By Haider Rizvi
NEW YORK, May 9 2004 (IPS)

A people’s court has pronounced the United States government guilty of committing war crimes.

A ‘jury of conscience’ declared Saturday after scores of witnesses testified before a ‘World Tribunal on Iraq’ that “the U.S. government is guilty of committing a war of aggression against Iraq.” It also held the United States guilty of committing war crimes.

The tribunal set up by about 50 civil society groups supporting the anti-war movement drew testimonies from doctors, lawyers, academics and activists who have been in Iraq over the past year.

They presented eyewitness accounts, photographs, and documentary evidence to illustrate how the U.S. military has caused death and destruction in Iraq.

The 14-member jury comprised peace activists, scholars, writers and labour leaders.

“Frankly, there is no respect for the Geneva Convention,” Geert van Moorter, a Belgian physician who specialises in emergency treatment told jurors. “I have seen with my own eyes U.S. troops shooting at civilians, at ambulances.”

Much of the material presented to the tribunal had never before been made public. This includes the documentary ‘About Baghdad’ made by the U.S.- based Incounter Production.

Still pictures taken by peace activists showed half-scarred bodies of children lying in broken hospital beds and under the debris of homes demolished by the occupying forces. Some images drove the audience to tears.

Several witnesses said it was common for U.S. troops to target civilians. “During the siege in Falluja I saw American troops shooting at an ambulance,” David Martinez, a film-maker who has just returned from Iraq told the tribunal. “There were no weapons inside. Just a doctor and a pregnant woman.”

Human rights law experts said such acts amounted to clear violation of the Geneva Protocol which says medical units shall be respected and protected at all times.

Rights advocates said the U.S. military had used incendiary (napalm-like) bombs and depleted uranium munitions that killed civilians and caused severe burn injuries to people in areas close to what the U.S. army considered enemy targets.

“These are deliberate and criminal acts,” said Jennifer Rida, a New York- based lawyer. “Deliberate attack on civilians constitutes a war crime.”

Journalist Dahr Jamail gave a statement over phone from Baghdad. “I know a 55 year-old man named Sadiq,” he said. “He was detained without any explanation. For more than a month, his family and friends did not know where he was being kept. They found him in a Tikrit hospital after somebody saw his picture in the hands of an aid worker. He was in coma. He had electrocution burns all over his body.”

A video film showed U.S. troops storming into a civilian home at night. The soldiers are seen breaking doors, dragging an old man from his bed, tying his hands, covering his head with a black hood, and pushing women around. Children cry, and women ask why he is being taken away, but soldiers take him away without giving any reason.

In addition to the U.S. conduct in Iraq, the jurors were asked to give their verdict on the legality of the U.S. military action.

“This is an unjust war of aggression,” the jurors said. The Bush administration failed to find any weapons of mass destruction, they pointed out. The United States was also found to have disregarded the international community.

“That’s arrogance,” John Burroughs, executive director of the New York- based Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy told the jury. “It doesn’t seem to be a war between two states. This a superpower smashing an adversary.”

The jurors said the invasion of Iraq and the treatment of the civilian population ought to go before the International Criminal Court (ICC), but noted that “the current administration has chosen to undermine the rule of law.” The United States is not a signatory to the ICC.

“We know there is no official institution of international law that can hold the U.S. accountable,” says Ayca Cubukcu, one of the organisers of the tribunal. “That’s why we set up this tribunal. The promise of justice belongs not to a state, the system of states or to its institution, but to the people.”

The anti-war movement plans to hold similar tribunals around the world up to March next year.

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