Ongelofelijk
maar alweer waar: het Internationaal Strafhof (ICC) heeft het onderzoek
stopgezet naar oorlogsmisdaden door de VS begaan in Afghanistan. De
reden daarvoor zijn dreigementen en acties door de Trump administratie tegen het ICC, zoals een
inreisverbod voor een ieder die meewerkt aan het onderzoek, bijvoorbeeld advocaten van slachtoffers…….

Hoe
is het mogelijk dat de rest van de wereld en (vooral) Nederland na de
dreigementen van de VS niet onmiddellijk zwaar protest hebben
aangetekend??? Nederland dat zich ten onrechte keer op keer voordoet
als het land van het internationale recht…

Domme
vraag van mij, uiteraard geven andere landen hier geen commentaar op,
daar een groot deel van de westerse landen in NAVO-verband heeft
meegedaan aan de illegale oorlog van de VS tegen in feite de
bevolking van Afghanistan……

Met
deze beslissing van het ICC heeft dit strafhof haar eigen nek
omgedraaid, al stond de geloofwaardigheid van het ICC al sterk onder
druk na de eenzijdige vervolging van o.a. de oorlogsmisdaden begaan
in voormalig Joegoslavië……..

In voormalig Joegoslavië werden vooral Serven hard aangepakt, waar tegelijkertijd de VS en NAVO zelfs zonder onderzoek wegkwamen met een
fiks aantal grote oorlogsmisdaden……. Iets dat het ICC eigenlijk altijd deed als het om westerse oorlogsmisdaden ging, totdat het ICC besloot de
VS te onderzoeken op oorlogsmisdaden in Afghanistan, iets dat nu dus is
teruggedraaid…. Ongelofelijk!!

Benieuwd hoe het staat met het ICC onderzoek naar oorlogsmisdaden door Israël begaan tegen het door haar vervolgde Palestijnse volk. Of is dat onderzoek na dreigementen uit de VS en Israël ook stopgezet??

Het volgende artikel is geschreven door Ian Cobain, werd eerder geplaatst op Middel East Eye (MEE) en door mij overgenomen van Anti-Media:

ICC
Decides Against Afghanistan War Crimes Investigation After US
Opposition

April
12, 2019 at 2:46 pm

Written
by Middle
East Eye

(MEE) — The
International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague has decided against
opening a formal investigation into war crimes committed in
Afghanistan after the United States made clear that it would never
co-operate.

In
a decision that is likely to seriously undermine the future stature
of the court, it announced that it would not be proceeding –
despite believing that war crimes were committed and that they fell
within its jurisdiction.

US
soldiers patrol the streets of Kabul (AFP)

The
announcement by the court’s Pre-Trial Chamber came a week
after the US revoked the entry visa of the senior ICC prosecutor,
Fatou Bensouda.

Previously,
US National Security Advisor John Bolton had made clear that his
government would not only refuse to co-operate, but would seize the
assets of Bensouda and her ICC colleagues and even prosecute them in
the US criminal courts.

‘“We
will let the ICC die on its own,” Bolton said last year. “After
all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us.”

Human
Rights Watch condemned the decision, calling it “a devastating blow
for victims who have suffered grave crimes without redress”.

Had
the court decided to proceed with a formal investigation, it would
have examined the actions of the Taliban and Afghan government as
well as the United States.

In
a statement, the court said: “The Chamber believes that,
notwithstanding the fact all the relevant requirements are met as
regards both jurisdiction and admissibility, the current
circumstances of the situation in Afghanistan are such as to make the
prospects for a successful investigation and prosecution extremely
limited.

“Accordingly,
it is unlikely that pursuing an investigation would result in meeting
the objectives listed by the victims favouring the investigation.

“Thus
the Chamber concluded that an investigation into the situation in
Afghanistan at this stage would not serve the interests of justice
and rejected the Prosecutor’s request for authorization to
investigate.”

The
US has not ratified the Rome Statute, the piece of international law
that established the ICC in 2002 in order to prosecute genocide,
crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of state aggression.

Afghanistan
has ratified the statute, however, meaning the court has jurisdiction
over crimes committed as a consequence of the war in that country
since 1 May 2003.

In
a preliminary report in 2017, Bensouda said there was a reasonable
basis to believe that US forces personnel and CIA officers had been
involved in the war crimes of torture and rape, and that the crimes
committed at the agency’s so-called black sites in countries
including Poland, Lithuania and Romania, had been “committed with
particular cruelty.”

The
evidence that the CIA and US forces had committed war crimes in
Afghanistan includes the 2014 US Senate Intelligence Committee
report, which drew upon the CIA’s own records to document human
rights abuses that the agency committed in a global network of secret
prisons; reports by the International Committee of the Red Cross; and
findings by the European Court of Human Rights.

In
the past, some African observers have accused the court of abandoning
the pursuit of global justice in favour of the pursuit only of
African leaders, and the failure to investigate the war in
Afghanistan may provoke renewed calls for an African Union walkout.

Many
African Union countries have expressed support for ousted Sudanese
president Omar al-Bashir, who continued to travel widely in Africa
and the Middle East despite being the subject of an ICC arrest
warrant issued in 2009.

Sima
Samar, the chair of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights
Commission, said the decision was a disappointment for victims.

She
told the Associated Press that it risked emboldening the perpetrators
of crimes in Afghanistan, who were “at least a little fearful” of
facing justice.

“With
this decision, people will lose hope of getting justice and they
might take revenge, fueling conflict in the country,” she said.

By Ian
Cobain / Republished
with permission / Middle
East Eye / Report
a typo