Desmond Tutu Is Right – We Cannot be Selective about Justice

Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a good man who has won the Nobel peace prize (one of the Nobel Committee’s better decisions) and who is not afraid to speak his mind. There are many offensive things to the good, as well as many pleasant and happy things. One of the most offensive things is hypocrisy. Mr Tutu, who last month refused to share a speaking platform with Tony Blair, has now suggested that Mr Blair and Mr Bush should stand trial at the International Criminal Court for starting the war against Iraq.

Legally, it is unlawful to start a war of aggression. War criminals have been hanged for doing so. When the war was announced – apparently Blair and Bush wanted to remove Iraqi weapons of mass destruction – it struck me that this was a war of aggression and I suggested that being so the war was illegal and Mr Blair and Mr Bush should be indicted for war crimes. My suggestion was held at the time to be foolish but it was argued from principles of international law. I could not understand why Hans Blix and his team were not given to extra time to establish whether Iraq has “weapons of mass destruction”. I did not understand what weapons of mass destruction are; Hitler managed with mass destruction with a few concentrations camps and Zyklon B. Stalin managed mass destruction with guns and bullets. There was a curious use of language in the phrase “weapons of mass destruction” and when language is curiously used we should all be suspicious of what it means.

I am sure that Mr Tutu is right; the leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States at that time should stand trial for the crime of committing a war of aggression. I do not hold that Blair and Bush are guilty – they must be presumed innocent but the circumstances are such that there is evidence that a prima facie case has been made to be tried and if there is justice in the world theyt should stand trial.

Of course there is not justice in the world. Justice is reserved for the losers of wars, not for the winners or the rich powerful and wealthy. We can haul a few African dictators to the International Criminal Court, and the odd Asian tyrant. We can round up the losers in the former Yugoslavian conflict and bring them before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. We can permit Saddam Hussein to be hanged for killing a hundred thousand of his own subjects but we may not bring Mr Blair and Mr Bush before a court to establish whether or not they have committed a crime by invading Iraq, which led to 115,000 people being killed in the war itself and a legacy of around 2,000 souls losing their lives each year through terrorism, suicide bombs and car bombs.

Mr Tutu, being a religious man, is worried about morality and worried about the effect of the war on religious differences. He wrote in the Observer

But even greater costs have been exacted beyond the killing fields, in the hardened hearts and minds of members of the human family across the world. Has the potential for terrorist attacks decreased? To what extent have we succeeded in bringing the so-called Muslim and Judeo-Christian worlds closer together, in sowing the seeds of understanding and hope?

Mr Blair argues differently. For him the war in Iraq has been good for humanity; that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein. This makes his case to be more “I started the war to stop Saddam from killing his own people” rather than “I started the war to prevent Saddam from deploying weapons of mass destruction”. Of course he can run both defences at once – the more the merrier – but I cannot see that that he will ever be called upon so to do. Justice, of course, is never for the winners until they become the losers.

Filed under: justice, law, Tony Blair Tagged: Desmond Tutu, George Bush, Hilter, Hitler, iraq, iraq war, justice, law, Stalin, Tony Blair, war of agression, weapons of mass destruction, Zyklon B