23 - 29 July, SW France If you are interested in going to the camp email: [email protected] or phone 0208 800 7460. 29-31 July 16th Annual Hazards Conference University of Leeds, Leeds LS2. 0161 953 4037; www.hazardscampaign.org.uk Sat 30 July Cancel the ExCel Arms Fair. 2pm-4.30pm - Musical protest outside the ExCel Centre, next to Custom House Docklands Light Railway Station. Information about local opposition to ExCel Arms Fair available from East London Against the Arms Fair c/o C.I.U. Durning Hall, Earlham Grove, London E7 9AB Saturday September 3 Socialist Resistance AGM, London. Details 020 8800 7460, or email [email protected]
Ca Alternatives 13-19 August Peace camp in Brighton. Part of the campaign to shut down Brighton arms manufacturer EDO. It will be taking place in the Wild Park next to the EDO factory. Email [email protected] for further info. Sat 10 September Cancel the ExCel Arms Fair. 2pm-4.30pm - Musical protest outside the ExCel Centre, next to Custom House Docklands Light Railway Station. September 13-16 ExCel Arms Fair (DSEi), Docklands, London. 11th September: CAAT alternative DSEi conference, 11 - 5pm venue TBC 12th September: Candle-Lit Vigil, 6pm outside the ExCel Centre. 13th September: 12 noon; demonstration against the Arms Fair, more details soon. 4-8pm; CAAT alternative DSEi conference, venue TBC. October 1 National Planning meeting for International Day of Action on Climate Change, ASIAN CULTURAL CENTRE, Manzil Way, Off Cowley Rd, Oxford How America gets away with murder: illegal wars, collateral damage and crimes against humanity, by Michael Mandel (Pluto), reviewed by Piers Mostyn THE ROLE of the nascent international criminal justice system in underpinning western military interventionism since the early 1990s is the focus of this book, written by a Canadian law professor,
The author painstakingly cross-refers British and US led wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq to the development of the idea of international tribunals. The International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the ongoing trial of Slobodan Milosovic has been widely discredited as a typical example of "victors' justice". What is not often appreciated is that, step by step, the whole thing was set up in the first place with this in mind.
From beginning to end the ICTY was financed by and staffed by the countries that invaded the Balkans (in particuminor states that were effectively on their payroll.
The court acts as an ideological cornerstone of the imperialist war by creating a "justification": war crimes are being committed and the perpetrators will have to be caught and punished. It simultaneously conceals the parallel or much worse war crimes perpetrated by the invaders.
It was therefore no coincidence that the first judge was sworn in for the new International Criminal Court (ICC) in March 2003 just as the USA and Britain were engaging in the biggest international war crime (invading Iraq), with the infamous "pack of cards" identifying the 52 most wanted Iraqis a propaganda link point.
The USA is immune from trial at the ICC because it has not signed up to the court. In addition it bullied and bribed a string of countries to agree to a special section of the Rome Treaty allowing parties to override the authority of the court to demand that criminal suspects be handed over.
The suspects they had in mind, of course, were United States citizens.
But Washington's refusal to recognise the ICC was no snub (as presented at the time), argues Mandel. These tribunals were only ever designed to call to account those who rebel, not the imperialist states. The odious character of many of those bought to trial shouldn't blind us to this fact.
Mandel traces the total failure of the same authorities to proceed against war criminals from the imperialist camp. As well as Pinochet and Sharon, this includes Mandel's own attempts to indict the NATO war leaders at the ICTY over the Kosovo war.
The exposure of this process with the ICTY is what led the US military to hand over Sadaam Hussein to the puppet Iraqi authorities rather than use his trial to legitimise the war before world opinion. They feared that any trial might blowback against the invaders.
Faced with brutal dictators like Hussein it is tempting to just stay quiet and concentrate on more popular campaigning issues.
But activists will need to counteract the inevitable propaganda drive that will develop round the trial. It must not be allowed to cover-up and glorify the acts of the blood-drenched war machines that bought him to court.
One quibble: Britain should have had a place in the title.