Posted
25th June 2001
J'Accuse Sharon
On Sunday 17 June, 2001, the BBC's award-winning investigative
news programme, Panorama, broadcast a documentary titled "The
Accused" that looked at the role of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon and Israel's then-Phalangist allies in the 1982 massacres
of Palestinian and Lebanese men, women, and children at the
Sabra and Shatila refugee camps on the outskirts of Beirut.
According to Richard Falk, a professor of International Law
at Princeton University interviewed for the documentary, "Sharon's
specific command responsibility arises from the fact that he
was Minister of Defence in touch with the field commanders,
that he actually was present there in Beirut, that he met with
the Phalange leadership and it was he that gave the directions
and orders that resulted in the Phalange entering the camps
in September."
At
one point the Panorama reporter, Fergal Keane, asked Morris
Draper, US Special Envoy to the Middle East in 1982, "When Ariel
Sharon says, and other senior Israeli officers, that they couldn't
possibly have predicted what might have happened..." to which
Draper responded, "Complete and utter nonsense." Judge Richard
Goldstone, former Chief Prosecutor at the UN War Crime Tribunals
in 1994-1996, commented in the documentary that, "if the person
who gave the command knows, or should know, [based] on the facts
available to him or her, that [there] is a situation where innocent
civilians are going to be injured or killed, then that person
is as responsible -- in fact in my book more responsible --
even than the people who carry out the order." Later in the
documentary, US Special Envoy Draper recounted the message he
sent to Sharon during the massacre: "You must stop the acts
of slaughter, they are horrifying. I have a representative in
the camp counting the bodies. You should be ashamed. The situation
is absolutely appalling.
They're
killing children! You have the field completely under your control
and are therefore responsible for that area." When asked by
the Panorama reporter if Draper had "no doubt since then or
at that time that Ariel Sharon was responsible?", Draper replied,
"No doubt whatsoever. Well of course more Israelis have to share
in that responsibility, but absolutely." The documentary concluded
that there was sufficient grounds to indict Ariel Sharon for
war crimes. The full transcript of "The Accused" can be read
and the programme can be viewed online via Real Video at http://www.bbc.co.uk/panorama/
The programme will be retransmitted on the BBC World satellite
channel on 23 June at 0710 GMT & 2010 GMT, and on 24 June at
1510 GMT & 1810 GMT. On Monday 18 June, 2001, a historic event
took place. The dossiers of 28 Palestinian and Lebanese survivors
from the Sabra and Shatila massacres were deposited before an
investigative judge in Brussels. The case has officially been
opened against Ariel Sharon and any other Israeli or Lebanese
persons responsible for "war crimes, crimes against humanity
and genocide".
Since
these two momentous events took place, the wire services, as
well as the British and Israeli media, have all reported this
dramatic story widely, as one would expect, but, the US media
has written just 225 words about this up to 21 June 2001. J'Accuse
Sharon, like many criminal investigations, will undoubtedly
turn up a host of co-conspirators, including other Presidents
and prime Ministers?..
|