Russell Tribunal
Encyclopedia
The Russell Tribunal, also known as the International War Crimes Tribunal or Russell-Sartre Tribunal, was a public body organized by British philosopher Bertrand Russell
and hosted by French philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre
. Along with Ken Coates
, Ralph Schoenman
, and several others, the tribunal
investigated and evaluated American foreign policy and military intervention in Vietnam
, following the 1954 defeat of French forces at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu
and the establishment of North and South Vietnam.
Bertrand Russell justified the establishment of this body as follows:
The formation of this investigative body immediately followed the 1966 publication of Russell's book, War Crimes in Vietnam. The tribunal was constituted in November 1966, and was conducted in two sessions in 1967, in Stockholm
, Sweden
and Copenhagen
, Denmark
. It was largely ignored in the United States, where many considered it an ineffectual, biased show trial
.
, Medals of Valor and awards of recognition in humanitarian and social fields. There was no direct representation of Vietnam or the United States on this 25 member panel, although a couple of members were American citizens.
Of considerable interest during the tribunal hearings was the North Vietnamese response to allegations of atrocity contained in the best-selling book Deliver Us From Evil. Published in 1956, this book presented the experience of U.S. Navy physician Thomas Anthony Dooley
during Operation Passage to Freedom
, in which approximately 90,000 Vietnamese Christians were relocated from North to South Vietnam. The small book contained many allegations of gross atrocity by the communists against these refugees. One of the more dramatic claims was that the communists drove nails into the heads of Vietnamese Catholic priests, to simulate a "crown of thorns".
More than 30 individuals testified or provided information to this tribunal. Among them were military personnel from the United States, as well as from each of the warring factions in Vietnam. Financing for the Tribunal came from many sources, including a large contribution from the North Vietnamese government after a request made by Russell to Ho Chi Minh
.
It was followed by another Tribunal, known as Russell Tribunal II on Latin America, that held three meetings in Rome (1974), Brussels (1975) and Rome (1976), dealing predominantly with Brazil and Chile.
At the closing session of the Russell Tribunal II the creation of three new institutions was announced: the International Foundation for the Rights and Liberations of Peoples, and the International League for the Rights and Liberations of Peoples, and the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal
.
The Permanents People’s Tribunal was established in Bologna on 23 June 1979. Between its founding and April 1984, the tribunal pronounced two advisory opinions on Western Sahara and Eritrea and held eight sessions (Argentina, Philippines, El Salvador, Afghanistan I and II, East Timor, Zaire and Guatemala). The latter was concluded in January 1983 in Madrid.
A special hearing was conducted in Paris on April 13–16, 1984 to investigate the Armenian Genocide
. The Tribunal’s thirty-five member panel included three Nobel Prize winners—Sean MacBride, Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Professor George Wald— and ten eminent jurist, theologians, academics and political figures. The jury delivered a verdict of guilty to the state of Turkey for the crime of genocide against the Armenian people.
More than three decades later, the Russell Tribunal model was followed by the World Tribunal on Iraq
, which was held to make a similar analysis of the Project for the New American Century
, the 2003 Invasion of Iraq
and subsequent occupation of Iraq, and the links between these.
Prompted in part by the My Lai massacre
, in 1969 the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
organized Citizens Commissions of Inquiry (CCI) to hold hearings intended to document testimony of war crimes in Indochina. These hearings were held in several American cities, and would eventually form the foundation of two national investigations: the National Veterans Inquiry
sponsored by the CCI, and the Winter Soldier Investigation
sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War
.
(1973) inter. english version.pdf with the aim of investigating alleged violations of the Human Rights mainly at the time in Brazil, Chile and Argentina. The Rome sessions of 1974 became however more concentrated on issues around allegations of human rights violations by the Junta Militar presided by General Augusto Pinochet
in Chile and also dealt on the situation in Brazil. Secretary of the Russell Tribunal in Rome was Linda Bimbi. In the Scientific Secretariat of the Russell Tribunal in Rome (presided by Linda Bimbi) participated in 1974 among other writer Gabriel García Márquez
, historian Vladimir Dedijer
, and Professor Marcello Ferrada-Noli
, which also left a public testimony at the Tribunal in his condition of former prisoner at the Quiriquina Island
Prisoners Camp in Chile. Part of the testimony was reproduced in a scientific publication of 1998 http://www.springerlink.com/content/hg4508488373m483/.
Other sessions of the Tribunal Russell II on Latin America ensued in Brussels (1975) and again in Rome 1976.
took place in Brussels as a continuation of the tradition of the Russell Tribunal as part of the World Tribunal on Iraq
. Philosopher Jacques Derrida
praised this event, stating that "to resuscitate the tradition of a Russell Tribunal is symbolically an important and necessary thing to do today."
:
In March 2009, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine was formed. It is composed of well known human right activists. Israel is being investigated.
In April 2011, the association converted into a non-profit organisation with a legal status in Brussels by Pierre Galand, Jacques Michiels, Jacques Debatty, Nadia Farkh, Henri Eisendrath and Roseline Sonet.. The former non-elected PS senator, Pierre Galand, has been named as president of the association.
In a speech given by Pierre Galand on the 12.09.2011 the budget for the Cape Town session of the tribunal is €190,000. In the same speech Galand said that €100,000 was donated by Editions Indigene, the publisher of the book “Time for an outrage.” In addition, more than €15,000 was raised at a September 24, 2011 fundraising event by the Belgian support committee of the Russell Tribunal. The Caipirinha Foundation lists the RToP as a grant receiver, but does not disclose the amount or the year of its grant.
Richard J. Goldstone, a South African former judge, predicted that evidence presented to the Tribunal at a November 2011 hearing would be "one-sided" and that its members "are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known". After the Tribunal session, Israeli MK Otniel Schneller
filed a complaint with the Knesset's Ethics Committee against MK Hanin Zoabi, who testified at the Tribunal that "Israel is an apartheid state".
A group of Jewish South Africans protested against the court, and the organizer of the protest called it a "Kangaroo Court."
s' and received little attention from the mainstream press. Incidents like the Russell Tribunal were described by historian Guenter Lewy
as part of a “veritable industry publicizing alleged war crimes”
Staughton Lynd
, chairman of the 1965 “March on Washington”, was asked by Russell to participate in the tribunal and rejected the invitation. Staughton’s objections and criticism of the Tribunal were based on the fact that Russell planned to investigate only non-North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front conduct, sheltering Hanoi from any criticism for their behavior. Lynd wrote that “in conversation with the emissary who proffered the invitation, I urged that the alleged war crimes of any party to the conflict should come before the Tribunal. After all, I argued, a "crime" is an action that is wrong no matter who does it. Pressing my case, I asked, "What if it were shown that the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam tortures unarmed prisoners?" The answer, as I understood it, was, "Anything is justified that drives the imperialist aggressor into the sea." I declined the invitation to be a member of the Tribunal.”
David Horowitz
was then a member of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
. He confirms that the Russell Tribunal never held any intention of investigating alleged Communist atrocities. In his memoirs, Horowitz describes overhearing Jean-Paul Sartre
insist that the North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front were, by definition, incapable of committing war crimes. "I refuse to place," said Sartre, "in the same category the actions of an organization of poor peasants... and those of an immense army backed by a highly organized country."
Judge Richard Goldstone
, writing in The New York Times
in October 2011, said of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine that “It is not a ‘tribunal.’ The ‘evidence’ is going to be one-sided and the members of the ‘jury’ are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known. In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute."
South African journalist and human rights activist Benjamin Pogrund
described the Cape Town Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine as "It's theatre: the actors know their parts and the result is known before they start. Israel is to be dragged into the mud."
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
and hosted by French philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
. Along with Ken Coates
Ken Coates
Kenneth Sidney Coates was a British politician and writer. He chaired the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and edited The Spokesman, the BRPF magazine launched in March 1970. He was a Labour Party Member of the European Parliament from 1989 to 1999...
, Ralph Schoenman
Ralph Schoenman
Ralph Schoenman is an American left-wing activist who was a personal secretary to Bertrand Russell and became general secretary of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation...
, and several others, the tribunal
Tribunal
A tribunal in the general sense is any person or institution with the authority to judge, adjudicate on, or determine claims or disputes—whether or not it is called a tribunal in its title....
investigated and evaluated American foreign policy and military intervention in Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, following the 1954 defeat of French forces at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was the climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War between the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist revolutionaries. The battle occurred between March and May 1954 and culminated in a comprehensive French defeat that...
and the establishment of North and South Vietnam.
Bertrand Russell justified the establishment of this body as follows:
The formation of this investigative body immediately followed the 1966 publication of Russell's book, War Crimes in Vietnam. The tribunal was constituted in November 1966, and was conducted in two sessions in 1967, in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
. It was largely ignored in the United States, where many considered it an ineffectual, biased show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
.
Composition and origin
Representatives of 18 countries participated in the two sessions of this tribunal, formally calling itself the International War Crimes Tribunal. The tribunal committee consisted of 25 notable personages, predominantly from leftist peace organizations. Many of these individuals were winners of the Nobel PrizeNobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
, Medals of Valor and awards of recognition in humanitarian and social fields. There was no direct representation of Vietnam or the United States on this 25 member panel, although a couple of members were American citizens.
Of considerable interest during the tribunal hearings was the North Vietnamese response to allegations of atrocity contained in the best-selling book Deliver Us From Evil. Published in 1956, this book presented the experience of U.S. Navy physician Thomas Anthony Dooley
Thomas Anthony Dooley
Thomas Anthony Dooley III was an American who, while serving as a physician in the United States Navy and afterwards, became increasingly famous for his humanitarian and political activities in South East Asia during the late 1950s until his early death from cancer...
during Operation Passage to Freedom
Operation Passage to Freedom
Operation Passage to Freedom was the term used by the United States Navy to describe its transportation in 1954–55 of 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from communist North Vietnam to South Vietnam...
, in which approximately 90,000 Vietnamese Christians were relocated from North to South Vietnam. The small book contained many allegations of gross atrocity by the communists against these refugees. One of the more dramatic claims was that the communists drove nails into the heads of Vietnamese Catholic priests, to simulate a "crown of thorns".
More than 30 individuals testified or provided information to this tribunal. Among them were military personnel from the United States, as well as from each of the warring factions in Vietnam. Financing for the Tribunal came from many sources, including a large contribution from the North Vietnamese government after a request made by Russell to Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
.
It was followed by another Tribunal, known as Russell Tribunal II on Latin America, that held three meetings in Rome (1974), Brussels (1975) and Rome (1976), dealing predominantly with Brazil and Chile.
At the closing session of the Russell Tribunal II the creation of three new institutions was announced: the International Foundation for the Rights and Liberations of Peoples, and the International League for the Rights and Liberations of Peoples, and the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal
Permanent Peoples' Tribunal
The Permanent Peoples' Tribunal is international opinion tribunal that was founded in Bologna June 24, 1979 at the initiative of Senator Lelio Basso. - International opinion tribunal :...
.
The Permanents People’s Tribunal was established in Bologna on 23 June 1979. Between its founding and April 1984, the tribunal pronounced two advisory opinions on Western Sahara and Eritrea and held eight sessions (Argentina, Philippines, El Salvador, Afghanistan I and II, East Timor, Zaire and Guatemala). The latter was concluded in January 1983 in Madrid.
A special hearing was conducted in Paris on April 13–16, 1984 to investigate the Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
. The Tribunal’s thirty-five member panel included three Nobel Prize winners—Sean MacBride, Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Professor George Wald— and ten eminent jurist, theologians, academics and political figures. The jury delivered a verdict of guilty to the state of Turkey for the crime of genocide against the Armenian people.
More than three decades later, the Russell Tribunal model was followed by the World Tribunal on Iraq
World Tribunal on Iraq
The World Tribunal on Iraq was a people's court consisting of intellectuals, human rights campaigners and non-governmental organizations, and was active from 2003-2005. Set up following the 2003 invasion of Iraq it sprung from the anti-war movement and is modelled on the Russell Tribunal of the...
, which was held to make a similar analysis of the Project for the New American Century
Project for the New American Century
The Project for the New American Century was an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. that lasted from 1997 to 2006. It was co-founded as a non-profit educational organization by neoconservatives William Kristol and Robert Kagan...
, the 2003 Invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
and subsequent occupation of Iraq, and the links between these.
Tribunal members
- Bertrand RussellBertrand RussellBertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
(Tribunal Honorary President)- Peace Activist; Philosopher; Mathematician - Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
(Tribunal Executive President)- Philosopher; Writer; Political Activist; Playwright - Vladimir DedijerVladimir DedijerVladimir Dedijer was a Yugoslav partisan fighter, politician and historian.During World War II he was an editor of the Yugoslav Communist Party newspaper Borba, and member of the agitprop section to the General Staff.After the war he was a member of Yugoslav delegation on 1946 Paris peace...
(Tribunal Chairman and President of Sessions)- M.A. Oxon., Doctor of Jurisprudence; historian - Wolfgang AbendrothWolfgang AbendrothWolfgang Abendroth was a socialist German jurist and political scientist. He was born in Elberfeld, now a part of Wuppertal in North Rhine-Westphalia. Abendroth was an important contributor to the constitutional foundation of postwar West Germany. He briefly held a professorship in law in East...
- Doctor of Jurisprudence; Professor of Political Science, Marburg University - Gunther AndersGünther AndersGünther Anders was a Jewish philosopher and journalist who developed a philosophical anthropology for the age of technology, focusing on such themes as the effects of mass media on our emotional and ethical existence, the nuclear threat, the Shoah and the question of being a philosopher.- Biography...
- Writer and philosopher - Mehmet Ali AybarMehmet Ali AybarMehmet Ali Aybar was an International lawyer, Member of Turkish Parliament, First president of the Workers Party of Turkey , Founder and President of the Socialist Revolution Party and Member of The International War Crimes Tribunal against war crimes of USA in Vietnam .-Biography:Ali Aybar's was...
- International lawyer; Member of Turkish Parliament; President, Turkish Workers’ Party - James BaldwinJames Baldwin (writer)James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" , explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America,...
- African American novelist and essayist - Julio CortázarJulio CortázarJulio Cortázar, born Jules Florencio Cortázar, was an Argentine writer. Cortázar, known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, influenced an entire generation of Spanish speaking readers and writers in the Americas and Europe.-Early life:Cortázar's parents, Julio José Cortázar and...
(writer) Writer, novelist and essayist - Lelio BassoLelio BassoLelio Basso was an Italian democratic socialist politician and journalist.-Early life:Lelio Basso was born in Varazze into a Liberal bourgeois family. In 1916, he and his family moved to Milan where he attended the Berchet grammar school...
- International lawyer; Deputy of Italian Parliament and Member of the Commission of Foreign Affairs; Professor, Rome University. President of PSIUP (Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity). - Simone de BeauvoirSimone de BeauvoirSimone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...
- Writer and philosopher - Tariq AliTariq AliTariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...
- Journalist and political campaigner - A.J. Ayer -- British Philosopher and Logician
- Lázaro CárdenasLázaro CárdenasLázaro Cárdenas del Río was President of Mexico from 1934 to 1940.-Early life:Lázaro Cárdenas was born on May 21, 1895 in a lower-middle class family in the village of Jiquilpan, Michoacán. He supported his family from age 16 after the death of his father...
- Former President of Mexico - Stokely CarmichaelStokely CarmichaelKwame Ture , also known as Stokely Carmichael, was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party...
- Chairman, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee - Lawrence DalyLawrence DalyLawrence Daly was a coal miner, trade unionist and political activist.Born in Fife, Daly's father was a miner and a founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain . At 15, Lawrence began work as a miner at Glencraig Colliery.Daly was soon active in the Scottish Mineworkers' Union...
- General Secretary, UK National Union of Mineworkers. Socialist. - David DellingerDavid DellingerDavid T. Dellinger , was an influential American radical, a pacifist and activist for nonviolent social change.-Chicago Seven:...
- American pacifist; Editor, Liberation; Chairman, Fifth Avenue Parade Committee. - Isaac DeutscherIsaac DeutscherIsaac Deutscher was a Polish-born Jewish Marxist writer, journalist and political activist who moved to the United Kingdom at the outbreak of World War II. He is best known as a biographer of Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin and as a commentator on Soviet affairs...
- Historian - Haika Grossman- Jurist; Jewish liberation fighter
- Gisele HalimiGisèle HalimiGisèle Halimi, born Zeiza Gisèle Élise Taïeb in 1927, is a French-Tunisian lawyer, feminist activist, and essayist.-Career:Born in La Goulette, to a Jewish mother and father, she was educated at a French lycée in Tunis, and then attended the University of Paris, graduating in law and philosophy...
- Paris lawyer; attorney for Djamila BouhiredDjamila BouhiredDjamila Bouhired is an Algerian revolutionary.Bouhired is a nationalist who opposed French colonial rule of Algeria. Djamila Bouhired was raised in a middle-class family, she went to a French school and joined the Algerian National Liberation Front while a student activist. Later, she worked as a...
; author of works on French repression of Algeria - Amado V. Hernandez- Poet Laureate of the Philippines; Chairman, Democratic Labor Party; Acting President, National Organization of Philippine Writers.
- Melba HernandezMelba HernandezMelba Hernandez Rodriguez del Rey is a Cuban politician and diplomat born in Cruces, Las Villas, Cuba. She served as the Cuban Ambassador to Vietnam and to Cambodia....
- Chairman, Cuban Committee for Solidarity with Viet Nam, now the Cuba-Viet Nam Friendship Association - Mahmud Ali KasuriMahmud Ali KasuriMian Mahmud Ali Kasuri was a prominent Pakistani opposition politician, human rights advocate and lawyer...
- Member National Assembly of Pakistan, Senior Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan - Sara LidmanSara LidmanSara Lidman was a Swedish writer.Born in the village Missenträsk in the northern parts of Skellefteå Municipality, Lidman was raised in the Västerbotten region of northern Sweden. She studied at the University of Uppsala where her studies were interrupted by her receiving tuberculosis...
- SwedishSwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
Writer - Kinju Morikawa Attorney; Vice-Chairman, Japan Civil Liberties Union, a human rights organization.
- Carl OglesbyCarl OglesbyCarl Oglesby was an American writer, academic, and political activist. He was the President of the leftist student organization Students for a Democratic Society from 1965 to 1966.-Early years:...
- Past President, Students for a Democratic Society; playwright; political essayist. - Shoichi SakataShoichi Sakatawas a Japanese academic and physicist who was internationally known for theoretical work on the structure of the atom. He proposed the Sakata model, which was an early precursor to the quark model....
- Professor of Physics - Laurent SchwartzLaurent SchwartzLaurent-Moïse Schwartz was a French mathematician. He pioneered the theory of distributions, which gives a well-defined meaning to objects such as the Dirac delta function. He was awarded the Fields medal in 1950 for his work...
- Professor of Mathematics, Paris University. - Peter WeissPeter WeissPeter Ulrich Weiss was a German writer, painter, and artist of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his plays Marat/Sade and The Investigation and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance....
- Playwright; Author; Experimental Film Director
Aims of the Tribunal
The Tribunal aims were stated as follows:- We constitute ourselves a Tribunal which, even if it has not the power to impose sanctions, will have to answer, amongst others, the following questions:
-
-
- Has the United States Government (and the Governments of Australia, New Zealand and South Korea) committed acts of aggression according to international law?
- Has the American army made use of or experimented with new weapons or weapons forbidden by the laws of war?
- Has there been bombardment of targets of a purely civilian character, for example hospitals, schools, sanatoria, dams, etc., and on what scale has this occurred?
- Have Vietnamese prisoners been subjected to inhuman treatment forbidden by the laws of war and, in particular, to torture or mutilation? Have there been unjustified reprisals against the civilian population, in particular, execution of hostages?
- Have forced labour camps been created, has there been deportation of the population or other acts tending to the extermination of the population and which can be characterized juridically as acts of genocide?
-
- All participants in the war in Southeast Asia are petitioned to attend and present evidence, including Vietnam, Cambodia and the United States, as noted in this excerpt from the Tribunal's description of aims and intent:
-
- "This Tribunal will examine all the evidence that may be placed before it by any source or party. The evidence may be oral, or in the form of documents. No evidence relevant to our purposes will be refused attention. ... The National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam have assured us of their willingness to cooperate ... The Cambodian Head of State, Prince Sihanouk, has similarly offered to help ... We invite the Government of the United States to present evidence or cause it to be presented ... Our purpose is to establish, without fear or favour, the full truth about this war. We sincerely hope that our efforts will contribute to the world's justice, to the re-establishment of peace and the liberation of oppressed peoples."
Conclusions and Verdicts of the Tribunal
The Tribunal stated that its conclusions were:-
- Has the Government of the United States committed acts of aggression against Vietnam under the terms of international law?
Yes (unanimously). - Has there been, and if so, on what scale, bombardment of purely civilian targets, for example, hospitals, schools, medical establishments, dams, etc?
Yes (unanimously).We find the government and armed forces of the United States are guilty of the deliberate, systematic and large-scale bombardment of civilian targets, including civilian populations, dwellings, villages, dams, dikes, medical establishments, leper colonies, schools, churches, pagodas, historical and cultural monuments. We also find unanimously, with one abstention, that the government of the United States of America is guilty of repeated violations of the sovereignty, neutrality and territorial integrity of Cambodia, that it is guilty of attacks against the civilian population of a certain number of Cambodian towns and villages.
- Have the governments of Australia, New Zealand and South Korea been accomplices of the United States in the aggression against Vietnam in violation of international law?
Yes (unanimously).The question also arises as to whether or not the governments of Thailand and other countries have become accomplices to acts of aggression or other crimes against Vietnam and its populations. We have not been able to study this question during the present session. We intend to examine at the next session legal aspects of the problem and to seek proofs of any incriminating facts.
- Is the Government of Thailand guilty of complicity in the aggression committed by the United States Government against Vietnam?
Yes (unanimously). - Is the Government of the Philippines guilty of complicity in the aggression committed by the United States Government against Vietnam?
Yes (unanimously). - Is the Government of Japan guilty of complicity in the aggression committed by the United States Government against Vietnam?
Yes, (by 8 Votes to 3).The three Tribunal members who voted against agree that the Japanese Government gives considerable aid to the Government of the United States, but do not agree on its complicity in the crime of aggression.
- Has the United States Government committed aggression against the people of Laos, according to the definition provided by international law?
Yes (unanimously). - Have the armed forces of the United States used or experimented with weapons prohibited by the laws of war?
Yes (unanimously). - Have prisoners of war captured by the armed forces of the United States been subjected to treatment prohibited by the laws of war?
Yes (unanimously). - Have the armed forces of the United States subjected the civilian population to inhuman treatment prohibited by international law?
Yes (unanimously). - Is the United States Government guilty of genocide against the people of Vietnam?
Yes (unanimously).
- Has the Government of the United States committed acts of aggression against Vietnam under the terms of international law?
Prompted in part by the My Lai massacre
My Lai Massacre
The My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of 347–504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children , and...
, in 1969 the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation was established in 1963. The foundation aims to continue the work of the philosopher and activist Bertrand Russell in the areas of peace, social justice, and human rights, with a specific focus on the dangers of nuclear war...
organized Citizens Commissions of Inquiry (CCI) to hold hearings intended to document testimony of war crimes in Indochina. These hearings were held in several American cities, and would eventually form the foundation of two national investigations: the National Veterans Inquiry
National Veterans Inquiry
The National Veterans Inquiry was a national-level inquiry into American war crimes in Vietnam. They were held December 1 - December 3, 1970 in Washington, DC.-Origin:...
sponsored by the CCI, and the Winter Soldier Investigation
Winter Soldier Investigation
The "Winter Soldier Investigation" was a media event sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War from January 31, 1971 – February 2, 1971. It was intended to publicize war crimes and atrocities by the United States Armed Forces and their allies in the Vietnam War...
sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Vietnam Veterans Against the War is a tax-exempt non-profit organization and corporation, originally created to oppose the Vietnam War. VVAW describes itself as a national veterans' organization that campaigns for peace, justice, and the rights of all United States military veterans...
.
Russell Tribunal in Rome on Chile's military coup D'état of 1973
It was a part of the Tribunal Russell II on Latin America http://theotoniodossantos.blogspot.com/2009/03/lelio-basso-e-america-latina.html which was set up by Professor Lelio BassoLelio Basso
Lelio Basso was an Italian democratic socialist politician and journalist.-Early life:Lelio Basso was born in Varazze into a Liberal bourgeois family. In 1916, he and his family moved to Milan where he attended the Berchet grammar school...
(1973) inter. english version.pdf with the aim of investigating alleged violations of the Human Rights mainly at the time in Brazil, Chile and Argentina. The Rome sessions of 1974 became however more concentrated on issues around allegations of human rights violations by the Junta Militar presided by General Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
in Chile and also dealt on the situation in Brazil. Secretary of the Russell Tribunal in Rome was Linda Bimbi. In the Scientific Secretariat of the Russell Tribunal in Rome (presided by Linda Bimbi) participated in 1974 among other writer Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
, historian Vladimir Dedijer
Vladimir Dedijer
Vladimir Dedijer was a Yugoslav partisan fighter, politician and historian.During World War II he was an editor of the Yugoslav Communist Party newspaper Borba, and member of the agitprop section to the General Staff.After the war he was a member of Yugoslav delegation on 1946 Paris peace...
, and Professor Marcello Ferrada-Noli
Marcello Ferrada-Noli
Marcello Vittorio Ferrada-Noli is a Swedish medicine doktor andProfessor Emeritus of Public Health Sciences / Epidemiology. He was formerly Professor in Epidemiology and in International Health at the University of Gävle, and Head of the at the Karolinska Institutet.He earned his PhD in Psychiatry...
, which also left a public testimony at the Tribunal in his condition of former prisoner at the Quiriquina Island
Quiriquina Island
Quiriquina Island, Chile is located at the entrance to the Bay of Concepción, 11 km north of Talcahuano.In April, 1557, Don Garcia de Mendoza, Spanish viceroy of the Kingdom of Chile, arrived at the harbor of Concepción, with a large force of infantry and established himself upon the island of...
Prisoners Camp in Chile. Part of the testimony was reproduced in a scientific publication of 1998 http://www.springerlink.com/content/hg4508488373m483/.
Other sessions of the Tribunal Russell II on Latin America ensued in Brussels (1975) and again in Rome 1976.
Russell Tribunal on Iraq
In 2004 the BRussells TribunalBRussells Tribunal
The BRussells Tribunal refers both to a series of hearings taking place in Brussels, April 14-17, 2004, as part of the World Tribunal on Iraq, and to the group of people who organised these hearings....
took place in Brussels as a continuation of the tradition of the Russell Tribunal as part of the World Tribunal on Iraq
World Tribunal on Iraq
The World Tribunal on Iraq was a people's court consisting of intellectuals, human rights campaigners and non-governmental organizations, and was active from 2003-2005. Set up following the 2003 invasion of Iraq it sprung from the anti-war movement and is modelled on the Russell Tribunal of the...
. Philosopher Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
praised this event, stating that "to resuscitate the tradition of a Russell Tribunal is symbolically an important and necessary thing to do today."
Russell Tribunal on Palestine
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) was created to promote and sustain initiatives in support of the rights of the Palestinian people, with public international law as a legal frame of reference, following, inter aliaInter Alia
-Track listing:# Inter Alia# Outfox'd # Righteous Badass # The Altogether feat. Bix, Apt, UNIVERSE ARM and Cal# The Day-to-Daily# Trouble Brewing # The Prestidigitator# The Force...
:
- the international community's failure to implement the International Court of JusticeInternational Court of JusticeThe International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands...
's 2004 Advisory Opinion on the construction of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (see also Gaza Strip barrier, Egypt–Gaza barrierEgypt–Gaza barrierThe Egypt-Gaza barrier refers to the Philadelphi Route along Egypt's 12 km border with the Gaza Strip, and now also to an underground metal barrier Egypt is building, in an attempt to curb the use of smuggling tunnels. It will extend 35 metres below the surface...
); - the lack of implementation of the resolution ES-10/15 confirming the ICJ Opinion, adopted by the United Nations General AssemblyUnited Nations General AssemblyFor two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...
on 20 July 2004 and - the Israeli offensive on Gaza in December 2008December 2008December 2008 was the 12th month of the leap year. It began on a Monday and ended after 31 days on a Wednesday.-International holidays:* December 8 – Immaculate Conception.* December 8 – Eid al-Adha.* December 21 – Hanukkah begins at sundown....
– January 2009January 2009January 2009 was the first month of that year. It began on a Thursday and ended after 31 days on a Saturday.-Portal:Current events:This is an archived version of Wikipedia's Current events Portal from January 2009....
,
In March 2009, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine was formed. It is composed of well known human right activists. Israel is being investigated.
In April 2011, the association converted into a non-profit organisation with a legal status in Brussels by Pierre Galand, Jacques Michiels, Jacques Debatty, Nadia Farkh, Henri Eisendrath and Roseline Sonet.. The former non-elected PS senator, Pierre Galand, has been named as president of the association.
In a speech given by Pierre Galand on the 12.09.2011 the budget for the Cape Town session of the tribunal is €190,000. In the same speech Galand said that €100,000 was donated by Editions Indigene, the publisher of the book “Time for an outrage.” In addition, more than €15,000 was raised at a September 24, 2011 fundraising event by the Belgian support committee of the Russell Tribunal. The Caipirinha Foundation lists the RToP as a grant receiver, but does not disclose the amount or the year of its grant.
Richard J. Goldstone, a South African former judge, predicted that evidence presented to the Tribunal at a November 2011 hearing would be "one-sided" and that its members "are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known". After the Tribunal session, Israeli MK Otniel Schneller
Otniel Schneller
Otniel Schneller is an Israeli politician and a member of the Knesset for Kadima.-Biography:Born in Jerusalem, and raised in Michigan, Schneller took Jewish studies and social science at Bar-Ilan University, finishing his studied in 1978. Between 1983 and 1986 he served as secretary general of the...
filed a complaint with the Knesset's Ethics Committee against MK Hanin Zoabi, who testified at the Tribunal that "Israel is an apartheid state".
A group of Jewish South Africans protested against the court, and the organizer of the protest called it a "Kangaroo Court."
Criticisms of the Tribunals
The hearings were seen as 'kangaroo courtKangaroo court
A kangaroo court is "a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted".The outcome of a trial by kangaroo court is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of ensuring conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or...
s' and received little attention from the mainstream press. Incidents like the Russell Tribunal were described by historian Guenter Lewy
Guenter Lewy
Guenter Lewy is an author and political scientist who is a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts. His works span several topics, but he is most often associated with his 1978 book on the Vietnam War, America in Vietnam, and several controversial works that deal with the...
as part of a “veritable industry publicizing alleged war crimes”
Staughton Lynd
Staughton Lynd
Staughton Craig Lynd is an American conscientious objector, Quaker, peace activist and civil rights activist, tax resister, historian, professor, author and lawyer. His involvement in social justice causes has brought him into contact with some of the nation's most influential activists, including...
, chairman of the 1965 “March on Washington”, was asked by Russell to participate in the tribunal and rejected the invitation. Staughton’s objections and criticism of the Tribunal were based on the fact that Russell planned to investigate only non-North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front conduct, sheltering Hanoi from any criticism for their behavior. Lynd wrote that “in conversation with the emissary who proffered the invitation, I urged that the alleged war crimes of any party to the conflict should come before the Tribunal. After all, I argued, a "crime" is an action that is wrong no matter who does it. Pressing my case, I asked, "What if it were shown that the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam tortures unarmed prisoners?" The answer, as I understood it, was, "Anything is justified that drives the imperialist aggressor into the sea." I declined the invitation to be a member of the Tribunal.”
David Horowitz
David Horowitz
David Joel Horowitz is an American conservative writer and policy advocate. Horowitz was raised by parents who were both members of the American Communist Party. Between 1956 and 1975, Horowitz was an outspoken adherent of the New Left before rejecting Marxism completely...
was then a member of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation was established in 1963. The foundation aims to continue the work of the philosopher and activist Bertrand Russell in the areas of peace, social justice, and human rights, with a specific focus on the dangers of nuclear war...
. He confirms that the Russell Tribunal never held any intention of investigating alleged Communist atrocities. In his memoirs, Horowitz describes overhearing Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
insist that the North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front were, by definition, incapable of committing war crimes. "I refuse to place," said Sartre, "in the same category the actions of an organization of poor peasants... and those of an immense army backed by a highly organized country."
Judge Richard Goldstone
Richard Goldstone
Richard Joseph Goldstone is a South African former judge. After working for 17 years as a commercial lawyer, he was appointed by the South African government to serve on the Transvaal Supreme Court from 1980 to 1989 and the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa from 1990 to 1994...
, writing in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
in October 2011, said of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine that “It is not a ‘tribunal.’ The ‘evidence’ is going to be one-sided and the members of the ‘jury’ are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known. In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute."
South African journalist and human rights activist Benjamin Pogrund
Benjamin Pogrund
Benjamin Pogrund is a South African-born author currently living in Israel.Brought up in Cape Town, he began a career as a journalist in 1958, writing for the Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg, where he eventually became deputy-editor. The Rand Daily Mail was the only newspaper in South Africa at...
described the Cape Town Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine as "It's theatre: the actors know their parts and the result is known before they start. Israel is to be dragged into the mud."
See also
- Vietnam War Crimes Working Group FilesVietnam War Crimes Working Group FilesThe Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files is a collection of documents compiled by Pentagon in the early 1970s during Army investigations into atrocities by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. They detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by United States Army investigators — not...
- Winter Soldier InvestigationWinter Soldier InvestigationThe "Winter Soldier Investigation" was a media event sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War from January 31, 1971 – February 2, 1971. It was intended to publicize war crimes and atrocities by the United States Armed Forces and their allies in the Vietnam War...
- Tiger ForceTiger ForceTiger Force was a task force of the United States Army, 1st Battalion , 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade , 101st Airborne Division, which fought in the Vietnam War....
- Phoenix ProgramPhoenix ProgramThe Phoenix Program |phoenix]]) was a controversial counterinsurgency program designed, coordinated, and executed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency , United States special operations forces, and the Republic of Vietnam's security apparatus during the Vietnam War that operated...
- Pentagon PapersPentagon PapersThe Pentagon Papers, officially titled United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967...
- My Lai MassacreMy Lai MassacreThe My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of 347–504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children , and...
- Human Rights Record of the United StatesHuman Rights Record of the United States.The Human Rights Record of the United States is a publication on the annual human rights record in the United States of America, published by the Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China...
- War crimes committed by the United StatesWar crimes committed by the United StatesThe United States of America has been accused of committing war crimes at various points throughout its history. Most, but not all contemporary war crimes are defined by the International Criminal Court , the Geneva Conventions, and the associated laws of war under international law...
Further reading
- Against The Crime of Silence: Proceedings of The Russell International War Crimes Tribunal, edited by J. Duffett, O’Hare Books, New York, 1968
- Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey, by David HorowitzDavid HorowitzDavid Joel Horowitz is an American conservative writer and policy advocate. Horowitz was raised by parents who were both members of the American Communist Party. Between 1956 and 1975, Horowitz was an outspoken adherent of the New Left before rejecting Marxism completely...
, Free PressFree Press (publisher)Free Press is a book publishing imprint of Simon and Schuster. It was founded by Jeremiah Kaplan and Charles Liebman in 1947 and was devoted to sociology and religion titles. It was headquartered in Glencoe, Illinois, where it was known as The Free Press of Glencoe...
, New York, 1997. - War Crimes in Vietnam, by Bertrand Russell, 1967, see Postscript
External links
- Selections from the Russell Tribunal
- Russell Tribunal on Palestine
- Reviews of the Proceedings of the Russell International War Crimes Tribunal and Sartre's essay, On Genocide
- War Crimes and Vietnam: The "Nuremberg Defense" and the Military Service Resister
- Interview with Frank Bara of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine