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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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 Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 3:02 pm Post subject: George Monbiot Attempts Citizen’s Arrest on John Bolton |
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| Quote: | Alleging War Crimes, British Activist, Writer George Monbiot Attempts Citizen’s Arrest on Former UN Ambassador John Bolton
John Bolton–the former US ambassador to the United Nations–escaped a citizens arrest Wednesday night as he addressed an audience gathered at the Hay Festival in Wales. Security guards blocked the path of columnist and activist George Monbiot, who tried to make the arrest as Bolton left the stage. Monbiot planned the action because he says Bolton is a war criminal for his role in helping to initiate the invasion of Iraq in 2003 while he served as US under-secretary of state for arms control.
George Monbiot joins me now on the telephone from England. He is a widely-read columnist for the Guardian of London and the author of numerous books, his latest is “Bring on the Apocalypse: Collected Writing.” |
real audio, video and mp3 available at http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/30/alleging_war_crimes_british_activist_writer
and this from monbiots site;
| Quote: | The Charge Sheet
On Wednesday 28th May 2008, I will attempt a citizen’s arrest of John Robert Bolton, former Under-Secretary of State, US State Department, for the crime of aggression, as established by customary international law and described by Nuremberg Principles VI and VII.
These state the following:
“Principle VI
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
…
“Principle VII
Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.”
The evidence against him is as follows:
1. John Bolton orchestrated the sacking of the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Jose Bustani. Bustani had offered to resolve the dispute over Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, and therefore to avert armed conflict. He had offered to seek to persuade Saddam Hussein to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention, which would mean that Iraq was then subject to weapons inspections by the OPCW. As the OPCW was not tainted by the CIA’s infiltration of UNSCOM, Bustani’s initiative had the potential to defuse the crisis over Saddam Hussein’s obstruction of UNMOVIC inspections.
Apparently in order to prevent the negotiated settlement that Bustani proposed, and as part of a common plan with other administration officials to prepare and initiate a war of aggression, in violation of international treaties, Mr Bolton acted as follows:
In March 2002 his office produced a ‘White Paper’ claiming that the OPCW was seeking an “inappropriate role” in Iraq.
On 20th March 2002 he met Bustani at the Hague to seek his resignation. Bustani refused to resign.
On 21st March 2002 he orchestrated a No-Confidence Motion calling for Bustani to resign as Director General which was introduced by the United States delegation. The motion failed.
On 22nd April 2002 the US called a special session of the conference of the States Parties and the Conference adopted the decision to terminate the appointment of the Director General effective immediately. Bolton had suggested that the US would withhold its dues from OPCW. The motion to sack Bustani was carried. Bustani asserts that this ‘special session’ was illegal, in breach of his contract and gave illegitimate grounds for his dismissal, stating a ‘lack of confidence’ in his leadership, without specific examples, and ignoring the failed No-Confidence vote.
In his book Surrender is Not an Option Mr Bolton describes his role in Bustani’s sacking (pages 95-9 and states the following:
“I directed that we begin explaining to others that the US contribution to the OPCW might well be cut if Bustani remained”.
“I met with Bustani to tell him he should resign … If he left now, we would do our best to give him ‘a gracious and dignified exit’. Otherwise we intended to have him fired”.
“I stepped in to tank the protocol, and then to tank Bustani”.
Bolton appears, in other words, to accept primary responsibility for Bustani’s dismissal.
Bustani appealed against the decision through the International Labour Organisation Tribunal. He was vindicated in his appeal and awarded his full salary and moral damages.
2. Mr Bolton helped to promote the false claim, through a State Department Fact Sheet, that Saddam Hussein had been seeking to procure uranium from Niger, as part of a common plan to prepare and initiate a war of aggression, in violation of international treaties.
The State Department Fact Sheet was released on the 19th December 2002 and was entitled ‘Illustrative Examples of Omissions From the Iraqi Declaration to the United States Security Council’ . Under the heading ‘Nuclear Weapons’ the fact sheet stated –
“The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger.
Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?”
In a US Department of State press briefing on July 14th 2003 the spokesman Richard Boucher said “The accusation that turned out to be based on fraudulent evidence is that Niger sold uranium to Iraq” .
Bolton’s involvement in the use of fraudulent evidence is documented in Rep. Henry Waxman’s letter to Christopher Shays on the 1st March 2005. Waxman says “In April 2004, the State Department used the designation ‘sensitive but unclassified’ to conceal unclassified information about the role of John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, in the creation of a fact sheet distributed to the United Nations that falsely claimed that Iraq sought uranium from Niger”.
“Both State Department intelligence officials and CIA officials reported that they had rejected the claims as unreliable. As a result, it was unclear who within the State Department was involved in preparing the fact sheet”.
Waxman requested a chronology of how the Fact Sheet was developed. His letter states –
“This chronology described a meeting on December 18,2002, between Secretary Powell, Mr. Bolton, and Richard Boucher, the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Public Affairs. According to this chronology, Mr. Boucher specifically asked Mr. Bolton ‘for help developing a response to Iraq’s Dec 7 Declaration to the United Nations Security Council that could be used with the press.’ According to the chronology, which is phrased in the present tense, Mr. Bolton ‘agrees and tasks the Bureau of Nonproliferation,’ a subordinate office that reports directly to Mr. Bolton, to conduct the work.
“This unclassified chronology also stated that on the next day, December 19, 2003, the Bureau of Nonproliferation “sends email with the fact sheet, ‘Fact Sheet Iraq Declaration.doc,’” to Mr. Bolton’s office (emphasis in original). A second e-mail was sent a few minutes later, and a third e-mail was sent about an hour after that. According to the chronology, each version ‘still includes Niger reference.’ Although Mr. Bolton may not have personally drafted the document, the chronology appears to indicate that he ordered its creation and received updates on its development.”
Both these actions were designed to assist in the planning of a war of aggression. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg ruled that “to initiate a war of aggression … is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime”. |
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faceless
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Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 3:04 pm Post subject: |
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| That's great stuff - the more stuff like this happens the better the chances of people being able to take back some of the power that politicians have stolen. |
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faceless
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Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 6:41 pm Post subject: |
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Vincent cautioned at literary festival
Chortle
The stand-up was picked up by police as a group of people tried to make a citizen’s arrest of former George Bush aide John Bolton over alleged war crimes. Protesters, led by environmental campaigner George Monbiot, claim that Bolton’s actions in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq contravened two of the Nuremberg Principles of international war.
The campaigners, which also included comedian Marcus Brigstocke, attempted arrest Bolton during his speech at the festival, but security staff bundled them out of the marquee. However, Vincent, who had not been denied access to the tent, instead snuck into the backstage area – where he was grabbed as he tried to get on to the stage.
Brickstocke said: ‘Andre’s charge sheet read, “Man seen hovering at rear of performance area” – which I think sums up his comedy career. As he was being questioned by police, Sandi Toksvig walked past and told them, “Don’t you know who he is? Of course you don’t, you’re only 12”. ‘I think they thought they had arrested Brian Blessed,’ Brigstocke added.
The Now Show regular said the citizen’s arrest attempt was a genuine bid to bring Bolton to justice. He was Bush’s Undersecretary of State for Arms Control before being appointed America’s Ambassador to the United Nations, even though he is a strong critic of the organisation, once claiming: ‘There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States.’
After his failed attempt, Monbiot said: ‘I'm disappointed I couldn't reach him, but I made what I believe to be the first attempt ever to arrest one of the perpetrators of the Iraq war, and I would like to see that followed up.’
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Good on him! |
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nekokate
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Location: West Yorkshire, UK
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| Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 10:09 pm Post subject: |
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Nice one!
I also love Sandi Toksvig, she's a delight. On radio 4 she recently repeated Richard Herring's comment that to solve the Israel/Palestine problem they should get one of them to draw a line, and the other to choose which side of it they wanted. She's like a human (and witty) version of Ann Widdecombe. |
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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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| Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 12:03 am Post subject: |
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| monbiot says wrote: | | I made what I believe to be the first attempt ever to arrest one of the perpetrators of the Iraq war |
i don't think thats quite true ... |
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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | War criminals must fear punishment. That's why I went for John Bolton
I realise now that I didn’t have a hope. I had almost reached the stage when two of the biggest gorillas I have ever seen swept me up and carried me out of the tent. It was humiliating, but it could have been worse. The guard on the other side of the stage, half hidden in the curtains, had spent the lecture touching something under his left armpit. Perhaps he had bubos.
I had no intention of arresting John Bolton, the former under-secretary of state at the US State Department, when I arrived at the Hay Festival. But during a panel discussion about the Iraq war, I remarked that the greatest crime of the 21st century had become so normalised that one of its authors was due to visit the festival to promote his book. I proposed that someone should attempt a citizens’ arrest, in the hope of instilling a fear of punishment among those who plan illegal wars. After the session I realised that I couldn’t call on other people to do something I wasn’t prepared to do myself.
I knew that I was more likely to be arrested and charged than Mr Bolton. I had no intention of harming him, or of acting in any way that could be interpreted as aggressive, but had I sought only to steer him gently towards the police I might have faced a range of exotic charges, from false imprisonment to aggravated assault. I was prepared to take this risk. It is not enough to demand that other people act, knowing that they will not. If the police, the courts and the state fail to prosecute what the Nuremberg tribunal described as “the supreme international crime”(1), I believe we have a duty to seek to advance the process(2).
The Nuremberg Principles, which arose from the prosecution of the Nazi war criminals, define as an international crime the “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances”(3). Bolton appears to have “participated in a common plan” to prepare for the war (also defined by the principles as a crime) by inserting the false claim that Iraq was seeking to procure uranium from Niger into a State Department fact sheet(4,5). He also organised the sacking of Jose Bustani, the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons(6,7). Bustani had tried to broker a peaceful resolution of the dispute over Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction ( 8 ).
Some of the most pungent criticisms of my feeble attempt to bring this man to justice have come from other writers for the Guardian. Michael White took a position of extraordinary generosity towards the instigators of the war(9). There are “arguments on both sides”, he contended. Bustani might have received compensation after his sacking by Bolton, “but Bolton says that does not mean much. That is sometimes true.” In fact Bustani was not only compensated at his tribunal; he was completely exonerated of Bolton’s charges and his employers were obliged to pay special damages(10).
White suggested that Iraq might indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger, on the grounds of a conversation he once had with an MI6 officer. Alongside the British government’s 45-minute claim, this must be the best-documented of all the false justifications for the war with Iraq. In 2002, the US government sent three senior officials to Niger to investigate the claim(11). All reported that it was without foundation. The International Atomic Energy Agency discovered that it was based on crude forgeries(12). This assessment was confirmed by the State Department’s official Greg Thielmann(13), who reported directly to John Bolton(14). No evidence beyond the forged documents has been provided by either the US or the UK governments to support their allegation.
White also gives credence to Bolton’s claims that the war in 2003 was justified by two UN resolutions – 678 and 687 – which were approved in 1990 and 1991, and that it was permitted by Article 51 of the UN Charter. The attempt to revive resolutions 678 and 687 was the last, desperate throw of the dice by the Blair government when all else had failed. When it became clear that it could not obtain a new UN resolution authorising force against Iraq, the government dusted down the old ones, which had been drafted in response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. This revival formed the basis of Lord Goldsmith’s published advice on 17th March 2003. It was described as “risible” and “scrap[ing] the bottom of the legal barrel” by Lord Alexander, a senior law lord(15). After the first Gulf War, Colin Powell, General Sir Peter de la Billiere and John Major all stated that the UN’s resolutions permitted them only to expel the Iraqi army from Kuwait, and not to overthrow the Iraqi government(16). Lord Goldsmith himself, in the summer of 2002, advised Tony Blair that resolutions 678 and 687 could not be used to justify a new war with Iraq(17).
Article 51 of the UN Charter is comprehensible to anyone but the lawyers employed by the Bush administration. States have a right to self-defence “if an armed attack occurs against” them, and then only until the UN Security Council can intervene. On what occasion did Iraq attack the United States? Is there any claim made by the Blair and Bush governments that Michael White is not prepared to believe?
Conor Foley, writing on Comment is Free, suggested that my action “completely trivializes the serious case” against the Iraq war ( 18 ) and claimed that I was seeking to “imprison … people because of their political opinions”(19), as if Bolton were simply a commentator on the war, and not an agent. Does he really believe that the former under-secretary did not “participate in a common plan” to initiate the war with Iraq? What other conceivable purpose might the State Department’s misleading fact sheet have served? And what more serious action can someone who is neither a Law Lord nor a legislator take? Bolton himself maintains that my attempt to bring him to justice reflects a “move towards lawlessness and fascism.”(20) This is an interesting commentary on an attempt to uphold a law which arose from the prosecution of fascists.
But there is one charge I do accept: that my chances of success were very slight. Apart from the 300-pound gorillas, the main obstacle I faced was that although the crime of aggression, as defined by the Nuremberg Principles, has been incorporated into the legislation of many countries, it has not been assimilated into the laws of England and Wales(21). This does not lessen the crime but it means that it cannot yet be tried here. This merely highlights another injustice: while the British state is prepared to punish petty misdemeanors with vindictive ferocity, it will not legislate against the greatest crime of all, lest it expose itself to prosecution.
But demonstration has two meanings. Non-violent direct action is both a protest and an exposition. It seeks to demonstrate truths which have been overlooked or forgotten. I sought to remind people that the greatest crime of the 21st Century remains unprosecuted, and remains a great crime. If you have read this far, I have succeeded.
References:
1. Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, 9th November 2004. Aggressive War: Supreme International Crime. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110904A.shtml
2. The charge sheet Nicola Cutcher and I compiled can be read here: http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/05/27/arresting-john-bolton/
3. http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/390?OpenDocument
4. See letter from Rep. Henry Waxman to Rep. Christopher Shays, 1st March 2005. http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20050301112122-90349.pdf
5. The State Department fact sheet can be read here: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/16118.htm
6. Charles J. Hanley, 4th June 2005. Bolton Said to Orchestrate Unlawful Firing. Associated Press.
7. Bolton himself boasts of this role in his book, Surrender is Not an Option, 2008. pp 95-98. Threshold Editions, New York.
8. See http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2002/04/16/a-war-against-the-peacemaker/
9. Michael White, 29th May 2008. What I really think about John Bolton. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/05/michael_whites_political_bl…
10. See http://www.ilo.org/public/english/tribunal/fulltext/2232.htm
11. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Ambassador Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick and General Carlton Fulford.
12. Mohamed ElBaradei, 7th March 2003. The Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq: an Update.
Statement to the United Nations Security Council. http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtml
13. Michael Duffy and James Carney, 21st July 2003. A Question Of Trust. Time magazine. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1005234-1,00.html
14. No author given, 1st August 2005. Bush appoints Bolton as his UN ambassador. The Economist.
15. Clare Dyer, 15th October 2003. Goldsmith ’scraped the legal barrel’ over Iraq war. The Guardian.
16. Philippe Sands, 2005. Lawless World, p190. Penguin, London.
17. John Kampfner, 2003. Blair’s Wars, p378. Free Press.
18. Conor Foley, 30th May 2008. Monbiot’s silly stunt. http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_foley/2008/05/monbiots_silly_stunt.html
19. Conor makes this claim in the comment thread.
20. Stephen Adams, 29th May 2008. John Bolton: Citizen’s arrest attempt was comic. The Telegraph.
21. House of Lords, 2006. Judgments – R v. Jones (Appellant) (On Appeal from the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)) (formerly R v. J (Appellant)), Etc.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldjudgmt/jd060329/jones-5.htm |
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faceless
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Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Next time there is someone like this Bolton bastard within easy reach there should be a group of people ready to wade in and take him. If he can use security to protect himself, then so can others... |
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