Revolution International!

THIS BLOG HAS BEEN TERMINATED

you can find Flavio at

The Portuguese Conservative

This journal has been around for circa 50 years, its latest issue is just out, for more info press here.

Received the first version of "Finis Mundi" #5 from our graphic designer a couple of days ago, even though I've tried to shorten its lenght to up to 200 pages, this issue will have at least 230 pages and we have enough essays, reviews and opinion articles left for at least two more issues in Portuguese language, that using only the papers submited by Portuguese and Brazilian scholars and those from foreign scholars that honour us by writting in our own language.

The 1st issue of the English language version of "Finis Mundi" is very much delayed, I'm truly sorry for that, I was hoping we would release it in May Day, but its pretty obvious that did not happen. 

KUALA LUMPUR, 4 May 2012 (mathaba) The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal will be hearing the second charge of Crime of Torture and War Crimes against former U.S. President George W. Bush and his associates namely Richard Cheney, former U.S. Vice President, Donald Rumsfeld, former Defence Secretary, Alberto Gonzales, then Counsel to President Bush, David Addington, then General Counsel to the Vice-President, William Haynes II, then General Counsel to Secretary of Defense, Jay Bybee, then Assistant Attorney General, and John Choon Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney-General. The charge reads as follows:

The Accused persons had committed the Crime of Torture and War Crimes, in that: The Accused persons had wilfully participated in the formulation of executive orders and directives to exclude the applicability of all international conventions and laws, namely the Convention against Torture 1984, Geneva Convention III 1949, Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Charter in relation to the war launched by the U.S. and others in Afghanistan (in 2001) and in Iraq (in March 2003); Additionally, and/or on the basis and in furtherance thereof, the Accused persons authorised, or connived in, the commission of acts of torture and cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment against victims in violation of international law, treaties and conventions including the Convention against Torture 1984 and the Geneva Conventions, including Geneva Convention III 1949.

The charges are founded on the contravention of the Convention against Torture 1984 and Geneva Convention III 1949.

The Torture Convention defines ‘torture’ as ‘the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, by or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official’.The term ‘public official’ refers to ‘official torture’ and includes the head of a state. It excludes suffering attendant upon the imposition of lawful punishment.

The Geneva Conventions were created in 1949 after World War II. They crystallize customary humanitarian law and aim to limit the horrors of war by establishingminimum standards of humane treatment in ‘armed conflict not of an international character’ to all civilians and non-combatants that everyone must follow.

The common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention encapsulates a fundamental provision of civilized conduct, and obliges anyone who was not taking an active part in hostilities to be treated humanely under all circumstances. This includes cruel treatment and torture; and “outrages upon personal dignity” – that is no humiliating or degrading treatment.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC) following the due process of the law is bringing these charges against the accused. In 2009, the Commission, having received complaints from torture victims from Guantanamo and Iraq, proceeded to conduct a painstaking and an in-depth investigation for close to two years.

President Bush sought and secured legal opinions to justify his actions in suspending the application of the Torture Convention and Geneva Convention III. Defence Secretary Rumsfeld sought and authorised aggressive interrogation techniques and implemented them first in Guantanamo and then in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The brutality inflicted was in clear violation of the international conventions and Legal advice was willingly given by the relevant lawyers to serve an ulterior political objective by the Executive. For this reasons the lawyers were willing participants and are equally culpable for war crimes. The Commission recommended that the Prosecution file charges against the accused persons.

The victims who will be attending the Tribunal hearing to testify against the accused were never charged for any actual offences and all legal representation was denied to them. No due process of international law was complied with.

The experiences of these detainees be it in Guantanamo or in Abu Gharib in Baghdad and Bagram in Afghanistan were similar. The systematic methods employed in these illegal detention centres revealed a deeper complicity instead of the ‘acts of a few rogue soldiers’ as claimed by the United States.

The cries of these victims have thus far gone unheeded by the international community. The fundamental human right to be heard has been denied to them. These witnesses will testify on the torture they had endured during their incarceration. The accused will have a right to cross-examine them as in any open court hearing.

Some of the allegations of torture and inhumane treatment include:

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal is constituted of eminent persons with legal qualifications. The judges of the Tribunal, which is headed by retired Malaysian Federal Court judge Tan Sri Dato Lamin bin Haji Mohd Yunus, who also served as an ad litem judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Republic of Yugoslavia, include other notable names such as Mr Alfred Lambremont Webre, a Yale graduate, who authored several books on politics, Tunku Sofiah Jewa, practising lawyer and author of numerous publications on International Law, Prof Salleh Buang, former Federal Counsel in the Attorney-General Chambers and retired Court of Appeal judge Datuk Mohd Sa’ari Yusof.

The Tribunal will adjudicate and evaluate the evidence presented as in any court of law. The judges of the Tribunal must be satisfied that the charges are proven beyond reasonable doubt and deliver a reasoned judgement.

In the event the tribunal convicts any of the accused, the only sanction is that the name of the guilty person will be entered in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and publicised worldwide. The tribunal is a tribunal of conscience and a peoples’ initiative.

The prosecution for the trial will be lead by Prof Gurdial Singh Nijar, prominent law professor and author of several law publications and Prof Francis Boyle, leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law, and assisted by a team of lawyers.

The trial will be a public hearing held in an open court on 7-12 May 2012 at the premises of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW) at 88, Jalan Perdana, Kuala Lumpur.

CONTACT

For further information concerning the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal please read Background to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal.

News media wishing to receive coverage of the event from 7 to 12 May please Mathaba News Agency for arrangements to obtain a special direct news feed, and agreements on republishing and usage rights. News media contacting via Email to mathaba@gmail.com should include " KLWCC Media Request " in the subject line.

The Commission can be reached via Mathaba News Agency at mathaba@gmail.com and should include " KLWCC Commission Request " in the subject line.

FURTHER UPDATESMembers of the public wishing to remain informed of further updates, please choose from the following methods:

Via Email: sign up for free to Mathaba Daily Briefing at www.mathaba.net/go/daily
Via RSS: subscribe to Mathaba Highlights feed at rss.mathaba.net/mathabanews
Via Facebook: visit www.facebook.com/mathaba.net and click on the Like button
Via Twitter: follow @mathaba on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mathaba

For those wishing to report to Mathaba from the Conference using Twitter please use the #klwct hashtag and optionally #warcrimes and #mathaba tags. Adding #mathaba will ensure tweets also appear on the side bar of all our live news pages.

If you do not have or do not with to use Twitter for live reporting, please use www.mathaba.net/go/live and request to be granted live posting privileges.

I finally have regained access to the Internet, even though I'm still without Internet at home (my girlfriend's cat ate the cord, thrice so far...). I'm not a great fan of technological change (still a Green Anarchist at heart, I presume), so now I'll have to relearn to use blogger's new look. 

Sorry for the lack of posting, my half a dozen readers, but I was sick (still recovering, nothing serious, a skin eating bacteria and I'm alergic to penicillin, something I discovered only AFTER taking that damn thing) and after that my girlfriend's cat ate the Internet wire... really. Have some family spending their vacations here right now, so normal posting should resume in a week at most,

Jared Taylor (American Renaissance) and Keith Preston (Alternative Right) have published reviews of A Life in the Political Wilderness by Welf Herfurth, humbly published by yours truly Finis Mundi Press. As far as I know, these are the only two available reviews so far:

A Radical Left Plan for Racial Survival by Jared Taylor.

A Journey Through the Political Maze by Keith Preston.

For a bit more on Welf Herfurth, he was interviewed in Keith Preston's program at The Voice Of Reason Network, click here for the interview.

On this week's edition we remember two major thinkers of European patriotism that no longer walk amongst us: the French author Jean Mabire and the Portuguese poet and activist Rodrigo Emilio. Interview with the Conservative musician Nuno da Camara Pereira (former president of the Monarchist Populist Party).