17 December 1998 Edition
Put Thatcher with Pinochet
By Mary Nelis
It is fifty years since the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Since then, the second half of this century has been characterised by every possible violation of human rights, from mass murder to mass starvation, to mass torture, rape, social and economic slavery.
Most of man's inhumanity to man has been carried out by governments and excused on the grounds that the state has a duty to protect its inhabitants from communism, terrorism or some other `ism'.
During Argentina's `Dirty War' the Governor of Buenos Aires was most forthcoming on how those in power dealt with resistance movements or individuals who were of no use to the government. He said ``first we kill all the subversives, then we kill all their collaborators, then their sympathisers, then those who remain indifferent, and finally we kill the timid.''
These sentiments are still shared and practised worldwide by governments and dictators who enjoy the patronage of faceless global decision-makers. Thousands have died in unconventional warfare to defend and progress the strategic interests of the status quo without having to address the legal, moral or human consequences.
Until last month most of the world's dictators and military heads of state thought, like Pinochet, that they would enjoy forever that status reserved for political bureaucrats - diplomatic immunity - which is a sort of world privilege credit card, especially those in Florida, enjoying the hospitality of the US government. All that has changed with the request for the extradition of Pinochet. What these tyrants and those who went before them have never learnt or understood, is that the scythe swings and at once the grass starts to grow again.
The scythe swung in Chile in 1973 but the `grass' stood with their placards in London, in Santiago, in Spain as the British Law Lords delivered their verdict. These were the mothers, the relatives and the survivors of the regime which set out to destroy them. They have not remained silent. In every country in the world, including our own, they have confronted the dictators, the torturers and the soldiers, often at great personal risk to themselves. As one woman said of the Pinochet regime, ``why our children have died we do not know, but no one shall deny they lived.''
The Pinochet extradition has blown a large hole in the comfort of those who thought people had forgotten. When the tortured may need to forget, to survive, there is an imperative on the rest of us to remember.
We in Ireland, as in Chile, have much to remember as we near the end of the century. Those who have lived through and suffered at the hands of the British regime in the north over the past thirty two years have not forgotten the hard-won truths of our own struggle for freedom and democracy.
While the great powers engaged in unconventional wars, to suit their own interests, the Soviets in Afghanistan, Reagan's Contras in Nicaragua, Pol Pot and the Chinese in Cambodia, the CIA-supported death squads in EL Salvador and Chile, the French in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, during which time every conceivable human right was violated, the oppressed people of the north were condemned and labelled terrorists by the British for resorting to armed insurrection, when peaceful change in Ireland, like Chile, was violently suppressed.
The outworking of Britain's dictatorship in Ireland, which suppressed the 1918 election results and the partition of the country under the threat of war to promote Britain's own selfish and strategic interests, is the root cause of all armed insurrection movements in this country. The institutionalised injustice and state terrorism of the British government in Ireland has been directly or indirectly responsible for 3,000 deaths, the imprisonment, detention, torture and all treatment of thousands more.
During Thatcher's term as head of state 10,000 individuals in the north were convicted in non-jury courts on confession evidence obtained by torture and ill-treatment in interrogation centres. In 1979, the British government inquiry, the Bennett Report disclosed that 1,600 formal complaints of assualt backed up by medical evidence had been lodged. Not one RUC officer was questioned, charged or convicted.
The death squads operating the now well-documented shoot-to-kill policy, have been more militarily discreet and politically expedient than their counterparts in South America, but just as lethal. They operated, as one learned judge stated, ``the final court of justice''.
Britain's history in Ireland has been one long violation of human rights, no more so than during the Thatcher era. Perhaps the present Argentinean government may ask for her extradition to face charges of causing the deaths of 368 young men in the sinking of the Belgrano.
The IRA are now on ceasefire. We're still progressing the peace, but we hope that somewhere down the road there will be a Nuremberg Trial, or a United Nations Truth Commission, for the truth of England's terrorism and denial of rights to generations of Irish people needs to be told.
Thatcher and Pinochet would make a fine couple together in the dock.
It is fifty years since the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Since then, the second half of this century has been characterised by every possible violation of human rights, from mass murder to mass starvation, to mass torture, rape, social and economic slavery.
Most of man's inhumanity to man has been carried out by governments and excused on the grounds that the state has a duty to protect its inhabitants from communism, terrorism or some other `ism'.
During Argentina's `Dirty War' the Governor of Buenos Aires was most forthcoming on how those in power dealt with resistance movements or individuals who were of no use to the government. He said ``first we kill all the subversives, then we kill all their collaborators, then their sympathisers, then those who remain indifferent, and finally we kill the timid.''
These sentiments are still shared and practised worldwide by governments and dictators who enjoy the patronage of faceless global decision-makers. Thousands have died in unconventional warfare to defend and progress the strategic interests of the status quo without having to address the legal, moral or human consequences.
Until last month most of the world's dictators and military heads of state thought, like Pinochet, that they would enjoy forever that status reserved for political bureaucrats - diplomatic immunity - which is a sort of world privilege credit card, especially those in Florida, enjoying the hospitality of the US government. All that has changed with the request for the extradition of Pinochet. What these tyrants and those who went before them have never learnt or understood, is that the scythe swings and at once the grass starts to grow again.
The scythe swung in Chile in 1973 but the `grass' stood with their placards in London, in Santiago, in Spain as the British Law Lords delivered their verdict. These were the mothers, the relatives and the survivors of the regime which set out to destroy them. They have not remained silent. In every country in the world, including our own, they have confronted the dictators, the torturers and the soldiers, often at great personal risk to themselves. As one woman said of the Pinochet regime, ``why our children have died we do not know, but no one shall deny they lived.''
The Pinochet extradition has blown a large hole in the comfort of those who thought people had forgotten. When the tortured may need to forget, to survive, there is an imperative on the rest of us to remember.
We in Ireland, as in Chile, have much to remember as we near the end of the century. Those who have lived through and suffered at the hands of the British regime in the north over the past thirty two years have not forgotten the hard-won truths of our own struggle for freedom and democracy.
While the great powers engaged in unconventional wars, to suit their own interests, the Soviets in Afghanistan, Reagan's Contras in Nicaragua, Pol Pot and the Chinese in Cambodia, the CIA-supported death squads in EL Salvador and Chile, the French in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, during which time every conceivable human right was violated, the oppressed people of the north were condemned and labelled terrorists by the British for resorting to armed insurrection, when peaceful change in Ireland, like Chile, was violently suppressed.
The outworking of Britain's dictatorship in Ireland, which suppressed the 1918 election results and the partition of the country under the threat of war to promote Britain's own selfish and strategic interests, is the root cause of all armed insurrection movements in this country. The institutionalised injustice and state terrorism of the British government in Ireland has been directly or indirectly responsible for 3,000 deaths, the imprisonment, detention, torture and all treatment of thousands more.
During Thatcher's term as head of state 10,000 individuals in the north were convicted in non-jury courts on confession evidence obtained by torture and ill-treatment in interrogation centres. In 1979, the British government inquiry, the Bennett Report disclosed that 1,600 formal complaints of assualt backed up by medical evidence had been lodged. Not one RUC officer was questioned, charged or convicted.
The death squads operating the now well-documented shoot-to-kill policy, have been more militarily discreet and politically expedient than their counterparts in South America, but just as lethal. They operated, as one learned judge stated, ``the final court of justice''.
Britain's history in Ireland has been one long violation of human rights, no more so than during the Thatcher era. Perhaps the present Argentinean government may ask for her extradition to face charges of causing the deaths of 368 young men in the sinking of the Belgrano.
The IRA are now on ceasefire. We're still progressing the peace, but we hope that somewhere down the road there will be a Nuremberg Trial, or a United Nations Truth Commission, for the truth of England's terrorism and denial of rights to generations of Irish people needs to be told.
Thatcher and Pinochet would make a fine couple together in the dock.