Denmark,
Taiwan and Belgium
resist the school yard bullies
By
Jonathan
Power
June 23, 2003
COPENHAGEN - Today Belgium feels the lash. Yesterday
so did Denmark and tomorrow, we are promised, so will
Taiwan. But none of these three sturdy, self-confident
nations is going to buckle. If anything Big Brother
publicly humiliating them has toughened their
sinews.
Belgium came under direct fire last week from Donald
Rumsfeld, the U.S. Defence Secretary, who threatened to
move NATO headquarters out of Brussels unless Belgium
agrees to re-write its controversial human rights
legislation that allows non-Belgians to be tried in
Belgium for alleged war crimes on the basis of the now
widely accepted principal of international jurisprudence,
universal jurisdiction. The principle is enshrined in the
statutes of the new International Criminal Court.
(Although it gives the right of first crack of the whip
to the courts of the country of the accused, an often
overlooked point, particularly in the Bush
Administration.) It was also recognized by the
British House of Lords when considering the appeal of
former Chilean president, Augusto Pinochet, not to be
sent for trial to Spain on charges of authorizing the
torture of political opponents. The law lords upheld
Spain's right to try him, arguing that universal
jurisdiction written into the UN Convention Against
Torture (which the U.K., Chile and the U.S. had all
ratified) applied in this historic case.
In his usual blunt, rather crude manner, Rumsfeld told
a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels last week
that Belgium had "turned its legal system into a platform
for divisive, politicized lawsuits against the officials
of its NATO allies" and that the U.S. would have to
"seriously consider" whether to continue to allow its
senior officials to continue to visit Brussels, which is
not only the HQ of NATO but of the European Union
too.
Rumsfeld seems incapable of learning how
counterproductive he is. If he finds it difficult to see
the picture clearly when he himself is part of it, he
should look at the reaction inside Taiwan last week when
Beijing's foreign ministry denounced it. By some tortuous
line of convoluted reasoning Beijing believes that
Taiwan's decision to put "Taiwan" on the front of its
passports is an affront to Chinese sovereignty and
China's claim to be the legitimate ruler of Taiwan. But
all that China succeeded in doing was to make a majority
of Taiwanese feel even more determined to stand their
ground.
It was China that six years ago tried the same bully
tactics on tiny Denmark. Denmark had had the temerity to
sponsor a resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission
criticizing China's egregious human rights performance.
Beijing threatened Copenhagen with a dire threat, saying
its criticism would be "A rock that smashed down on the
Danish government's head". Denmark's partners in Europe
laid pitifully low. The Danes themselves, however, were
four square behind their government. This was after all
the same nation occupied by Nazi Germany who protected
its Jews with tenacity and smuggled those in danger out
across the narrow strip of dividing sea, the Oresund, to
neutral Sweden. .
This attitude of small country defiance is one that
neither Beijing nor Washington finds easy to accept.
Rumsfeld has certainly not learnt anything from the
counterproductive way he harangued German foreign
minister, Joschka Fischer before the war in Iraq. All it
did was solidify even conservative German opinion behind
the former left wing firebrand and ensure that Germany
would have nothing to do with the war, or indeed any
other wars that President George Bush might be
planning.
The Bush Administration, Rumsfeld in particular, needs
to take a deep breath and pause a moment for
introspection. How would it feel if European
politicians decided at various meetings they regularly
attend inside the United States to whip the Americans
into shape with direct attacks? There are all sorts of
easy targets- U.S. executions of under age minors, for
example. Europe could threaten loudly and publicly to
halt all cooperation with America's court system unless
this barbaric practice is suspended. Or America's
behavior over its attempt to undermine the International
Criminal Court- Europe could campaign to remove the UN
headquarters from New York to Geneva, if a UN institution
created by the solemn wish of an overwhelming majority of
its members is going to be shredded by unilateralist
American arm twisting and bullying.
U.S.-European relations would soon be in tatters.
However, tit for tat never got anybody anywhere. As
Gandhi said "an eye for an eye just leaves everybody
blind". But that also means Bush needs to wake up to what
his Defence Secretary is doing.
Schoolyard bullies only prosper in the short term. In
the end everyone gangs up on them. People on the
receiving end, even if they are small and vulnerable, are
obviously not prepared to take it on the chin as once
they might.
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2003 By
JONATHAN POWER
Follow this
link to read about - and order - Jonathan Power's book
written for the
40th Anniversary of
Amnesty International
"Like
Water on Stone - The Story of Amnesty
International"
Tell a friend about this article
Send to:
From:
Message and your name
 
|