The International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration released its preliminary findings Thursday, Feb. 2, at the
National Press Club in Washington DC.
When the possibility
of far-reaching war crimes and crimes against humanity exists, people of
conscience have a solemn responsibility to inquire into the nature and scope of
these acts and to determine if they do in fact rise to the level of war crimes
and crimes against humanity. — from the Bush Commission Charter
Over the course of five days in October and January, public
hearings attended by more than 1,000 people were conducted in New
York at the Manhattan
Center, the historic Riverside
Church, and the Columbia
University Law School.
At these hearings, we heard devastating testimony from defectors from
government service, human rights monitors, scientists, experts, and victims.
Because of intense public interest, the Commission feels an
urgency to issue preliminary findings on whether this administration has
committed crimes that do in fact rise to the level of war crimes and crimes
against humanity. These verdicts being released today are well-substantiated by
testimony and evidence. We have approached our task with a sense of the
enormity and horrors of the crimes being considered, and with a deep sense of
responsibility to the people of the world.
Opening the January
hearings, Harry Belefonte said: ‘It is important when all the instruments of
government collapse, we go in the final hour to the most important line of
battle: the people themselves.’ And at these hearings the people spoke.
Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan,
testified on the use of horrible forms of torture by the US’s
‘Coalition of Willing’ and declared, in a solemn moment, ‘I’d rather die than
have someone tortured to save my life.’ Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the
former commander of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq,
described a high-ranking general demanding that Iraqi prisoners be ‘treated
like dogs.’ The testimony of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter described
in detail how the administration had full knowledge that Iraq
possessed no weapons of mass destruction and posed no threat to the US,
laying bare the lies used to justify the war of aggression on Iraq.
These hearings were infused with a relentless search for the
truth, in stark contrast to the censorship, denial, and suppression of truth by
this administration. This was powerfully brought out by Jeremy Scahill’s
testimony on the targeting of journalists in Iraq,
Dr. Thomas Fasy on the censorship of life-saving medical information, and Daphne
Wysham on the blatant muzzling of global warming science.
We acknowledge that much remains to be done, and we call on
others to use the work of this Commission as a model, inspiration, and impetus
to further investigate what was examined by the Commission as well as other
crimes of George W. Bush and his administration.
Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional
Rights, recalling the words of Bertrand Russell, articulated for us a moral
mandate: ‘We are putting the Bush administration on trial. We investigate in
order to expose. We document in order to indict. We arouse consciousness in
order to create mass resistance.’
Kissinger
Commission Convener
PRELIMINARY
FINDINGS ON
INDICTMENTS ISSUED BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ON CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY COMMITTED BY
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
‘When the possibility of far-reaching war crimes and crimes against
humanity exists, people of conscience have a solemn responsibility to inquire
into the nature and scope of these acts and to determine if they do in fact
rise to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity.’
— Charter of the International Commission of Inquiry
Submitted by the Panel of Judges:
Adjoa A. Aiyetoro
Dennis Brutus
Abdeen Jabara
Ajamu Sankofa
Ann Wright
International Commission Of Inquiry on Crimes Against
Humanity
Committed by the Bush Administration of the United
States
305 West Broadway, #199
New York, NY
www.bushcommission.org
BACKGROUND AND PROCESS
The
Commission of Inquiry requested that we serve as judges to hear the testimony
and review the documentary evidence submitted to support five indictments filed
by it charging George W. Bush and officials in his administration with crimes
against humanity. After receiving the
Charter, the judges embraced its view that there is an important need for a
tribunal as an instrumentality of world humanity. Consistent with the Charter the judges agreed
to follow the standards established by the Commission and to inquire and assess
whether the Bush Administration has committed crimes that do in fact rise to
the level of crimes against humanity as popularly understood and conceived,
that is ‘acts that, by their scale or nature, shock the conscience of
humankind.’
These indictments charge that George W. Bush,
President of the United States of America, and members of his administration
have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Bush Administration,
January 2001 to January 2006. We accepted this responsibility, committing to
act with integrity in reviewing the evidence presented to us and to issue a
fair and just verdict. The importance of this commitment was reinforced by the
gravity of the indictments and the evidence received during the hearings. An underlying theme in all five indictments
and in the testimony in support of these indictments is that the Bush
Administration engaged in a pattern and practice of denial and suppression of
the truth. As mandated by the Inquiry’s
Charter, we conducted our work with ‘a deep sense of responsibility to the
people of the world.’
PRELIMINARY FINDINGS
These
are the judges’ preliminary findings since we are continuing to receive
documents requested of witnesses at the time of their testimony and are
reviewing transcripts and recordings of the two days of hearings in October
2005 and three days in January 2006.
Furthermore, after hearing the testimony and reviewing a number of
documents put into the record, we determined that the gravity of the evidence
and the interest of justice required that we once again request that the Bush
Administration supply us with documents or other evidence that may support a
position that it has not committed crimes against humanity and war crimes as
alleged in the documents. [1] These findings may be modified and will be
expanded after a thorough review of all materials received. It is our expectation that we will be able to
issue our final opinion and findings by Spring 2006.
Forty-four
witnesses presented testimony in two sessions, October 21-22, 2005 and January
20-22, 2006. These witnesses included
people injured by the alleged conduct of the Bush Administration, eye-witnesses
including independent journalists, people who at one time served in an official
position with the Bush Administration, the United Nations or the United
Kingdom, and noted experts in the fields related to the charges in the
indictments. In addition, the jurists received numerous reports, studies and
other documentary evidence submitted by these witnesses and the prosecutors.
The
following is a summary of our findings for each of the five indictments:
Wars of Aggression
The evidence is
overwhelming that the Bush Administration authorized and is conducting a war of
aggression against Iraq in violation of international law, including The
Nuremberg Principles, Geneva Conventions of 1949, the United Nations Charter,
and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In doing so, the Bush Administration has committed war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
Torture, Rendition, Illegal Detention and Murder Indictment
There
was substantial evidence submitted through testimony and documents that the
Bush Administration committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in
conducting its ‘War Against Terror.’ It
did this by developing and implementing policies and practices that violated
international law and international human rights to force information from
detainees and to punish those whom it believes may be ‘enemy combatants.’ It
has engaged in a systematic process of denials and specious reconfigurations of
international and domestic law to justify its actions.
Global Warming
The
testimony of scientists and the scientific reports and other documents submitted
during the inquiry support a conclusion that the Bush Administration has
committed crimes against humanity by its environmental policies and
practices. These policies and practices
appear to support corporate interests while denying the overwhelming evidence
that greenhouse gas emissions are irreversibly damaging the world environment
and causing present day injury to people throughout the world.
Global Health including HIV/AIDS and Family Planning
The jurists are
still receiving and reviewing voluminous documentation concerning this
indictment. The jurists, therefore, have
not reached a preliminary determination on this indictment and will publish its
findings in its final report.
Hurricane Katrina
The
evidence of the Bush Administration’s conscious and deliberate failings in
preventing the foreseeable devastation, including death toll, caused by
Hurricane Katrina, particularly in New Orleans, and its failure to respond
efficiently and appropriately after the Hurricane was overwhelming. Its failures
constitute crimes against humanity. The record is replete with evidence that
the systemic historical racial and class based discrimination suffered by many
of those who lost so much as a result of Hurricane Katrina was made worse as a
result of the Bush Administration’s conduct.
Conclusion
These preliminary findings will be
supplemented and expanded in the final verdict of the Commission.
Respectfully submitted,
Adjoa A. Aiyetoro, Assistant Professor of Law, University of
Arkansas at Little Rock; former Executive Director, National Conference of
Black Lawyers (NCBL)
Dennis Brutus, former prisoner,
Robben Island, South Africa, poet, Professor Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh
Abdeen Jabara, former President,
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Ajamu Sankofa, Executive Director,
Physicians for Social Responsibility-NY
Ann Wright, former US diplomat and
retired US Army Reserve Colonel
February 2, 2006