A war criminal or a global champion of human rights! - Frontier Post

Afshain Afzal

 

The latest statement by former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright that the war on Iraq was the US's "biggest mistake" has not surprised anyone. She told the media, "America attacked Afghanistan as a direct result of September 11 bombings. However, the war on Iraq was the biggest mistake we could make and are still hurt because of it." Her claim that America attacked Afghanistan as a direct result of September 11 bombings is absurd as no one can point out a single Afghan national who participated in the attacks of September 11 on United States' military Headquarters, "Pentagon" and Intelligence hub of Twin Towers. All the persons involved in the protest attacks were United States nationals and had links with Americans. If we peep into the history, we would come to the conclusion that in Iraq United States and its over three dozen allied countries failed to take over the Arab country and eliminate its nationals as it did in American lands some couple of centuries back. Probably, the mistake Ms Madeleine Albright was mentioning was failure to achieve the objective of turning Iraq into a new country for the intruding forces by eliminating Iraqis in the same manner as Indians were ruthlessly eliminated from present day US, Canada and elsewhere ie by announcing head money on patriots.If we recall, the British were quite experienced in this business. During the occupation of Indians land by Whites in present day US, Canada and other territories, same principle was adopted to control the Indian population. It was a big business at that time; patch of skin used to be scalped off from the top of the head of each Indian man, woman and a child for bounty money. James Johnson, the famous bounty collector used gunfire to kill as many Indians as possible to collect scalps for the bounty. The bounty money was $100 for brave Indians, $50 any male or female Indian and $25 for children under 14. There was bounty on all the coloured people, especially Mexicans. Hannah Duston was the first American, who in 1697, got involved in scalps business and was able to kill and scalps 10 Indians with knife in Massachusetts for the bounty money. She was the first woman in the US to have a statue erected in honour of her bravery. Hannah Duston's Memorial was erected in 1874 and is the first publicly-funded statue in New Hampshire. Similar bounty laws were also enforced to encourage French, British and Portuguese to hunt coloured population, especially the Indians. President Martin Van Buren's historic wordings are preserved in golden letters: "No state can achieve proper culture, civilization and progress as long as Indians are permitted to remain." Governer Edward Cornwallis "Treaties with Indians are nothing, nothing but force will prevail." President Thomas Jefferson letter to Samuel Kercheval dated 12th July, 1816, is an important document which reflects US policy towards original inhabitants of the US.In another recent development, former US President Jimmy Carter has accused President Barack Hussain Obama of sanctioning the widespread abuse of human rights by authorising drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists. He pointed out that US is violating 10 of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Ironically, this gentleman who happened to be the US' 39th President pointed out that the United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights. One wonders when this happened that United States was global champion of human rights. One wonders if he is referring to the bounties business, nuclear attack on civilians of Japan during World War-II or the mass graves in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. We have so far over 1.5 million dead in Afghanistan and Pakistan only as a result of US and allies' missile and drone attacks on these people. Among these majority comprises of women, old men and children. It is interesting to note that despite Pakistan's repeated demands of unconditional apology by Washington over United States and its allies' missile strikes inside Pakistani territories that resulted in the martyrdom of 24 Pakistani personnel at Salala Post, United States is least concerned as nothing happened. Naturally, when governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan kept quiet on the cold blooded murders of 1.5 million innocent civilians by United States in both the countries, figure of 24 is negligible for any war criminal and human rights violator. Washington's claim that drone attacks are being carried out with the consent of Pakistan is not justified under the International Law. Article 20 of the United Nations' "Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts" states: "Valid consent by a state to the commission of an act by another state precludes the wrongfulness of the act in relation to the former state to the extent that the act remains within the limits of that consent." The drone attacks by the US violate the Charter of United Nations, Rome Statute and Geneva Conventions of 1949, which prohibit willful killings. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. The attacks also violate articles of the Additional Protocol I; Article 51(2) prohibits the civilian population from being the object of the attacks under any circumstances; Article 51(5) talks about the principle of discrimination and regards an attack to be indiscriminate when bombarded by any means or methods which may lead to an incidental loss of civilian life. Similarly, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICC-PR), which has been ratified by US, prohibits extrajudicial executions. According to its Article 6(1) "every individual has the inherent right to life and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life". According to Article 6(2) of ICC-PR the penalty of death can only be rendered by a competent court of law.Washington and its allies are also guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity as per Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It is quite clear that if US is guilty of committing one or more of these grave offences, Washington is guilty of war crimes and crime against humanity. Drone attacks on suspected targets, in which civilians are killed accounts to state sponsored terrorism. One wonders why human rights organisations and activists are silent on such grave human rights violations and if this is the law, can any other country carry out similar drone attacks on targets in other countries. It is high time that the US should be prevented from putting drones in operation against other countries, without openly announcing war against that country. There is a need to carryout trial in International Court of Justice against all those countries which participated in attacks on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and other sovereign nations. afshainafzal@yahoo.com