'Civilised'
world's shame
Anwar
Ahmad
Julu 02, 2001
Even as
judicial proceedings were underway to stop his extradition, Slobodan Milosevic,
former Yugoslav President, was spirited out of the Belgrade jail and into the
custody of UN's war-crimes tribunal in The Hague. Not coincidentally, his sudden
and swift transfer came a day before Friday's conference in Brussels where
Yugoslavia duly received pledges of 1.3 billion dollars badly needed to rebuild
its infrastructure shattered by NATO bombings. Thus, where there is a will, and
dollars to back it up with, justice can be done.
The malevolent Serb
nationalism unleashed by the 'Butcher of the Balkans' cost 2.5 lac lives. He
presently faces charges of crimes against humanity committed during his
genocidal campaign in Kosovo. With the discovery recently of mass graves of
luckless Kosovars near Belgrade - re-buried there to avoid detection - and a
truck containing 86 bodies from The Danube, the case against Milosevic is
watertight. Not yet so, however, for his patronage of the genocide and rapine in
Croatia and Bosnia.
The two situations
differ in that, while in Kosovo Milosevic had direct command of the Yugoslav
forces, he had distanced himself publicly from the local Serb warlords (notably,
the notorious Radavan Karadic and Ratko Miladic still wanted by the tribunal) in
Croatia and Bosnia.
The distinction is
critical because the case against Milosevic rests on the doctrine of
"command responsibility." This juridical principle holds the commander
culpable for the crimes committed on his orders, with his knowledge or, most
importantly, in circumstances where he should have known that crimes could be
committed. It, thus, covers the entire range of commission and omission by the
commander.
The doctrine was
invoked against the Nazi war criminals, but is unlikely to be applied to the
Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, even though he has a strong case to
answer. Last week, the BBC World telecast a documentary on the butchery
perpetrated in Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon between
the fateful evening of 16 and the morning of 18 September, 1982. After Israel's
occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in 1967 and their bloody
ouster from Jordan (under the command of our own general Ziaul Haq), Palestine
Liberation Organisation fighters were making in Lebanon what had seemed their
last stand.
Israel had failed
to neutralise the PLO through an internecine civil war triggered in 1975 between
its Lebanese protege, the infamous Christian Falangist militia, and the Lebanese
Muslims (whom the PLO later joined) and even a direct incursion in 1978. Sharon,
then Israel's defence minister, decided to root out the thorn forever.
In mid 1982, Israel
invaded Lebanon, overran PLO resistance and, from June to August, besieged
Beirut and reduced the bustling city to rubble. Death toll: over 30,000. So
savage was the hatred at the time between the Falangists and Palestinians that
when Israel, in violation of its written under taking to the US, entered the
Muslim-Palestinian part of Beirut, a Falange fighter requested an Israeli
officer (who testified before the BBC camera) to bring him "this much"
Palestinian blood to drink.
After the outgunned
PLO agreed to disperse out of Lebanon, on September 16, Israeli troops suddenly
surrounded the Sabra and Shatila camps. Thus sealed off from the world,
Falangist fighters entered the doomed camps and revelled in unimaginable
barbarity for the next 38 hours. BBC's footage of the dead littering the streets
and piled upon each other inside their destroyed shacks was soul-wrenching.
Unwatchable. The helplessness with which around 2800 unfortunate humans died,
many boys castrated and the girls raped before being shot, was bigotry at its
worst.
Temporary insanity
can, and does, drive humans to display their most fearsome side. But, with time,
sanity must return and remorse set in. What makes the BBC film truly dreadful
was the complete absence of any contrition by the Falangist leaders and their
Israeli controllers.
The prime accused
is, of course, Sharon. As defence minister, he directly controlled the Israeli
occupation troops in Lebanon. Under the laws of war, Israel was obligated (as it
is for the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem) to protect the civilians under
its occupation - including the refugees in Sabra and Shatila. Thus, even if the
barbarity was enacted by the Falangists and they were not Israeli proteges,
responsibility would still rest squarely on the Israeli command.
That the massacre
took place at all is indictment enough. But added to it are the damning facts
that the Falangists were Israel's hatchet men, Israeli troops had ringed the
camps, let them in, stopped the Palestinians from fleeing, fired flares through
the two nights to facilitate the butchery, allowed lorry loads of Palestinians
to be driven away (never to be seen again) and provided bulldozers to bury the
victims (simply too many in the end for the blood-soaked earth to take in).
BBC interviewed a
South African judge, Richard Goldstone, who had presided over war-crimes trials
for the Balkans and Rwanda. He was convinced that command-responsibility
warrants Sharon's trial for the crimes committed in area controlled by his
forces. Sharon was responsible for, and negligent in, restraining the Falangists
- despite full knowledge of their intent.
The film showed
Palestinian women beseeching Israeli troops to stop the slaughter, only to be
told that they could not leave their stations. Nevertheless, messages of the
worsening massacre were flashed by local Israeli commanders to the defence
ministry. Presuming that he was unaware, an Israeli journalist even phoned
Sharon on September 17. But nothing was done until late next morning, when the
job was done.
Sharon's defence is
three-fold. One, the Falangists were sent in to flush out 2000 PLO fighters
hiding in the camps. This indeed is a confession, as the laws of war obligate
the occupation army to provide due process even to the resistance fighters
(Sharon is similarly culpable for the ongoing assassinations of Palestinians).
But there were no fighters in the camps, as the bodies of unarmed old men, women
and children bore witness.
Two, Sharon did not
know the intensity of Falangists' venom or how far they would vent to it.
Interviews of Israeli officers by the BBC, like the one seeking a pint of
Palestinian blood to drink, trash this "defence". An untypically
truthful American, Morris Draper, the then US special envoy for Lebanon,
described this plea as "complete and utter nonsense." Only a person,
he added, who had "come down from the moon might not have known" about
the Falangist propensities.
They had shown
their mettle by massacring defenceless Muslims in Qarantina and Maslakh villages
and Tel Zaatar refugee camp in 1976. Pictures of the mayhem, with the Falangists
strumming the victims' guitars on their corpses, were flashed around the world.
Sharon knew very well the barbaric potential of his soul-mates.
Three, Sharon faced
an Israeli court of inquiry which had found him "indirectly
responsible." Which other country, asks his spokesman Raanan Gissin would
have done that? Indeed. And, which other country, claiming to be a civilised
democracy, would then have let him off scot-free? And, elected him prime
minister and unleashed him again on the Palestinians? This is the "civilised"
world's "civilised" implant in the "barbaric" Middle East!
Suad Srour, then
14, was raped, shot along with her family and left for dead. Disabled for life,
she has filed a petition on behalf of 28 survivors and witnesses in a Belgian
court which must now decide if it can try Sharon under a 1993 law permitting
prosecution of "foreign officials for human-rights crimes committed outside
Belgium." Fingers need not be crossed, considering that the BBC telecast
came on the eve of Sharon's US visit and he wasn't even questioned on the issue
by the otherwise unsparing US media. We know why.
The Sabra-Shatila
massacre is seen by some Arabs as a part of Sharon's strategy to: clear Lebanon
of Palestinians and Syrians (now being achieved) to recreate a predominantly
Christian state (Lebanon is currently 25% Christian); bludgeon resistance in the
West Bank and Gaza, expand Jewish settlements there and, thus, force the
Palestinians into accepting municipal autonomy; ultimately, push them into
Jordan to create a Palestinian-majority there and a state for them.
The 72-year leopard
having shown already that he cannot change his spots, this could indeed be his
"final solution" to Israel's Palestine "problem." The only
obstacle is the unyielding will of the Palestinians. Can it outlast the madness
symbolised by Sharon?