Former Malaysian Prime Minister: Put Bush, Blair on Trial
The following article was published by the Malaysian
National News Agency, Bernama.
Kuala Lumpur, February 5 -- Proving that he is still a
firebrand, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad Monday lashed out at United States President
George W. Bush and British Premier Tony Blair saying that the world should
remember them as "the killers of children" or as "the lying
Prime Minister or President."
"They
should be literally hounded."
"What Blair and Bush had done is worse than what Saddam (Hussein) had
done," the former Malaysian Prime Minister said.
Delivering this message in his keynote address at the three-day War Crimes
Conference and Exhibition, here, Dr. Mahathir said these leaders who used war
as a means to gain support should be accorded the names they deserved for the
evil deeds they committed.
The conference, dubbed the Kuala Lumpur Initiative to Criminalize War, is
organized by Perdana Global Peace Organisation, which Dr. Mahathir chairs.
The conference will also work towards the setting up of a permanent tribunal,
recognized by the victims of aggression, to hear charges leveled at the
warmongers, leaders and governments of aggressor nations, to determine their
innocence or guilt and to prescribe punishment.
"The conference will work towards the setting up of a
permanent tribunal."
"We should not hang Blair if the tribunal finds him guilty but he should
always carry the label as a war criminal, killer of children, liar. And so
should Bush and the pocket Bush of the bushlands of Australia (referring to
Australian PM John Howard)," said Dr. Mahathir.
He said while the world might not be able to get governments of countries to
enact laws to label these leaders as "war criminals,"
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the sympathetic media could append
the label whenever their names were mentioned.
The people and NGOs for peace, he said, should make these war criminals feel
unwelcome wherever they went and that "they should be literally
hounded."
"They should have full frontal and profile pictures put up everywhere as
war criminals. And historians should always refer to them as war criminals in
history books," said Malaysia's fourth Prime Minister.
He said the first move in the struggle for peace was to ensure that people of
the world knew the truth about war and its dangers as "the media is owned
and controlled by warmongers."
"We have to build a base for spreading the word, the idea that wars are
crimes against humanity, that those who resort to wars in furtherance of their
ideology or agenda are common criminals and must be labeled as such and
punished," said Dr Mahathir.
He said there was now a need for the establishment of a worldwide network of
NGOs for peace, to encourage peace activists everywhere to talk peace and
criminalization of war, to physically obstruct war, stop the preparations for
war and do everything possible to gain support for the movement to make war a
crime in the statute books of the international community.
"Those who resort to wars in furtherance of their
ideology or agenda are common criminals."
On another note, he said the permanent tribunal mooted by the conference must
be made up of respected international jurists, who would have no personal or
national interest in matters referred to them, whose judgment must be based on
evidence and not sentiment.
He said while the tribunal would have no power of enforcing its punishment as
"the people tried may be too powerful," the international network
should not be daunted by this but find ways and forms of punishment that were
within their capacity until such time the international community respects and
upholds the jurisdiction of the tribunal.
"We are seeing today examples of the form of punishment that can be meted
out. Bush and Blair are now totally reviled and condemned by the world and by
their own people.
"The tribunal that we set up can conduct a proper trial even if the
accused is not present. A respectable and totally impartial tribunal applying
recognized laws will surely find its findings respected by the world just as
the world respects the Nobel laureates, for example," said Dr. Mahathir.
