Geopolitical Favoritism Afforded War Criminal | Janet Benshoof | Talks at Google

Good afternoon and welcome. My name is Janet Benshoff and I'm a human rights lawyer and president of the Global Justice Center. Before I get into the topic today, which is the work of the Global justice center and stressing our work in Burma, I want to thank Google for giving us the opportunity to talk about our work in this venue. Google is very important, not just for today, but because in places like Burma, where we document crimes against women and against all people, the Google satellite system has provided invaluable for dictators that try to hide what they do from the public. And I think that piercing the corporate veil, we've heard that term, but Google now is piercing the criminal veil, which is even more important.

So.

So thank you. I have been a human rights lawyer for over 30 years, always working in the public justice field. I think today, in 2008, the human rights field is posed in a very good position to actually start enforcing a global system of human rights. For that reason, I started my third nonprofit organization called the Global Justice Center. I know that sounds pretty aspirational and lofty and it is. What we want to do is see that there are no more Hitlers or than Shuis or Charles Taylors and that there is a system of global justice that will work on all people and that will cut across all country lines. Well, you might say this is what all human rights groups do. What makes you different? Well, we're different in two ways. First of all, we take a very strong position that for there to be justice, peace and security in the world, there has to be equality of women. In fact, there have to be half women judges and half women ambassadors. It's not enough to have a democracy being defined as a system where people can vote and there's free media. If women are always out of the boardrooms and the decision makers and the military, then you do not have the sustainable justice, peace and security that is our ultimate aim. Also, the Global justice center is trying, we're new, to deploy new legal strategies to create an impact around the world. I guess that sounds like Google a little bit, but our strategies are to look at countries in transition and conflict and try to affect how they're structured right at that time. Unfortunately, there are a lot of countries in conflict and we try to take advantage of the situation to see, for example, that women their quotas for women in the Constitution. We tried to take advantage of the fact that there might be a war crimes tribunal and see that rape is now defined under international law to be very gender sensitive and that women are accorded full access to rights so that the rule of law starts not post conflict, but really even in the time of transition. I'll give another example. We believe that peace agreements are so called pre constitutions because of the kinds of setups that they contain in them. And therefore one of our legal strategies is to pressure the United nations to ensure that they don't engage in any peacekeeping treaty sponsorship where women are not at the table. The Global justice center only started really in 2005, but I have had projects inside and outside of Burma since 2002. So I have a very unique perspective, working not only with Aung San SUU Kyi when she was out of house arrest inside Burma, but with the Burma Lawyers Council in Mesat, which is the legal arm of the pro democracy movement, and as well as the Women's League of Burma, which is a coalition of groups that are seeking to empower women so that when we have a new democracy in Burma, the face of government will be gender, have gender parity instead of what we see now, which is totally military and totally generals. Before I get in a little bit on our current work in Burma and what my take is on this recent tragedy that's continuing from the cyclone, I'll give another example of the kind of work we do that nobody else is doing. We have been working with judges and women in Iraq to see that rape victims during the time of the Saddam regime are accorded full international law rights by the Iraq Tribunal. Now you might say, well, isn't that being done by someone else? Or doesn't the US Government do that? My answer to those questions is a resounding no. First of all, the Global justice center takes no government money. We don't like the kind of censorship imposed by the United States government to talk about abortion. Even in legal trainings on democracy, we want to be free from all partisanship. And we also talk about the kinds of international rights that the United States government has walked away from, such as treaties for women or the International Criminal Court. So when we work with judges and women in Iraq, we train them on global international law that isn't necessarily readily embraced by the United States government. Just to give you an example of our success in Iraq, the women's groups, a lot of grassroots women's groups, asked us to come and do training of the judges so that they would actually listen to rape victims, such as in Kurdistan, with the On Fall campaign, we held training with the Iraqi tribunal judges and the result was a 500 page opinion in the On Fall case in which for the first time in the Middle east, judges used international law. They used international law for women and they used a progressive definition of rape that is even more progressive than the one in California today. Now you might say, well, how did this Iraqi tribunal happen to be using such a progressive laws for women? Well, when the parliament in Iraq met, they passed a statute to try the war crime criminals of the former regime. And what they passed was an international statute called the Rome Treaty for the International Criminal Court. They made it into a domestic law, but virtually repeated it about 90% word for word, including all the gender crimes. So one of our achievable victories has been that Kurdish women testified and the court court found that rape is torture, entitling them to reparations. That when you are in a detention camp and rape by the military, that is inherently coercive so you shouldn't question a woman about consent. That Chemical Ali, who directed the entire On Fall operations, was guilty of rape as one of the existence underneath his conviction of genocide, even though he never personally was the perpetrator and he never personally was at the camp when the rapes were taking place. This is very important because it's clear he directed the operations and he knew what was going on. And the soldiers and camp leaders all got promotions after On Fall, not military trials. Now it's very important for women what I've just said, because as we look at sexual violence in conflict and we look at trials around the world, very few criminal defendants actually come before these high level tribunals, whether it's the International Criminal Court or whether it's the court for Rwanda. And it's important for crimes against women to have a voice in history and a voice for the victims, that theories of law are employed that look at the superior responsibility or the technical term we used in On Fall is joint criminal enterprise. He was part of a joint criminal enterprise. I think that one successful model that we brought out of this early project is that bringing women leaders to talk to judges about the crimes of rape provides a public space for a discussion that isn't as charged as when you have a single defendant and the family. And so for the first time we really had women parliamentarians talking to Iraqi judges about how they wanted justice done. The kind of legal precedent that we set in Iraq, which you don't read about in the papers, we would now like to take to Burma because General Senior General Feng Shui is the crimes he has continuing to perpetrate are no different from those of Saddam Hitler than Shui. Burma may be a very different context than Iraq. But the victims of a gang rape by the military in the Karen State are the same as the victim of a gang rape in Kurdistan, Iraq. Victims and the international law that's been being violated are the same, which is why we have global justice. There should be no safe harbor for dictators, whether it's Charles Taylor, Pinochet, Franco, or in this case, General Than Shui of Burma. Burma has been a country that is under military rule or has been and is under military rule since 1919 45. It has the longest running armed conflict in the world, meaning that this is a country that's been able to get away with violating the Geneva Conventions much longer than any other country. Burma is a country, and I've been there, that's completely paranoid and xenophobic. People go to jail for seven years for using a fax machine. This is a country of 50 million people where there's no library, where you can't buy a book, and where the only reason I could get messages out was using the safe line in the American Embassy, the Internet line. Burma is also a country that has the largest standing army in Southeast Asia and, and the largest, second largest in the world. Proportion of their budget goes to the military, which is 45%. So this very rich country that is one of the poorest in the world, per capita income, has a military budget that's enormous, which is very telling since there's no war. This is a military that is engaged in war against its own people. This is a military who are allowed to rape and take over villages as sort of their recompense, rather than getting payment from the government. This is a military where China has recently come in and set up four weapons factories so they can make their own weapons. This is a country where India, seduced by energy, has been selling weapons with the excuse that, well, they don't give them the right bullets to go with them. This is a country where Russia is getting military young men, they're all men coming over for training in nuclear technology. This is a country where the world is turning a blind eye to crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes. Now, you might say, well, what about this latest tragedy? What about the cyclone? Let's put that in context. There have been 30 failed UN missions to Burma. Ban Ki Moon, who is the Secretary General of the un, has not been able to get on the telephone or receive a letter from him. This is not a sovereign government that you deal with, with human rights abuses. This is a criminal cabal. If there was a flood in Auschwitz, would you expect that Hitler would let the Red Cross deliver aid. Of course, the government doesn't let aid come in because they are covering up crimes. It's not just me saying this. A human rights lawyer, one of the most respected monitors in the world of criminal activity of governments is the International Red Cross. The International Red Cross has a protocol in which they remain extremely neutral so they can engage in confidential discussions with governments around the world. They started monitoring inside Burma in 1986. Now, the International Red Cross has broke that confidentiality twice in its history in making a public call for help to to the global community because serious crimes could not be stopped by the government. Once was in Rwanda, second was in Burma. June 29, 2007. Where is the answer to that call? If we had answered that call, maybe the murder of the monks last October could have been averted or we would have had in place a different system before Cyclone Nargis hit. When the Red Cross made this announcement to the public, it followed its protocol, which meant it had personally observed crimes of the nature that are covered by the Geneva Conventions, which are very serious international crimes that could be taken by the International Criminal Court. It admitted defeat as far as bilateral negotiations with the Burmese government, so called, as well as negotiations with friends of Burma, probably meaning it tried to get China to intervene. It also verified that it believed there would be continuous violations of international humanitarian law, which are crimes, and therefore sent a very strong signal for global justice. I hope that signal is now heard through Google. The question is, what do we do about this country that's killing its own people? What do we do about a criminal cabal that rules by terror now, not by the rule of law? First, I think we have to isolate legal responsibilities from geopolitical concerns. A victim is a victim. Maybe it's true that China props up Burma, but China wants energy and China goes where the wind blows. In the end, standing up for principle always takes you the furthest. Before 2002, there were not too many options about what to do with Burma. However, the Security Council could have said, as it did with Rwanda and Yugoslavia, there are crimes going on. Let's set up a temporary court and order the arrest warrant. And because we're the Security Council, every country should turn over criminals to this court. That didn't happen in 2002. Another legal option became open for us to use on Burma. And this is the International Criminal Court. The International Criminal Court is an enormous step towards global justice. But like all steps, if we don't use it and push people up it, it's not going to work. And if there ever was a country made for the International Criminal Court, which is for pariah states, it is Burma. Now, the International Criminal Court is a treaty. It's not part of the United Nations. You sign up to be a party to the Criminal court, and 105 countries have signed that treaty. Unfortunately, our country, the United States, is not one of them. And that's unfortunate for the signal that it sends. It's unfortunate also because the Criminal Court, in setting the high standard for prosecuting gender crimes, is a step forward for addressing violence against women and setting high international standards for women's rights to criminal accountability. Now, Burma has not signed onto the International Criminal Court. Of course it hasn't. So you might say then, well, how do we get Burma to the Criminal Court when it's not a party? Well, there's one way, and that way has already been used for Sudan. The Security Council can find that humanitarian crimes are a threat to peace, which it really has done with Kurdistan, with Rwanda, with Yugoslavia, with Sierra Leone, with East Timor, with Cambodia, with Kosovo. It can decide that the ongoing crimes and the reluctance of Burma to do any internal prosecution or judicial system is a threat to global peace. And therefore, under its strongest powers, it can issue a referral to the International Criminal Court. This doesn't mean the Criminal Court has to take it. It's not an arm of the Security Council. But there is a contract between the Security Council and the International Criminal Court. And Prosecutor Ocampo would then be able to open up an investigation of the crimes inside of Burma with the full power of the Security Council behind him. This has never been done. There's never been a Security Council resolution on Burma, only from the UN assembly, which does not have that same power of binding international law. So we are working very actively now with the Burma Lawyers Council, our partner, in getting countries to sign on this particular strategy, arguing also that the new laws on which women, such as a Security council law called 1325, really give affirmative action for the ICC to take over and do this kind of investigation. I'd like to report in a very happy way that the European Union has put our language in the resolution they're looking at today on Burma, as far as a referral by the Security Council to the icc. Now, I'd like to, before I conclude, say a couple words about the cyclone and a couple words about something that you've no doubt seen throughout the news, which is called the responsibility to protect. The responsibility to protect, like the International Criminal Court, is another step towards global justice. But it's a little more inchoate. And what it really is is a pledge by all countries in a unanimous vote that when there is a situation of armed conflict, which Burma is, and if they will not respond to any other measures, that the world has a global duty under international law to intervene to see that civilians do not suffer unnecessary death, disaster, torture. Now this responsibility to protect was really considered in the context of a country that engages in serious crimes of, of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. And that's Burma. So we didn't envision the responsibility to protect as applying to incompetence or denial of cyclone aid. But the denial of aid access by Than shui is a wake up call and it's part and parcel of the total cover up of the serious crimes and should evoke a Security Council resolution that encompasses an investigation of all crimes. Cyclone Narges is predictable. I mean, not the cyclone, but the reaction. Like I said before, once Saddam did chemical warfare on the women and children in Halabjah. He didn't let the Red Cross in to try to help clear the land from pesticides for mowing. You don't let aid agencies into an area of conflict where you're engaging in the most serious crimes. And that's what's going on in Burma. The kinds of negotiations I think we have done in the past has treated the military junta as a real country, as a sovereignty. It's time to stop that. Let's get real about Burma. Burma is a criminal cabal. A criminal cabal. Torturing, engaging in torture of monks, murder of monks, gang rape of women. It's time to expose that criminal cabal. And I'm looking forward to all the Google pictures that we can use as evidence at the Security Council in asking for a referral to the International Criminal Court. Thank you. Yes.

Talk a little bit about the effect that Narges might have. External reception of Burma. Do you think it will have an effect internally destabilization of the government or something along those lines?

The question was what is the effect of the government's lack of receiving international aid on the people inside Burma? I think the people inside Burma, they're thoroughly cowed by the government that they have been knocked down for ages and do not really expect the government to respond to them. It is not an outrage. It would be a shock to them if the government did let in international aid. So they expect routine torture. And this, this has just added to their burden. In fact, what they have said, and we have Burmese people on my staff, what they've said on the streets is we wish we'd get invaded. We don't care if what happens here is what happened in Iraq. I mean, that's their reaction. Just come and get us in any way possible. So they're not surprised and it's not going to change their perception of the government. They know that they're governed by evil. They. And they also know that the world is kind of letting this happen. Yes.

That leads me to the next question. Is there a military solution?

I'm sorry, I didn't.

Is there a military solution?

The question that was given to me, is there a military solution? Well, I think we have never even taken the solution of having the Security Council issue its strongest condemnation like we did in Kurdistan. In Kurdistan we did establish a no fly zone In Kurdistan in 1993, Kurdistan, Iraq, we were able to keep Saddam away from killing even more people. So I don't think we're at that point yet. I think we need there to be a Chapter 7 investigation on crimes. And that's not the only thing. But I don't think when there has never been even more one Security Council resolution, one facing that it's crimes. I mean, what China says is we don't want to force democracy on people. We're not talking about democracy here, we're talking about terror. So I don't think we're at that point yet because we haven't done any of the measures we could do prior to that.

How do we get there?

The first way we get there, which is the question is how do we get to the Security Council? Well, there are 15 members on the Security Council. I think Google should be sure that its networks in those 15 countries say we want a Chapter 7 resolution referring Burma to the International Criminal Court with language in that resolution that says gender crimes of rape are mandated to be referred under the security council resolution 1325 passed in year 2000. I think there are a lot of strong legal arguments why the Security Council must act, but you need the members to speak up and the members need to be told to speak up. Burma ratified an international treaty on genocide in 1956. And if it wouldn't prosecute possible violators, the ultimate place to enforce that is also the Security Council. So Burma violated the Geneva Conventions, which it has also signed. Even President Bush was ordered to follow the Geneva Conventions by our Supreme Court. Why should Thong Shui get less of an order than George Bush? So I think the first thing is to see that the 15 countries, China, Russia, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Croatia, Italy, France, Germany, every country Get a barrage saying we're not talking here, we're talking here about crimes, ongoing criminal behavior and legal responsibility. This should not be a political decision. You could say, oh it's so political. But the rule of law is precisely called that because it's supposed to be above politics. Politics. When you have a Hitler or a Saddam, there should be not a political but a legal decision. Crimes against humanity are not just crimes for the victims of Burma. They're crimes against all of us. Dictators who are allowed to live in impunity or worse, go to the south of France like Papa Doc and be on the Riviera. Those are a threat, threat to all of us. There should be no safe harbor for dictators and Google should ferret out the safe harbors and expose them. Yes.

Genocide in Rwandi has never been prevented. All the post factoring events that trans amounted were less significant than local newspapers. People didn't even know about it up until the time of ended. The damn day in Darfur came a couple of years later. It again did not succeed. There was not success in international justice. What makes you believe that any session would occur in power?

Well, I'd like to. I'd like to give you a couple examples. The question is why do I seek to enforce international justice now when it appears not to have worked in the past? Well, there's two answers to that. First, there are new tools and I take dispute on it not working. Let me give an example. Once Sudan was referred to the International Criminal court court in 2005. I'm sorry? Once Uganda referred itself to the Criminal Court. It's before the Criminal Court now, the International Criminal Court. Sudan quit selling weapons to the Lord's army. Once the International Criminal Court took the case of Uganda, there's been more pro progress in the peace talks than in the prior 20 years and less weapons sales. So that's. This is a new venue. It only came into being in 2002. But that is an example where we've seen positive steps once you identify a country or a people as criminal. It's one thing for India to be trading weapons with a sovereign government. It's another thing for India to be trading for weapons with someone under an indictment from the International Criminal Court. Yes.

Can you talk a little bit about the use of the satellite images provided by Google Earth and Google Maps?

The question was what about the use of the satellite images by Google Earth? Well, first can I have a disclaimer that I'm not a very technical person but I do know that they are already having a powerful effect on international justice and can certainly be leveraged more. The Google Maps show that the destruction of Karen villages in eastern Burma in 2005, over 3,000 are much more complete and there are more villages destroyed than in Cyclone Nargis or in Sudan. So the Google satellite imagery is able to demonstrate exactly what. Now the Red Cross can't get to areas of the country that have been systematically destroyed by a man made disaster. The criminals who lead the government. Yes.

What's your response to concerns that individuals who are resisting the military. Would that be something that you take? More information is better or would that be something that you can.

The question was what about people who are exposed in the Google satellites? That is totally of no concern to the people of Burma. I mean, they really want as much exposure. If there was a way Google could somehow broadcast into Burma like the BBC, which is the only thing that seems to get through, that would be great. The people in Burma are willing to do anything because they know they're being killed daily. And any exposure to the international community, community is really, really welcomed. So if people are worried about privacy concerns, they ought to get real. It would be like filming Auschwitz and worried about getting disclaimers. Thank you very much for having me. I hope that we will be here again. Another country, another group of women, another legal suggestion. Thank you.