icai - International Campaign against Impunity


Kissinger Watch #9 -



The past catches up with Henry

Kissinger / Dagbladet Information 6.8.2002

The world is experiencing more and more lawsuits against alleged political wire pullers for mass murder and other crimes against humanity. By Bente Bunsgaard In the play, ”Aunt Dan and Lemon” by the American Author Wallace Shawn, the charismatic Aunt Dan tells her younger niece and protégé Lemon about her infatuation with Henry Kissinger. The peak of her life seems to be when she once glimpsed the big man in a restaurant in Washington. ”How dare they criticise such a man, just because of a bunch of peasants,” she extorts in anger against those who don’t share her fascination. But the Vietnamese and the Cambodian peasants, whose lives were ended suddenly by American bombers back in the Sixties, may end up getting the last word in Henry Kissinger’s life story. As a mega-documentary broadcast on TV2 showed yesterday, the sins of the past are busy catching up with Kissinger, the former national security advisor and foreign secretary under Nixon and Ford, later the international statesman par excellence and the whole time an unequalled womaniser.- Aunt Dan certainly wasn’t alone. These days Kissinger doesn’t like to travel abroad unless friendly souls in the department of state have checked that there isn’t some or another lawsuit lying in wait when he arrives at his destination. Gradually, lawyers have tried to drag him into court. In most cases not because he has had legal proceedings taken against him. He has just been a witness, for example, to the period around the other 11th September, namely the 11th September 1973, when there was a coup d’etat by Augusto Pinochet against the then Chilean President Salvador Allende. For example, last year a French examining magistrate wanted so very much like to talk to Kissinger during a visit to Paris that he sent a formal invitation to his hotel room delivered by men in uniform. Thereafter, Kissinger left the room, as well as the hotel, the city and the whole country, with great speed. Ironically it will be at home in the States that Kissinger will stand before a judge. Legal proceedings have been filed against him there. The descendants of the Chilean officer, Réné Schneider, have filed a civil lawsuit (as opposed to a criminal prosecution where you can be sentenced to prison) against Kissinger and the others in the Nixon government for having ordered somebody to kill Schneider. Schneider, as the leader of the Chilean armed forces, opposed American plans to overthrow Allende and therefore he had to be removed, the descendants claim. However, a judgment against Kissinger is in no way certain. ”Power relations in the world are so that it will be very, very difficult to get him convicted,” says Michael Schmitt, coordinator of the organisation ICAI – International Campaign Against Impunity – in Brussels. ”And it is unlikely that he will ever end up in prison,” Michael Schmitt told Information. Perhaps Kissinger will end up like Pinochet, another high profile wire puller, who has had proceedings brought against him without success, but whose name has been dragged through the mud so much that it will not occupy any positive in the history books. However, the Pinochet case, in which a Spanish examining magistrate tried to get the old Chilean dictator extradited from London, has had great importance in bringing old political wire pullers in front of the courts of justice. And the tendency seems to be that it will get easier, not more difficult, to prosecute political decision makers. Indeed, national trials are not unknown; they existed, even before the Pinochet case. Examples of foreign courts passing sentence on, for example, breaches of human rights include, a Danish court in 1994 sentencing Refik Saric, a Bosinian Muslim accused of torture in Bosnia, to eight years in prison. However, the Pinochet case, has to a great extent, confirmed the idea that it is possible to use national courts to proceed against serious crimes abroad. You can almost say that the Pinochet case was a trendsetter amongst lawyers and legislators. Today for example, Belgium and Germany have introduced rules, which make it specifically clear that national courts are able to proceed against mass murder, no matter where the crime was committed or by whom. Last year, a Belguim court of justice sentenced four Rwandans for committing genocide. The next example could be the former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré. At the moment, a Belgian examining magistrate is researching the case against Habré, who lives in exile in Senegal. Add to this, the international court of justice on the former Yugoslavia, where the ex head of state, Slobodan Milosovic, now stands accused; and the equivalent international court of justice for Rwanda. And finally, the permanent International Criminal Court which will commence now that a sufficient amount of countries have ratified it. There are interesting dynamics between the International Criminal Court of Justice and the national level. Countries all over the world, which have endorsed the court are in the process of taking a closer look at their own legislation, says Brigite Suhr who is the leader of the legal programme for Human Rights Watch. ”It doesn’t mean that everybody will use it. But the legislation is after all the first step,” she told Information.

OVERVIEW - Kissinger Watch #9

1.		The past catches up with Henry

2.		Chile: Complaint against Kissinger

3.		World Politics in State Courts

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