I
just returned from Istanbul, where I attended the last sitting of
the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) and heard three days of testimony
from researchers, scientists, and witnesses from all over the world
(including Iraq) on crimes against humanity and against this planet—for
detailed information see www.worldtribunal.org.
This
was the culminating session of the WTI (modeled after the Bertrand
Russell World Peace Foundation tribunal of the late 1960s on crimes
committed in Vietnam), after having convened in cities in 20 different
countries around the world since June 2003. WTI’s purpose was
to challenge the silence around the aggression against Iraq and
to seek the truth about the invasion and occupation of that country.
The
session took place in Istanbul (at the Imperial Ottoman Mint, located
beside a Byzantine church named Haigha Irini, in the gardens of
the Topkapi Palace), at a time when, spurned by the European Union,
Turkey is forging closer ties with the U.S. and is gradually being
nudged towards a transformation from a laïc Republic into an
Islamic one. This may seem absurd given the tremendous contempt
for Islam expressed by the U.S. Administration and U.S. forces,
but the U.S. wants a “model” Islamic state in the region—“model”
meaning docile, cooperative and welcoming—to serve as a base
and a bridge in its “Greater Middle Eastern” project.
So
while hordes of tourists strolled in the lanes shaded by giant plane
trees, 1,500 people from 24 different countries gathered to listen
to 55 thorough and wrenching testimonies. A Jury of Conscience —led
by writer and activist Arundhati Roy and made up of 16 people from
Turkey, Malaysia, the U.S., South Africa, Belgium, Brazil, Mexico,
Israel, Argentina, and Iraq—sat in judgment, as did the rest
of us.
A
quotation from John Berger, on the inside cover of the Tribunal’s
program booklet, stressed the crucial task before us, restoring
memory: “The records have to be kept and, by definition, the
perpetrators, far from keeping records, try to destroy them. They
are killers of the innocent and of memory. The records are required
to inspire still further the mounting opposition to the new global
tyranny. The new tyrants, incomparably over- armed, can win every
war—both military and economic. Yet they are losing the war
(this is how they call it) of communication. They are not winning
the support of world public opinion. More and more people are saying
no. Finally this will be the tyranny’s undoing. But after how
many more tragedies, invasions and collateral disasters? After how
much more of the new poverty the tyranny engenders? Hence the urgency
of keeping records, of remembering, of assembling the evidence,
so that the accusations become unforgettable, and proverbial on
every continent. More and more people are going to say no, for this
is the precondition today for saying yes to all we are determined
to save and everything we love.”
This
tribunal was not sitting in order to mete out punishment, but to
bear witness, and to set the record straight. “The WTI aspires
both to start the process of accountability and to register history,
so that what happened in Iraq is not forgotten. This involves registering history
against the rewriting of history by sovereigns; exposing the destruction
incurred upon the people of Iraq and humanity, and discussing the
alternatives. The scope of this tribunal also comprises the threats
that nature, world resources and human security are confronted with
as a direct result of the assault.”
Arundhati
Roy, in her opening speech as spokesperson of the Jury of Conscience,
reiterated this purpose: “The Jury of Conscience at this tribunal
is not here to deliver a simple verdict of guilty or not guilty
against the United States and its allies. We are here to examine
a vast spectrum of evidence about the motivations and consequences
of the U.S. invasion and occupation, evidence that has been deliberately
marginalized or suppressed.”
Roy
also countered the accusation (in some newspapers) that the Tribunal
was a “kangaroo court”: “Now this view seems to suggest
a touching concern that in this harsh world, the views of the U.S.
government and the so-called Coalition of the Willing headed by
President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have somehow
gone unrepresented. That the World Tribunal on Iraq isn’t aware
of the arguments in support of the war and is unwilling to consider
the point of view of the invaders. If in the era of the multinational
corporate media and embedded journalism anybody can seriously hold
this view, then we truly do live in the Age of Irony, in an age
when satire has become meaningless because real life itself is more
satirical than satire can ever be. Let me say cate- gorically that
this tribunal is the defense.”
I
will not attempt to summarize all of the grueling testimony (which
made me weep more than once) that we heard. For that, I urge you
to explore the website. I was deeply disturbed by the description
of young former U.S. soldier Tim Goodrich—of house raids, systematic
torture, and the culture of militarism that makes it all seem ordinary.
Goodrich described how young U.S. recruits practiced shooting on
targets with human forms, were taught to follow orders without questions,
to consider all Moslems infidels who should be killed, and how they
de-humanized Iraqi people in a way that makes brutality seem acceptable.
“Don’t be fooled by my youthful appearance,” he said,
“the war has aged me.” He added, “Resistance in the
military is increasing.”
Iraqi
lawyer Amal Sawadi gave details of arbitrary detention and systematic
torture of ordinary civilians, including women. “All Iraqi
land has turned into a prison. Even a ten-year-old child can be
arrested.” Iraqi journalist Fadhil al Bedrani described mass
murders during the attack on Fallujah, including the incineration
of 420 women and children with Bunker Busters, and the killing of
680 civilians before his eyes, 260 of them children.
Many
of us were stunned nonetheless when U.S. scientist, Joel Kovel,
stated the U.S. is waging a nuclear, biological, and chemical war
in Iraq, setting loose “an eco- catastrophe.” Iraqi environmental
engineer, Dr. Souad Naji Al- Azzawi, who with six other scientists
had done a survey on the radiation in the air, land, and water in
Iraq, described the devastating radioactive contamination whose
effects will spill into the future long after the war ends. “The
Admin- istration and the Pentagon decided to make the Iraqi people
and Iraq’s environment a guinea pig laboratory for the testing
of all types of depleted uranium, radioactive, thermaboric, chemical,
robust earth penetrators, microwave, and other types of weapons,”
she said, and added: “They’re killing scientists who dare
to do research on the effects of depleted uranium—55 scientists
have been killed in Iraq and many are detained.”
The
witnesses (or “advocates”) described how the U.S. deliberately
provoked various factions in Iraqi society in order to divide and
rule the country, and how it has devastated the heritage of thousands
of years of history in Mesopotamia, wiping out the memory of Western
civilization. An ancient, deeply rooted culture is being destroyed,
brutalized, thrown into chaos.
Argentinian
jury member Taty Almeida (wearing a white head -scarf with Madres
de la Plaza de Mayo written on it) stood up to tell Iraqi witnesses
that the Argentinian Madres were in unconditional solidarity with
Iraqi women.
I
felt both a crazy longing to remain with the people and a crazy
shame that, while I would resume my modest life in Ankara, the Iraqi
participants would re-enter their imperial hell. Yet the sense that
solidarity is not a sentimental nicety, but a huge, transforming
reality, has remained with me.
The
jury’s verdict was announced on Monday, June 27 by Arundhati
Roy (see Preliminary Declaration, pages 5-7). The tribunal has judged
and condemned the U.S. and its allies. It has defined this war as
one of the most unjust in history, and has established charges against
the Security Council of the UN for failing to stop war crimes and
crimes against humanity, among other failures.
Ustan B. Reinart
is a Turkish/Canadian writer who teaches English at the Middle East
Technical University. Photos in this article are from www.world tribunal.org.
