opinion

Since the London police arrested General Augusto Pinochet on October 16, 1998, serving a Spanish warrant that accused the ex-dictator of human rights violations committed in Chile during his 17-year dictatorial government, whether they like it or not the enemies of humanity can no longer sleep like they did before. We recall that the British courts rejected Pinochet's claim that he had the right of immunity and held that he could be extradited to Spain to be put on trial.

In Panama, the Attorney General of the Republic --- clearly inspired by the so-called META pact --- has incessantly tried to block, by diverse methods, the Truth Commission from being able to determine what really happened to those disappeared, tortured and murdered by the military dictatorship that ruled in Panama from 1968 to 1989.

In his zeal to disappear the disappeared, and with them also to disappear the truth, to cloak those superior officers who participated in or ordered the commission of crimes in the mantle of immunity, the Attorney General has trampled --- by omission and commission --- the principle of responsibility of command, which establishes that a person who has control over subordinates and knows or should know that they're going to commit a crime and does nothing to restrain it, or doesn't prevent it, or doesn't impose sanctions on those responsible, is also criminally responsible. This doctrine applies both to soldiers and to civilians in positions of superior authority.

The adoption in July of 1998 of the Statute for a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) has been one of the most important events in the global struggle against impunity.

The ICC is the first permanent court that will investigate and bring before justice those individuals --- not those states --- responsible for committing the most grave violations against human rights, such as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and once it's defined, aggressive war.

The government of Panama, without consultation and surreptitiously, nominated a Costa Rican citizen for magistrate of the ICC, availing itself of a proposal arranged by the representatives fo Panama before the International Court of Justice, Roberto Alemán Z., Mario Galindo H. and Carlos Iván Zuñiga G.

The then foreign minister and today governing party candidate for president of the republic asserted that in Panama there were no professionals prepared to occupy said post. The UN has given its categorical rejection of the fallacious and disparaging consideration of the Alemáns, Galindo and Zuñiga and of their government, by electing Dr. Aura Emérita Guerra de Villalaz as a member of the Ad Hoc International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which was created by the UN Security Council to judge the acts that ended in a massacre of the population of this African nation in 1994.

Professor Aura Emérita Guerra de Villalaz received 127 of 176 votes and was the only Latin American representative elected to become a part of this tribunal, together with another 17 international judges. The demonstrates and confirms that Panama very well could have aspired to get a Panamanian magisrate on the International Criminal Court, rather than the Tica friend of the Tica who works in the current administration's Noriega-style court.

Again recall that the recently created International Criminal Court, whose seat is in The Hague, will not be retroactive, taking cognizance only of those crimes committed after July 1, 2002, the date when the Statute of Rome that created the International Criminal Court went into effect; and that it is made up of the 90 states that have ratified or adhered to the 1998 statute, which include an overwhelming majority of US allies.

Recently the International Criminal Court also finished the process of electing its highest officials, including the first 18 magistrates: René Blattmann (Bolivia), Fatoumata Demebele Diarra (Mali), Sylvia H. de Figueiredo Steiner (Brazil), Adrian Fulford (Great Britain), Maureen Harding Clark (Ireland), Karl T. Hudson-Phillips (Trinidad-Tobago) Claude Jorda (France), Hans-Peter Kaul (Germany), Philippe Kirsch (Canada, presiding magistrate), Erkki Kourula (Finland), Akua Kuenyehia (Ghana), Tuiloma Neroni Slade (Samoa), Elizabeth Odio Benito (Costa Rica), Gheorghios M. Pikis (Cyprus), Navanethem Pillay (South Africa), Mauro Politi (Italy), Sang-hyun Song (South Korea) and Anita Usacka (Lithuania); a prosecutor in the person of Luis Moreno Ocampo (Argentina); and a secretary, who together will bring to the court a diverse range of nationalities, cultures and languages, and experience of the highest level.

In congratulating Dr. Aura Emérita for the distinction she has received, I don't have the slightest doubt that she will be found to be outstanding on the Rwanda Tribunal, as she also could have been in the one created in Rome, but for the nine years of Odio that the Tica sowed out of her hatred of Panamanians.



Also in this section:
Jackson, The father's sins aren't the son's
Reporters Without Borders, Caracas community TV closed
Weisbrot, Dubya in Africa
White, Bottling the nuclear genie
Girvan, The CARICOM summit
Bernal, Mireya's court and world tribunals

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