Irak 142

Door het stupide optreden van de Amerikaanse regering zijn het proces tegen en de dood van Saddam Hoessein geen overwinning voor het recht geworden. De beelden zijn duidelijk: zonder een krimp te geven laat Saddam zich ongemaskerd de strop omleggen, terwijl rondom hem gemaskerde beulen zenuwachtig heen en weer lopen en niet precies lijken te weten wat ze moeten doen. Saddam beheerst als enige de situatie. Dat is de boodschap die in onze moderne beeldcultuur uit de wereldwijd uitgezonden beelden spreekt en zo zal het in de islamitische- en derde wereld gezien worden. Dit kan voor de betrokken autoriteiten wel eens 'a public relations disaster' worden, zo hoorde ik een westerse commentator bij de BBC World Service terecht zeggen.

De International Herald Tribune:

'U.S. role tainted trial.
Situation is called 'worst of both worlds.'

WASHINGTON: Iraqi judges handed down the death sentence against Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq, but hundreds of American lawyers, advisers and investigators played an important role in the prosecution and conviction of Saddam.
For three years, officials from the U.S. Justice and State Departments searched for evidence to use in his trials. They pored over millions of Iraqi documents and looked into hundreds of graves that contained the remains of thousands of people killed during Saddam's 24-year rule, which ended in 2003 with the U.S. invasion. U.S. advisers helped draft the rules of the court and U.S. officials then served as the court's logistical backbone after Iraq regained sovereignty.
The U.S. government spent more than $128 million building the courthouse, exhuming mass graves, gathering evidence and training Iraqi judges, compared with $9 million spent by Iraq.
But for many critics in Iraq and beyond, Saddam's trial has been tainted by the perception — common in the Arab world — that the victors orchestrated the judgment. U.S. officials said that they wanted to play a lesser role but that few other governments were willing to assist Iraq in bringing Saddam to justice.
Miranda Sissons, a senior associate at the International Center for Transitional Justice, a group in New York that supports war-crimes and genocide prosecutions worldwide, observed Saddam's trial.
"It is very clear that if you look at sentiment in the Arab regional world," Sissons said, "the American role in establishing the tribunal and its link to the invasion of Iraq has greatly lessened the tribunal's legitimacy."
Nehal Bhuta, an assistant professor of law at the University of Toronto who also observed part of the trial for Human Rights Watch, agreed. "This is perceived as an American-dominated process," Bhuta said.
U.S. officials said they had tried to internationalize the process, asking the United Nations, the European Union and several countries to assist with the trial. They declined because they reject the death penalty and opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the officials said.
Pierre-Richard Prosper, who as a U.S. official played a major role in setting up the tribunal, said that he had approached many countries, asking them to take charge of witness protection, the exhumation of graves or the training of judges but that only Britain and Australia had agreed to help.
"At the time, everybody was saying, 'This is too American,' but it was American by default," Prosper said. "I wanted to dilute the American role. It would look like we were the puppeteers instead of a noble effort to help the Iraqis administer justice."
Debates raged over how Saddam should be tried even before Baghdad fell to U.S. military forces in 2003. Human rights groups, European governments and some prominent Democrats, including Senator Joseph Biden, argued that Saddam should be prosecuted in an international court, as had been done with defendants from Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the former Yugoslavia. They argued that a trial with an international makeup would be more credible and less subject to political pressure.'

Lees verder: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/29/news/america.php