" Decode Darfur was to build the evidence that will corroborate victim reports and witness testimony that shows civilians have been systematically attacked and show the international community that it has ignored Darfur for too long."
The attacks on civilians are being carried out by the Sudanese government and their militia allies - the notorious Janjaweed. These atrocities have been happening for decades, and the number of victims runs into hundreds of thousands, as the "Crimes of War" website says:
"Government security forces and their proxy militias—the Janjaweed—orchestrated a campaign of mass murder, rape, forced displacement, and destruction of livelihood. At least 200,000 people have died in the conflict, and more than 2.5 million have been driven off their lands and into camps for the internally displaced. The international community’s failure to protect civilians in Darfur echoed the failure to respond in Rwanda a decade before".
And, please note, part of the international community's failure includes the tens of thousands of well intentioned people who protest vociferously about the actions of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, yet cheerfully ignore the horrors of Darfur and Assad's crimes against his people in Syria. Still, as AI says, they are not alone, so let's not single them out. Instead, I want to focus upon the issue of war crimes and, given the recent controversy about British troops facing accusations of war crimes in Iraq, I would like to look at two incidents from WW2 which might be considered by some people to be British war crimes.
The legal definition of "War Crime" is clear, but lengthy. Anyone interested in this can do no better than consult the Red Cross website on this issue. For this post, though, let's use this basic definition from Wikipedia: "A war crime is an act that constitutes a serious violation of the law of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility.[1] Examples of war crimes include intentionally killing civilians or prisoners, torture, destroying civilian property, taking hostages, perfidy, rape, using child soldiers, pillaging, declaring that no quarter will be given, and using weapons that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.[2]".
The first happened in July, 1944, during the bitter post-D-Day fighting around Caen. An isolated battalion of the Hampshire Regiment was attacked by a troop of Tiger tanks which, to use an archaic phrase, did "fearful execution" among the Hampshires. During the fighting, one of the Tiger tanks overturned and the crew baled out, trying to surrender. Furious at their own losses, the Hampshires shot the Germans down.
The second incident happened in 1945, shortly after the collapse of the Third Reich and concerns the capture of Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of the Auschwitz death camp. After the German surrender, Hoess went on the run, disguising himself as a Kriegsmarine sailor. His wife and son, however, were captured and interrogated for Herr Hoess' whereabouts. Frau Hoess, like the good Nazi wife she was, refused to talk at first, so her British Intelligence Corps (Icorps) interrogators tried a more forceful type of persuasion. The interrogation centre was located near a railway station from where trains ran directly to the Russian Zone, so the Icorps men told Frau Hoess that if she did not disclose her husband's hideout, they would put her son on a train to Moscow and she would never see him again. She talked. Hoess was tracked down and arrested, put on trial in Poland and, unrepentant to the end, was hanged publicly in the Auschwitz camp in 1947.
Now, both these events can be construed as war crimes. In the first, the Hampshires violated the Geneva Convention by shooting troops who were surrendering; in the second, it is clear that psychological torture was employed. But, surely (for God's sake!) there are extenuating circumstances here? In the first case, the surviving Hampshires had seen many of their comrades dying horribly under onslaught from a far more ruthless enemy. Besides which, let's not forget that the German armed forces were not exactly famous for merciful treatment of their enemies either, and there is no need to labour that point. Personally, I understand completely why the Hampshires did as they did, and do not condemn them.
In the second case, the psychological pressure applied to Frau Hoess is a molehill to a mountain in comparison to the atrocities committed under her husband's supervision at Auschwitz. It was a matter of utter urgency that Hoess be caught, and I believe the Icorps men to have been right in what they did. Only a doctrinaire humbug or a neo-Nazi could argue otherwise.
So, in anticipation of a stupid question, do I believe that British troops should be exempted from prosecution for war crimes? The answer is emphatically "No". However, I do believe that all extenuating circumstances must be allowed for, if the term "Justice" is to mean anything. The danger is, at least in the case of British troops accused of crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, that the trials will become politicised. Politicians of Left and Right are becoming involved, and these trials may well become partisan affairs, with the truth treated as being of secondary importance.
Rudolf Hoess on the scaffold; cap badge of the Royal Hampshire Regiment.
