THE HIDDEN LINK BETWEEN A TRIAL FOR SHARON AND THE OUSTER OF
SADDAM

By Ibrahim Alloush
Translated by Muhammad Abu Nasr

The Belgian human rights legislation, passed in 1993, opened the door to putting war
criminals on trial in Belgian courts, regardless of where in the world they had committed
their crimes. On the basis of that legislation, two Belgian lawyers and one Lebanese
attorney by the name of Chibli Mallat brought suit against Sharon in a Belgian court on
June 18, 2001, charging him with crimes against humanity. One year later, however, a
Belgian appellate court ruled that the legislation did not in fact allow for the trial of
people accused of war crimes unless they were actually on Belgian soil. This ruling froze
efforts to bring to trial Sharon . . . and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein.

The Belgian Parliament is now evidently working on a draft bill that would broaden the
scope of the country's human rights legislation so as to allow for trying war criminals
regardless of where they might physically be located, and not only those who happen to
be on Belgian territory.

But regardless of whether the Belgian legislation is amended or not, the fact that the issue
is arising now, precisely at this time, can only arouse our deepest suspicions.

On January 6, 2003 the English-language Lebanese newspaper, the Daily Star, reported
that 15 Arab academics, writers, and lawyers had launched a petition demanding that the
Arab world apply pressure to the Iraqi leadership to resign and accept voluntary exile.
This, they claimed, was "the only way to avoid more violence"! The Daily Star report
added that officials from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, who were supposedly
engaged in negotiations with the United States to get "security guarantees" for Saddam
Hussein from Washington, were pressuring the Iraqi President and top leaders of the
country depart and to go into exile. A report in the Jordanian weekly "al-Majd" on 6
January 2003 reviewed the American role in the effort to push this effort through, though
it did not name the Arab countries that were involved in it. We will return a bit later to
the political dimension of this petition and of all the talk about a call for Saddam to
"resign", which objectively serves to secure a face-saving victory for the Americans.
Opposition to their planned attack on Iraq is growing all over the world as all of
America's legalistic and other justifications for war melt away one after the other.

According to that report in the Daily Star, the number of signatories to that petition for
Saddam to resign is growing. They are calling for international observers to be deployed
all over Iraq to ensure a peaceful transfer of power in that country, according to one of
the chief advocates of the petition, none other than Dr. Chibli Mallat himself (the man
who wants to put Sharon on trial)!

What a strange coincidence! This compels us to ask: what could be the connection
between the effort to amend Belgian law to allow for a "trial of Sharon" on the one hand,
with the petition calling for the resignation and "voluntary exile" of Saddam and the Iraqi
leadership, and the deployment of international observers "everywhere in Iraq" on the
other hand?

Thus far the obvious connection between the two has been the Lebanese professor of
International Law Dr. Chibli Mallat himself. His was the major impetus behind the
Belgian law "allowing for the trial of Sharon" . . . and for people other than Sharon. At
the same time he was the major impetus behind the petition calling for the resignation of
Saddam and the deployment of international observers "everywhere in Iraq".

Then along came the well-known British journalist Robert Fisk who raised more
questions concerning Mallat in a January 9, 2003 article in the British newspaper The
Independent entitled "US connection of the Lebanese lawyer leading the push for
Saddam's exile". Fisk revealed that Mallat, the man who is leading the campaign to oust
Saddam is a close personal friend of Ahmad Chelebi, one of the leaders of the Iraqi
opposition groups known for accepting generous assistance from and in general having
close ties with the American Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA. Chelebi is also facing
financial fraud charges in Amman, Jordan. When Fisk asked Mallat whether he had
coordinated his "oust Saddam" campaign with Chelebi, Mallat replied that he was very
"fond" of Chelebi and that he usually "sounds things off" Chelebi, but that he had not
done so this time! Fisk, as his article reveals, did not believe Mallat but wrote as if
security cooperation between Chibli Mallat and the Americans was an obvious fact.
Information derived from a wide array of sources all points in the same direction: and all
serves to confirm the suspicions I had from the very beginning of the campaign to try
Sharon.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE CAMPAIGN TO INDICT SHARON IN BELGIUM?

From the outset, the campaign to "put Sharon on trial", which won enthusiastic support
from partisans of the Palestinian cause the world over, was not as innocent as it appeared
to be, neither in terms of the objective conditions that made it possible, nor in terms of its
political dimensions.

This campaign:

1. Reflects the profound transformation under way in the structure of the international
system. A new situation is being created in which the source of legitimacy and
sovereignty of a state is coming to be found outside the state rather than inside. This
is an effect of globalism as it breaks up nation states and national culture, and gives
pride of place to globalist institutions, values, and concepts instead,

2. It legitimizes the concept of interference in the internal affairs of states that have not
adopted the western liberal model of government on ostensibly "humanitarian"
pretexts that cover up the political aims of the states that are doing the interfering,

3. It spreads illusions about the possibility of attaining justice from the institutions of the
New World Order when political activity is undertaken in accordance with its
premises, that is by way of eliminating all forms of resistance that the "international
community does not approve of". In this context the Arabs are being told that they
won't be able to recover any of their lost rights by means of national struggle or Arab
unity.

4. It covers up the fact that intervention is always carried out by the states that are more
powerful, while the victims of intervention are always the weaker states. It was
colonialism that brought Manuel Noriega and Augusto Pinochet to power and it was
colonialism that then decided to put them on trial. It is colonialism that decides when
its interests demand the trial of Milosevic or al-Qadhdhafi or Saddam Hussein.

5. The campaign for a trial of Sharon and possibly of some of his officers, if this should
ever take place, would be used as a kind of cathartic substitute for a real political trial
of Zionism and the Zionist entity. It would serve as a marketing tool that imperialism
and Zionism would use to force their version of a so-called "just and permanent
solution for the Middle East" upon Arabs, Muslims, and internationalist supporters of
the Palestinian cause.

6. The campaign to put Sharon on trial is aimed at getting the Arabs to accept with
enthusiasm the legal legitimacy of international courts in order to prepare the way for
using such courts to help bring about "regime changes" and for redrawing the map of
the region in accordance with US and Zionist aims. The campaign to put Sharon on
trial serves to confer on those international courts an aura of "objectivity" and
"neutrality" in the eyes of the Arab people.

During the media blitz at the outset of the effort to bring Sharon to trial, I tried as best I
could to impress those six points upon the many militants and honest upright people
whom I esteem and respect but who were swept up in that campaign. I gave a talk at the
Trade Union Center in Irbid, Jordan, and another lecture at the headquarters of the
Islamic Action Front in al-Rasifa, near Amman. I contributed an article to the newspaper
"al-Quds al-Arabi wa-al-Dawli". I spoke at a conference organized by the Arab
Organization for Human Rights in Amman together with the Center for Middle East
Studies concerning violations of human rights in Palestine. I contributed to the mass
meeting that was held at the Arab Club in Amman to discuss the subject of a trial for
Sharon. I should like to mention that the attorney Husayn Mjalli, President of the Arab
Club, was one of the few who understood the sinister aspects of the campaign to put
Sharon on trial. Mjalli addressed that meeting and exposed the hidden implications and
political dimensions of that effort.

Finally, I would like history to record that the editorial staff of the Free Arab Voice
internet publication posted a study that incorporated many of the above-mentioned points.
It was published in the summer of 2001 and said specifically, "Anyone who thinks that
Belgian courts are independent of the American Administration doesn't know much about
Europe. The case against Sharon will never reach the punishment stage. Its purpose is
simply to enable the United States and European governments to exert pressure on
Sharon, and to coat those governments in a veneer of objectivity and legitimacy so as to
facilitate their interference in other issues besides the Sharon case." That study can be
read at the following URL:

www.freearabvoice.org/arabi/muhakamatuSharon.htm

Regardless of whether or not Sharon is actually tried at some time in the future, the basic
conclusion of this study remains sound today - that the aim of the campaign to try Sharon
is really to confer enough credibility upon the international courts to enable them to bring
other people to trial, in accordance with the needs of the Western countries and their
efforts at imposing "regime changes". I propose to demonstrate this below.

That study in FAV was somewhat naïve, however, in treating only the objective
dimensions of the campaign to try Sharon, feeling that "there was no reason to believe
that those who were bringing suit against the Zionist butcher were in any way suspicious.
On the contrary, everything seemed to indicate that they had the noblest of aims. We
must now, however, take a look at the objective results of that effort!"

There are clearly a number of question marks surrounding the one Arab lawyer, Chibli
Mallat who has joined two Belgian attorneys in bringing the suit against Sharon on behalf
of the victims of Sabra and Shatila, as the article by Robert Fisk and other sources
indicate.

WHAT IS CHIBLI MALLAT UP TO?

Robert Fisk's January 9th report in The Independent pointed to Chibli Mallat as the man
circulating the petition calling for the ouster of Saddam Hussein and at the same time
leading the campaign to put Sharon on trial in Belgium. Fisk drew attention to Mallat's
ties to Ahmad Chelebi the Iraqi oppositionist known for his links to the American secret
services, as we mentioned before. This serves to raise serious questions about Chibli
Mallat, the Lebanese doctor of law, and his political role. It draws attention to the nature
of the relationship between his campaign to "try Sharon" (if that can be believed), and his
petition calling for the ouster and exile of Saddam and the Iraqi leadership. The latter is
part of an intense effort in which Arab and other countries in the region are coordinating
with America as the Lebanese Daily Star and the Jordanian "al-Majd" reported on 6
January 2003.

Dr. Chibli Mallat claims that the idea for the petition came from Ghassan Tueni, whose
name has long been linked with the Lebanese newspaper al-Nahar, and who wrote an
article some time ago urging the Iraqi president to resign. Nevertheless the western
media, which have given the petition extensive coverage - including an interview of
Mallat and Tueni on American National Public Radio (NPR) on 6 January 2003 - are
treating Mallat as the petition's prime mover.

Therefore I have worked with the editorial board of the Free Arab Voice to find out more
about the person Chibli Mallat and his background. I found all the sources pointing
directly or indirectly to what Robert Fisk described in the Independent as his "US
connection".

A good example of this was the article published in the American newspaper, the
Christian Science Monitor on September 12, 2002 concerning Chibli Mallat's prominent
role in promoting what the newspaper called the "Democratic Iraq Initiative".

The "Democratic Iraq Initiative" (which should have been called the Americanization of
Iraq Initiative) enjoys the backing of circles in the United Nations, the European Union,
the American Administration, and the pro-American Iraqi opposition. The initiative
provides for the following:

1. Maintaining the military threat to Iraq and continued massing of forces against it,

2. Giving greater press coverage and diplomatic attention to the leaders of the pro-US
Iraqi opposition in order to give them greater credibility in the eyes of the Iraqi
people and the world,

3. Using special forces to transform the "No Fly Zones" in the north and south of Iraq,
and the desert in the west of the country into areas where Iraqi military and security
forces are prohibited even from driving cars or using any other form of transportation,

4. Using the political profit derived from all those measures in order to isolate Saddam
and the Iraqi leadership and to compel them to leave power, and thereafter to try and
convict them of war crimes in international courts,

5. Deploying observers in different parts of Iraq in order to ensure a peaceful transfer of
power to the pro-American opposition.

The Christian Science Monitor quotes Chibli Mallat as saying that the aim of this
initiative is to prevent Iraq from using its mass destruction weapons (which is already
assuming that such weapons exist and that Iraq will use them - the very argument that the
US uses as an excuse for attacking Iraq), in order to achieve a "regime change" in Iraq
without resort to war!!

Is this the rhetoric of a person who is really an avid defender of human rights and an
enemy of Zionism? Why does a person who is promoting a program such as this, a
program that turns Iraq into easy prey for America, also wage a campaign to try and
convict Sharon, if it is not for the reasons alluded to above, namely in order to serve
American and Zionist interests in our Arab region?

Yet the Christian Science Monitor itself expressed doubt in that same September 2002
issue that Mallat's effort would succeed in winning support, given that the hawks in the
American Administration had already tipped the balance in favor of a war on Iraq.

Hence, the petition that Mallat is now pushing, simultaneously with the effort in the
Belgian parliament to change the human rights law to permit the trial of people accused
of war crimes wherever they are, and not necessarily only on Belgian soil, come at a time
when the American Administration is looking for a way to circumvent growing
international opposition to its war on Iraq. Its declared justifications for waging such a
war are vanishing one after the other. The US can now seek to achieve its aims under the
signboard of "saving the region from more violence". Yet what violence could be greater
than a drive by a foreign power to change local regimes by force or the threat of force as
America and its friend Chibli Mallat are doing?

OPPOSE REGIME CHANGES TO DEFEND DEMOCRACY IN THE ARAB WORLD

It is therefore clear that Chibli Mallat, the lawyer active in the effort to put Sharon on
trial, was in September 2002 pushing an initiative that:

1. seeks to reap the fruits of a war on Iraq without actually having to wage a war, by

2. getting the Iraqi leadership to leave power voluntarily,

3. with the support of international and Iraqi forces that are historically known for their
plots against Iraq,

4. in order to secure a conviction of this leadership in international courts.

The departure of the Iraqi leadership will not, of course, change the American-Zionist
strategic goals in the Arab region or in Iraq, whether this concerns the seizure of its
natural resources or redrawing the map, or destroying the authority of the nation state by
pushing the idea of "trying Sharon" in Belgium. The departure of the Iraqi leadership at
the moment of decisive confrontation with American imperialism would only make it
easier for the Americans and Zionists to attain their regional goals. It is therefore not in
the interest of the Iraqis, the Arabs, the Muslims, or of any people in the world who are
the victims of American hegemonistic efforts.

There is no need for us to remind readers that any "guarantees of security" or any
political guarantees that America may offer to the Iraqi leadership in return for their
agreeing voluntarily to go into exile are absolutely worthless. Milosevic was given lots
of "guarantees" too. But states take care of their interests first and only then worry about
any commitments that they might have made. America has a long record of broken
agreements and guarantees. The American state officially signed and then violated
hundreds of agreements with Indian tribes over the course of hundreds of years, and these
formed the historical model for the Oslo Agreements, which were already worthy of little
consideration anyway.

For the Iraqi leaders to leave power and be dragged before international courts that have
gained popular legitimacy through an escalation of the campaign demanding a trial of
Sharon in Belgium, is not even in the interests of the Arab regimes, which are so terrified
of war that they are exerting pressure on the Iraqi leaders to depart. This short-sighted
logic is of the type that would cut off one's head to cure his headache. The plan for
"regime change" in Iraq is simply the prelude for other "regime changes" and political
trials of other Arab leaders, as has been made evident by many documents and
declarations that have been circulating within the American Administration in general
and in the American Defense Department in particular. All Arab regimes practice
repression, even if the average Arab can tell which of those regimes are resisting and
which are obliging American-Zionist dictates, and to what degree a regime is resisting
and repressing in each case. Yet, resistance to "regime change" remains the most
democratic activity that the Arabs can take up today.

America's plans for "regime changes" in the Arab region only serve to frustrate efforts for
genuine democratic changes that the Arabs themselves can undertake from below, from
the streets. America's efforts are aimed at extending American hegemony and that of its
local tools, such as the so-called Iraqi opposition that is tied to the American secret
agencies, and such as the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and Hamid Karzai. These are
not democratic efforts in any sense of the word. They are new American hegemonistic
efforts to further break up the already fragmented Arab nation, to sow discord, and to
incite massacres that pit groups against groups, regions against regions, religious sects
against other religious sects, and ethnic groups against other ethnic groups, drowning all
in a sea of blood and alienation in the shadow of the greater "Israeli" regional empire.
That is to say, it is a prospect that is far worse than that afforded by the current Arab
regimes, for all their gross shortcomings.

Real democratic change in the Arab homeland can only begin with the resistance to all
forms of American-Zionist hegemony over our region. When we condemn suspicious
calls for the ouster of the Iraqi President or of others, we are in fact condemning
American-Zionist attempts to impose themselves upon us. There is no contradiction
between this and the demand for democracy throughout the whole of the Arab Homeland
whether in the shadow of regimes that resist foreign hegemony to one extent or another,
or of those that submit to that hegemony to one degree or another. This is in addition to
the fact that the issue of who rules Iraq is an internal Iraqi matter, into which America has
no right to poke its snout - the more so as it discloses its plans and plots against all the
peoples of the region, Arabs and Muslims.

It is not strange that Dr. Chibli Mallat would present his plan and petition for a "peaceful"
change of the Iraqi leadership by way of Arab pressure and what he calls the "isolation of
Saddam internally" as an attempt to save Iraq from the tragedy of war. He has a long
history of playing with words. I suggest, if there are some who are still in doubt, that
they check out the report published in the Lebanese newspaper al-Nahar on 14 December
2002 that covers a speech given by Dr. Mallat in the Rashaya district of Lebanon. It can
be found on Dr. Mallat's own website and begins with the following sentence: "Our
struggle with Israel is a struggle for our survival, not a struggle over borders". It ends,
however, with the following: "For the two sides to live together is a matter of necessity,
indeed of absolute necessity . . . and the sacrifices that both sides have made have not
been in vain. . ." The most crafty aspect of his talk was that he attributed this line of
peaceful living with the Zionist enemy to the hallowed martyr Kamal Junblatt who was
known for his honorable patriotic stances as regards both Lebanese and Palestinian
issues!

In closing, I wish to say that the Arabs have no way out except by getting ready to
confront the American-Zionist enemy that has declared war upon them with all possible
means. Pleading with international institutions is useless; appeasing aggression cannot
bring safety; and the cowardly will find no comfort in a world governed by the law of the
jungle. Sharon and the other Zionists like him will never be put on trial as they deserve
to be except at the hands of those who are ready and able to make the sacrifices necessary
to carry through the triumphal advance until the last atom of the land of Palestine is
liberated.