War Crimes

UNITED NATIONS, April 7 (UPI) — The United Nations marked the four-year anniversary of the organization’s involvement in the Darfur region of Sudan by saying the situation remains grim.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says the continued instability fueled by violence from rebel groups and government forces continued to plague Darfur. Ban called on the international community to refocus efforts in the war-torn region and commit to bring peace and protection to the millions of civilians who have been forced to flee, the United Nations reported.

“Continued suffering is both unforgivable and preventable, and the potential for peace and progress is great,” Ban said in a statement. “Let us not dwell on what has been lost in Darfur, but call upon all parties and stakeholders to immediately focus on what can be achieved by ending the hostilities, protecting civilians and coming to the negotiating table in good faith to secure the peace the Darfurians desperately need now.”

Ban said the continuing conflict threatens the whole region, which is already under great strain. He said that despite close to $1 billion per year being spent on peacekeeping missions in Darfur, humanitarian aid would not resolve the conflict alone. Ban called on all government officials and rebel groups to end the violence and lay down their arms.

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The New York Times Friday ran an editorial on an 81-page memo by John Yoo that oultines the legal justification for harsh interrogation tactics for the Justice Department. Yoo’s memo follows similar statements placing torture on equal footing with abuses resulting in near death. The Times piece argues it is abhorrent that it took 81 pages of legal meandering to justify extraordinary tactics as self defense measures, saying the protection of the United States and its national interests should be secured at any costs. It also invokes the early-Cheney doctrine of an “imperial presidency” to coin a phrase. What’s interesting here is the fear still rippling through both the American media in its constant reminder of the post-Sept 11 world (while nobody seems to notice Iran and its growing influence in Iraqi political affairs) as the presidential election rolls on. All politics, as in all relations, has its ugly side and unfortunately this is yet another example of the ugly side to the counterterrorism battle and its consequences on the laws of war.

Editorial

You can often tell if someone understands how wrong their actions are by the lengths to which they go to rationalize them. It took 81 pages of twisted legal reasoning to justify President Bush’s decision to ignore federal law and international treaties and authorize the abuse and torture of prisoners.Eighty-one spine-crawling pages in a memo that might have been unearthed from the dusty archives of some authoritarian regime and has no place in the annals of the United States. It is must reading for anyone who still doubts whether the abuse of prisoners were rogue acts rather than calculated policy.

The March 14, 2003, memo was written by John C. Yoo, then a lawyer for the Justice Department. He earlier helped draft a memo that redefined torture to justify repugnant, clearly illegal acts against Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners.

The purpose of the March 14 memo was equally insidious: to make sure that the policy makers who authorized those acts, or the subordinates who carried out the orders, were not convicted of any crime. The list of laws that Mr. Yoo’s memo sought to circumvent is long: federal laws against assault, maiming, interstate stalking, war crimes and torture; international laws against torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; and the Geneva Conventions.

Mr. Yoo, who, inexplicably, teaches law at the University of California, Berkeley, never directly argues that it is legal to chain prisoners to the ceiling for days, sexually abuse them or subject them to waterboarding — all things done by American jailers.

His primary argument, in which he reaches back to 19th-century legal opinions justifying the execution of Indians who rejected the reservation, is that the laws didn’t apply to Mr. Bush because he is commander in chief. He cited an earlier opinion from Bush administration lawyers that Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were not covered by the Geneva Conventions — a decision that put every captured American soldier at grave risk.

Then, should someone reject his legal reasoning and decide to file charges, Mr. Yoo offered a detailed blueprint for escaping accountability.

American and international laws against torture prohibit making a prisoner fear “imminent death.” For most people, waterboarding — making a prisoner feel as if he is about to drown — would fit. But Mr. Yoo argues that the statutes apply only if the interrogators actually intended to kill the prisoner. Since waterboarding simulates drowning, there is no “threat of imminent death.”

After the memo’s general contents were first reported, the Pentagon said in early 2004 that it was “no longer operative.” Reading the full text, released this week, makes it startlingly clear how deeply the Bush administration corrupted the law and the role of lawyers to give cover to existing and plainly illegal policies.

The memo is also a reminder of how many secrets about this administration’s cynical and abusive policies still need to be revealed. As Senator Edward M. Kennedy noted, the release of the Yoo memo is a reminder that neither Congress nor the American people have seen the policy memos that govern interrogations today. We know of at least two being kept secret for supposed reasons of national security, including one authorizing waterboarding.

When the abuses at Abu Ghraib became public, we were told these were the depraved actions of a few soldiers. The Yoo memo makes it chillingly apparent that senior officials authorized unspeakable acts and went to great lengths to shield themselves from prosecution.

AMSTERDAM, April 3 (Reuters) - The United Nations war crimes tribunal will deliver its verdict on Thursday in the trial of Kosovo’s former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, charged with torturing and murdering Serbs to drive them out of the region.

Prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of 25 years for Haradinaj, 39, a Kosovo Albanian commander of the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), and for his two co-accused, also senior KLA figures during the 1998-99 war with Serb forces.

Haradinaj, his uncle Lahi Brahimaj, and Idriz Balaj, the commander of the KLA’s “Black Eagles” special unit, have pleaded not guilty to charges of torture, murder, rape and deportation.

Prosecutors said Haradinaj, considered a hero by many Kosovo Albanians, kept tight control over his guerrilla force and subjected any perceived collaborators among the local population to brutal treatment.

“There was a saying: ‘God in heaven, Haradinaj on earth’,” prosecutor David Re said when he summed up his case in January.

The former nightclub bouncer resigned as Prime Minister in 2005, a post he held for only a matter of months, after being indicted by the U.N. tribunal.

During the trial prosecutors said Haradinaj led a campaign to drive Serbs and Roma from their villages, with those left behind killed and tortured.

They alleged that KLA forces had used a lake and canal area as an execution ground, dumping the bodies of their civilian victims. Investigators recovered at least 31 bodies.

Others were tortured at a makeshift prison camp, where many died as a result of their injuries.

“Haradinaj, Balaj and Brahimaj participated enthusiastically in the joint criminal enterprise, and are guilty of crimes against humanity including persecution and murder,” prosecutors said in a final brief to the court.

Throughout the trial prosecutors reported witness intimidation which led to two key witnesses refusing to testify.

Haradinaj’s defence lawyers, who did not present a case but submitted a document to the court, said the soldier-turned-politician had fought an honourable war, targeting combatants not civilians.

“The prosecution has not proved his personal participation in any of the crimes alleged. Nor has the prosecution proved that he ordered, authorised or condoned any of these crimes,” they wrote.

Haradinaj is the most senior former KLA guerrilla to be indicted over the war, in a case closely followed in Kosovo.

His father, Hilmi, said his son was innocent and that he was confident he would be acquitted.

“The accusations against him are ridiculous,” he told Reuters at the Haradinaj family home in the village of Glodjane in western Kosovo. “They were fabricated by Belgrade and its collaborators in Kosovo.”

Kosovo’s 90 percent Albanian majority declared independence in February. Serbia’s former province has been run by the United Nations since a 1999 NATO air war to halt Serb ethnic cleansing forced the pullout of Serb forces.