September was the tenth anniversary of one of this century’s most horrific political crimes. For a century so rich in massacres and genocide this is not an idle statement. Thousands of political prisoners who had served their sentence and more, were murdered in cold blood not only because they did not believe in the Islamic regime or in Islam but because they had refused to totally renounce their individual and social identity.
During September and October of 1988, political prisoners were hauled up in front of kangaroo courts and asked a few questions such as “are you a Muslim; do you pray; do you believe in the Islamic Republic; what do you think of the organisation or party you were affiliated to? Your views on their leaders?” Those who gave negative or ambiguous answers, or even spoke of the “Mujahedin Organisation” rather than gruhake monafeqin (grouplet of hypocrites) were immediately executed. Among the few exceptions were left wing women who were sentenced to be lashed until they die, or repent [see this issue page... ].
The Islamic Republic of Iran was a regime that even before being born burnt down Abadan’s Cinema Rex roasting to death over 600 viewers; set torch to Teheran’s red light district (Shahr-e No) and with it a number of its wretched inhabitants; bombed, shelled and massacred Kurdistan on the dawn of the “Spring of freedom”; snuffed in a river of blood the Turkemen people’s bid for cultural autonomy; vented its hatred of the Fadai’ and the Mujahed by dispatching one to two hundred every day by the firing squad [1]; sent their murder teams to liquidate countless opponents abroad [1]; and in a war that they called a “divine blessing” cleansed minefields with the bodies of innocent, and duped, children.
Then, when that war was lost, they turned the prisons of the country into bloodbaths in order to strike fear into a people on the verge of an uprising against eight years of war. And in order to deprive them of any potential leaders. This terrible massacre of Iranian political prisoners in over a just a few weeks of 1988 is in every way the most grave of the crimes committed by this regime against its people. This was a calculated political cleansing, or more accurately an ideological cleansing, of the country’s prisons. We will argue that the massacre of 1988 is singular among the countless crimes committed by a state against its own people, and hence an abomination in itself.
Every one of the five thousand or so – actual figures are not known – hanged in those weeks in September and October were political prisoners. They had already been through torture and interrogation years ago, had been tried in Islamic revolutionary courts and served their prison sentences. Some had served up to 8 years. In all those years in captivity, the regime had tried to totally depersonalise the captive, wash them clean of all political, cultural, ideological, ethical and emotional baggage, and wipe them clean of any individual, social and political identity. It aimed for an intellectual and psychological vacuum.
Plans to rid itself of political prisoners - or more accurately opponents in its clutches – were made immediately after Khomeini drunk the “poison chalice” of cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war [see pages .. and also footnote 2]. A sharia’ way of disposing of the prisoners had to be contrived and this was provided in the guise of a special tribunal to retry all political prisoners. These round of trials, however, were so arranged that few could escape the death sentence.
The questions the prisoners had to answer were such that they were left with the stark choice of either repudiating their political, ideological, ethical, and emotional identity or placing their neck in the noose. These questions defined “crime” in an absolutist all-or-none fashion. It became a mortal “crime” to hold beliefs, think or act except in ways permitted by the Islamic regime. It became a “crime” to remain faithful to any ethical or emotional value except those the prison guards and torturers considered “legitimate”. And for such “crimes” only one punishment was authorised: death.
But the snare laid for a “sharia’” way of disposing of prisoners was much wider and more diabolical than the aforementioned questions. Psychological decoys were brought in to smooth the path to liquidation. The entire plan revolved round bringing the prisoner to the tribunal in complete ignorance and totally off guard: like a prey being led to a trap. The prisoner was misled to believe that the tribunal was looking at amnesty for prisoners. Deceived into thinking that there was a chance of release, the prisoner was anxious to keep his or her individual and social identity. He or she walked unawares into a trap.
Publication of reports that the regime might fall, that it might yield to popular pressures to release political prisoners, the attack by the Mujahedin forces from the western borders of the country and their advance towards Teheran, and then a total news blackout from outside and within the prison deprived the prisoner of any ability to make a rational decision as to how to behave. They were denied the potential choice of surrendering to the political and ideological expectations of the judges.
This methodology was more like that used by serial killers to trap their victims than the means political powers use to deal with their opponents.
The idea for an international tribunal of the Islamic Republic for this obscene crime has been around for some years. Three years ago we in iran bulletin called on the international community to help us bring this regime to trial [3]. Today on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Convention on Human Rights and the tenth anniversary of this terrible tragedy a consensus among political forces opposing the Islamic regime is emerging demanding that the extent of these crimes be revealed to the outside world and their perpetuators punished.
Yet no organ exists on the international scene to which an appeal can be addressed, and from which a thorough and honest judgement can be expected. Furthermore, even the shape, the form and the constituent forces of this tribunal have yet to be the subject of a serious discourse.
There is in fact confusion as to what it is we can, and ought to, achieve; what moves we must make; what kind of tribunal we have in mind; and, indeed, what we understand by its international nature?
Is it to be a wave of protests and action among “us” Iranians? Does the existence of a worldwide “Iranian diaspora” give our campaign its international flavour? This would be a mere repeat of what has been done before - a balm for our wounds, a tranquilliser for our conscience and a step in sending that tragedy to oblivion.
Or, alternatively, are we looking to such institutions as the UN Security Council, UN Secretary General, UN Human Rights Commission, the European Parliament, individual parliaments in Western countries, or such existing organs as the International Court in The Hague? In our view, this would be a measure of our illusion over the position, capacity and abilities of the existing judicial institution, which are official players in the international arena. We would be doing nothing more than playing the game of the enemies of the enemies of this tribunal. This disastrous path has often been trodden before.
Existing international judicial organs have been, and indeed are, involved in trials for human rights abuse. But limitations in their structure, legal base and jurisdiction are such that any expectation that they can bring to trial the Islamic regime for the massacre of political prisoners is sheer naiveté.
Structurally, even if they were elected (most are not), they are elected by governments, and usually by the most powerful, bullying and cruel. These are governments who would fill many chapters in any book devoted to crimes against humanity and violation of human rights. Yes, such governments sometimes do take the complaint of a people against their own or a foreign government to a tribunal. But theirs is a highly selective “outrage”. They are prepared to take out and dust the “human rights” weapon only to punish an unruly government, one that has stepped outside, or disrupts, their “world order”. [4]
International courts are also limited with regards to their legal authority. We need only recall that even if complaints of a people against the crimes of their own government get an ear in one of these international institutions, the complaint cannot be heard unless the accused government agrees to be tried and presents itself in court.
If they refuse, as has happened in the past [5], the whole charade goes up in smoke.
From the point of legal jurisdiction, existing international institutions have been found on a definition of “freedom” and “equality” based on global trade and commodity relations, and ownership rights. In this framework concepts are made and defined in such a way as to “legitimise” the relationships of the dominant ruling power(s) in the world. In all other fields the jurisdiction of international courts remain entirely circumscribed within technical limits, only of use to the accused and their lawyers to find an escape route.
The international criminal court recently established in Rome on July 17 can prosecute states for crimes committed against their own people. It too has limited jurisdiction, tied to the mercy of individual states and requires the co-operation of the accused government. It is essentially part of the restructuring of the world order, and to fill the gaps in the global legal system. The current power relations in the world necessitates changes in the global legal framework. Under the broad brush of defence of “human rights” big powers need to legitimise and institutionalise their interference in the internal affairs of “independent states”. This new international criminal court, assuming it actually takes off, is designed to investigate the “crimes” of those governments who play tough and stand up to the “existing world order”.
Let us not forget that the very people who are taking Serbian criminals to court and never tire of reminding the world of the real crimes of Pol Pot, were not even prepared to open the file on Suharto, even in the heat of the uprising of the people of Indonesia against him. Yet General Suharto, installed by a CIA-instigated coup in 1965, was directly responsible for the massacre of at least one million communists. The same people today, by remaining silent in the face of the terrible crimes of the Taliban in Afghanistan, endorse it. Clearly it is not very fruitful to be optimistic, or rely on, inter-state institutions.
Non-governmental human rights institutions are also unlikely to be of much help for this specific task. They have undoubtedly been, and will continue to be, very effective in exposing human rights abuse. Occasionally, and to a limited degree, they can also have a restraining role. But when it comes to the trial of people involved with massacres, say by a political regime, they are not only unable to fulfil the function of a court, but it is even doubtful that they can even attend as witnesses in a putative court [6]. It would be unwise to rely on such institutions as Amnesty International for anything more than an archive of relevant documents.
To sum up, a tribunal that can begin to nail the Islamic Republic for its crimes, and in particular the massacre of political prisoners in 1988, must draw a clear line with much of what has hitherto been seen as international endeavours to bring human right abusers to justice.
What we need is not a judicial tribunal. There is no legal framework for such a tribunal to operate, nor laws under which it can prosecute. Nor is it a political tribunal. Who other than the Iranian people have the right to give their verdict on this point? It is not even a moral tribunal, though morality is central to the indictment.
International bodies are either impotent or biased, or as inter-state organisations, are manipulated by the individual agendas of these states or, more usually, their most powerful members. Their not-so-hidden agenda is to bring to heal rogue states in the “new world order”. The recent international criminal tribunal is no exception. NGO’s will also not do. Even where these have managed to pull away from the polarisation and biases imposed by the Cold War; they are unlikely to want to take the lead, though some might lend a helping hand.
It is clear from the limitations of existing global governmental and non-governmental organisations that a tribunal that could try a government for crimes against its own people, such as the anti-human crimes of the Islamic Republic, is something more than an existing institution, to whose address one can send petitions and complaints.
Rather
than an existing organisation, what is needed is a movement for whose creation
we must struggle. This tribunal is not an institution within the present world order and
absorbed in its legal-political structure. It is essentially definable outside
this and, indeed, in conflict with it.
Once the issue is seen in the context of a popular movement for the creation of a world court then the meaning of “human rights” is highlighted and understood in a different framework. It is no longer a concept in the service of the ruling powers (national or global), and a tool for controlling and reigning in the people. Ultimately it carries an ethical definition and a human message in the framework of the rights of people to live and be free.
Our aim should be to fight for the creation
of a new movement, which aims to mobilise across the world from below against
the crimes of states. This is a movement
within the family of the movement for civil rights, on the basis of global
solidarity and co-operation, alongside such other movements as the labour, the
women’s, the green, the gender, and other such grassroots movements.
The aim of this movement is not necessarily to punish the criminals as this is understood in the logic of a court. This movement confronts the legitimacy of those governments and structures of power, upon which political crimes are also legitimised. This movement organises global solidarity from below, in the form of a court of conscience, for those people who are fighting against the crimes and evils of their own governments. It is in this way that it blunts the knife of state oppression by a specific government against its own people. This movement can challenge on a global scale any repressive moves against the protests of the people. This is a movement that aims to mobilise support from below against the crimes committed by states against their own (and other) peoples.
At the very core this is a movement calling on governments to be accountable to their own people. And a movement to make accountable the world order that sustains these governments. The tribunal we have in mind is a tribunal from below.
This was precisely what the Russell-Sartre tribunal did in bringing to trial the anti-human crimes of US imperialism in Vietnam. If the likes of Sartre or Russell are no longer alongside the people who are struggling against the crimes committed by home-grown or outside ruling powers, contemporary humankind’s critical conscience and tradition of combat have not died. We can still hope that the building of the greatest global tribunal can rest on the broad shoulders of the Chomskys, Habermasses, Gunther Grasses, Harold Pinters, Edward Saids and thousands and thousands of others.
If we really believe in setting up an international tribunal, we must broaden our vision the see the great potentialities of our planet.
Footnotes
1. See annual reports Amnesty International; Amnesty International report to the 41st Session of UN Human Rights February 25, 1985; a partial list of over 12,000 of those executed was published by the Peoples' Mujahedin Organisation of Iran abroad. See also Iran, Human Rights Abuse. Iranian Political Prisoners Action Committee, September 1989 for a list of over 1,400 executed women, some pregnant and many under 20. For list of extrajudicial murders see Human rights under the Islamic Republic of Iran, Aghazi No Summer 1993, and iran bulletin April-June 1993. There have been more murders since.
2. Memoirs from released prisoners are beginning to appear. See for example Parvaneh Alizadeh Look closely, it is real (Paris October 1987), the poignant account by Monireh Baradaran (M Raha) The simple truth Hanover 1992 [excerpts in this issue], Reza Ghaffari An eye witness report of the Islamic regime’s prisons in Iran, [see iran bulletin no 17 1988, no 1 for excerpts], Fariba Azad, Memories of Prison [see iran bulletin nos 17 and 18 for excerpts], or the report by the German engineer quoted from Focus in iran bulletin Autumn 1994. See also Iran, Human Rights Abuse. ibid.
3. See iran bulletin no 10/11 Autumn-Winter 1995
4. Even the Nuremberg trials are not really an exception to this rule. These looked at crimes committed by Germans in countries under their occupation. Did the same tribunal try the allies for such senseless bombing of civilians as Dresden or step forwards to try the USA for war crimes in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia?
5. The International Court at The Hague could not proceed if the regime being accused refuses to attend. Chomsky faced this problem when he tried to get the Court to try Indonesia for its crimes in East Timor, even though he had the support of Portugal, a UN member.
6. In the so-called Mikonos trial, where the Islamic regime was tried, and condemned, for the murder of Kurdish opponents in a Berlin restaurant in 1992, Amnesty International, for example, was unable to have the slightest role.
An international tribunal should, in the first instance, try the Islamic regime for the political crime of cold-blooded murder of a generation purely for what was in their head, and for refusing to renounce it. Among its myriad of crimes this is the most political - and the one that shows its real nature. This is the mirror in the attic hiding the hideous face of the regime. There is no shortage of documents, witnesses and accounts. But what can such a tribunal achieve?
The Islamic Republic has never admitted officially to the massacre of political prisoners in that summer of 1988. No names have been released nor graves identified. And it continues to harass the bereaved mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, and children of that lost generation.
The tribunal will force the Islamic regime to come out into the open and reveal the names and graves of those it so brutally rubbed out. The bereaved will have a marked grave to grieve.
The tribunal will tear away the veil of sanctimoniousness from the Islamic Republic revealing its core nature and the blood on the hands of those who are pretending they knew nothing.
The tribunal will therefore question the legitimacy of a regime, which relies so much on an appeal to a higher morality.
The tribunal will create conditions where those inside and outside Iran who are fighting for human rights can draw closer together.
The tribunal will place the Islamic Republic under intense pressure to draw back on some of its most blatant abuse of human rights.
The tribunal will also make it more difficult for governments of the world to pursue their policy of drawing closer to the Islamic Republic without extracting some real concessions on human right abuse.
Finally the tribunal will be our input into an international movement to cleanse the planet of murderous rulers - for political and moral accountability of political rule.
The task is hard, the duty clear. We expect all those who still have a beating heart for humanity to lend us a hand.