The NATO aggression against Libya makes the world re-examine a number of themes from the realm of the international law, especially in the light of the obviously existing plan to kill the country's defiant leader M. Gadhafi. Gadhafi's residences are permanently targeted by NATO air raids one of which left his family members – son and three grandsons – dead on May 1.
Truly speaking, the killings of country leaders are nothing new. Three presidents of Bolivia, three presidents of Uruguay, three US presidents, two presidents of Peru and several monarchs with their family members were killed in the XIX century. A similar XX century list includes Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family, the prime ministers of Italy, Sweden, Serbia, and Grenada, a US president, Afghanistan's three presidents and prime minister, three presidents and three prime ministers of Bangladesh, two presidents and three prime ministers of Burundi, a president and three prime ministers of Egypt, two presidents of Liberia, two prime ministers of India, Chad's president, a president and three prime ministers of Iran, a president and a prime minister of Congo, a president and a prime minister of Rwanda, Niger's president, two presidents and a prime minister of Nigeria, and presidents of Venezuela, Guatemala, and Salvador. No doubt, the XXI century will post a list of the same kind.
The above lists account neither for the slain statesmen who did not hold official posts, like Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral or Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane nor for those country leaders who died under obscure circumstances. Recently I talked to a former high ranking official from Mozambique who in 1986 inspected the crash site of president Samora Moisés Machel's plane and claimed there was ample evidence that the aircraft had been shot down. The crime was likely attributable to South Africa's racist regime, but no investigation was launched due to political regards and the case remained on record as an accident.
A number of deaths under suspicious circumstances are not counted as assassinations of country leaders. Unexplainably, Nigeria's incumbent president Sani Abacha and the elected president from the ranks of the opposition Moshood Abiola died on the same day – on July 7, 1998 – without any visible causes. The latter died during a meeting with the US ambassador: Abiola's bodyguard was supposed to taste foods and drinks offered to Abiola, but was ordered to leave and did not sample the cup of tea offered by the US envoy. The whole story neither provoked considerable publicity nor led to an official investigation. Similarly, the killing of the whole royal family in Nepal in 2001 was never investigated though circumstances of the case invited the hypothesis that external forces had played a role in it.
Attempts to open a probe into the 1994 murder of Rwanda's president and prime minister meet with resistance mounted – oddly enough – by the International Tribunal for Rwanda. While the killings of the Tutsi in Rwanda are coming under scrutiny, the killings of the Hutu, including Rwanda's former leaders, are not, as the Tribunal's version of the genocide against the Tusti might be called into question as a result. Carla del Ponte, who, on top of starring as the chief prosecutor in Yugoslavia, did the same job in Rwanda, described vividly how the US and a few other countries blocked her efforts to open investigations into the killings of Rwanda's president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi's president Cyprien Ntaryamira which became a prologue to the genocide in Rwanda.
The treatment of the killings of country leaders by the contemporary international law is bizarre: in most cases, external connections are impossible to deny but no investigations follow. When probes do open, in the majority of cases they completely lack credibility. Facing hundreds of political assassinations, the international community seems preoccupied with just two – the murders of Lebanon's premier Rafic Baha El Deen Al-Hariri and of Pakistan's premier Benazir Bhutto. An International Tribunal was established to investigate the former case, and a UN commission was looking into the latter. The tribunal for Lebanon opened in 2008 but rolled out no results so far, while the commission investigating the death of B. Bhutto closed in 2010 upon publishing a report with contents limited to blaming the Pakistani government for poor security measures.
The international community seems totally unperturbed in all other cases. In September 2010, the UN voted against Libya's plan to put investigations of country leader assassinations on the UN General Assembly's agenda… M. Gadhafi is the longest-term leader of a UN country, and tens of presidents and premiers across the world have been killed during the 42 years of his rule. Gadhafi narrowly escaped a number of assassination attempts including the April 1986 one when the US and its allies bombed Tripoli. Currently we are witnessing another hunt for Gadhafi which, as in 1986, is taking the lives of his family members.
Any assessment of the current situation in Libya should be premised in the assumption that an aggression – regardless of how the media comb the picture, etc. – is in itself a crime… The killings resulting from an aggression are separate crimes, and, moreover, the killing of a country leader as a part of the aggression is a crime of particular severity. At the moment there is a criminal plan to assassinate Gadhafi, and its implementation has already generated a separate death toll. Similarly, S. Milosevic's residence and the Chinese embassy in Belgrade were pounded when Yugoslavia fell victim to NATO aggression in 1999 – as it became known in 2008, the NATO strike on the Chinese embassy was deliberate since Washington had information that Milosevic was there at the moment. In other words, these were also attempts to kill a country leader.
The list of crimes bred by the NATO aggression against Libya is growing longer. While puppet international tribunals like the Hague one are cooking an indictment against Gadhafi (prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has already announced that the process is at full swing), the international legal community should take to a court of its own the rampant global lawlessness.
The so-called International Commission of Inquiry appointed to investigate Human Rights violations in Libya arrived in the country on April 27. The membership of the commission both reflects the actual extent of its independence and gives a good idea of the agenda behind the venture. It is headed by author of the ICTY statute Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni and includes “human rights champions” Asma Khader from Jordan and Philippe Kirsch from Canada. The latter – as if being a representative of a NATO country is not enough under the circumstances – used to preside over the International Criminal Court.
It may be an uphill task, but there is still time to reverse the process of morally crippling the UN which at the moment is led to serially bless aggressions. At least, an attempt to preserve the UN is worthwhile, and the following steps should be taken:
1. The UN Military Staff Committee which, despite being prescribed by the UN Charter, never convened over the past 65 years, must finally materialize. Its formation should prevent the interception of the roles of interpreting and implementing UN Security Council's resolutions by other organizations like NATO and the EU and help Russia, China, and other countries gain access to the UN military decision-making.
2. The UN General Assembly which is vastly more inclusive than the 15-member UN Security Council should hold debates over the aggression against Libya.
3. Libya can seek protection in the UN International Court of Justice which should call for the suspension of the offensive against the country for the period of time it takes the Court to issue an opinion on the issue.
4. Russia should request a meeting of the UN Security Council in connection with the aggression against Libya. Expecting to reach a breakthrough with its help would be naïve, but at least Russia, which neglected to oppose Resolutions 1970 and 1973, would thus be able to reaffirm its position. Now Moscow should be pushing for resolutions which may be in consequent and dubious in some respects but, in any case, would not authorize bombing Libya.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon went so far as to state that the regime in Libya lost its legitimacy. Sadly, as of today this rather happens to be true of the UN. The erosion of the UN legitimacy was provoked by a number of member-countries in tandem with the UN top echelon including Ban Ki-moon. From a broader perspective, the draining the UN legitimacy is a part of the onset of chaos within the current global world order.
For Moscow, siding with Libya means more than protecting a nation friendly to Russia and Russians. Today, we might be facing the last chance to rehabilitate the UN – and, accordingly, to rebuild Russia's position in its framework. The Democracy League planned as a replacement for the UN will deny Russia any role in international affairs. Therefore, Russia should spearhead the efforts to prevent the key UN institutions from undermining the world forum's own legitimacy.
