Over a dozen army chiefs have stood helplessly in the dock LAHORE: Over a dozen army chiefs, including General (retd) Musharraf, have till date faced courts on a diverse range of crimes since the “controversial” Nuremberg Trials, which were held between November 20, 1945 and October 1, 1946 at the Nuremberg’s Palace of Justice and presided over by British, Soviet, French and American judges, writes Sabir Shah. The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the Allied forces of World War II, to try and punish the 23 prominent members of the political, military and economic leadership of Nazi Germany. Those tried for crimes against humanity had included Adolf Hitler’s Naval Commander, Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, Marshal Hermann Goring, Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command, Alfred Josef Jodl, the then Interpol President, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and head of the German Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, Wilhelm Keitel etc. It goes without saying that since then, many of the world’s army chiefs, a good number of whom had gone on to become the presidents and prime ministers of their respective countries by snatching power through coups etc, were handcuffed only after their respective retirements from military service - hence speaking volumes of the prowess that military bosses continue to enjoy in most parts of the planet. Historians might thus write in a few years from now that along with General Philippe Petain, a former Premier of France and Premier Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos of Greece, General (retd) Pervez Musharraf was among a handful of military leaders or army chiefs-turned-rulers, who were made to stand in the dock to defend treason charges against them, with heads bowed before the judges clad in black gowns. Premier General Philippe Petain was sentenced to death at the age of nearly 90 for treason due to his anti-state activities during World War II. His death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment by General Charles de Gaulle, the then French president. Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos was a Greek military dictator, who was tried for high treason, mutiny and torture etc. in 1974. In August 1975, he and several others were found guilty and were sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment though. Apart from the convictions of Nazi Germany’s key military personnel nearly seven decades ago at the Nuremberg Trials, although more than a dozen military leaders have since been convicted and jailed worldwide for various crimes, only General Philippe Petain of France and Greek Premier Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos have specifically been held guilty on treason charges. These convicted army chiefs include four former Argentinean army chiefs and a navy commander-in-chief of the country. They were convicted for their criminal role during the “Dirty War,” which was a period of state-sponsored violence, torture and assassinations in this South American nation between the 1970s and 1983. Around 30,000 Argentineans were either killed during the “Dirty War” or had disappeared mysteriously.Apart from General Musharraf, Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos of Greece and General Philippe Petain of France, the list of 11 global army chiefs held in various crimes, includes: 1) Lt. General (retd) Hussain Muhammad Ershad, the Bangladeshi army chief-turned-president, was convicted in the Janata Tower Case. Though he was arrested in 1990, he was convicted 11 years after his first arrest. He was released in January 1997, after publicly apologising in 2009 for all his wrongdoings. 2) Sarath Fonseka, former Sri Lankan army chief was arrested on February 8, 2010 and court-martialed for committing military offences. He had played an instrumental role in ending the 26-year long Sri Lankan civil war in 2009, defeating the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the process. He later had a public falling out with President Mahinda Rajapaksa and had unsuccessfully challenged Rajapaksa in the 2010 presidential election. Sarath Fonseka had remained commander of the army from December 2005 to July 2009. After he was found guilty in a Court Martial, Fonseka was stripped of all his military ranks on August 14, 2010 on orders of President Rajapaksa. 3) General Roberto Viola, another former Argentinean army chief-turned-president, was arrested for human rights violations. He was consequently sentenced for 17 years, though was pardoned by the former Argentinean president Carlos Menem in 1990 along with all other convicted members of successive military regimes. 4) General Leopoldo Galtieri, former Argentinean commander-in-chief and president, was arrested in 1983 and charged with human rights violations during the “Dirty War” and with mismanagement of the Falklands War. He was sentenced to 12 years prison in 1986 and stripped of his rank in 1989. He too was among the recipients of the Presidential pardon. 5) General Rafael Jorge Videla, former Argentinean commander-in-chief and president, was convicted of forced disappearance during the “Dirty War” and for stealing/abducting many babies born during the captivity of their mothers at the illegal detention centres. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and was discharged from the military in 1985. Videla was also pardoned by President Carlos Menem, but not before he had spent five years behind the bars. 6) Former Argentinean army chief, Cristino Nicolaides, was sentenced for 25 years in 2007 for torture and forced disappearance during the “Dirty War.” 7) Emilio Eduardo Massera, former commander-in-chief of Argentinean navy, was tried for human rights violations and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1983. 8) General Manuel Noriega, Panama’s military ruler between 1983 and 1989, was removed from power and detained as a prisoner of war by the invading US Army. After being flown to the United States, Noriega was tried on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering and money laundering in April 1992. On September 16, 1992, General Noriega was sentenced to 40 years in prison (later reduced to 30 years). Noriega’s US prison sentence had ended in September 2007, following the outcome of extradition requests by both Panama and France, for convictions in absentia on charges of murder and money laundering. France was granted its extradition request in April 2010 and Noriega was found guilty by a French court. He was sentenced to seven years in jail in July 2010. 9) In October 2008, former Yugoslavian army chief Momcilo Perisic was tried at a United Nations tribunal at The Hague (Holland) for the war crimes committed by him during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. He was also charged with aiding and abetting the planning, the crimes of extermination, murder and persecutions in Srebrenica, where thousands of Muslim men and boys were killed in 1995. On September 6, 2011, Perisic was sentenced for 27 years. However, on February 28, 2013, the Appeal Chamber had acquitted him of all charges. 10) Rasim Delic, former Bosnian army chief, was sentenced to three-year imprisonment in 2009 on murder, rape and torture charges at a UN War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Rasim Delic was the commander of the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina from June 1993 to September 2000. In May 2009, Rasim Delic was granted a provisional release pending the hearing of his appeal. He died in April 2010 after just one hearing of the appeal. 11) A few years ago, Spain had asked South Africa to extradite Faustin Nyamwasa, a former Rwandan army chief, who was wanted on charges of genocide in his country and the murder of four Spaniards in Rwanda in the 1990s. Nyamwasa was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in which 0.8 million people were killed.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 03:55:40 +0000
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