Tiny Malaysia is Famous for more than Missing and Downed Commercial Jets/War Crime Investigations
Last edited Wed Jul 23, 2014, 06:44 PM - Edit history (1)
Some DU'ers may remember these reports posted where we were thrilled that the Malaysians took a stand against War Crimes...and it's a good time to re-post this. Because it was not only Blair, Bush, Cheney...but Israel that they have indicted. True they have no power...but they set a legal precedent. (2 linked articles, below)
It's sad to see the losses Malaysia has suffered with loss of two Commercial Planes and the lives of their passengers...it's heartbreaking. But, it's heartening that they have tried to stand up for the "little people" suffering under attack by at least focusing attention on top two top issues of division here in the USA and the West.
"9/11" and the rush to invade Iraq caused "crimes against humanity" and now Israel--who has erupted, once again, under Netanyahu where he is bombarding GAZA causing terrible destruction, hardship, murder of innocent civilians and is so OTT that the UN today said: "Israeli Actions could be Considered War Crimes.
Only One Country voted "No." You can guess which one....
And..."Tiny Malaysia"....has tried to do what the "International Court at the Hague has not been able to address.
So....here's "Tiny Malaysia." So sad to see that they have to deal with the loss of these two planes..given what, at the least, they have tried to do in calling attention to the "Crimes Against Humanity."
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Malaysian ‘tribunal’ finds Bush, Blair guilty of war crimes
By David Edwards
Wednesday, November 23, 2011 14:31 EDT
A symbolic tribunal in Malaysia ruled unanimously Tuesday that former U.S. President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair were both guilty of “crimes against peace” for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, part of an initiative by former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad – a fierce critic of the Iraq war – found the former leaders guilty after a four-day hearing.
While the court is modeled after the post-World War II Nuremberg Tribunal, it carries no legal weight.
“War criminals have to be dealt with — convict Bush and Blair as charged,” a statement from Mahathir’s Perdana Global Peace Foundation said. “A guilty verdict will serve as a notice to the world that war criminals may run but can never ultimately hide from truth and justice.”
Mahathir, who stepped down in 2003 after 22 years in power, unveiled plans for the tribunal in 2007 just before he condemned Bush and Blair as “child killers” and “war criminals” at the launch of an annual anti-war conference.
A seven-member panel chaired by former Malaysian Federal Court judge Abdul Kadir Sulaiman presided over the trial, which began last Saturday, and both Bush and Blair were tried in absentia.
“The evidence showed that the drums of wars were being beaten long before the invasion. The accused in their own memoirs have admitted their own intention to invade Iraq regardless of international law,” it said.
Next week, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal is expected to consider torture charges against former U.S.Vice President Dick Cheney, former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/23/malaysian-tribunal-finds-bush-blair-guilty-of-war-crimes/
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Posted on December 9, 2013
It seems that one could just as well ignore this tribunal; much like Israel ignores the condemning UN resolutions, protests, severed diplomatic relationships and all other kinds of protests against the military actions and acts of violence applied against the Palestinians on a daily basis. However, a detailed trial like this indicates that the mechanism has been set in motion, which will have consequences for the entire world, not just for Israel or the Middle East.
The International Tribunal is part of the Kuala Lumpur Commission on War Crimes; however, these two institutions are not part of Malaysia’s judicial system, even though they employ judges and prosecutors of Malaysian background. Israel has no agreements signed with this or any other international court. Yet the Tribunal acts on the basis of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948, which was signed and ratified by Israel. And this very signature, Israel’s membership in the UN and the fact that Israel owes its very existence to the UN and to the condemnation of genocide against Jews in the course of the World War II – all this at the very least gives us the right to challenge and discuss whether Israel’s own actions could fall into the category of genocide.
Interestingly, the USA has been refusing to sign this document for 37 years, having reasonable fears that many lawyers would want to charge the USA itself with genocide of the Indians and African slaves, as well as the Japanese, the Koreans, the Vietnamese and many others. Israel, it its turn, did not foresee that the very convention it pushed the world to adopt after the war will one day be used against it. The very formation of the State of Israel was made possible by the agreement of the victorious powers to acknowledge that Jews were victims of genocide carried out by Nazi Germany and that only having a nation state of its own can guarantee them proper protection.
“The victims of genocide became themselves the source of it.” This is how Hedi Epstein sees the essence of the ruling against Israel. A German Jew who survived WWII, she lost her parents to a concentration camp. Epstein was a prosecution witness in the Nuremberg Trials. And in 1982, she learned that the Israeli Army occupied Lebanon and provoked mass executions in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps. From that moment on, Epstein and hundreds of other Jews embarked on an anti-military and anti-Zionist campaign. However, Israel has refused to listen to their voices. They were labeled “self-hating” Jews and banned from the country which, incidentally, announced itself to be the homeland of all Jews in the world. Israel remained deaf to their warning that the Jews who survived genocide do not wish Israel to be committing genocidal crimes against the Palestinian people in their name.
http://www.perdana4peace.org/2013/why-the-kuala-lumpur-tribunals-genocide-verdict-against-israel-sets-a-key-precedent/
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