[Marxism] Iraq tribunal

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

ANTIWAR MOVEMENT


 Calling conflict illegal, forum takes US to task

By Bryan Bender, Boston Globe Staff  |  May 9, 2004

NEW YORK -- For many opponents of the US occupation of Iraq, the abuses
of Iraqi prisoners are symptomatic of what they believe is a wider crime
that is not being investigated: the United States' violation of the
international laws of war when it invaded and occupied Iraq last year.

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In an effort to augment the public record of the conflict and challenge
arguments that the war was legally justified, more than 50 grass-roots
organizations from around the world yesterday helped sponsor the
nation's first mock tribunal on the war.

''We can't leave the task of writing history only to the victors," said
Basak Ertur, an activist from Turkey who helped organize the worldwide
antiwar protests that drew millions in February 2003.

''From the get-go, there wasn't the kind of support the Bush
administration would have liked," said Liz Roberts, one of the
organizers of the forum, one in a series taking place in several
countries called the World Tribunal on Iraq. ''People are looking for
places where they can become informed, and I think we have reached the
point" where the public wants additional scrutiny of the US Iraq policy,
she said.

Organizers say the effort is modeled on the tribunal organized by writer
Bertrand Russell in 1967 to investigate alleged war crimes in Vietnam.
The venue chosen for yesterday's forum was the Cooper Union for the
Advancement of Science and Art, in part because it is where Abraham
Lincoln gave a lecture on slavery in February 1860, nine months before
he was elected president.

The Bush administration believes that Iraq's failure to comply with
United Nations resolutions outlawing its weapons of mass destruction
programs, passed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, was cause for
military action. US officials contend that the growing threat from
nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons justified a war to preempt the
danger potentially posed by Iraq.

But at yesterday's forum, Peter Weiss, vice president of the
International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, cited the UN
Charter in maintaining that the war was illegal.

The UN charter states that military action must be approved by the world
body unless one of its members is invaded, Weiss pointed out. He said
that in his legal opinion, UN Security Council Resolution 1441 -- passed
in November 2002 and calling on Iraq to declare its weapons programs or
face ''serious consequences" -- was not sufficient approval.

The UN principles on war were ''not drafted by woolly-eyed pacifists,
but some of the world's leading statesmen," he said.

If the existence of weapons of mass destruction was solidly proven
before the war, the conflict could be interpreted as legally
justifiable, Weiss said, but no weapons have been found, nor was
sufficient prewar evidence presented.

Michael Hoffman, who as a lance corporal in the US Marine Corps
participated in the initial invasion, testified on what he said was the
''unlawful killing and detention of civilians."

The mock tribunals have also been held in Germany, India, Indonesia, and
Denmark, and others are planned for later this year in Japan and Belgium.

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