Denying War Crimes Leads to More

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We cannot deny the shocking truth about the crimes against humanity that some leaders commit against their own people and others. We are challenged by Christian belief to speak out and take a stand against it. We need to understand how a nation can be frightened or persuaded to tacitly condone or participate in such crimes. The Holocaust is one glaring example where as many as 6 million Jews were annihilated by Hitler and his Nazi regime. It has not only happened in the past history but in our own life times, Rwanda, Bosnia, Sierra Leon, Liberia, and presently in the Eastern Congo, and Darfur, Sudan. The war trials tribunal in Rwanda uncovered the extent of the horrific killing there – 800,000 killed in only a few weeks. Presently the war trial in Cambodia is bringing some of the masterminds of the Cambodian genocide to justice. An estimated 1.6 millions people were executed on the orders of the deceased Pol Pot. His henchmen are presently and finally on trial.

Denial, cover up, blaming others and trying to forget atrocities and genocide only allows them to be repeated again and again. We have to stand together and act to influence public opinion and government policy that will always respect and uphold human rights and never allow the truth to be denied. The action of the ICC is the hope of the victims, the oppressed and the downtrodden. But the UN must also take action to deploy more troops to defend the millions of victims at risk from the blood letting, murder, rape, looting and burning.

The arrest warrant issued by the UN International Criminal Court (ICC) for the President of Sudan Omar Hassan Al-Bashir for seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including extermination of people, rape, murder, torture and forced removal. While the genocide charge is not included, it could yet be added according to Laurence Blairon, an ICC spokesperson. This arrest warrant has had a devastating impact on the more than one million refugees. He has retaliated by committing another war crime denying them food, water and medical aid by driving out the International Aid agencies. He denies any war crimes against the people in Darfur and retaliated. Anticipating this, the agencies have had time to make contingency plans but they never expected this massive retaliation. These agencies need all the help they can get to cope with this new challenge.

This is the first time that a sitting head of state has been indicted for war crimes and faces an international arrest warrant. His cronies and other supporting national leaders join his claim that this is colonial era and white man’s justice. There are African judges on the ICC that signed the arrest warrant in fact.

It is a powerful message and warning to tyrants, dictators and war criminals that they will be hunted down and brought to justice and a life behind bars. International Human Rights organizations are gathering evidence against the masterminds behind the Philippine death squads that assassinate hundreds of people every year including minors especially in Davao City. It is so systematic and wide-ranging and it will surely be considered a crime against humanity. The politicians deny any connection with such a policy but the evidence is convincing that they are involved.

More shocking for Catholics and people everywhere is that a Catholic Bishop would also be denying the war crimes of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis of Germany during World War II. Bishop Richard Williamson, an ultra conservative bishop that broke away from Rome and was recently pardoned and had his excommunication lifted by the Pope has not repented. It’s a crime in Germany to deny the Holocaust where an estimated 6 million Jews were exterminated in gas
chambers by Hitler.

Working for peace is to reveal the truth. The widespread and systematic abuse against vulnerable children in the criminal child sex industry is surely a crime against humanity that the ICC ought to investigate. BS News RAW (February 5, 2009 1:00 PM): Bishop Richard Williamson, who Pope Benedict XVI recently pardoned from excommunication, says that he does not think that Jewish people were sent to gas chambers during the Holocaust.

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