October 26, 2007, Paris, France – Today, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the French League for Human Rights filed a complaint with the Paris Prosecutor before the “Court of First Instance” (Tribunal de Grande Instance) charging former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with ordering and authorizing torture.[...]
The criminal complaint states that because of the failure of authorities in the United States and Iraq to launch any independent investigation into the responsibility of Rumsfeld and other high-level U.S. officials for torture despite a documented paper trail and government memos implicating them in direct as well as command responsibility for torture – and because the U.S. has refused to join the International Criminal Court – it is the legal obligation of states such as France to take up the case.
In this case, charges are brought under the 1984 Convention against Torture, ratified by both the United States and France, which has been used in France in previous torture cases.
[...]
Rumsfeld’s presence on French territory gives French courts jurisdiction to prosecute him for having ordered and authorized torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.
In addition, having resigned from his position of U.S. Secretary of Defense a year ago, Rumsfeld can no longer try to claim immunity as a head of state or government official. Nor can he claim immunity as former state official, as international law does not recognize such immunity in the case of international crimes including the crime of torture.
[...]
Rumsfeld was in Paris for a talk sponsored by Foreign Policy magazine, and left through a door connecting to the U.S. embassy to avoid journalists and human rights attorneys outside.
Chickenhawk.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
CRIMES AGAINST PEACE
ReplyDeleteCrimes against peace have been committed,
And would that they were tried,
Condemned, so be it, or acquitted
Defendants as would hide:
If there were justice in the world,
The men behind the deed
Ought have complacency imperiled,
Justice delivered, as would herald
Ghosts of the past be freed.
It was aggression unprovoked
And crime against world peace--
Though much of subterfuge was smoked
So to conceal, appease
The consciences of those involved;
But, I declare again,
With criminal intent resolved
They, wolves not easily out-wolved,
To cheat their fellow men.
Lord, even to the highest reach
Of power´s apparatus,
Let a just judgement, so to teach
Diminishment of status
Be retribution´s recompense
For what they have enacted,
Crimes contrary to common sense,
Crimes against peace, which this day hence
Shall never be redacted.
This people led by charlatans
Yet knew how to discern
The wrong from right, as any man´s
A boy who does not learn;
While this aggressive rape against
The peace be not excused
So easily--be recompensed
With justice, not of wrath incensed
But principle abused.
The quantity of victims need
Not an explicit counting,
Yet let the weight of separate deed
In aggregate amounting
Reveal the clear and present guilt
Of them--cloaked in "preemption"--
That did transgress; no pardon wilt
Though bond were paid by Vanderbilt--
How can there be redemption?
Lord, even criminals as do
Commit crimes against peace
May in repentance come to you--
Nor let such acts as these
By any man prevented be:
However let be made
Explicit verdict, that we see
From heinous trespass none is free
Though he may hide in shade.
The public good will not allow
The crimes to go unnoticed or
Unpunished--cries for justice now
Are heard from victims of this war.