Comité de Apoyo al Tibet, the group which has been spearheading attempts to secure international judicial investigation into the situation inside Tibet, has released a manifesto condemning political moves to close-down the tribunal. If you wish to support the campaign to oppose this shameful attempt to suppress free speech and critical scrutiny please email alan.cantos@ainco.es
“MANIFESTO IN SUPPORT OF UNIVERSAL JUSTICE
The Spanish Government and the opposition agree to try to suffocate the principle of universal justice, thereby favouring impunity in the world. It is quite clear. It only took a couple of diplomatic complaints from powerful countries regarding lawsuits in Spain, for the Spanish Congress to agree to demolish more than a decade of success and progress made with regard to international justice. The Popular Party (PP) and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), who cannot agree on what time of day it is, have joined forces in an attempt to change a basic law and amend an article (article 23, concerning the most serious international crimes). Not only have they done so with a speed and cover of darkness that borders on illegality and is not made clear to public opinion, but they have done so despite Spain’s highest court, the Constitutional Court, having made it crystal clear in a ruling in 2005 that it is illegal to limit universal justice on the basis of “national connection”, “geographical distance” or “foreign or Spanish victims”. One gets the impression that those who insist on these limitations are either motivated by other interests or cannot read. Universal justice is universal and not just for Spaniards and close neighbours, and crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity and not just against Spanish citizens or interests.
Faced with the parliamentary decision to change the law and the number of articles, editorials and commentaries that have appeared in the media, we wish to express our alarm and concern, and state the following: Planning this procedure is a death blow to the separation of powers within Spanish democracy and a step backwards for international and universal justice. Basically, a political plot is being hatched to reduce justice and increase impunity in the world.
TIBET:
With regard to the Tibet lawsuit, as none of the Chinese accused are on Spanish soil and none of the victims of the Tibetan genocide are Spanish, both lawsuits could be shelved. Should this reform succeed, will this probable decision “reaffirm this Government’s commitment with universal justice” in the words of the vice president, De la Vega? To whom will victims like the Tibetans be able to turn, as the doors of justice are closed in both their own occupied country and in the International Criminal Court, which China does not recognize, and now their only other hope is fading? How can a government that promoted the “Alliance of Civilizations whose axis should be international law, and when in the opposition organized demonstrations supporting Pinochet’s extradition and opposing the war in Irak, now block the persecution of these crimes and blatantly support impunity? Why have the legal arguments put forward by the Attorney General Conde Pumpido in favour of universal justice (see El País 21st November 2004 p. 26, “The Attorney General defends Spain’s judging genocide without restrictions”) now have been turned to defend the exact opposite? To what or whom is this change due? It is hard to believe that any thought has been given to those who died in the genocides in Rwanda and Guatemala, the Argentines thrown into the sea, the Chileans massacred by Pinochet’s dictatorship, the Palestinian children assassinated in Gaza, or the Tibetan women sterilized and tortured to death for defending non violence.
What is most shameful is that no attempt is made to cover up the fact that the motivation is diplomatic and economic, and no mention is made of Spanish law, which contemplates these serious crimes (Article 23 of the Constitutional Law), or of the 2005 resolution of the Constitutional Court, endorsing the application of universal justice without limitations and other state commitments with international conventions and laws”.
