What's the one invention/political policy you'd like to see realised in your lifetime?
So I think maybe I'd like to see the notion of international justice given some real teeth. I'm not advocating for a New World Order, a rebuilt UN with a standing army, police force, judiciary and legislative body. **** knows, there's a lot of countries where you couldn't enforce human rights without wholesale regime change, which just isn't legitimate when the system is corrupt, when you know the powerful nations will be immune, will largely be manipulating that to their own ends. To create "beacons of democracy" and somesuch bullshit.
But suppose we start by going after the retired dictators and criminal leaders of the purportedly free world. All those murderous tyrants who slaughtered their way to power, but made nice with the US and the UK, the ones for whom the bodies are now mostly buried, the ones who can jet around the world, visiting the US and the UK, being entertained at Chequers or the White House. Walking free and easy like they don't have the blood of generations on their hands.
Back when Pinochet was arrested by Baltasar Garzón I remember knowing that it wasn't going to happen; he wasn't ever going to stand trial. Clearly the British government wasn't going to have the balls to follow through. But if he *had*... if we could bring someone like that to trial in an international court... if the countries that aim or claim to be at the forefront of upholding human rights were willing to put political expediency aside, arrest that sort of bastard when he sets foot on their soil, and follow through on it... that would be the laying of a foundation stone.
We lost our chance to lay that foundation with Pinochet. We never had it with Franco. There's no legitimacy with a Hussein or a Milosevic, when it's justice served on a political enemy that wouldn't be served on an ally. Personally, I think we've got the perfect opportunity right now with Bush, and Garzón is clearly of the same mind. Bring to trial, for human rights abuses, an ex-president of the most powerful nation on earth-and a nation which considers itself the champion of liberty and justice-and then your money is where your mouth is. Then you send a message to every ruler of every nation in the world that everyone is accountable.
No wars in the name of democracy. No invasions that are actually about oil and contracts for Halliburton. No puppet governments and tactical footholds. No latter-day Great Game. Just a warning that they'll be treated as the suspects they are, that they can and will be prosecuted as and when it's possible.
Read more of Suite101's conversation with Hal Duncan HERE
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