American press: shameless comment on France and Belgium

You miss the President Clinton's administration, Mamajuana? But it was just this administration that launched a war against Yugoslavia.
You may say that this was done to put end to killing of civilians. Then why did not administration of President Clinton do anything to prevent killing of a million Tutsies in Rwanda?The U.S. and the Genocide in Rwanda in 1994

steissd: probably the same reason the US didn't do anything about war crimes of Ariel Sharon or General Amos Yaron for their alleged roles in the massacres at the Sabra and Chatilla camps.

Generals Sharon and Yaron did not give orders to kill anyone in these refugee camps, and none of the IDF soldiers was involved in the massacre. They did the same thing Mr. Clinton's administration did: avoided any interference in the events.

the problem with revisionism is that it does not alter the facts:"There is abundant evidence that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed on a wide scale in the Sabra and Shatilla 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. "President Bush should urge Prime Minister Sharon to cooperate with any investigation."

As Defense Minister, Ariel Sharon had overall responsibility over the Israeli Defense Forces and allowed Phalangist militias to enter the camps where they terrorized the residents for three days.

Human Rights Watch said that the United States had a substantial interest in the case because the Israeli occupation of West Beirut followed written U.S. assurances that Palestinians remaining there would be safe, as part of an arrangement that saw the evacuation of Palestine Liberation Organization forces.

The debate in Europe erupted following a BBC documentary on the Sabra and Shatilla massacre, which was aired in the United Kingdom on June 17. The day after, survivors of the massacre lodged a complaint against Sharon in a Belgian court.

During the BBC program, Morris Draper, the U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East at the time, said that U.S. officials were horrified when told Sharon had allowed Phalange militias into West Beirut and the camps "because it would be a massacre." He told the BBC that after the killings began he cabled Defense Minister Sharon, telling him, "You must stop the slaughter…. The situation is absolutely appalling. They are killing children. You have the field completely under your control and are therefore responsible for that area."
Details of the massacre: The massacre at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps occurred between September 16 and 18, 1982, after Israel Defense Forces ("IDF") then occupying Beirut and under Ariel Sharon´s overall command as Israeli Defense Minister permitted members of the Phalange militia into the camps. The precise civilian death toll most likely will never be known. Israeli military intelligence estimated that between 700 and 800 people were killed in Sabra and Shatilla during the sixty-two-hour rampage, while Palestinian and other sources have claimed that the dead numbered up to several thousand. The victims included infants, children, women (including pregnant women), and the elderly, some of whom were mutilated or disemboweled before or after they were killed. Journalists who arrived on the scene immediately after the massacre also saw evidence of the summary execution of young men. To cite only one contemporaneous account, that of Thomas Friedman of the New York Times: "[M]ostly I saw groups of young men in their twenties and thirties who had been lined up against walls, tied by their hands and feet, and then mowed down gangland-style with fusillades of machine-gun fire."

dys: To follow your logic, Janet Reno should be tried for murders that occurred at Waco.

From what I understand, it doesn't work like that, does it.

This was rather a blunder of the IDF caused by bureaucracy. The soldiers did not get a command to interfere, since the bureucrats in the Defense Office discussed how this should be done without killing the Lebanese falangists that were allies of Israel. While the bureaucrats held staff meetings, the falangists accomplished their bloody job. And now the so-called human rights watchers demand scalp of Sharon. NB: they do not demand to prosecute any of the South Lebanese commanders that were immediate participants of the massacre (part of them are alive, and even live in Europe), they want Generals Sharon and Yaron.

maxsdadeo; i think it would be appropriate for Reno to be charged. Oops did i say that, and me a damn liberal too.

steissd

It's understandable that you have another understanding of Belgium law than e.g. Belgians.

However, to call these people "so-called human right watchers" is more than a bit outside my intellectual possibility:
"Mr. Sharon and a senior official in the defense ministry, Amos Yaron, are being sued by survivors of a 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon by Lebanese Christian militiamen, who were backed by invading Israeli forces. Mr. Sharon was defense minister at the time of the massacre, in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps." Sharon Faces Belgian Trial After Term Ends

Israelis in such a case will provide Mr. Sharon with parliamentary seat until his biological death of natural reasons. By the way, how do the Belgians want to enforce their law: are they going to launch a military attack on Israel?

(The Belgian law is based on the rule of "universal jurisdiction," applicable to the most egregious atrocities. The rule, which was given explicit expression by the Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II, recognizes that all states have an interest in bringing to justice the perpetrators of particular crimes of international concern, no matter where the crime was committed, and regardless of the nationality of the perpetrators or their victims.)

Thus
"Belgium's highest court Wednesday delivered a landmark ruling that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon can be prosecuted for war crimes after he leaves office. The decision by Belgium's top court opened the way for several serving or ex-leaders around the world to be tried under a unique Belgian law that allows for war crimes prosecutions independently of where the offences took place. The court decision halted one of the most high-profile suits brought against Sharon by 23 Palestinian survivors of a massacre in Lebanon. In 1982, hundreds of Palestinian refugees were murdered following an Israeli invasion on Lebanon. In 1983 Sharon, who was Israeli defence minister at the time, was found to be indirectly but personally responsible for the massacre and was forced to resign. Belgian court opens way for Sharon trial

steissd

How do you think, is any foreign law enforced? Their are bilateral treaties between states - or not.

There is no bilateral treaty regarding extradition between Belgium and Israel. Any Israeli criminal may flee to Belgium; if he gets residence permission, he will be out of reach of the Israeli justice. The same refers to the Belgian criminals if they decide to flee to Israel.
BTW, there is another lawsuit in the Belgian court: families of the terror victims sue Arafat for encouraging terror.
But both these lawsuits are nonsense: war crimes tribunals are held after the military victory of one side against another (e.g., Nuremberg Trial; would it be possible if Germany won the WWII?).
One more question: will the Belgian court accept lawsuit of Kurds against Saddam when the latter is captured by the glorious American army?

If you were a Belgian, steissd, you certainly had the chance to this with your vote at the next election there.

Regarding your second question, after reading the Begian constitution, (Belgian constitution)
have you any doubts? And when 'yes', why?

Any parallels here? Is it a justified war when a huge army goes into a country ro fight an undeclared war against a country that hasn't attacked it, or its surrounding countries? Just on an unproven maybe?

I know Iraq has missiles that can reach Israel, but the reverse is true, also. But the whole point of this exercise, which always seems to be deliberately lost, is that there is a huge enemy out there in the form of terrorist cells and groups, with deadly potential. And this country chooses, instead, to go against one man. There isn't even an organized group of people identifies with him. A major undertaking, against one man, who may or may not have the potential. This is madness.

Being a sovereign state, Belgium is free to insert into her Constitution whatever she considers being necessary. But Belgian constitution and all the other laws are valid exclusively on the Belgian territory. Outside it, these turn to be a piece of paper without any legal significance (the same refers to Israeli laws that are valid exclusively in Israel).
When Iranian clerical court sentenced the British citizen Salman Rushdie to death sentence for blasphemy, no one in Europe or other parts of the civilized world considered such a sentence legal. Why should Belgian court have jurisdiction over foreign citizens that are not involved in anything causing direct or indirect harm to Belgium? Does Belgian judicial megalomania have reasonable borders?

I have never stated that Eichmann's trial was legally perfect. IMHO, he should be tried by the Hungarian or German court (preferrable, Hungarian or East German, since there is no death penalty in the FRG), and his extradition should be achieved by diplomatic ways and not by means of the special forces operation.

That was how the world was. With, first, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) prosecuting Milosevic and other Serbian and Croatian politicians and army commanders, and, second, the founding of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the rules of the game have changed.

In the case of the Yugoslavia trials, the defendants have not been captured and brought to court by a victorious army, but have been extradited by an independent government - whether the Croatian or the Serbian or the Bosnian - often after much wrangling, discussion and ado, the result of one party in the country sometimes marginally winning a parliamentary vote on it against another. Some of those now appearing before the ICTY were government or army officials until the moment of extradition; one was left to finish his term as Serb vice-president, I believe, before being extradited.

What all that means is not just that the US threat of sanctions or the EU promise of accelerated integration worked; it means that for the first time in history, there's an international court that is not involved in "victors' justice" (as in the Nuremberg cases), but in independent prosecution in the name of the United Nations, and is actually succeeding in some first cases in getting its way on its own - rather than on some nation's army's - authority.

All that is formalised in the ICC. In principle it can prosecute anyone anywhere, if crimes against humanity and the like have been committed. Conceptually that means a new era, namely the end to that golden rule of 20th century realpolitik: you are allowed to do anything, as long as you don't lose. It used to be safe for any dictator to harm anyone within the boundaries of his state to whichever extent, as long as he didn't lose any war with an outside power. After retiring, he'd be able to trek across the world as foreign dignitary and nobody would harm him. No longer so. Pinochet wouldn't have gotten away like he did from the UK a year or two ago anymore if it was the ICC, rather than a Spanish judge, who'd taken a complaint against him into process.

The Belgium law was launched to promote this concept, to speed up the notion behind the ICC. One could ask whether it hasn't served its time now that the ICC has been ratified by so many countries.



Would the Belgian court accept it? Absolutely. Would it ever get Saddam to appear to answer the charges? Not a) if he stays in power or b) if "the glorious American army" would get its hands on him. They would want to do the more traditional victors' justice themselves. The US are in a tiny minority of Western countries that have not ratified the ICC either.



Unlike the laws governing the ICC, Belgian law only pertains to Belgian territory; thus, as long as Sharon doesnt set foot in Brussels he should be safe. And he's safe as long as he's in office in any case.

I heard no protest when "the Butare four" were convicted:

Alphonse Higaniro, Gertrude Mukangango, Maria Kisito Mukabutera and Vincent Ntezimana, "the Butare four" («4 de Butare») were convicted of genocide on June 8, 2001 in Brussells, Belgium for acts occurring in Rwanda in 1994. The four were convicted by twelve jurors in a trial presided over by Judge Luc Maes. Higaniro received a 20 -year sentence, Mukangango received a 15-year sentence and Mukabutera and Ntezimana received 12-year sentences.

At the time the trial began on April 17, 2001 as many as 170 witnesses were expected to appear, including 50 flown to Belgium from Rwanda. The trial was possible under the principle of universal jurisdiction, in force in Belgian since 1993 when a law was passed empowering Belgian courts to hear cases of suspected offenders apprehended in Belgium for international crimes occuring outside of Belgian territory.

I am sorry, but without NATO's military victory no change of power in Yugoslavia would ever occur. Therefore, Mr. Milosevic would remain at power position, and it does not seem to me likely that he would extradit himself to the ICC. The government that extradited him owed its political existence to the victors. It is not only that Mr. Milosevic was a dictator, and could not be changed as a result of elections: he also was very popular among Serbs, he contributed to their national self-esteem.