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David Miliband to block Goldstone Report!

Ninetto | 29.09.2009 10:48 | Anti-militarism | Palestine | Social Struggles

Urgent Action Needed. War Criminals getting away with murder in Palestine.

There is a real danger that the best chance for accountability and justice for civilians in Gaza and Israel could be lost in the next few days - we need as many people as possible to email David Miliband right now to prevent this from happening.

An independent UN fact-finding mission into the Gaza conflict has just published its findings. This major report outlines powerful evidence of war crimes and other violations of international law on both sides, consistent with the results of Amnesty's own investigations. And the UK Government is reviewing it right now.

The UN Human Rights Council will debate the report next Tuesday (29 September), when a vote will be taken on how its recommendations should be acted upon.

Alarmingly, we understand that the UK Government (a member of the council) is not planning to support key recommendations, which Amnesty believe offer the best chance of ensuring justice and accountability, as a well as a deterrent to future conflicts. Instead, they appear to be taking a lead from the US Government in dismissing the findings.

See below to send Milbrand an email urging support for the Goldstone findings:

 http://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions_details.asp?ActionID=631

Ninetto

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An open letter to the members of the UN Human Rights Council

29.09.2009 11:30

Members of the UN Human Rights Council

Your Excellencies,

In the opening decade of the 20th Century events were occuring which set the course of human history on a path into two related and catastrophic world wars. Humanity at large was reeling in horror at the realisation of the extent to which human beings had developed the capacity to kill each other and destroy their world. The laws of war were established after WW1, applied to WW2 and later consolidated and developed because in the course of those events millions of people died or suffered in the horrors of those two wars. The Geneva Conventions, League of Nations and later United Nations were established and a system of International Law and courts established in the ICJ and ICC to enforce those laws. In the middle of that Century the ominous dark cloud of the spectre of nuclear war appeared. This we all know, yet behave as if we have all forgotten.

In the opening decade of the 21st Century events have occured which threaten to set the course of human history on a path of return into lawlessness and violence at a time when our capacity for self-destruction is a thousandfold what it was at the middle of the last Century. A war of aggression has occurred in clear violation of international law and declared so by the United Nations Secretary General. In the process, a nation was destroyed and the United Nations sidelined in a manner such as to severely erode it's credibility as a force for international order and justice. Allegations of violations of international law by war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity have been dismissed out of hand by the British Crown Prosecution Service and appeals for review of these decisions have been rejected by the British High Court because judges of the High Court deem them to be "not justiciable" even though these international laws have been carried specifically into British Law. Wholesale acts of torture, imprisonment without trial and mass murder of civilians have been undertaken and there is a globally deepening perception that the perpetrators of these crimes are above the law and have clearly been seen to have acted with impunity. This is plain for us all to see, yet in terms of our collective action, it is as if we have all been unaware.

The consequences of failure of a system of law and justice are clearly violence and the right of might. Nations must scramble to arm themselves with a nuclear deterrent or submit to the interests of nations that are nuclear armed. Individuals must scramble for asylum in wealthier nations and up the wealth ladder or submit to perpetual erosion of their rights and dignity. Terrorism is seen by victims as the only path to justice and masquerades as a legitimate tool of coercion by a lawless cabal that calls itself "The international community". The species that has stood upright to emerge from the jungles, establish civilisations and amass a vast body of knowledge and enlightened thought deserves a much better fate than to become a herd of feudal serfs at the technologicaly-dispensed mercy of a psychopathic elite, or face complete destruction in a nuclear holocaust.

The actions of the Israeli state and its military forces in operation cast lead were an outrage against all that is decent and honourable. One and a quarter million people live in Gaza, a space 5 miles by 25 and they are utterly defenceless against the Israeli armed forces. This attack upon them of such force and violence using weaponry obscene in its barbarity and with attendant acts of inhumanity so utterly without empathy or compassion that it can only be called depravity has shocked even the most myopic of civilised people who see no further than the mainstream media and the regular dose of Israeli propaganda. For those of us who have informed ourselves about the truth of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the disgraceful absurdity of the excuse that such action was required to counter rocket attacks is astonishing. The rockets from Gaza amount to feeble acts of defiance and resistance when seen in the context of a brutal occupation in which homes are routinely destroyed, whole families often "accidentally" murdered, individuals targeted for assassination with attendant reckless slaughter of bystanders, people desperate for medical attention die at check-points attended by the impotence and humiliation of their relatives and ordinary and daily life is so intolerable that the damaging effects are evident in the disturbed mental state of most children. It is clear that those who decide the actions of the state of Israel and many of those who implement their decisions have acted with impudence, not only in relation to international law and the institutions intended to uphold it, but also with regard to ordinary standarde of human desency.

You members of the UN Human Rights Council should make no mistake that on this day you will play a critical role in the determination of the course of human destiny. Effective action MUST be taken to implement all of the recommendations made by the Goldstone Mission. Allowing governments to engage in such acts of arbitrary violence, murdering civilians and destroying homes and communities with impunity in such flagrant disregard for international law, will end the already damaged credibility of the institutions established to uphold it. With governments actively undermining these institutions and our political capacity to defend them being eroded we have a critical imperative to act now to turn the tide. A failure now to assert the authority of international law and the United Nations would be a dereliction of collective and individual responsibility, the consequences of which will profoundly impact the future of human kind. This is unquestionably the most important issue of our time.

I implore you to act with the responsibilities entrusted to you and I hope that others with whom I have shared this communication will act to urge you also.

Yours Sincerely,
Allen L. Jasson

Allen Jasson
mail e-mail: allen.jasson@rightofchoice.com


The Bottom Line

29.09.2009 18:34

Excellent letter, this issue is the final chance or the bottom line if the politicians in the West are ever to rise above scum-of-the-earth status that they are rapidly approaching...

This is the litmus test.
This is the proof, watch what happens.

Freedom for Palestine.

solidarity,
RR

Roger R


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