[wvns] In Iraq, nobody is accountable
In Iraq, nobody is accountable
By Ali al-Fadhily
Asia Times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IE23Ak02.html
BAGHDAD - Killings, crime, lack of medical care, the collapse of
education - the list goes on. But with the occupation by US-led forces
now into its fifth year, and a supposedly democratic government in
place, no one knows whom to hold accountable for all that is going wrong.
It is the occupation forces, particularly the United States and
Britain, that must be held accountable, many Iraqis say.
"It is good of these people to discuss accountability for theft, but
the most important thing to account for is Iraqi blood," said Numan
Ahmed, a human-rights activist from the Adhamiya neighborhood in Baghdad.
The British medical journal Lancet has reported that by last July,
655,000 people had died as "a consequence of the war". It has reported
that the risk of death among civilians is now 58 times as high as
before the US-led invasion in March 2003.
"By now a million Iraqis have been killed for no reason, and many
millions disabled or badly injured just because of some thieves in
Baghdad and Washington," Ahmed said. "We are prepared to reveal the
documents to condemn them even if takes us a lifetime."
But Iraqis have no means to take action against the occupiers.
The US has not accepted the jurisdiction of the International Criminal
Court (ICC), which has the power to investigate complaints of
genocide. The United States took the view that the court could conduct
"politically motivated investigations and prosecutions of US military
and political officials and personnel".
US opposition to the ICC is in stark contrast to the strong support
for the court by most of America's closest allies.
With no doors of justice open to them, many Iraqis are taking to
unlawful ways to hit back at occupation forces and government targets.
"The only way to do it is at gunpoint," said Ali Aziz, 32, from
Ramadi, 100 kilometers west of Baghdad. "They invaded us at gunpoint,
and we find it ridiculous to talk about any other way of getting back
what belongs to us."
Aziz said he had lost several friends in attacks by US soldiers. "The
whole world is dealing with this in a hypocritical way, and there is
only us to claim our rights the way we find proper."
Human-rights group al-Raya filed a case in a court in Fallujah against
US forces in 2004, after a massive military crackdown. About
three-quarters of all buildings in the city were destroyed or heavily
damaged during the US assault that November.
But US-backed Iraqi security forces have targeted the rights group.
"The secretary general for the organization has now been arrested by
Fallujah police for reasons that we are not aware of, and the
organization is not functioning anymore," said a senior member of the
group, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"It is not the right time to talk about accountability when daily
killings by US and Iraqi soldiers are still ongoing. God knows if it
will ever be possible."
A case for accountability could well be made. A judge from the United
States wrote at the time of the trial of Nazi war criminals in
Nuremberg, Germany, in 1946: "To initiate a war of aggression is not
only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime
differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself
the accumulated evil of the whole."
The US-led invasion of Iraq was judged by then-United Nations
secretary general Kofi Annan on September 16, 2004, as "an illegal act
that contravened the UN Charter".
The lack of accountability appears now to be leading to greater
support for armed resistance against occupation forces.
"What accountability are you talking about, sir?" said Abu Jassim of
Fallujah, who lost four members of his family when a US bomb destroyed
his home during the first US offensive against the city in April 2004.
"Americans are criminals, and the whole world is covering up for their
crimes." They will be held accountable, he said, by Allah and by "the
heroes of the Iraqi resistance".
Iraqis are also angry over destruction of their civilian
infrastructure, for which no one has been held responsible.
"The US crime of deliberately crushing Iraqi infrastructure must be
looked at as a crime against humanity," said chief engineer Jalal
Abdulla at Baghdad's Ministry of Electricity. "They did not have to do
this to support their military effort, but they did it just to cause
hundreds of thousands of deaths for no reason but cruelty."
Others vent their frustration against what they see as an impotent
United Nations. "The UN should be the place for asking those Americans
why they committed so many crimes in Iraq," said Baghdad resident
Malik Hammad.
Ali al-Fadhily, the IPS correspondent in Baghdad, works in close
collaboration with Dahr Jamail, a US-based specialist writer on Iraq
who travels extensively in the region.
(Inter Press Service)
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