KISSINGER

1
KISSINGER

• Crimes Misdemeanors

2
Readings

• Christopher Hitchens article in Harpers
  detailing Kissingers actions
• Kissingers attack on universal jurisdiction in
  Foreign Affairs
• Roths rebuttal of Kissingers attack

3
Depraved Realpolitik ? crimes

• Betrayal of Kurds in 1972-75
• Encouraged to revolt against Hussein
• Abandoned to extermination
• Kissingers role in South Africa Angola
• White-washing of death squads in Central America
• Support for Shahs Torture Repression in Iran

4
Indictable Crimes

• Mass murder in Indochina during war
• Murder in Chile during peace
• Bloodbath in Bangladesh
• Coup, Torture, Murder in Cyprus
• Conquest Slaughter in East Timor
• Assassination in Washington, D.C.

5
International Law

• No longer recognizes sovereign immunity
• International Tribunal at the Hague
• Pinochet indictment
• Spanish judge suppoena for Chilean Dictator
  Pinochet
• British government arrested Pinochet
• Warrant for arrest of Kissinger
• Many of his co-conspirators are in jail

6
Prelude October Surprise

• Fall of 1968 before the presidential elections
  Humphrey vs Nixon
• Nixon Kissinger sabotage the Paris Peace Talks
  over ending the Vietnam War
• Promise a better deal from Republicans
• South Vietnamese junta withdrew
• Result Peace Talks Collapsed

7
1973 Coup in Chile

• Chilean military overthrew democratically elected
  president Salvador Allende
• Materially and morally backed by Kissinger and
  Nixon Administration

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Consequences

• Humphrey lost, Nixon won
• Seven more years of war (1968-1975)
• 20,000 more American soldiers died
• Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodians,
  Laotians died.

9
Evidence I

• Haldeman Diaries reveal Johnson bugging?
• Stephen Ambrose bio on Nixon, fear of
  consequences of revelation
• Clark Clifford discovered secret communications
  between Nixon camp S.Vietnamese government
  (violation of Logan Act)

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Evidence II

• Richard Holbrooke Kissinger was spy for Nixon
  inside negotiations
• Nixons Autobiography John Mitchell was contact
  for Kissinger
• Anthony Summers book Claire Chennault as second
  intermediary to S.Vietnamese
• Hitchens lists other sources, same story

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War Crimes in Indochina?

• Christmas Bombing of North Vietnam after 1968
  Elections
• General Telford Taylors book on Nuremberg
  Vietnam US leaders could be tried as well.
• Nuremberg Trials reasoning taken over by United
  Nations as basis of international law
• US accepted law its prosecutors judges produced.

12
Question of Responsibility

• General Taylor analyzes cases of WWII leaders
  sentenced to death
• Central issue was knowledge and failure to act to
  stop or prevent further crimes
• E.g., General Yamashita - hanged
• E.g., Foreign Minister Hirota Rape of Nanking
  hanged
• Kissinger et. al. knew and in detail yet
  continued to perpetrate crimes

13
Kissinger Speedy Express

• 9th Division Slaughter in Kien Hoa province
• Body count 11,000, weapons 748
• General Creighton Abrams praised operation widely
  and frequently
• Impossible to believe Kissinger was unaware
• Yet he took no steps to stop the slaughter

14
Kissinger Cambodia/Laos - I

• Post-WWII, US denied allies right to attack other
  countries
• E.g., Egypt in 1956, attacked by France, Britain
  and Israel, US forced retreat
• E.g., against French attack of Tunesian town
  during war to keep Algeria
• All set aside by hot pursuit
• Secret bombing of Cambodia Laos, Kissinger and
  Nixon lied about what they were doing, denied it.

15
Kissinger Camboida/Laos - II

• 350,000 civilians in Laos, 600,000 civilians in
  Cambodia were killed by bombing
• Use of toxic chemical defoliants caused massive
  health crisis, esp for mothers, children aged
• Kissinger brags about his role in orchestrating
  the bombing poisoning
• Haldeman reports Kissingers pleasure

16
Kissinger Cambodia/Laos - III

• Kissinger not only orchestrated but micro-managed
  operations
• He carefully picked bombing targets
• Tracked results, read raw intelligence
• Several of his own staff resigned, e.g, Anthony
  Lake
• Kissinger tapped phones of those who revealed
  what was going on

17
Kissinger Operation Phoenix

• Murder of 35,708 Vietnamese civilians by CIA
  counter-guerrilla operatives
• Over first 2 ½ years of Kissinger-Nixon
  Administration
• When word of operation leaked, Kissinger was
  furious and ordered wire-taps to find leaks, taps
  inside White House, State Department and newsmen
• Prelude to Watergate, Hitchen argues

18
Kissinger Chile - I

• Chile best democracy in Southern Cone
• 1/3 conservative vote, 1/3 socialist, 1/3
  Christian Democratic centrist
• CIA funded reliable elements (as in Italy
  which we now know involved fascists)
• 1972 socialist Salvador Allende elected president
• Kissinger et al decide to remove

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Kissinger Chile - II

• Two track operation one thru State Department,
  one thru CIA
• Objective destablization, kidnapping
  assassination
• First target Chilean General Rene Schneider, a
  military leader devoted to democracy
• So, word went out in Santiago of 50k

20
Kissinger Chile - III

• Hitchens an unelected official in the US is
  meeting with others, without the knowledge or
  authorization of Congress, to plan the kidnapping
  of a consitutionally minded senior official in a
  democratic country with which the US is not at
  war and maintains cordial diplomatic relations .
  . . A hit, a piece of state-supported
  terrorism.

21
Kissinger Chile - IV

• Extensive evidence from de-classified cables
  between Washington and Chile about provision of
  money and guns for assassination
• Memo of Conversation, Oct 15, 1970
• Two tracks within 2nd track
• General Roberto Viaux et al
• General Camilo Valenzuela et al
• Schneider was kidnapped and murdered

22
Kissinger Chile - V

• Not only was Kissinger US government involved
  in Coup against Allende that murdered him
• But also involved in cover-up of subsequent
  atrocities torture, murder, etc.
• Evidence CIA Report to Congress in 2000 admitted
  role, tried to escape responsibility for results

23
Kissinger Cyprus - I

• Greece/Turkey conflict Cyprus
• Military dictatorship in Greece
• Militarized government in Turkey
• Democratically elected government in Cyprus
  (President Makarios)
• Cyprus 82 Greek, 18 Turkish
• Kissinger had advance knowledge of plan to depose
  and kill Makarios

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Kissinger Cyprus - II

• Senator J. William Fulbright learned of impending
  coup and tried to get Kissinger to intervene
• Kissinger refused
• Coup took place on July 15, 1974
• Murders followed, Kissinger ordered recognition
  of new regime only country to do so.
• Turkish invasions, torture, murders followed, and
  partition.

25
Kissinger Bloodbath in Bangladesh

• 1971 West Pakistan attacked East Pakistan
  (Bangladesh) slaughtering thousands
• US lack of action protested by US foreign service
  agents
• Kissinger was using Pakistan for secret
  negotiations with China
• Result genocide in Bangladesh Nixon to China
  Spring 1971.

26
US Indonesia

• Pre-Kissinger US role in Indonesia
• CIA organized invasion to overthrow Sukarno
• Berkeley MIT trained new elite
• CIA collaborated in military coup that
  slaughtered 500,000
• US/UN allowed take over of West Papua

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Kissinger East Timor - I

• Indonesia invaded East Timor on December 7, 1975
  (Pearl Harbor)
• Right after Ford/Kissinger visit to Jakarta
• Ford/Kissinger gave permission and provided
  support for Indonesian invasion, conquest and
  colonization of East Timor via slaughter, rape,
  deliberate starvation 50-200,000 killed
• Kissinger furious over leaks of his role

28
Demetracopoulos -I

• Plan to kidnap and murder Greek journalist Elias
  Demetracopoulos who opposed US-backed military
  dictatorship in Greece
• (see the movie Z)
• After fall of dictatorship, he discovered
  documents about plans to kill him that included
  reference to cooperation in Washington

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Demetracopoulos -II

• Used Freedom of Information Act to get documents
  in Washington
• 1963 CIA had tried to keep him out of US
• Greek military money for Nixon campaign
• CIA money? hush money for Watergate?
• Demetracopoulos revelations led to plans to
  discredit and then assassinate him
• Prima facie case Kissinger knew

30
Relevant Laws?

• International Human Rights Laws
• Law of Armed Conflict
• International Criminal Law
• Domestic Law Law of Civil Remedies
• Genocide Convention
• Covenant on Civil Political Rights
• Alien Tort Claims Act

31
Kissinger/Roth on Universal Jurisdiction

• Kissinger universal jurisdiction is new
• Roth no, its not, US Israeli courts have done
  this
• Kissinger treaties on HR not intended for use of
  local judges against outsiders
• Roth Wrong, e.g., Torture Convention mandates
  such prosecution

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Kissinger/Roth on Universal Jurisdiction - II

• Kissinger International Criminal Court crimes
  are too vague.
• Roth wrong, definition of war crimes resembles
  US military definitions
• Kissinger ICC prosecutor will not be accountable
• Roth wrong, prosecutor can be removed

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Kissinger/Roth on Universal Jurisdiction - III

• Kissinger attacks ICC jurisdiction over US
  citizens in absence of US accession to treaty
• Roth US itself asserts such jurisdiction
• Kissinger ICC defendents wont have due process
  as understood in US
• Roth1) US courts martial same, 2) US courts
  regularly approve extradiction to countries
  lacking jury trials

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Kissinger/Roth on Universal Jurisdiction - IV

• Kissinger ICC would violate US constitution by
  asserting jurisdiction over US citizens
• Roth 1) ICC gives up jurisdiction to good faith
  investigation by home government, 2) US allows
  foreign prosecution of US military personnel

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Kissinger/Roth on Universal Jurisdiction - V

• Kissinger claims selective prosecution, eg.,
  Pinochet fashionably reviled man or the right
• Roth 1) Pinochet targeted because of murder of
  3,000 and torture of thousands more, 2) all sorts
  of people have been prosecuted Bosnian war
  criminals, Rwandan genocidaires, Argentine
  torturers

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Kissinger/Roth on Universal Jurisdiction - VI

• Kissinger ICC ignores local justice, eg.,
  amnesty for Pinochet
• Roth Amnesty for Pinochet was imposed by him
• Kissinger worries about undemocratic government
  prosecution
• Roth Govts regularly deny extradiction

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Kissinger/Roth on Universal Jurisdiction

• Kissinger UN Security Council should decide who
  gets tried
• Roth option rejected because it would give
  member states ability to veto prosecution of
  their own citizens and those of their allies
• Roth international law means US citizens must be
  held accountable like everyone else

38
Kissinger to Bush

• What, if any, are parallels between actions
  analzyed and condemned by Hitchens and those
  currently pursued by Bush Administration?
• Who, if anyone, might be prosecuted for the kinds
  of crimes delineated above?