More than a month ago, the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, was hanged for his alleged involvement in crimes against humanity, followed by two of his aides, who were also sentenced to death by the same U.S.-led tribunal.
The farcical trial didn't give Saddam or his aides the chance to defend themselves. Nor did it delve deep into those crimes, for this would have implicated some Western leaders.
But yesterday, more than 3000 peace activists, local dignitaries, including a number of Malaysia's top judges, and foreign delegates, gathered in Kuala Lumpur to attend the opening of the War Crimes exhibit, which was staged parallel to a conference on war crimes entitled Expose War Crimes, Criminalise War that will also include a trial for UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George Bush for war crimes and present documentary evidence of U.S. and Britain's crimes against humanity over the decades, from Hiroshima to Iraq.
The conference, where Blair and Bush were branded "fascist war criminals", is hosted by the former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, who inaugurated the event with a call for the leaders to be tried by an unofficial tribunal for war crimes in Iraq, and will tour other Malaysian cities under the auspices of the Malaysian Ministry of Tourism.
It is no surprise that the event, which included gruesome evidence of those leaders' crimes against humanity, including appalling pictures depicting wounded children, deformed babies and innocent men who were subject to torture in Iraqi prisons, received scanty coverage from the Western media.
"We shouldn't hang Blair if the tribunal finds him guilty," said Mahathir, who launched recently a campaign aimed at uncovering human rights abuses and hypocrisy of U.S.-led forces said to be on a mission to install "democracy" in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular.
"But he should always carry the label 'War Criminal, Killer of Children, Liar'," said Mahathir during his hour-long speech as tape-recorded screams of men being tortured and babies who lost their parents in the U.S.,UK-led war on Iraq echoed around the War Crimes Exhibition.
"And so should Bush and the pocket Bush of the Bushland of Australia," he said, referring to Prime Minister John Howard, a staunch U.S. war ally.
"They're giving an open mind to people who know what kind of war crime that the U.S. do to our communities in the world," was one of the attendees' remarks, an assessment probably shared by most of those who attended the event.
"It is the converted preaching to the converted," said Gwynne Dyer, a journalist and Oscar-nominated documentary maker; among the figures who gave out speeches at the conference, that also included former U.S. politician Cynthia McKinney, who was among the very first people to speak out against the American President's illegal invasion of Iraq, and Hans von Sponeck, former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq.
"But I think this [conference] has potential," Dyer said, adding:
"It actually has a goal beyond cheering people up and allowing them to vent."
Vietnam War and My Lai massacre were also depicted in the exhibit to further remind people of American crimes.
The exhibit also didn't ignore Israeli crimes in Palestine and Lebanon, where over 1,400 civilians died as a result of Israel's indiscriminate bombardment during last summer's war against Hezbollah resistance movement.
The Western media's scant coverage of such an important event is part of its persistence to not deliver the full image to the Americans and people of the West. Iraq war coverage by the American media has long been biased in favor of the President and his war allies.
By: Ahmed Abdullah
Source: AlJazeera Journal
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