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CHINA'S GREAT LEAP BACKWARDS
Peter Kwong
gives us the "New China" without illusions: from the
"millionaires' fair" in Shanghai, with $60,000 diamond-studded dog leashes
to one
of the most savagely repressed working class and peasantry on
the planet. How China's
leaders swapped Marx and Mao for Milton Friedman. Alexander Cockburn
on What's wrong with the U.S. left.
They're sitting in darkened rooms weaving conspiracy fantasies
about 9/11; they're blogging; they're confusing a medium with
a movement; they're not doing enough to stop the war in Iraq.
John Ross
takes us along the stormy trail of the Mexican election. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers
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Now!
George Bush just celebrated his 60th
birthday, and in his rare free moments, it would be natural for
him to begin to consider how--and where--he'll spend his time
after leaving office. He seems to enjoy the ranch in Texas, and
will of course be involved in setting up his presidential library,
and work on behalf of his favorite charities.
As a former president, there
will of course be many invitations to travel and speak on a wide
variety of subjectsand that is where my advice comes in. Bush
should bag the foreign travel.
In 1998, Chilean general and
former president Augusto Pinochet, who was in London seeking
medical treatment, was indicted for his involvement in torture
and extra-judicial killings in Latin America in the 1970's. In
June of 2001, former Secretary of State Kissinger was forced
to flee his hotel in Paris, and take a hasty flight back to America,
to avoid a court summons to answer questions on his involvement
with Pinochet's reign of terror. The following month, a Belgian
court ordered Prime Minister Sharon of Israel to appear before
a Brussels court to answer charges stemming from the massacre
of some 2000 Palestinian refugees in 1982 during Lebanon War.
England, France and Belgium
are all signatories of the Geneva Conventions, and the UN Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment. Both of these treaties have articles covering
"grave breaches" or "grievous violations"
under which signatory states have a solemn, affirmative obligation
to bring violators into their own court systems for prosecution,
or to turn them over to an international court, as when Slobodan
Milosevic was sent by Serbia to The International War Crimes
Tribunal at The Hague in 2001.
Standing in court is accorded
to family members of those who have been tortured, summarily
executed, "disappeared", etc. "Violators"
include both those who actually perpetrated the torture/assassination,
etc. and those who ordered or, by their action or inaction, are
deemed responsible for the violation. Heads of State and senior
government officials are immune from prosecution, until, that
is, they have left office. This process has become known as "the
principle of universal jurisdiction".
For a very long time--decades
in the case of the Geneva Conventions--it was in practice the
government of a country directly involved in a conflict which
brought individual violators to justice, or tried to do so. In
1999, for example, the Clinton Administration urged Austria to
arrest Izzat Ibrahim Al Douri, Sadam Hussein's second in command,
so he could be tried for his role in the poison gas attack which
killed thousands of Kurds in Halabja in 1988. Austria didn't
move in time, and Al Douri fled back to his own country, as Kissinger
would do in Paris in 2001.
Former UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights Mary Robinson may have best described the concept
of universal jurisdiction when she wrote, in 2001:
"The principle of universal
jurisdiction is based on the notion that certain crimes are so
harmful to internal interests that states are entitled--and even
obliged--to bring proceedings against the perpetrator, regardless
of the location of the crimeor the nationality of the perpetrator
or the victim."
Former President George W.
Bush will be invited by wealthy friends to enjoy the pomp and
circumstance in Britain; the glories of Paris, Rome and Madrid;
the charm of Swiss mountains; horse rides on beautiful haciendas
in Argentina, Chile and Mexico. These were the perks of people
like Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton who have left
the Office before him.
But he will not know where
and in which of these places charges may have been filed...by
family members of people who were flown on un-marked dull, grey-painted
planes to remote airports to be tortured or "disappeared"..or
family of men, women and children who were summarily executed
by soldiers in places like Haditha, Bakuba or Mahmoudia..or relatives
of civilians whose bodies were lost in the flattened rubble of
downtown Falluja.
Indeed, some of the questions
which French judges wanted to ask of Henry Kissinger in Paris
in 2001 had involved the secret, high-altitude carpet bombings
of Cambodian towns and villages during the Vietnam War.
No, former President Bush would
be wise to stay home in Texas in his retirement. It is highly
unlikely that he would face imprisonment in his own country,
as did General Pinochet. George Bush should enjoy the barbeque,
and ride his horses through the mesquite. Maybe invite former
Vice-President Cheney down to the ranch for some hunting.
Stephen Green, author and former guest editorialist
of the Christian Science Monitor, is already retired, from the
UN, lives in Berlin, and is a member of the Vermont House of
Representatives.
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
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