Australian Scientist: WAR CRIME COMPLAINT

[StoneMtn]

News: Coalition War Crimes in Iraq – Australian Scientist Moves Int. Criminal Court

Dr. Gideon Polya, renowned Australian scientist, has lodged a formal complaint against Australian government and Coalition Allies for their war crimes in Iraq. Here is the complete text of his complaint:-

Formal complaint to the International Criminal Court over Australian & Coalition war crimes in Iraq

14 October 2004

The Chief Prosecutor

Office of the Prosecutor

International Criminal Court

Dear Sir,

I wish to lay a formal complaint against the Australian Federal Government and its allies for their complicity in war crimes in Iraq, specifically:

1. complicity in illegal invasion of a remote, non-threatening country which posed absolutely no threat (and indeed was a major trading partner);

2. complicity in excessive (indeed horrendous) and continuing mass mortality (particularly of children) in the continued forcible occupation of Iraq - the annual under-5 infant mortality in Iraq (population 24 million) can be estimated from the most recent UNICEF data to be of the order of 100,000 as compared to only 1000 in the occupying country Australia (population 20 million) and the per capita medical expenditure in Occupied Iraq is estimated to be only US$40 in Occupied Iraq as compared to about US$1000 in the occupying country Australia;

3. the above complaints variously also apply to and are hereby made against all of Australia’s allies in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, most notably the governments of the USA and the UK (noting, however, that the USA rejects the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over its citizens)

On 17 August 2004 I made a detailed formal complaint over Australian Federal Government complicity in war crimes in Iraq to the 24 most important law officers of Australia, namely the State and Federal Attorneys General, Solicitors General and Police Commissioners (copy enclosed). Only half responded and of those the responses variously included simple “noting” or assertion of “no jurisdiction”. However several law officers referred me to the International Criminal Court, to which jurisdiction Australia (although not the USA) has made itself subject.

A senior biological scientist, I have been calculating “excess mortality” for all countries in the world for the period since 1950. “Excess mortality” (essentially “avoidable mortality”) is the difference between the ACTUAL mortality in a country in a given period (as reported by the UN Population Division) and the mortality EXPECTED for a decently-run, peaceful country with the same demographics.

In short, the results are horrendous - noting that if an Iraqi child is killed by a Coalition bomb or dies from avoidable disease (through Coalition-imposed destruction of sanitation and other civil infrastructure and lack of clean water, medicine, nutrition and appropriate medical care), then the end result is the same and accordingly the culpability is the same.

The “excess mortality” for Iraq has been 5.2 million (since 1950) and 1.5 million (since 1991). These estimates, based on UN data, are consonant with United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF)-based estimates of under-5 infant mortality in Iraq, namely 3.3 million (since 1950) and 1.2 million (since 1991). Notably, “excess mortality” in Iraq was at a MINIMUM in the 1980s under Saddam Hussein (about 50,000 per year), sandwiched between periods of pro-Western, post-colonial regimes and the return of Western armies in 1991 (after which it climbed to and remained at about 120,000 per year) with sanctions, war and eventual occupation.

In Afghanistan the “excess mortality” has totalled 16.2 million since 1950 and 1.2 million since the 2001 invasion (in which Australia participated). Annual “excess mortality” in Afghanistan was about 0.3 million under Soviet occupation but has been about 0.4 million since the victory of US-backed forces over the Russians.

UNICEF has estimated that in 2001 the under-5 infant mortality was 109,000 in Iraq (population 24 million) and 277,000 in Afghanistan (population 22 million) - as compared to 1000 in Australia (population about 20 million). With Coalition destruction of water supplies, sanitation, other key infrastructure and the legitimate economies of Iraq and Afghanistan, it can be realistically estimated that the under-5 infant mortalities in these “occupied” countries currently remain at about 0.1 and 0.3 million, respectively.

For 2004 the medical expenditure allocation in war-ravaged Iraq has been about US$40 per head as compared to about US$1,000 per head in prosperous Australia, a Coalition member and an “occupier” country. The ruler is responsible for the ruled - the medical parsimony of the occupying Coalition is associated with an estimated under-5 infant mortality of the order of 100,000 per year. This grossly violates international consensus on the humane treatment of a conquered people and constitutes a massive and continuing war crime - in addition to the war crime of illegal invasion of a remote country that posed absolutely no threat to the invaders.

You are referred to more detailed accounts of this horrendous, ongoing mass mortality published in Australasian Science, News Central Asia, Media Monitors (USA) and elsewhere in Australia and abroad (and readily accessed on the Web by an advanced Google search for the phrase Gideon Polya).

I reiterate that non-UN-sanctioned, illegal invasion of a country is a war crime. Mass mortality in an occupied country in considerable proportional excess of that in the occupier countries is also a war crime.

Milosevic was delivered up by Serbia and is on trial in The Hague for his complicity in the deaths of 0.25 million in the Balkans War. The total avoidable mortality in Iraq and Afghanistan subsequent to military action by the USA and its allies in 1991 and 2001, respectively, is ten times greater.

I am in a unique position to contribute to a prosecution of those complicit in the Iraqi Holocaust having spent a year carefully researching and calculating “excess mortality” for every country in the world since 1950. I am very willing to assist the International Criminal Court in action taken against the Australian Federal Government and those of its allies in Iraq who are subject to this jurisdiction.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Gideon Polya

29 Dwyer Street, Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria 3085, Australia

Tel: +61 3 9459 3649; e-mail: gpolya@optusnet.com.au & gmpolya@yahoo.com

Cc: relevant NGOs, community leaders & media

Enclosure: formal prior complaint to top Australian Federal & State law officers -

Date: 17 August 2004

To: Federal & State Commissioners of Police, Solicitors General & Attorneys General

From: Dr Gideon Polya

Re: Complaint to Australian law officers about Australian Federal Government complicity in war crimes involving mass mortality, principally of children and in Iraq

Dear Sir/Madam,

I wish to lay a formal complaint about the complicity of the Australian Federal Government in war crimes involving mass mortality (principally of children and in Iraq) that should be addressed by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and which may also be within the ambit of Australian jurisdictions.

I am a senior biological scientist and in my 4-decade scientific career I published over 130 works, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (Taylor & Francis/CRC Press, London & New York, 2003).

In the last year in particular I have been researching and writing on global human mortality throughout history.

Of pertinence to this complaint, I have estimated “excess mortality” (avoidable mortality) for all countries since 1950 using United Nations (UN) Populations Division demographic data. “Excess mortality” is the difference between ACTUAL deaths in a given period for a country and the deaths EXPECTED over the same period for a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics.

1950 is a highly significant date: detailed UN demographic data go back to 1950 and since about that time all the world POTENTIALLY had access to antibiotics, antimalarials, chemical and physical preventatives for insect disease vectors, particular vaccines, universal literacy, minimal food and shelter, public health education, sanitation, clean drinking water and primary health care.

My results are startling and horrifying. The total estimated post-1950 “excess mortality” (i.e. avoidable mortality) has been 1,284 million for the whole world, 1,230 million for the non-European world and 54 million for the European world (Australasia, Israel, North America, Western Europe and Eastern Europe, including Russia and its former subject Christian nations).

Analysis of post-1950 “excess mortality” by country and by region reveals a comprehensive causal association between “excess mortality” and foreign “occupation” by First World countries, noting that “occupation” covers not only explicit military occupation (as in Iraq) but also malignant foreign interference involving impositions such as militarization, debt, corrupt surrogate and client governments, intra- and inter-national wars, economic sanctions and economic exclusions (as variously experienced by most of the Third World).

The relatively low “excess mortality” associated with a short list of several dozen developing countries that have had relatively peaceful existences over the last half century (e.g. Fiji, Thailand, Malaysia and the Gulf States) is in agreement with this conclusion - as is a pattern of increasing “excess mortality” with increasing degree of severity of First World impositions.

Thus occupation and war in Indochina (with which Australia was intimately associated) has been associated with an appalling post-1950 “excess mortality” in Laos (2.6 million), Cambodia (5.8 million) and Vietnam (23.8 million). The total post-1950 “excess mortality” for Indochina has been 32 million - a figure commensurate with the total losses in Japanese-occupied Asia in World War 2 (about 37 million) and European losses in World War 2 (about 38 million). Of course some of those responsible for the mass mortality of World War 2 have been tried and punished. According to the conservative writer Christopher Hitchens in “The Trial of Henry Kissinger”, Kissinger (a free man) had substantial complicity in the violent deaths of 8 million people, principally in Indochina and Bangladesh.

A broader analysis of “excess mortality” indicates a horrifying, post-1950 1 billion Third World Holocaust and a half-billion Muslim Holocaust. The post-1950, 550 million “excess mortality” Muslim Holocaust is about 100 times greater in magnitude than the man-made famine in British-ruled Bengal during World War 2 (4 million Muslim and Hindu victims) and the contemporaneous Jewish Holocaust (6 million victims). The Bengal Famine has been effectively rubbed out of history, a matter condemned by Colin Mason in his “Short History of Asia” (Macmillan, 2000) as an indictment of all subsequent British governments and of numerous historians. In contrast, we are all properly aware of the Jewish Holocaust and some of those responsible have been tried and punished for their appalling crimes.

Australia has been variously associated with British military involvements in Iraq that date back to 1914. The “excess mortality” for Iraq has been 5.2 million (since 1950) and 1.5 million (since 1991). These estimates, based on UN data, are consonant with United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF)-based estimates of under-5 infant mortality in Iraq, namely 3.3 million (since 1950) and 1.2 million (since 1991). Notably, “excess mortality” in Iraq was at a MINIMUM in the 1980s under Saddam Hussein (about 50,000 per year), sandwiched between periods of pro-Western, post-colonial regimes and the return of Western armies in 1991 (after which it climbed to and remained at about 120,000 per year) with sanctions, war and eventual occupation.

In Afghanistan the “excess mortality” has totalled 16.2 million since 1950 and 1.2 million since the 2001 invasion (in which Australia participated). Annual “excess mortality” in Afghanistan was about 0.3 million under Soviet occupation but has been about 0.4 million since the victory of US-backed forces over the Russians.

UNICEF has estimated that in 2001 the under-5 infant mortality was 109,000 in Iraq (population 24 million) and 277,000 in Afghanistan (population 22 million) - as compared to 1000 in Australia (population about 20 million). With Coalition destruction of water supplies, sanitation, other key infrastructure and the legitimate economies of Iraq and Afghanistan, it can be realistically estimated that the under-5 infant mortalities in these “occupied” countries currently remain at about 0.1 and 0.3 million, respectively.

Non-UN-sanctioned, illegal invasion of a country is a war crime. Mass mortality in an occupied country in considerable proportional excess of that in the occupier countries is also a war crime.

Milosevic was delivered up by Serbia and is on trial in The Hague for his complicity in the deaths of 0.25 million in the Balkans War. There is one precedent in British history for a war crimes trial of a major political figure, namely the trial of Warren Hastings, first governor-general of India, for his “excesses” in India after the man-made famine in Bengal that killed 10 million in 1769-1770. After a prolonged and expensive trial (noted for the superb oratory of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Edmund Burke on behalf of the down-trodden Indians), Hastings (out of wedlock father of Jane Austen’s cousin Eliza and evident inspiration for Colonel Brandon in “Sense and Sensibility”) was, of course, acquitted. However such trials are much more than mere prosecution, defence and punishment - they also explore humanitarian standards.

There are clearly people in Australia associated with the current Federal Government with clear and CONTINUING complicity in the massive “excess mortality” in Iraq since 1991 and in Afghanistan since 2001. Their complicity should be explored through appropriate prosecutions in all relevant jurisdictions. Indeed, John Valder, a former president of the Australian Liberal Party (equivalent to the US Republicans and the UK Conservatives) has repeatedly called for prosecution of Coalition leaders for war crimes over Iraq. The ICC is empowered to deal with such crimes committed after 1 July 2002. Australian jurisdictions may also be relevant.

I consider myself to be a responsible citizen. Over the years I have resolutely informed governments, government inquiries and Senate Committee inquiries (most recently in August 2003) about extremely serious matters (including extremely serious health and safety matters) in the public interest. My representations were comprehensively ignored. I respect the law as a good citizen. Further, scientists are intrinsically optimistic in their unending quests for solutions. Accordingly, I feel compelled to make this further carefully researched submission in the public interest.

It is useful to consider the current situation in Fiji to see how a British-based legal system deals with serious offences committed by members of Parliament. Many members of Parliament in Fiji were seriously compromised during the last coup. Investigations by due authority are continuing. Recently a Fiji judge Justice Nazhat Shameen sentenced the former Vice President of Fiji and some of his associates to gaol over complicity in the latest coup. The upholding of the primacy of the law in very difficult circumstances by an overwhelmingly high proportion of its officers and practitioners in Fiji is a salutary lesson for other countries - including Australia in particular.

Unfortunately the world still accepts the media and PR “line” that the Fiji coups have essentially been “bloodless”. However my “excess mortality” analysis reveals that the “excess mortality” since the 1987 coup has actually been about 4,500 (an outcome not surprising to those aware of the departure of doctors, lawyers, teachers, business people and other professionals from Fiji since 1987). Because the world prefers “spin” to reality, justice has not been done to some; the progenitor of this disgraceful pattern of violent usurpation of elected governments, Sitiveni Rabuka, has not been punished and indeed has apparently been recently nominated as the next Fiji ambassador to Washington.

The war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be dismissed as merely “political or “ideological” - there has been an enormous personal and commercial benefit both here and in the US. Thus there has been an INCREASE in US military expenditure since 9/11 of about US$250 billion (noting that the record current US military expenditure of US$400 billion per year is half of the First World-supplied global total of about US$800 billion per year).

Of course the murder of innocent civilians by jihadists are vile crimes - they have murdered about 5000 utterly innocent European civilians throughout the world in the last 20 years. In comparison, total US military deaths since 1980 have been about 15,000 of whom only about 1300 have been “hostile deaths” incurred in combat. However the “war on terror” is being hysterically and dishonestly promoted by those with a major responsibility for “excess mortality” totalling 1.5 million since 1991 in Iraq and 1.2 million since 2001 in Afghanistan. The excesses of the Coalition are perceived (e.g. recently by the 43 distinguished Australian service heads and public servants) to be the source of increased threat to Australia.

Some further statistics underscore the gap between politician and media “spin” and hard reality: some 20 million people die ANNUALLY from deprivation and malnourishment-exacerbated disease in a world dominated economically and militarily by the First World; the ANNUAL US death toll from car accidents is about 40,000 and from cigarette smoking is about 400,000; the ANNUAL world death toll from car accidents is about 1 million and from cigarette smoking about 5 million.

These statistics make a compelling case for a “war against poverty” (e.g. involving Third World debt relief, economic fair play and constraints on First World-supplied arms, global militarization and war); a “war against mass murder of civilians” with the US, the UK and their allies such as Australia being overwhelmingly the major perpetrators (e.g. international exposure, war crimes trials and economic boycott of countries involved in mass murder); for a “war against cars” (e.g. free public transport and the phasing out of urban private cars); and for a war against cigarette smoking (e.g. prohibition, compensation of victims and prosecution of those responsible).

Instead of the peaceful, rational solutions to major sources of mortality suggested above, we have an extremely violent, horrendously murderous and transparently dishonest US- and UK-driven agenda (supported by a dishonest and sycophantic Australia) of an astonishingly mis-named and mis-directed “war on terror” conducted by countries with an overwhelmingly major responsibility for massive global mortality, US$800 billion per year global militarization, Third World debt, intra-and inter-national war and economic exclusion throughout the world.

Of course the jihadist extremists should be constrained, investigated and hunted down so that they will not murder a further 5000 European civilians (or worse) over the next 20 years. However killing 100,000 children a year in Iraq alone by the Coalition is COUNTERPRODUCTIVE as well as cowardly, criminal and barbaric - it will surely only inflame jihadist extremists. First World involvement in continuing mass mortality throughout the world must be exposed and those individuals with clearly demonstrable complicity (notably the leaders of the Coalition) held to account via the ICC.

For 2004 the medical expenditure allocation in war-ravaged Iraq has been about US$40 per head as compared to about US$1,000 per head in prosperous Australia, a Coalition member and an “occupier” country. The ruler is responsible for the ruled - the medical parsimony of the occupying Coalition is associated with an estimated under-5 infant mortality of the order of 100,000 per year. This grossly violates international consensus on the humane treatment of a conquered people and constitutes a massive and continuing war crime - in addition to the war crime of illegal invasion of a remote country that posed absolutely no threat to the invaders. You are referred to more detailed accounts of this horrendous, ongoing mass mortality published in Australasian Science, News Central Asia, Media Monitors (USA) and elsewhere in Australia and abroad (and readily accessed on the Web by an advanced Google search for the phrase Gideon Polya).

Slavenka Drakulic’s book “They Would Never Hurt a Fly” is an analysis of war criminals of the Balkans War. She states: “Only now can I understand how easy it is to start a war in the absence of facts…A thin layer of rationality easily falls away under the pressure of emotions…More than a decade after the beginning of the war in the Balkans, it is essential that we understand that it is we ordinary people and not some madmen who made it possible…If it is true that there is no collective guilt, can there be collective innocence?...The trials of war criminals are important not only for those killed. They are important also because of the living”.

I reiterate that Australian Federal Government complicity in horrendous mass mortality in Iraq and Afghanistan demands international judicial examination through war crimes trials. I have made this extremely serious complaint in the public interest.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Gideon Polya

29 Dwyer Street, Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria 3085, Australia

Tel: +61 3 9459 3649; e-mail: gpolya@optusnet.com.au & gmpolya@yahoo.com

cc State Premiers & PM, State & Federal Leaders of the Opposition; key MPs, NGOs, media [/htm]

[Im going home Donny]

oooof. Thanks for the cheap gas Bush and cronies...this is after all what is important right? [color:"purple"]

[color:"blue"] how depressing.

[Stapes]

Should Canada indict Bush?

THOMAS WALKOM

When U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Ottawa — probably later this year — should he be welcomed? Or should he be charged with war crimes?

It's an interesting question. On the face of it, Bush seems a perfect candidate for prosecution under Canada's Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act.

This act was passed in 2000 to bring Canada's ineffectual laws in line with the rules of the new International Criminal Court. While never tested, it lays out sweeping categories under which a foreign leader like Bush could face arrest.

In particular, it holds that anyone who commits a war crime, even outside Canada, may be prosecuted by our courts. What is a war crime? According to the statute, it is any conduct defined as such by "customary international law" or by conventions that Canada has adopted.

War crimes also specifically include any breach of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, such as torture, degradation, wilfully depriving prisoners of war of their rights "to a fair and regular trial," launching attacks "in the knowledge that such attacks will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians" and deportation of persons from an area under occupation.

Outside of one well-publicized (and quickly squelched) attempt in Belgium, no one has tried to formally indict Bush. But both Oxfam International and the U.S. group Human Rights Watch have warned that some of the actions undertaken by the U.S. and its allies, particularly in Iraq, may fall under the war crime rubric.

The case for the prosecution looks quite promising. First, there is the fact of the Iraq war itself. After 1945, Allied tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo — in an astonishing precedent — ruled that states no longer had the unfettered right to invade other countries and that leaders who started such conflicts could be tried for waging illegal war.

Concurrently, the new United Nations outlawed all aggressive wars except those authorized by its Security Council.

Today, a strong case could be made that Bush violated the Nuremberg principles by invading Iraq. Indeed, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has already labelled that war illegal in terms of the U.N. Charter.

Second, there is the manner in which the U.S. conducted this war.

The mistreatment of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison is a clear contravention of the Geneva Accord. The U.S. is also deporting selected prisoners to camps outside of Iraq (another contravention). U.S. press reports also talk of shadowy prisons in Jordan run by the CIA, where suspects are routinely tortured. And the estimated civilian death toll of 100,000 may well contravene the Geneva Accords prohibition against the use of excessive force.

Canada's war crimes law specifically permits prosecution not only of those who carry out such crimes but of the military and political superiors who allow them to happen.

What has emerged since Abu Ghraib shows that officials at the highest levels of the Bush administration permitted and even encouraged the use of torture.

Given that Bush, as he likes to remind everyone, is the U.S. military's commander-in-chief, it is hard to argue he bears no responsibility.

Then there is Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. says detainees there do not fall under the Geneva accords. That's an old argument.

In 1946, Japanese defendants explained their mistreatment of prisoners of war by noting that their country had never signed any of the Geneva Conventions. The Japanese were convicted anyway.

Oddly enough, Canada may be one of the few places where someone like Bush could be brought to justice. Impeachment in the U.S. is most unlikely. And, at Bush's insistence, the new international criminal court has no jurisdiction over any American.

But a Canadian war crimes charge, too, would face many hurdles. Bush was furious last year when Belgians launched a war crimes suit in their country against him — so furious that Belgium not only backed down under U.S. threats but changed its law to prevent further recurrences.

As well, according to a foreign affairs spokesperson, visiting heads of state are immune from prosecution when in Canada on official business. If Ottawa wanted to act, it would have to wait until Bush was out of office — or hope to catch him when he comes up here to fish.

And, of course, Canada's government would have to want to act. War crimes prosecutions are political decisions that must be authorized by the federal attorney-general.

Still, Prime Minister Paul Martin has staked out his strong opposition to war crimes. This was his focus in a September address to the U.N. General Assembly.

There, Martin was talking specifically about war crimes committed by militiamen in far-off Sudan. But as my friends on the Star's editorial board noted in one of their strong defences of concerted international action against war crimes, the rule must be, "One law for all."

LINK

[Im going home Donny]

.....so does this mean if he comes to my work I can pull a citizens arrest?!

[StoneMtn]

.....so does this mean if he comes to my work I can pull a citizens arrest?!

I officially have a substantial award awaiting any Ottawan who manages to pull that one off!

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

haha. Ya, Howler, you would be my official heroine! ::

[Im going home Donny]

Haha ::I would be my own official heroin if I could pull that off!...it would certainly polish the ol'Karma plate clean ::.....hmmmm(wheels a spinning)

[Im going home Donny]

is this substancial reward for a secured arrest or say for an excellent attempt that makes the news?....not that I would do this or am suggesting anyone do this ....something about one should seek proper legal channels if one wishes to press charges against anyone...something,something.

[StoneMtn]

How about this: The award will be comparable to the event. News coverage of Howler being dragged away from George W., screaming and swearing, for instance, would be considered a good attempt and worthy of something decent. If however, Howler was actually clawing at W.'s face when she is wrestled to the ground, that would be worth more; whereas actually slapping handcuffs on W. would be even more valuable; and so on...

[Im going home Donny]

..logging off to spend rest of evening laughing maniacally..

:: :: :: ::

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

hey I think Stone Mtn, would have to do something of a similar nature....

and Howler, I like your style--you sound cwazy!! ::

[Im going home Donny]

...well I'm the proximate one ::

also...I got the cwazy....he's got the money

[Im going home Donny]

BTW....I haven't laughed this huge in ages ::Cheers

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

hmmmmm, well, that is true... I was thinking stnmtn could pull off something spectacular on the west coast as well, heck we should all try and make the headlines for some karma--no? ::

[Im going home Donny]

(Insert huge legal disclaimer,this is just a joke claimer here)

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

booo! legal boundaries 1

legendary status 0

buenos noches mi amigo/amiga

[StoneMtn]

I live in Whistler. Who am I going to try to arrest, a pro-snowboarder? C'mon quien, give me some suggestions here; I'm flexible... ::

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

I live in Whistler. Who am I going to try to arrest, a pro-snowboarder? C'mon quien, give me some suggestions here; I'm flexible... ::

Come on man use your brains!! You should be arresting any freakin tourist that attempts first tracks after a dump! That make you an instant local legend! ::

[StoneMtn]

Don't worry. The local snowboard community knows how to deal with those yahoos (as snowboarders tend to get cranky about that sort of thing, especially considering they would have to get up well before the crack of noon to catch the powder). ::