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The Role of the Great Powers behind Modern Human Rights
Catastrophes: Bosnia, Palestine, Chechnya, Kosova, Iraq, etc.
by Francis
A. Boyle
(The author served as Legal Adviser to the Palestinian
Delegation to the Middle East peace Negotiations from 1991 to 1993.
The viewpoints expressed here are his own.)
What do we do about major human rights atrocities and
catastrophes that undeniably do occur in the world today? Certainly, we do
not give the great military powers of the world such as the United States,
the NATO states, Russia, and China a right of "humanitarian
intervention" that they will only abuse and manipulate to justify
military intervention against less powerful states and peoples for their
own selfish interests. There are more than enough international laws and
international organizations to deal with major human rights atrocities and
catastrophes going on around the world today. This is a political problem,
not a legal problem. Indeed, behind most of the major human rights
atrocities and catastrophes in the world today, we have seen the dirty and
bloody hands of the Great Powers.
In this regard, I wanted to say just a few words about the
genocide by the Milosevic regime against the People and the Republic of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the role that the Great Powers of Europe, the
United States, and the United Nations Organization played in aiding,
abetting, and facilitating this modern human rights catastrophe -- the
worst in Europe since the genocidal horrors perpetrated by the Nazis over
a generation ago. Pursuant to the self-styled Dayton Peace Agreement, on
14 December 1995 the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina -- a U.N. member
state -- was carved-up de facto in Paris by the United Nations, the
European Union and its member states, the United States, Russia and the
many other states in attendance, despite the United Nations Charter, the
Nuremberg Principles, the Genocide Convention, the Four Geneva Conventions
of 1949 and their two Additional Protocols of 1977, the Racial
Discrimination Convention, the Apartheid Convention, and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, as well as two overwhelmingly favorable
protective Orders issued by the International Court of Justice on behalf
of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 8 April 1993 and 13 September
1993. This second World Court Order effectively prohibited such a
partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina by the vote of 13 to 2.
This U.N.-sanctioned execution of a U.N. member state
violated every known principle of international law and human rights that
had been formulated by the international community in the post World War
II era. The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was sacrificed on the altar
of Great Power politics to the Machiavellian god of expedience. In 1938
the Great Powers of Europe did the exact same thing to Czechoslovakia at
Munich.
The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina stands for the
proposition that genocide pays. As then Bosnian Foreign Minister (later
Prime Minister) Haris Silajdzic said in reference to the invitation of the
genocidaire Radovan Karadzic by the United Nations, the European
Community, and the United States to attend the 1993 Vance-Owen
negotiations in New York: "If you kill one person, you're prosecuted.
If you kill ten people, you're a celebrity; if you kill a quarter of a
million people, you're invited to a peace conference." Almost three
years later at Dayton, Richard Holbrooke, Warren Christopher and Bill
Clinton personally gave the genocidaire Slobodan Milosevic 49% of the
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And Serbia today still controls,
dominates, and strangulates almost one-half of Bosnia and Herzegovina -- a
U.N. member state.
I currently represent the Mothers of Srebrenica and
Podrinja living in Vogosca, Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as the Women of
Srebrenica, living in Tuzla, B-H. These are the two major organizations
grouping the women and children survivors of the greatest massacre in
Europe since World War II. In July of 1995 approximately 10,000 Bosnian
Muslim men and boys were taken out and systematically exterminated over
just a few days at the U.N. declared "safe-haven" of Srebrenica
by the Bosnian Serb Army acting at the behest of the Milosevic regime in
Belgrade. The Great Powers of the world on the Security Council, the
European Union and the United Nations Organization deliberately sacrificed
Srebrenica and its inhabitants in order to produce the carve-up of the
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina that the United States government then
later orchestrated at Dayton and Paris.
Almost six years after the massacre, the Mothers of
Srebrenica and Podrinja as well as the Women of Srebrenica cannot even go
back to their homes in Srebrenica because of dire fear for their lives.
And the United States, the European States, the NATO states, and the
United Nations Organization could not give a tinker's dam about the
Mothers of Srebrenica and Podrinja and the Women of Srebrenica. On
Wednesday October 4, 2000, I met with Ambassador Jacques Klein, Head of
the U.N. Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the U.N. Headquarters Compound
in Sarajevo. Klein repeatedly insulted and berated the Mothers of
Srebrenica and Podrinja to my face while their three Presidents sat down
the hall patiently waiting for their scheduled appointment with the
Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia, The Honorable Carla Del Ponte, successor to now Justice Louise
Arbour.
After what happened to the Republic of Bosnia and
Herzegovina -- which no longer exists! -- it should come as no surprise
that we saw outright genocide inflicted by the Hutu government with the
connivance of France against the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, while the
Security Council stood by and did nothing despite the prophetic warnings
by Canadian General Romeo Dallaire. That we saw Russia inflict outright
genocide against the Chechens from 1994 to 1996, and then again from 1999
until today -- financed by the Western Powers, which have also acquiesced
in Russia's gross violation of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty in
order to prosecute this genocidal war against my clients and friends, the
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and its People. Recently, Russian President
Vladimir Putin visited Canada. You can correct me if I am wrong, but from
my admittedly cursory examination of the news media, I saw no evidence
that the Canadian government raised Chechnya with him.
After Bosnia-Herzegovina, it should come as no surprise
that we saw outright genocide inflicted by the Milosevic regime against
the Kosovar Albanian Muslims immediately after the United States and NATO
launched their illegal war in March of 1999. Then we saw outright genocide
inflicted by Indonesia against the People of East Timor after decades of
military and economic support to the military dictatorship ruling
Indonesia by the United States and Britain -- "our kind of guy,"
as the Clinton administration publicly referred to the genocidaire Suharto.
We have also seen the United States and Britain insist on the imposition
of genocidal economic sanctions against the People of Iraq now for over a
decade.
Just recently we have seen the United Nations Human Rights
Commission condemn Israel for inflicting a war crime and a crime against
humanity upon the Palestinian People -- which criminal conduct has been
financed, armed, equipped, supplied, and supported by the United States.
The Nuremberg crime against humanity is the historical and legal precursor
to genocide as defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention. Finally, let us
never forget that the Indigenous Peoples of Canada, the United States, and
Latin America have been subjected to continuing acts of genocide for the
past 500 years.Despite the slogan "Never again," toward the end
of the Twentieth Century, genocide has become an increasingly familiar and
acceptable tool for powerful states to wield against weaker states and
peoples.
Mr. Francis A. Boyle is a Professor
in International Law.
Source:
by the same author:
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