It was on the second day that I got the sense that things were coming
together in a way akin to that whereby several climatic disturbances
fuse to create what meteorologists have called the ?perfect storm.?
It was probably the combination of eyewitness accounts that made clear
beyond a shadow of doubt that the siege of Fallujah in November 2004
was a case of collective punishment; a damning expose of how the
so-called reconstruction of Iraq was actually meant to make it a
free-market paradise for corporations; and a chilling analysis of how
White House presidential directives have made it possible for US agents
to snatch anyone anywhere in the world and transport him or her to the
Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba on mere suspicion of being an ?enemy
combatant.?
The Implacable Truth
The truth
came out swinging like a sledgehammer for three memorable days in
Istanbul, surprising even the toughest critics of Washington in the
audience about how viciously and systematically the Bush administration
has ripped apart the fabric of international law, unilaterally
rewritten the laws of war, and made the systematic violation of basic
human rights the normal mode of governance in Iraq. There were
hardly any strident voices among those who testified from June 24-27 at
the World Tribunal on Iraq in Istanbul. It was, for the most
part, fact laid upon fact, oftentimes in the form of unforgettable
images projected onscreen, not only of frightened civilians fleeing the
massive firepower that American marines direct at their homes but also
of hundreds of hectares of valuable greenery on the outskirts of
Baghdad buried under tons of concrete to deprive insurgents of hiding
places.
The truth coming out in Istanbul was made even more harsh by the
ongoing final collapse of the lies that the US and British governments
constructed to justify the invasion and occupation. The release
of the now infamous Downing Street memos revealed how early during the
Bush administration the decision for invading Iraq was made and how the
US and British authorities manufactured the myth of Saddam?s
development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to justify the planned
invasion.
Contradiction seems to have become the
order of the day, with Vice President Dick Cheney saying one day that
the Iraqi is on its last legs, followed the next by Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld asserting that the insurgency will go on for
years. Meanwhile, the servile US media decry the mess in Iraq,
call upon the Bush administration to recognize the bleak realities on
the ground, yet assert, like New York Times columnist Thomas
Friedman, that withdrawal is not an option and that the only solution
is to pour in more US troops into the meat-grinder that Iraq has become.
A Collective Portrait of Deceit and
Mayhem
Istanbul was a
collective portrait of a war drawn in compelling detail. This
conflict, we learned, is a war against civilians, since there is no way
for the American troops to distinguish between civilians and
insurgents, nor do they seem to want to.
It is a war against women and children, as
shown by the fact that 250 of the people killed in the second siege of
Falluja were women and children. Rape in post-invasion Iraq,
Iraqi witnesses testified, is rampant, but a culture of shame and the
lack of any trust in the criminal investigating and prosecuting
abilities of the occupation regime has prevented documentation of its
scale.
It is a war against culture, with witness
after witness decrying the absolute failure of the occupiers to protect
4,000 year old artifacts from looters, many of whom could have been
organized by commercial interests outside Iraq.
It is a war with likely appalling
consequences far into the future in the form of rising incidence of
leukemia and other cancers owing to the massive quantities of depleted
uranium spewed all over the country by American and British shelling.
The Damned
While US
government actors, decisions, and actions were the main focus of
testimonies, other actors were not spared.
The 50-nation ?Coalition of the Willing? was portrayed as a
bunch of coerced, bribed, or opportunistic governments that dutifully
read the script of
?invasion-to-rid-Iraq-of-weapons-of-mass-destruction? written by
Washington in its futile attempt to provide legitimacy for the
invasion.
Ex-United Nations officials Hans von
Sponeck and Dennis Robinson showed convincingly why the UN became one
of the most hated organizations in Iraq owing to the sanctions regime
it implemented before the war and its collaboration with American
authorities after the invasion.
Corporate complicity, the Jury of
Conscience learned, was extensive, involving not only infrastructure
builders like Halliburton and Bechtel and mercenary recruiters like
Blackwater and Dynacorp but also Big Oil and large contract awardees
like Nescafe and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
The western media?s participation in the manipulation of public opinion
was one of the highlights of the tribunal, as witnesses like writer
Saul Landau pointed to the complicity not only of right-wing press
entities like Fox News but also the icons of the liberal press like the
New York Times, whose
reporter Judith Miller actively disseminated government disinformation
on Saddam?s WMD capabilities and whose editorial line continues to be
to stabilize the situation in Iraq by sending in many more US troops.
Not surprisingly, at the press conference after the tribunal,
jury chairperson Arundathi Roy said, ?If there is one thing that has
come out clearly in the last few days, it is not that the corporate
media supports the global corporate project; it is the global corporate project.?
And there was, of course, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Blair?s image as George W. Bush?s key collaborator is more than
well-deserved, the jury learned. For not only did he push his
intelligence services to manufacture evidence to support the myth that
Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction, but he was an
enthusiastic champion of externally imposed regime change, though his
own government lawyers told him bluntly that there could be no
justification found for such a course of action in international law.
This made him, like Bush, ?a very dangerous man, indeed,? as one
witness put it.
Civil Society Moves to Center Stage
The World Tribunal of Iraq was a striking
display of how global civil society is supplanting governments and the
corporate media as the source of truth, justice, and direction as the
latter institutions get universally discredited, and how well it is
performing that role. The Istanbul session was the final act of a
two-year process of about 20 hearings held in different parts of the
world, including London, Mumbai, Copenhagen, Brussels, New York, Japan,
Stockholm, South Korea, Rome, Frankfurt, Spain, Tunis, and Geneva.
It was a nearly flawless performance of a symphony of sorrow,
outrage, and condemnation organized by Turkish peace activists and
performed by over a hundred people drawn from all over the world and
from all walks of life, with a Jury of Conscience made up of citizens
of 10 countries and a Panel of Advocates with 54 members.
It united senior leaders of the transborder people?s movement like
international lawyer and university professor Richard Falk, head of the
panel of advocates, and human rights activist Chandra Muzzafar, with
nineties activists like celebrated novelist Arundathi Roy, and members
of an even younger generation like Herbert Docena, who presented a
universally applauded portrait of the economic colonization of Iraq,
Dahr Jamail, who has become one of the most trusted sources of
information on the war, and Iraqi activist Rana Mustafa, who risked
life and limb along with photojournalist Mark Miller to make sure the
world would have a film record of the destruction of Falluja.
Enemy Combatants All
The Jury of Conscience?s conclusions and recommendations are likely to
have a powerful moral influence on the course of events, especially its
call on US and Coalition soldiers to exercise their right to
conscientious objection and on communities throughout the world to
provide haven for those who heed this call. On the last day of
the tribunal, jury leader Arundathi Roy observed that her thoughts and
actions would categorize her as an ?enemy combatant? in the US
government?s view. As I joined the thunderous applause for the
jury?s decisions, I thought, yes, why not, we are all enemy combatants
now, and proud of it.
*) Walden Bello is executive director of
Focus on the Global South and professor of sociology at the University
of the Philippines.