then submit its report to the Kuala Lumpur war crimes tribunal, to be made up of eminent, right-minded international jurists with repute and who have no personal or national interest.
The tribunal will hear charges against war-mongers, leaders and governments of aggressor nations.
The tribunal cannot mete out the suitable punishment to the convicted person simply because it does not have the legal authority to do so.
What it will do is to shame the perpetrators in the annals of history. They will be remembered as war criminals, as murderers of the innocents and as liars.
Obviously, the first to go on trial will be George W. Bush. The rest, I expect, will follow -- Tony Blair, Israel's Ariel Sharon and John Howard.
Frankly, if you ask me, we don't need a tribunal to find Dubya and his lackeys guilty for the crimes committed in the invasion of Iraq and the atrocities that followed. Dubya did it and Blair and Howard, as accessories, are just as guilty.
We know that Dubya ordered his troops to attack Iraq. He said it himself. We all heard him. But, since we have to abide by the rule of international law, the process of justice and fair trial, a tribunal it will have to be.
During the conference, we heard the views of activists and the first hand personal accounts of victims of atrocities ("man in the hood' Ali Shalah and Abu Ghraib survivor Abbas Abid).
The exhibition showed shocking, graphic pictures of the brutality and ugliness of war and aggression. No, they were not pretty. Many people had to turn the other way.
Former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney said that the most important thing about the conference was that it took place.
She said the reality is that the average American does not know the truth about the Iraq War.
The average American cannot comprehend the extent of the suffering of the Iraqi people.
She plans to take the exhibition across the US.
I told her that she might find it hard to do that for several reasons, one of which is that she is a pretty controversial figure in the US.
She was the Democrat congresswoman who accused George W Bush of knowing in advance about the 9/11 attack. Needless to say, she got hell from the mainstream media in the US.
Cynthia was the one who offered Articles of Impeachment against Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice.
She told me she will go home and is determined more than ever to make a case against Dubya because she says the world cannot wait any longer.
"We do not condone what is done in our name and we are not complicit", she had earlier told the conference.
I tell her, Good luck. We need more of Cynthias in the US and the world.
Earlier, Dr Mahathir asked what we should do after attending the conference and listening to all that was said.
"Do we go home and, sleep?"
No, sir. Not after knowing that as I am writing now, the US and its allies are, in the words of Hans von Sponeck (former UN Asst. Secretary-General), in advanced stages of readiness to wage war on Iran using tactical nuclear weapons, which means that the unthinkable will happen for the first time since Hiroshima. No sir, I cannot go home and sleep.