Spanish Judge Says His Fight for Human Rights Will Endure
By RAPHAEL MINDER
NY Times: June 8, 2010
MADRID - Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish judge who attained fame for pursuing
international leaders before Spanish courts, says he is confident his
country will continue to pursue accused criminals worldwide whatever the
outcome of his own judicial travails.
Mr. Garzón, who went after leaders like Augusto Pinochet of Chile, was
himself suspended last month after being charged with abusing his powers to
investigate Spanish Civil War atrocities.
"I believe the seeds have been sown, despite the possible contradictions of
a country that investigates outside but cannot now investigate inside," Mr.
Garzón said in Madrid last week in his first newspaper interview in a year.
"The principle of universal jurisdiction has in fact germinated and is a
conquest that cannot be lost and will not be lost," he said. "However, as
always happens with international justice, it's about two steps forward,
then one step back, then one forward and then two back - so we advance with
a lot of difficulties. Why? Because there are a lot of interests at play -
judicial as well as political and diplomatic."
Mr. Garzón, 54, would not discuss his planned defense against the charges
against him. Besides those relating to his controversial Spanish Civil War
investigation, Mr. Garzón also stands accused in two separate cases, one
over personal funding received from a leading Spanish bank and one over
allegedly illegal eavesdropping as part of a political corruption
investigation.
Mr. Garzón was indicted last April by Judge Luciano Varela for allegedly
overstepping his authority and ignoring a 1977 general amnesty that covers
crimes perpetrated during the Spanish Civil War. In October 2008, Mr. Garzón
had launched a politically sensitive investigation into tens of thousands of
deaths and disappearances during the war and the ensuing dictatorship of
Franco.
The controversy over his jurisdiction had already forced Mr. Garzón to
abandon the investigation within a month, but legal action was still taken
against him by far-right activists. Mr. Varella's decision was then upheld a
month later by the body that oversees Spain's judiciary, which decided to
suspend Mr. Garzón pending his trial.
His suspension on May 14 marked an abrupt role reversal for Mr. Garzón, who
established his reputation as an international defender of human rights by
making extensive use of Spain's doctrine of universal jurisdiction, which
opens the door to prosecution within Spain of crimes committed outside the
country. On the domestic front, meanwhile, he also fought against political
corruption, as well as violence perpetrated by ETA, the Basque separatist
group.
However his investigations have long made him one of Spain's most polemic
figures. Detractors have also questioned his motivations after his brief
stint in domestic politics in the 1990s as a senior member of the Socialist
party.
Although he was suspended as a judge pending the outcome of the cases
against him, Mr. Garzón was given permission to work as a consultant to the
International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Mr. Garzón said that he did not expect to stay in the Netherlands beyond
December and that he was not considering another job switch should his legal
problems worsen. If found guilty of knowingly contravening a 1977 general
amnesty, Mr. Garzón could be suspended for as long as 20 years from the
bench, which would effectively end his career as a judge in Spain.
Asked, however, whether he had harbored grander international ambitions, Mr.
Garzón said: "I had not thought about this and I would lie if I said yes or
if I said no. Until now my work here absorbed me fully."
Mr. Garzón, who has targeted the United States because of accusations of
torture at its Guantánamo prison camp, expressed optimism that President
Barack Obama would reverse "sooner rather than later" a decision by the Bush
administration not to join the International Criminal Court, which was set
up eight years ago.
"The court can now function, but of course with the U.S. it would be a lot
better," said Mr. Garzón, adding that Mr. Bush's decision had been "one of
the worst moments for me."
In The Hague, Mr. Garzón will use his experience "in cases that are similar
to what I have dealt with in the context of fight against terrorism,
organized crime and cases of universal jurisdiction."
Representatives from the ICC's 111 signatory nations are currently meeting
in Kampala, Uganda, to review the court's role and work. The court has come
under criticism particularly for its slowness to bring cases to trial, but
also recently over generous spending on its inmates and their visiting
relatives. Asked for his own assessment of the court, Mr. Garzón said "this
tribunal is still in complete development."
He added: "To bring a case there is complicated, but I still think faster
than in many countries."
Mr. Garzón rejected suggestions that his crusade against human rights abuses
had become too personal to be taken over by one or more of his lower-profile
colleagues, should his legal problems put an end to his own career.
"Spain has had a preponderant role in terms of universal criminal justice
and of course this leadership is now under question for obvious reasons, but
there are ongoing cases and this movement isn't just a question of Baltazar
Garzón or not, but of all those who've been involved," he said.
Still, Dolores Delgado, a leading Spanish prosecuting attorney who has
worked closely with Mr. Garzón, said in a separate interview that his
departure was a lasting blow.
"He was a pioneer who managed, from a small state, to ignite a concept of
international justice that was dead until he started," she said. "What
happens now? He has left and it is very unlikely that another figure like
him can emerge."
***
From: FAIR (For Fairness in Reporting)
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4090
Pundits in Denial on Gaza Plight
'No humanitarian crisis,' some media figures claim
Fair Media Advisory: 6/7/10
The May 31 Israeli attack on the Free Gaza humanitarian flotilla has
returned some media attention to the humanitarian crisis faced by 1.5
million Palestinians living under Israeli blockade in the Gaza Strip. But
some media figures have sought to deny the existence of a humanitarian
crisis in Gaza at all.
The Gaza Strip remains an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe on numerous
levels. Israel has banned imports like cement that are necessary to rebuild
Gazan infrastructure--including homes, hospitals and roads destroyed in
Israel's 2008-09 invasion (U.N. Development Program, 5/23/10). Water and
sewage systems in Gaza are in dire need of repair, and have rendered most of
the drinking water unfit for consumption (Amnesty International, 10/09).
Gazans rely on international food aid, but malnutrition and related problems
have become more serious as the Israeli blockade has intensified; some 10
percent of Gaza's residents suffer from chronic malnutrition (U.N. World
Food Program, 12/09). The blockade has severely affected the Gazan economy,
with skyrocketing unemployment and a dramatic decline in per-capita income
(London Independent, 6/5/10).
Nevertheless, U.S. corporate media featured numerous confident assertions
that there was no need to worry about humanitarian conditions in Gaza:
"But there is a larger issue here. What exactly is the humanitarian crisis
that the flotilla was actually addressing? There is none. No one is starving
in Gaza. The Gazans have been supplied with food and social services by the
U.N. for 60 years in part with American tax money."
--Charles Krauthammer, Fox News (5/31/10)
"But there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza at all!"
--Monica Crowley, Fox Business Network (6/2/10)
"But there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza; if anyone goes without food,
shelter or medicine, that is by the choice of the Hamas government, which
puts garnering international sympathy above taking care of its citizens."
--Daniel Gordis, New York Times op-ed (6/3/10)
"I just had an expert on, a congressman, Mike Pence, from Indiana, who is an
expert on this issue as well. He said, look it, there is no humanitarian
crisis in Gaza. People are eating in Gaza. There is medical aid. You are
talking about paper, crayons and olive trees, and placing basically your
volunteers in a potential situation where they could be hurt or even
killed."
--CNN's Drew Griffin, interviewing Free Gaza's Greta Berlin (6/2/10)
"If you walk down Gaza City's main thoroughfare--Salah al-Din
Street--grocery stores are stocked wall-to-wall with everything from fresh
Israeli yogurts and hummus to Cocoa Puffs smuggled in from Egypt. Pharmacies
look as well-supplied as a typical Rite Aid in the United States.... Gazans
readily admit they are not going hungry."
--Janine Zacharia, Washington Post news article (6/3/10)
"Even though Israel has managed to stave off a humanitarian crisis by
allowing the entry of food, fuel and medical requirements, to the world it
was engaging in a policy of collective punishment."
--Martin Indyk, Time column (6/14/10)
***
Such assertions echo Israeli talking points--such as Deputy Foreign Minister
Danny Ayalon's claim (Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 5/29/10), just
before the assault, that the flotilla was "a provocation intended to
delegitimize Israel. There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza." The facts as
observed by independent organizations prove otherwise--and that's what
journalists should be reporting.
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