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To the Security Council of the United Nations – UN

 

 

                                      The undersigned, citizens of several Member Countries of the UN, based on Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed by United Nations General Assembly on December 10th, 1948, according to which “everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and liberties established in the present Declaration can be fully achieved”; and considering that this international order can only exist while respecting the UN decisions and complying to its role as a peace and international security keeper as guaranteed in Article 1, Section 1, of the Chart of the United Nations, signed on June 26th, 1945, come respectfully to make it known to this distinguished Security Council a list of facts so that at the end they require what follows:

 

CEBRAPAZ – Centro Brasileiro de Solidariedade aos Povos e Luta pela Paz

Rua dos Franceses, 4, Bela Vista, 01329-000 São Paulo-SP, Brasil

(55 11) 3266-8368  email  cebrapaz@uol.com.br

 

1. ON THE FACTS

 

I.1.  ON THE PREPARATION FOR THE WAR AGAINST IRAQ

 

0.1. After the attacks against the World Trade Center’s twin towers on September 11th, 2001, a fact mourned all over the world, the Bush administration started up a systematic campaign aiming at creating in the North-American public opinion an environment favorable to a belligerent expedition against Iraq under the pretext that Iraq constituted a serious threat to the USA’s security, since the country possessed chemical and biological weapons and tried to manufacture nuclear weapons, allowing that country to eventually launch an attack to the United States’ territory.

 

02. Several declarations from members of the Bush administration, including members of the United States’ intelligence services, that there were not any links between Iraq and the attacks on September 11th failed to make the Bush administration change its mind about attacking that country.

 

03.  In such conditions, the Bush administration demanded Iraq to cease the supposed production of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons that the government claimed to exist and be produced or about to be produced in that country.

 

04. UN official inspections, however, systematically demonstrated that the embargo promoted by UN against Iraq led the latter to dismantle all its program of biological and chemical weapons, and that Iraq had no conditions to produce nuclear weapons.

 

05. The Bush administration, in its yearning to belie UN official inspection reports, even handed over to the UN Security Council supposed evidences of the existence of such chemical and biological weapons, including satellite photos, evidences presented in that organization by American Secretary of State in the occasion, Colin Powell. Nevertheless, the intrinsic weakness of these supposed evidences was immediately ascertained by the majority of the Member States, and the so-called “evidences” were heavily criticized by technicians specialized in weaponry, therefore demonstrating its insanity.

 

06. The continuation of UN official inspections gave a categorical denial to those  “evidences”, right after their presentation at UN, and emptied the argument defended   by   Bush’s   government that the Iraqi government was not granting technicians access to some more compromising information, Iraqi government systematically allowed visits to all places requested by UN inspectors, inclusively for perceiving that this was the way to be protected against the United States’ armed invasion.

 

07. The evidences divulged by the Bush administration’s immediate ally, Tony Blair’s government, from England, to support the attack to Iraq had the same inglorious destiny. Shortly after being officially divulged, the English periodicals belied them based on internal information provided by their own intelligence services, even demonstrating that the grounds for such “evidences” was the work of a master degree student of an English university. It is noteworthy that the person pointed as being the source of such information to the English periodicals was found dead soon after that incident, having supposedly committed suicide, although there are serious disputes over that official version.

 

08. Thus, when the Bush administration brought up to UN Security Council the issue of the taking measures resorting to armed forces by UN against Iraq, the supposed evidences listed by him in support to that pretension had not sufficient credibility to serve as grounds to result in a decision by the international organization.

 

I.2. ON UNLEASHING THE WAR

 

09. The decision of UN Security Council, based on Article 27, Section 3, from the Chart of the United Nations was, therefore, contrary to taking measures resorting to the use of armed forces against Iraq.

 

10. The Bush administration decided to attack Iraq forthwith, without UN support, summoning a coalition of allies for this purpose.

 

I.3. ON THE AGGRESSION AGAINST IRAQ

 

 

11. The invasion of Iraq by the coalition led by Bush’s government, whose attack began in March, 2003, made use of a military apparatus without precedents in the history of wars, mobilizing 150 thousand soldiers, 90 percent of whom were North-American, armed with high technology weapons, before which the Iraq’s regular military forces were at an evident gigantic disadvantage, leading the Iraqi government to destruction and the country’s capitulation in a few weeks.

 

12. The Iraqi civilian casualties were extremely high, so much that they led the North-American propaganda to highlight the “surgical” character and the precision of the attack with the high technology weapons being employed, capable of hitting the exact selected targets, what suggests that the attacks to civil targets, more than unexpected “side effects”, as pictured by military chiefs, in fact have been done in purpose.

 

13. The reiterated denouncements made by combatants, the resistance and Iraqi civilians of tortures and mistreatments inflicted to them by the occupation troops in Iraq were confirmed later with the presentation of movies filmed by the soldiers themselves in charge to watch prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, which gives credibility  to the rest of the accounts of atrocities committed by the occupation troops.

 

14. It is noteworthy, as well, that the USA keeps thousands of Iraqi prisoners in several places, specially in Iraq, but also in the naval base of Guantánamo, in Cuban territory, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan and, inclusively, on board of North-American war ships USS Bataan and USS Peleliu under the pretext that these prisons constitute “administrative detention centers” or  “security detention centers”, places where they are kept without being granted the right to impartial trials by their natural judges or the right to ample defense, nor  being granted the presumption of innocence, a basic principle of modern and civilized law which the USA exalts as the central principle of its internal  criminal law, denied to foreign combatants,  a  detriment  to international  conventions  on  the subject.

 

15. It is also a public and well-known fact the pillage of public and private property practiced by the occupation forces, specially against museums, archeological sites, Iraqi monuments, what constitutes an act of vandalism against a multimillennial history of one of the most ancient historical civilizations, a cultural patrimony of the Iraqi people and of humanity.

 

 

 

I.4. ON NOT FINDING CORROBORATION, BY THE OCCUPATION FORCES, OF THE EXISTENCE NEITHER OF CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL OR NUCLEAR WEAPONS, NOR OF THE POTENCIAL TO MANUFACTURE THEM IN IRAQ, AFTER THE INVASION OF THAT COUNTRY.

 

16. After more than one year of the invasion led by the Bush administration, the occupation forces could not offer, not even remotely, any relevant evidences or signs of the existence of the supposed chemical, biological and nuclear weapons that Iraq’s pre-war government would possess or be about to manufacture or acquire.

 

17. Therefore the only fragile justification of Bush’s government for the armed aggression perpetrated against Iraq is discredited, despite and against the grain of the Security Council’s decision.

 

 

 

2 – ON THE LAW

 

2.1. ON COLLECTIVE SECURITY

 

18. According to Article 2, Section 4 of the Chart of the United Nations:

 

"All members shall avoid, in their international relations, threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or the political independence of any States, or any other actions not compatible with the purposes of the United Nations".

 

19. A master of Public International Law makes a skillful comment, reproducing, essentially, a lesson that belongs to the best international law doctrine:

 

" Consequently, any use of force is prohibited, unless in two cases: self-defense, either individual or collective, or when authorized by the UN".

 

20. Not having been authorized by the UN, and having all the claims and false evidences presented by the Bush administration to justify the aggression to Iraq with the use of force in self-defense been belied, since it was demonstrated that Iraq held neither military force nor biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, and did not even have the conditions to manufacture them, what became evident both by the UN inspections and by the incapacity of the occupation forces to bring to light any facts that could prove these accusations, it is clear that self-defense cannot be claimed in that case.

 

21. Therefore, the action, before the International Public Law, taken by the Bush administration, must be considered illegal and its attack to Iraq an unreasonable and illegitimate aggression.

 

II.2.  ON THE CRIMES AGAINST PEACE

 

22. In 1950, the International Law Commission, executing the determination of the UN General Assembly, “formulated the principles of International Law recognized by the Statute of Nuremberg’s Court and in the judgment of the Court”.

 

23. In Section 6, "a" of these principles, it was established:  

 

“6) The crimes here announced are punishable as crimes before the International Law;

a- Crimes against peace:

i)       Planning, preparation, initiation and continuation of aggression war, or a war or violation of treaties, agreements or international guarantees”.

 

24. The Bush administration, as it has been already demonstrated, initiated and continues with an aggression war against Iraq, against the grain of UN decisions, not complying with an international contemporary central agreement, which is the Chart of the United Nations, being the crime against international law which that government committed and continues committing perfectly typified under the aforementioned terms.

 

2.3. ON WAR CRIMES

 

25. Furthermore, it was demonstrated, by clear facts that do not depend on corroboration since they are public and well-known all over the world, the practice of tortures and mistreatments to the civilian populations and the imprisoned combatants, infringing directly the Geneva Convention and the item 6, “b”, of the principles established by UN International Law Commission, verbis: 

 

B – War Crimes:

“Violation of   laws and war customs comprehending, but not limiting to assassination, mistreatments, or deportation to hard labor or to any other purposes, of civilian populations from/in occupied territories, assassination or mistreatments of war prisoners, of people at the sea, execution of hostages, pillage of public or private property, destruction of cities, hamlets or villages without any reasons, or unjustified devastation for military necessity”.

 

26. According to Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

              

“No one shall be either submitted to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.

 

27. The Geneva Convention defines as a war crime the application of torture to combatants, residents and civilians made prisoners in armed conflicts.

 

28. In accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in 1984, a Convention About Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatments or Penalties was promulgated, which forbids the treatments as the ones inflicted by the occupation troops on the Iraqi people detained by it, on whatever pretext this detention occurs, and that defines and is typified as a torture crime as follows:

 

“Article 2. For the purpose of the present Convention, the term “torture” designates any acts by which pain or sharp suffering, being physical or mental, are inflicted intentionally on a person in order to obtain, from this person or another, information or confessions; to punish this person for an act that that or another person have committed or is suspected of having committed; to intimidate or coerce that or other people; or for any reasons based on discrimination of any nature; when such pains or sufferings are inflicted by a public employee or another person in the exercise of public functions, or for  this person’s instigation, consent or acquiescence. It will not be considered as torture the pains or sufferings that are consequence uniquely of legitimate sanctions or that are inherent to such sanctions or derive from them”.

 

29. Therefore, the crimes practiced by the Bush administration in the invasion of Iraq are properly characterized, defined, typified and proven.

 

II.5.  ON PENAL RESPONSIBILITY OF CHIEFS OF STATE

 

30. Since the Nuremberg Court, the penal responsibilities of a Chief of State who practices crimes against peace or war crimes is properly established, following a doctrine that dates back from the 15th century, the one of a hierarchical superior, which claims that this responsibility is direct when practiced personally by the Chief of State or by the absence of supervision of the acts of his subordinates, and indirect, by the others’ unlawful conducts. It is noteworthy that the President of the United States of America is the Commander and Chief of the armies of that country, being evidently the hierarchical superior of all military actions unleashed by him.

 

31. Recent examples can be collected in the International Law about judgments of Chiefs of State in power for crimes against the International Law, as a Brazilian IL Master illustrates quite well: “Some observations can be formulated in relation to the International Criminal Court to former Yugoslavia. So, in 1999, an accusation against Serbia’s Chief of State, Slobodan Milosevic, was formulated. It is the first time that it occurs against a chief of State who is in power. This court also claims that all the attempts against the civilian populations are crimes against humanity. In Tadic’s case in the court for the former Yugoslavia, it is considered that there are grave violations in international armed conflicts, such conflicts not being defined, but they include military occupations”.

 

ON THE CONSTITUTION OF AN AD HOC COURT TO JUDGE THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S WAR CRIMES

 

32. The USA did not adhere to the treaty that propitiated the creation of an International Criminal Court, not submitting to their jurisdiction.

 

33. It is an international practice, previous to the creation of an International Criminal Court, the creation of ad hoc courts to judge crimes against international law.

 

34. With the creation of the International Criminal Court, it is easily understood that countries that adhered to the treaty that instituted it are directly under its jurisdiction, as the creation of such ad hoc courts for the judgment of crimes committed by their Chiefs of State and hierarchical superiors is not admissible.

 

35. However, as regarding countries that have not yet adhered to that treaty or that  will  not  do  so  in the  future,  the practice  assented  before  the creation of the International Criminal Court is still effective, for there were not changes in the international law situation related to them.

 

36. We have already mentioned the creation of an International Criminal Court for Yugoslavia, created ad hoc as a result from the denouncement against Serbia’s Chief of State.

 

37.In 1994, UN Security Council created an ad hoc court to judge the crimes practiced in Rwanda.

 

38. In 2000, Sierra Leone and the UN concluded a treaty creating a Special Court to judge international crimes that violate Sierra Leone’s criminal legislation.

 

39. It is, therefore, the best tradition of the International Law and of the United Nations the creation of the above mentioned ad hoc courts to judge crimes against International Law as the ones mentioned here.

 

IV – ON THE REQUEST

 

         ACCORDINGLY, the undersigned, exercising their right to an established order by International Law, come to petition for:

 

1 – The creation of an International Criminal Court for the judgment of crimes against peace and war crimes committed by the Bush administration;

2 – The conviction of President Bush, as Chief of State and Commander of the USA’s Armed Forces, for the aforementioned crimes.

 

In these terms

We await approval.

 

Place, date,

 

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