Iraq : Now is the Time for Justice by Kate Allen / Kenneth Roth The Guardian / International Herald Tribune 10:54am 17th Dec, 2003   16th December, 2003    (Kate Allen is the director of Amnesty International UK).    The trial of Saddam Hussein should precipitate an investigation of two-and-a-half decades of human rights abuses in Iraq, writes Kate Allen    Long before Iraq became the centre of international attention Amnesty International was documenting grievous human rights violations on a massive scale and against all sectors of society in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. We called for action: urgent responses from the Iraqi authorities, pressure from the international community.    Little was done. Iraq's authorities ignored our reports, shut us out of the country for two decades and carried on arresting, torturing, "disappearing" and killing. Most of the victims were suspected political opponents and their relatives, or members of religious and ethnic groups, particularly Kurds and Shia Muslims.    On the Iraqi side this was of course predictable. Ba'ath party members were hardly going to listen very hard to Amnesty International when a top-down reign of terror meant that no one in Iraq was safe.    However, the international community's relative lack of interest in the plight of Iraqis under Saddam Hussein was less predictable. Years of ignoring reports of the distress of Iraqis must certainly have embittered some in Iraq to the international community. Now is the time to set things straight.    In other words, this is the time for rigorous investigation, judicial earth-moving and dedicated efforts to dispense justice in Iraq. Thousands of victims of human rights horror in the country have waited too long for these days. The crucial questions are how and by whom?    Can the Americans help bring about justice? Arresting Saddam Hussein is obviously a step in the right direction.    However, there are doubts about the current US administration's commitment to the principles of international justice. The US is implacably opposed to the work of the international criminal court (ICC), a body described by the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, as "the greatest recent single act of progress for justice, human rights and the rule of law".    Far from agreeing with the usefulness of internationalising justice procedures when confronted with crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes (all potentially charges to be levelled against Saddam), the US is waging a campaign to weaken support for the ICC.    This does not mean that the US cannot assist in the process of securing justice for Iraq, but does bring it into question. For example, will any court that tries Saddam Hussein be able to examine crimes committed when Iraq was an ally of the west as well as its acknowledged enemy? Or will there be time limits imposed?    If it can be proven that Iraq availed itself of the services of foreign chemical weapons experts, for example, will such foreign nationals also be subject to investigation and trial? Will deals be done for information, with perhaps amnesties in return for valuable intelligence information? Such deals were brokered after the second world war with German rocket scientists. This should not be repeated with Iraq.    Amnesty International's view is that the trial of Saddam should herald a full investigation into the two and a half decades' of human rights crimes that this benighted country has suffered. This means no deals, no amnesties, no "off-limits" investigations. This is an opportunity to bring to account all the perpetrators. The process should not be limited by politics and diplomacy, and neither should it be skewed by the imperatives of revenge.    What type of trial should there be? Clearly it is crucial that a trial is open, fully accountable and accords with international judicial standards. No show trials, no sectarianism, no victor's justice. The process has thus far not been exemplary, with the coalition provisional authority and the Iraqi governing council last week establishing an Iraqi special tribunal without proper consultation with Iraqi civil society or international experts.    This should be rectified as soon as possible, with a fresh consultation process that incorporates international juridical experts, clarifies some of the failings of the current Iraqi penal code and indicates the best mechanism for ensuring an impartial and independent bench. The example of the "mixed court" - combining national and international judges - in Sierra Leone could provide useful lessons. The watchwords are transparency and accountability.    Already enormous interest is brewing over whether Saddam Hussein will face a death sentence if found guilty. This is a dangerous blind alley for the international community. There is no question in our mind that the death penalty should be ruled out - the spectacle of Saddam being led toward a lethal injection chamber is a sad and unworthy one when dealing with Iraq's grave history.    What is needed is not the needle or the rope. Seeking to execute cold-bloodedly even a man found guilty of the most heinous crimes would achieve nothing concrete in terms of real justice.    Victor's justice or retribution are the great dangers. What Iraq needs is victims' justice, a genuinely transparent justice process that could begin to heal the wounds of the Iraqi people.    December 15, 2003    "Try Saddam in an International Court" by Kenneth Roth. (Published by the International Herald Tribune).     One can only rejoice at the capture of Saddam Hussein. Few people are more deserving of trial and punishment. U.S. forces deserve credit for arresting the deposed dictator so that his crimes can be presented and condemned in a court of law, rather than arranging to kill him in combat.    But the stakes now are enormous. The fairness of the tribunal he is brought before will determine whether his prosecution advances the rule of law in Iraq or perpetuates a system of arbitrary revenge. Washington says it has not yet decided what to do with him, but the first moves of the U.S.-dominated Iraqi Governing Council are not auspicious.    Saddam Hussein's government was responsible for the murder of a quarter of a million Iraqis. Among the occupants of the mass graves being unearthed in Iraq today are 100,000 Kurdish men and boys machine-gunned to death during the 1988 Anfal genocide, many after having been chased from their homes with chemical weapons; the 30,000 Shiites and Kurds slaughtered after the 1991 uprising; other Shiites killed during the 1980's because of their perceived sympathy for Iran; so-called Marsh Arabs killed as the Iraqi government drained the marshes and destroyed a culture that had thrived for centuries; and many individual Iraqis of all faiths and ethnicities who were singled out, their lives ended, for real or perceived opposition to the regime.    To do these victims justice, their plight should be recorded in a court of law and their perpetrators properly judged and punished. But the Iraqi Governing Council, taking its lead from Washington, last week established a tribunal that is to be dominated by Iraqi jurists. Despite the superficial appeal of allowing Iraqis to try their own persecutors, this approach is unlikely to produce sound prosecutions or fair trials. It reflects less a determination to see justice done than a fear of bucking Washington's ideological jihad against any further enhancement of the international system of justice.    As we know from Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, prosecutions of genocide or crimes against humanity can be enormously complex, demanding jurists of exceptional skill and sophistication. They require amassing volumes of official documents, collecting sensitive forensic evidence from mass graves, presenting hundreds of witnesses from among victims and accomplices, and paying scrupulous attention to the requirements of due process. To avoid being perceived as show trials or "victor's justice," they call for highly experienced jurists of unquestioned integrity.    Saddam's brutal and arbitrary justice system can hardly be expected to have produced such jurists. Prosecutions were typically based on confessions, often induced by torture. Serious criminal investigations, let alone complex trials, were virtually unheard of. The Iraqi Governing Council hopes to solve this problem by looking to Iraqi exiles as well as Iraqis from communities historically repressed by the Baath Party who remained in the country. But even among these it will be difficult to find jurists with the right combination of skills and emotional distance from the former dictatorship to produce trials that are fair - and seen as fair.    An internationally led tribunal would be a far better option, whether a fully international tribunalor, more likely, an internationally run tribunal with significant domestic participation, such as the special court set up for Sierra Leone. Because its personnel would be selected by the United Nations rather than by Washington's surrogates, an internationally led tribunal is more likely to be seen as legitimate. And because it can draw from a global pool of talent, it would be better able to secure the experienced and fair-minded jurists than a court that must look only to Iraqis. An internationally led tribunal could still conduct trials in Baghdad and involve Iraqis as much as possible, but it would be run by international jurists with proven records of overseeing complex prosecutions and scrupulously respecting international fair-trial standards.    Despite the obvious merits of an internationally led tribunal, Washington is adamantly opposed, which largely explains the path chosen by the Iraqi Governing Council. But Washington's opposition reflects its ideology, not concern for the Iraqi people. The Bush administration calculates that a tribunal of Iraqis selected by its hand-picked Governing Council will be less likely to reveal embarrassing aspects of Washington's past support for Saddam Hussein, more likely to impose the death penalty despite broad international condemnation, and, most important, less likely to enhance even indirectly the legitimacy of the detested International Criminal Court.    No one should endorse these self-serving reasons. Governments should encourage Washington to allow an internationally led tribunal to try Saddam Hussein and his henchmen. The people of Iraq deserve no less.    (The writer is executive director of Human Rights Watch).    Copyright © 2003 the International Herald Tribune
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