05
Oct
2007
25 Comments
Accountability and trial of war criminals
This new petition we are hosting is set up under the guidance of Farah Koubaissy. You may contact her personally about any concerns regarding this petition by clicking here.
We the undersigned call for rescinding all general amnesty laws that have passed in Lebanon since the Taef agreement, for the accountability and trial of war criminals, and uncovering all the truths and facts surrounding our present in order to preserve our collective memory.
No reconciliation without accountability, Fairness for the victims of war.
Please sign the petition here.
You may use this thread for comments and suggestions.
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What exactly is this? Who are the war criminals? Who is doing the uncovering? I think it really needs to be more clear.
I agree with Tamara, I’d sign but I wouldn’t know exactly what I’d be signing? Is it only for Lebanese people to sign?
Thanks for the input, I will let Farah know.
I don’t get this petition concept. Is there any evidence of ANY of these petitions making any difference? Or are they just a way of letting people feel good?
gary
Even if a petition is ignored it does accomplish other things: it’s better than a poll for finding out how many people support an idea, and can be the first step to organizing them.
Even just letting people feel good isn’t trivial: if they get a good feeling from participating then maybe they’ll be encourage to participate more. If they see their voice heard in a petition maybe they’ll speak up more often.
And if they see their voice ignored in a petition maybe they’ll get angry and really start to shout…
That’s still not evidence of petitions actually showing quantifiable results. I would guess that the time would be better spent in other ways…documenting the alledged wrongs, sending links to your friends, etc. For example in the case of these Lebanon amnesty laws, show me a picture of one of the individuals who benefited, along with documentation of their crimes. Pictures are good. Video is better. It’s all about marketing, even when dealing with social issues. I know NOBODY who goes and reads petitions to see who’s names are on them, other than possibly those few individuals on the petition. Don’t get me wrong – I believe you have VERY serious grievances and I very much want progress to be made. It’s just that I think important value judgements need to be made about what will give you the best returns for your efforts.
gary
I agree the results are not quantifiable, and I was speaking in general: not about this particular petition. Everyone sees it’s badly done.
Imagine this: there’s an issue important to you. You find a couple of volunteers who share your feelings and organize a petition. You collect the names and addresses of 5,000 people who say they agree with you (some will be sincere, some won’t).
You submit it to the city council and it’s ignored. You lost, but your position has improved. Now you have a fledgling organization, a mailing list of 5,000 people, and increased public awareness from media on the failed petition. Try again: you will be shouting much louder.
I suppose that’s a possible scenario. However on this forum the petitions usually involve dictators who don’t give a damn and don’t take “submissions” of petitions.
So I’m back to my same point…have ANY of the MEY petitions proven to be worth the time spent signing them? And sticking to the topic (Lebanese amnesty), the article didn’t really move me. So I would contend that the cause was not well served.
gary
If this is referring to civil war criminals I think that should be a call for the Lebanese only as it opens a huge can of worms as well as wounds that they’re all still dealing with. I think this is an extremely difficult issue that I wouldn’t feel comfortable weighing in on what should or should not be done. Just my $0.02
Gary, I seriously do not appreciate you hijacking this thread with the assumption that our petitions in general are useless and will not achieve anything. Obviously you’ve never dealt with one before, but we have and we realize their importance when it comes to spreading awareness or starting a fight. Firstly once you start a petition you have the chance of making many others around you aware of certain causes, secondly you can send the petition results to embassies and other organizations, which we do and often get replies from, causing a dialogue between us and the organizations or governments responsible for these things. Like noted earlier, we also make many other people aware of causes that they did not know exist, such as Kurdish human rights abuses within the Middle East or cyber censorship in Turkey. After people become aware of them, they start getting involved more in their communities, alerting others or alerting journalists who later cover the issues more extensively in the papers or within e-Zines, something our Kurdish petition achieved. That to me, is success, just the idea that we have shared and spread the cause to so many different people who now believe in it and to have people be more alert and open to the cause at hand.
So I don’t know why you’re coming here, acting all high and mighty as if you actually know a damned thing about what we do with our petition results or how certain government officials/ISPs/media respond to them. Stop assuming things you have no clue on!
In sum, I consider your opinion on this extremely offensive and insulting. We actually do hard work around these parts and the last thing we want is some unaware, out-of-touch person assuming that they’re useless. Well guess what comrade? They are not. They have made and continue to make a difference no matter what you think, so save us the complaints and insulting rants and stick to the topic at hand. Let us do our work. We actually work hard on the causes that we believe in and the fact that you just consider such efforts to be useless is just downright insulting. You have no idea at ALL what we do with the petitions and their results, or what eventually gets achieved in the process, so you have no right whatsoever to act like you know us inside-out and assume that our efforts and hard work is just going to waste.
Preach it, sista’!
I’m sorry if I was rude or harsh in my comment. But we slave over our work here and it comes from a lot of passion. We don’t start petitions all that often, but when we do we take special good care of them and make sure that they get heard by the relevant authorities. If you think there’s no point in signing them that’s your own misguided perception but have the decency not to slam the efforts.
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Esra’a I realise your frustration with these types of reactions but Gary’s concerns are legitimate, even though he did a very poor job of expressing them.
I think you guys did a good job with the Kurdish petition because you actually said exactly what you were going to do with the results. You also outlined the problem much more clearer in several different languages and through several mediums (video/podcast etc), then referred to us to the actual campaign you guys are handling for it. So far it got the most signatures out of the other petitions partly because it’s been there for longer but also because it’s much more easier to sign. No doubts or confusion; it’s clear, it’s the point and it’s been professionally handled. People know exactly what the problem is and how you wish to go about it. Ideally all petitions would be like this.
You can ask Farah or the other members involved to do the same for this petition as well. Prove to us why it’s worth signing, and prove Gary wrong by saying what you wish to do with the results.
It certainly wasn’t my intention to insult or offend anyone…my apologies if it came off otherwise. I was just asking an honest question about the effectiveness of such petitions. You say they’re influential – that’s great. I take your word for it. All I could legitimately offer was my own reaction to them. After all I’m just one of the 6.5 billion…
gary
Oh, and I’ll say it one more time – I want you to succeed. Activism on the internet is really the ONLY hope we have. After that it’s just politics as usual, sports games, and utter silence.
gary
hi all…
first Tamara:
we are talking here about the criminals of the lebanese civil war that started in 1975. who killed and kidnapped…and caused the disappearance of 17000 person who have an unknown destiny till now. and thousands of handicapped and displaced.In 1990 an agreement (Taef) ended the Lebanese civil war.The new authority, composed by the leaders of the lebanese militias, liberated itself from its dirts of the past and gave itself an amnesty law. this amnesty law is protecting the ruling class today and prohibiting us from knowing the truth, the destiny of the kidnapped especially, and bringing the justice for the victims.
Murad and Nadia:
it’s not just for the lebanese people because not only lebanese who where killed and kidnapped during this war, there are syrians, palestinians, lebenese, french etc..this is first.second we need to collect as much support as we can from human rights activists and interested people from all over the world in order to make a pressure on the lebanese authority.
Gary:
this petition is part of a big campaign called the “public tribunal”launched 13 of april 2007 by a certain number of nongovernmental organizations, supported by the Committee for the Families of Kidnapped and Disappeared, under the slogan “Yes to the annulment of the amnesty law – Justice for the Victims”.
and one of the activities of this tribunal is to collect testimonies of victims. and to answer ur question: this petition is part of a hard fieldwork and conferences and networking.a seldom petition won’t bring change but it helps awaring and bringing out our cause and gaining support by the big nbre (as Esra’ said before).
this petition will be distributed in universities and schools too in lebanon.
Murad once more:
thanks for ur comment…we will work on clarifying more and more the issue.it’s our first petition..and we are working on developing it.
cheers
farah
farah Wrote, “it’s not just for the lebanese people because not only lebanese who where killed and kidnapped during this war, there are syrians, palestinians, lebenese, french etc..this is first.second we need to collect as much support as we can from human rights activists and interested people from all over the world in order to make a pressure on the lebanese authority.”
Do you want to remove amnesty just for Arab war criminals or are you also interested in removing amnesty from possible American, Israeli, and European war criminals as well?
well in this particular petition we are interested in amnesty law that was issued in lebanon in 1990 and 2005 that covers the criminals who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the civil war in 1975.who are the direct responsible for these crimes. has been criticized by most human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch who consider that war crimes and crimes against humanity, such as the massacres and killings based on identity cards perpetrated by the Lebanese warlords who are currently in government, cannot be covered by amnesty.
but in some cases amnesty law is essential if it came after the announcement of the truth and after realizing the justice and the reconciliation …but this is not the case of Lebanon…
i hope that this petition will lead others to do the same and to defy the criminals wherever was the country they belong for.
cheers
farah
farah,
I undertand that the scope of this petition is to force those in Lebanon to recend the amnesty laws. Is this an isolated problem? Or is there a great root cause to be found involving those ruling Lebanon?
gary
Thank you for clarifying a few things for me. I agree and support what you are doing. I am still however unclear about who exactly these war criminals are, or is this the whole purpose of the petition? To finally allow us to discover who they are? And will this only include Lebanese officials, or will other foreign government officials that played a role also be on this list? Because I think it would have to include all that were involved.
Hi Tamara, here is the text that will soon be added to the petition (the extended version is already there in Arabic, but we are facing some trouble adding the English version as our petition system is only recognizing one language at a time):
As I recall the South African situation was a success because it did give amnesty, but only to those who admitted their crimes. It sounds like this petition is asking for prosecution as well, which is not the same approach. Here’s more on the SA system…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commission_%28South_Africa%29
gary
In rereading the petition, maybe I’m misinterpreting it. Is it in fact calling for the same approach as SA?
gary
hi gary…
i said before that the amnesty laws in some cases are important if they followed the announcement of the truth and the rights of the victims were recognized..but this is not the case of lebanon..where the authority has decided to let go with the truth..and the victims are still victims…
as for south Africa, Argentina…etc…we are learning from the transitional justice procedures applied in these countries.
Tamra said:”I am still however unclear about who exactly these war criminals are, or is this the whole purpose of the petition? To finally allow us to discover who they are? And will this only include Lebanese officials, or will other foreign government officials that played a role also be on this list? Because I think it would have to include all that were involved”.
in fact tamara..there are names and there are documented incidents where victims or their families recognized the criminals…in fact
many lawsuits where presented for the judiciary but many where refused under the pretext of the amnesty law…so by annulling it many other names will be revealed…among these names we canmention GEAGEA (the leader of the lebanese forces who wwas givin in 2005 an amnesty law), (nabih Berry…the leader of Amal milicia)these are men in force…other persons from the lebanese forces for exemple confessed their crimes.but thousands of other didn’t cause nothing oblige them to do so..because of the amnesty that protects them…
we are collecting on collecting witnesses testimonies…and slowly
many other criminals will appear and among them of course many foreign government officials.
gary:
“Is this an isolated problem? Or is there a great root cause to be found involving those ruling Lebanon?” i don’t know if i understood ur question clearly..so can u reformulate it?
cheers
farah