Who Protected the Khmer Rouge? (what is Article 98?)

by redjade Tue Mar 01, 2005 22:31

From....
Protecting the Khmer Rouge genocidaires. 
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_leninology_archive.html#110950205384622429

I've written at some length before about Western complicity with the Khmer Rouge , and about the attempts by politicians like Sam Rainsy to exploit discontent in Cambodia about the increasingly authoritarian trends in the Hun Sen government.

Now, as there are attempts to prosecute those responsible for the Cambodian genocide, signed into law by the UN and the Royal Government of Cambodia on 6th June 2003, some are naturally very worried. For instance, in the same month, Colin Powell took a brief trip to Cambodia to persuade Prime Minister Hun Sen to sign an Article 98 agreement. An Article 98 agreement is one in which nations that are party to the International Criminal Court agree to exempt US personnel from prosecution. The agreement was signed and endorsed by the Cambodian government on 3rd October 2003. No one will stand trial for the criminal bombardment of Cambodia in the years 1969 to 1973, which killed hundreds of thousands of people; no one, Chinese, British, American or Australian, will stand trial for aiding and abetting the Khmer killers when they were attempting to retake the country during the 1980s; no British or American government figure from the time will stand trial for attempting to block NGO assistance to a struggling post-Pol Pot country. The trials will be temporally limited to the period of Democratic Kampuchea, 1975-9, in which between 1.5 and 2 million people died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

No reason to be purist about it: those who were involved in that grotesque regime deserve to be tried, even if it is only a partial victory, even if the other criminals are left out of it for reasons of geopolitics. However, the arduousness of this process, and the attempts to block it by governments who legitimise their actions with the language of human rights, should not be forgotten.

[....]

It would be ridiculous to oppose the trials, but no amount of sanctimony from our own governments, and no amount of belated attention to Khmer Rouge atrocities, should endear us to them. If there was to be a proper tribunal in Cambodia, many British, US and Chinese personnel would be among those standing in the docks.

→ Read the long and excellent article at
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_leninology_archive.html#110950205384622429

-- -- -- -- --

→ Article 98 Agreements and the International Criminal Court
http://www.state.gov/t/pm/art98/
The Political-Military Bureau at the State Department leads the United States' worldwide campaign to secure bilateral non-surrender ("Article 98") agreements protecting American citizens from the International Criminal Court (ICC) and provides the public with information in order to clarify the United States' position on the ICC.

→ US Threats to the International Criminal Court
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/icc-US_threats-eng

→ Article 98 FAQ (2003)
http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/icc/2003/0606usbilaterals.htm

→ What does ‘unsigning’ mean?
http://www.crimesofwar.org/onnews/news-us-icc.html
The administration’s repudiation of the treaty has been condemned by many human rights groups and numerous foreign observers, including the European Union. Whatever one thinks of it as a policy matter, however, the action of withdrawing from a treaty prior to ratification is explicitly sanctioned by international law. Under Article 18 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, a state that has signed but not ratified a treaty is obliged to "refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of the treaty…until it shall have made its intention clear not to become a party to the treaty."

Related:

go rent
→ Swimming To Cambodia
by Spalding Gray
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094089/
(may not be available in Ireland, however)

Behind Colin Powell's Legend -- My Lai
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/colin3.html

by redjade Tue Mar 01, 2005 22:42

Map of mines and Potential Unexploded Ordinance Contamination (1999)

http://www.garella.com/rich/imagecam/camB52map.gif

by irish cultural attache in san francisco Wed Mar 02, 2005 03:16 irishculturalattache at gmail dot com

FACT: Arch-leftie Chomsky denied that there any killing at all in Kampuchea...

More: http://jim.com/chomsdis.htm

by redjade Wed Mar 02, 2005 13:43

The above comment is as predictable as rain in Ireland.

Someone mentions Cambodia and some nutty conservative will mention Chomsky - notice there is no mention of Chomsky in the above post.

The above link is from an ( http://jim.com )
Ayn Rand loving ( http://www.jim.com/money.htm )
'anarcho-capitalist' ( http://www.jim.com/anarcho-.htm )
website. No big deal, but comes comes from a whacko-right wing perspective that is neither scholarly nor, shall we say, reality based.

Conservatives love to distract and distort, distract and distort, distract and distort...

Millions slaughtered and bombed and starved and disabled and still dying from land mines and so on - what do conservatives have to say?

Attack one prof in MIT as if he was somehow relevant to how those people were killed by the various powers ('communist' or 'capitalist').

Also notice that conservative prefer not to talk about their Saint Reagan's support for Pol Pot - just as liberals prefer not to talk about how Jimmy Carter started that aid.

Here's the basics...

→ Cambodia's Anguish: Made in the USA (1997)
By Robert Scheer
http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/97_columns/070897.htm
'Sihanouk was overthrown with the connivance of the CIA, which had long resented his independent if quirky spirit. But as in Vietnam with the CIA coup against Ngo Dinh Diem, the U.S. could not come up with a viable Cambodian ruler to suit its purposes. Sihanouk was replaced by an inept Lon Nol, a U.S. puppet who could not hold power. The legacy of U.S. policy, including the 600,000 dead and many more maimed and homeless as a result of the bombing, created the conditions for the Khmer Rouge's seizure of power in 1975. Over the next four years, Pol Pot's leadership left one out of five Cambodians dead.'

Let's read what Christopher Hitchens said in 1985 defending Chomsky

[ Hitchens late recanted his defence of Chomsky, perhaps to appease his new Neo-Con patrons ]

→ The Chorus and Cassandra (1985)
By Christopher Hitchens
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/other/85-hitchens.html
''Whether he is ignored, whether he is libeled, or whether he is subjected to an active campaign of abuse, Chomsky is attacked for things that he is thought to believe, or believed to have said. A lie, it has been written, can travel around the world before truth has even got its shoes on. Merely to list the accusations against Chomsky, whether they are made casually or with deliberation, is a relatively easy task. Showing their unfairness or want of foundation involves expense of ink on a scale which any reader who has got this far will know to his or her cost. Perhaps for this reason, not all the editors who publish matter about Chomsky ever quite get around to publishing his replies.''

Nice defence of Chomsky, too bad Hitchens has gone to the 'dark side of the Force' and doing weird shit like the following....

→ Tour London with Christopher Hitchens and David Horowitz
June 2005
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Content/read.asp?ID=90

→ Wednesday 8th June
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Content/read.asp?ID=91
Morning special tour of London. Private visit to The Tower of London with private viewing of The Crown Jewels. The Constable of The Tower or The Governor will join the group in a private room for coffee and shortbread.

On to The Changing of The Guard. I can arrange for the group to see this spectacle from a balcony overlooking the parade ground. A Guards Officer will talk us through the Parade.