War Crimes Tribunals
There have been two important tribunals held recently, one in Cambodia and the other in Malaysia.The former has to do with the trials of former Khmer Rouge members where the accused were found guilty of their various criminal acts. The question that needs asking about these trials is why have Westerners such as Kissinger and Thatcher not also been indicted?
If it had not been for Kissinger’s illegal bombing of the border regions which killed approx: 750’000 Cambodians it is highly unlikely that Pol-Pot would have risen to power and Year Zero might never have occurred. As to Thatcher’s involvement this happened even after the full horrors were known when she ordered our S.A.S. to aid and train the K-R, a task even those trained killers balked at a little. war crimes tribunalNone of this is new, John Pilger and Mark Curtis have all covered the events in detail. As to the latter Tribunal in Kuala Lumpur which happened within the last ten days, the Malaysian Federal Court with Judge Abdul Kadir Sulaiman presiding and with five other judges agreeing found ex-President Bush and ex-Prime Minister Blair guilty of genocide war crimes and crimes against humanity.The President ruled the invasion of Iraq a flagrant abuse of law and act of aggression which amounted to a mass murder of the Iraqi people.
This judgment is an amplification of the late Lord Bingham’s verdict that the invasion was ‘vigilantism’ though I would contend that even that description is euphemistic, gangsterism seems more accurate. Two interesting points arise, so far there has been zero reportage of the Malaysian Tribunal’s verdict in the U.K. but more worryingly it appears that this country is incapable of holding the executive arm of government to account even when the crimes are so monumental.Other countries have to do what we fail to do but even when they do we ignore their judgment.
It seems we in the West regard ourselves as spotless and beyond reproach.One can only hope the I.C.C. will be informed and finally issue arrest warrants for this pair of flagrant war criminals.