Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Issue No. 33 September 29 - October 6, 2001 Quezon City, Philippines |
Justice Not Vengeance BY ACTIVE RESISTANCE TO THE ROOTS OF WAR (ARROW) Back to Bulatlat.com Alternative Reader Index On
11 September 2001, three hijacked civilian airliners were flown into the World
Trade Centre and the Pentagon. The US and UK have threatened to use military
force in retaliation. Their primary target is Afghanistan, home of Saudi
terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, but the Pentagon is also pressing for a
massive assault on Iraq. NO
EVIDENCE US
Vice-President Dick Cheney has said that there is no doubt that Osama bin Laden
played 'a significant part' in the atrocities. (Independent, 17 Sept. p. 5) But
there is no evidence at this point to support this claim. On
16 Sept., the German chief prosecutor still had no hard evidence on any Osama
bin Laden connection: 'Despite a weekend of intense police activity in Germany,
however, the country's chief prosecutor said he still According
to the Daily Telegraph, 'In public Mr Blair is playing the role of the warrior
king, declaring that Britain is already "at war with terrorism",' but
in private he has been a voice for restraint. 'In his two telephone
conversations with Mr Bush, Mr Blair raised concerns... In particular, he
stressed that no strike should be made until sufficient evidence had been
gathered to decide the target fairly and properly.' (18 He is not alone. 'Arab leaders - caught between public opinion which has been embittered by US support for Israel and genuine outrage at the brutality of the attacks - are sending an increasingly clear message from the Islamic world: we need evidence.' (FT, 20 Sept., p. 6) The Independent has learned from FBI sources that the case against bin Laden is 'largely circumstantial', 'a tangled web of contacts, connections and semi-autonomous cells stretching most of the way around the globe.' 'The perpetrators are believed to have had little or no direct contact with the top man. At most they would have participated in training at one of Mr bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan. What US investigators have got is, primarily, a series of connections of the type: Person A, who was seen in a meeting with Person B, who was identified in court as an associate of Person C, who either spent time in Afghanistan or admitted a link to some other suspected member of al-Qa'ida', Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. (20 Sept., p. 5) It is worth going back a few days to a Daily Telegraph interview with the director of Europol, the EU's anti-terrorist organisation (15 Sept., p. 9). Jurgen Storbeck 'cautioned against jumping to conclusions before the mass of evidence had been properly sifted.' Europe's head of anti-terrorism said: "Bin Laden is not the automatic leader of every terrorist act carried out in the name of Islam. It's possible that he was informed about the operation; it's even possible that he influenced it; but he's probably not the man who steered every action or controlled the detailed plan. As for the idea that, sitting in Afghanistan, he could have controlled the last phase of the operation is something we should not accept without a lot of doubt." "There are a lot of people with the same philosophy who may have been to bin Laden's training camps, but are not necessarily under his orders," Mr Storbeck added. (Daily Telegraph, 15 Sept., p. 9) The Independent's Andrew Gumbel describes the FBI case against bin Laden as 'not what a prosecutor in a high profile murder or terrorism case would call an open and shut case'. (19 Sept., p. 5) This is a euphemism for grasping at straws. NO LEGAL JUSTIFICATION Even
if there were solid evidence to implicate Osama bin Laden, this would not
justify military action in law. EXTRADITION One nonviolent route, which has not been exhausted, is extradition. The Taliban's position seems to be that extradition is 'premature' (which it surely is, on the basis of the evidence so far), but that they would study 'any evidence' (Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, ambassador to Pakistan, Independent, 13 Sept., p. 8) One member of the Pakistani delegation which pleaded with the Taliban to hand over bin Laden, Nasirullah Khan Babar, said, "If it was proven that Osama was involved, I think this time the Taliban would extradite him." (Guardian, 19 Sept., p. 1) This was reinforced by the statement by the Taliban Information Minister, Qudrutullah Jamal: 'Anyone who is responsible for this act, Osama or not, we will not side with him. We told [the Pakistan delegation] to give us proof that he did it, because without that how can we give him up?' (Independent, 19 Sept., p. 1) The issue of extradition seems to turn on the issue of proof. Thus far, Britain and the US seem to be prioritising threats and bullying over the evidence. HUMANITARIAN DISASTER LOOMING The
Western world is rightly paying the minutest attention to the suffering of those
affected by the destruction in New York. But mass suffering is not confined to
lower Manhattan. 'As many as five million As
part of its plan to capture bin Laden and destroy his organisation, Washington
forced Pakistan to close its border with Afghanistan, so that no suspects could
escape. But the World Food Programme warned that 'More than 1.5 million people
may [try to] leave Afghanistan in search of food and safety now foreign aid
workers have left'. (Telegraph, 15 Sept., p. 4) Millions are about to face
homelessness and famine, even if the US does not drop a single bomb. As long as
vital aid workers are kept out of Afghanistan by the US/UK threat of war, there
is no alternative to disaster. The 'war on terrorism' is also a 'war on the
civilian population THE USE OF FORCE Even if there was an airtight case against bin Laden, and there were no massive effects on millions of desperately poor families, there would be no justification for the threats against Afghanistan. According to the Charter of the United Nations, nations are not permitted to use force against other nations, except in self-defence - in very particular circumstances. It
is up to the UN Security Council to determine if there has been aggression or an
act of war against the USA, and to decide what to do if there has been such a
'breach of the peace' 'to maintain or restore international peace and security'.
(Article 33) UN Security Council Resolution 1368, adopted the day after the
destruction of the Twin Towers nearby, expressed the 'readiness' of the Security
Council to 'take all necessary steps' to 'respond to the terrorist attacks of 11
September 2001, and to combat all forms of terrorism, in accordance with its
responsibilities under the Charter of the United Nations'. But it did not
authorise the use of force, or delegate the use of that force to individual
nations or military alliances. It is against international law, The
use of armed force in self-defence is justified in international law, under the
UN Charter, only when the armed attack is so sudden and extreme that the need
for action is 'instant, overwhelming, leaving no It
is plain that there has been ample time for 'deliberation' since the attack, and
there is an enormous array of possible remedies at hand. It would therefore be
against international law for Britain and the US to Menzies Campbell of the Liberal Democrat party has said in Parliament, 'Retaliation is not self-defence by any legal measure with which I am familiar.' (Daily Telegraph, 15 Sept., p. 6) The UN Charter explicitly states that the resolution of 'any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security', shall, first of all, 'seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice' (Article 33). This London and Washington have failed to do. It
seems almost universally accepted that the United States should be free to fire
its missiles at whichever country it believes to be harbouring its enemies. This
is a right we would not accord to any other THE NEED FOR UNDERSTANDING Jonathan
Sayeed, Conservative MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, said in Parliament when it was
recalled, 'There has to be some understanding why there is so much hatred for so
many institutions in the United States. The strategy must defend 'our way of life' and punish 'those who violate it.' 'But it must also embrace a co-ordinated attack on the underlying injustices, the consequences of which are visible at the Channel Tunnel and in the waters around Australia as well as in New York and in Washington, that fuel and will continue to fuel a war under way for some time but now becoming hideously obvious.' (letters, Independent, Review, 14 Sept., p. 2) Studs Terkel, the US author, says, 'Peace is indivisible, the world is one and we are not the invincible guardians of the world we once were. For the first time we have been touched, and other people have been touched in different ways. Unless we learn what it is to be that bombed child, wherever that place is - whether it be Vietnam or Iraq or wherever - we have learned nothing.' (Guardian 2, 14 Sept., p. 9) For
an authoritative view, we turn to an observer of the Middle East region with
unparalleled credentials - Robert Fisk. Fisk observes, 'this is not the war of
democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to 'Ask
an Arab how he responds to 20,000 or 30,000 innocent deaths and he or she will
respond as decent people should, that it is an unspeakable crime. But they will
ask why we did not use such words about the sanctions that have destroyed the
lives of perhaps half a million children in Iraq, why we did not rage about the
17,500 civilians killed in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. And those basic
reasons why the Middle East caught fire last September the Israeli occupation
of Arab land, the dispossession of Palestinians, the bombardments and
state-sponsored executions ... all these must be obscured lest they provide the
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