Transnational.org
July 15, 2005
By
Johan Galtung, TFF Associate and Transcend
July 15, 2005
This is Galtung's speech to the World Tribunal on Iraq, Istanbul Final Session, June 24-26 2005.
Distinguished Members of the Jury of Conscience, Fellow Advocate, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends!
The testimonies have brought the reality of an Iraq tortured by the US/UK (and a coalition of willing clients) illegal attack, and illegal occupation, into our minds and hearts. With a sense of deep anger at the continued aggression and deep compassion with the victims we have witnessed the reality of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including nuclear war through the use of depleted, radioactive uranium, on top of the genocidal economic sanctions, and the general "softening up" of Iraq for a quick, decisive war and remolding to the taste of the aggressors.
Members of the Jury!
What we are witnessing is the geo-fascist state terrorism of US imperialism, following the defunct British Empire, soon to follow it into the graveyard of empires. In my research-based opinion at the latest by 2020, but, past experience being a guide, there is more to come. By some counts the attack on Iraq is US aggression no. 239 after the Thomas Jefferson start in the early 19th century and no. 69 after the Second world war; with between 12 and 16 million killed in that period alone. All of it is in flagrant contradiction of the most basic human rights, like the "right to life, liberty and security of persons" (Universal Declaration, UD:3) and the condemnation of the "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" (UD:5). In a Pentagon Planner's chilling words: "The de facto role of the United States Armed Forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing". (1) And in my drier words: "Imperialism is a transborder structure for the synergy of killing, repression, exploitation and brain- washing."
I hold up against this organized atrocity - - whether attempted legitimized through packs of lies about weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda, or by invoking a divine mandate or a mandate to export democracy and human rights through dictatorship and world crimes - - a slip of paper, Article 28 of the Universal Declaration:
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized. (UD:28)
This admirable formulation provides an excellent linkage between various levels of social organization, from the individual level at which these rights are implemented or violated, to the structure of the social and world spaces. It indicates the spaces in which these conditions may be identified. The basic needs served by human rights are located inside the individual, but the conditions for their satisfaction are social and/or international, generally speaking. UD:28 is a meta-right, a right about rights, with nothing short of revolutionary implications.
US imperialism in general, and its articulation in Iraq in particular, invokes the whole International Bill of Rights, but the focus is on the UD:3 right to life, in the context of Article 29:
Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. (UD:29)
There are no rights without duties, and right-holder and duty- bearer may also be the same actor. The word "community" rather than, but not excluding, "country" is used. This is very realistic as human beings developed personalities long before there were countries run by states and peopled by nations in our sense. But "communities" are as old as humankind itself. To a growing part of humanity the most important are non-territorial, like the NGOs.
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