The Trial of Tony Blair
Adekeye Adebajo
The recent spat that erupted following Archbishop Desmond Tutus refusal to
attend a leadership summit in Johannesburg on account of former British
premier Tony Blairs presence, was a fascinating clash between two
establishment figures. Tutu withdrew from the conference charging that Blair
had invaded Iraq in 2003 based on a lie; that he and United States (US)
president George W. Bush had acted like playground bullies; and that since
110,000 innocent Iraqis had been killed following the invasion, Blair and
Bush should be tried for war crimes at the International Criminal Court
(ICC) in the Hague. Tutu decried the double standards in which only African
and Asian actors continue to be tried in the Hague (all 29 people indicted
so far by the ICC have, in fact, been African).
Such stinging criticisms have been levelled at Blair before, but none could
have had the same devastating impact as Tutu who won the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1984 for his leadership during the anti-apartheid struggle, and has been
revered since as a moral beacon. Tutu has, however, sometimes been accused
of shooting from the hip. Last year, for example, he described the Jacob
Zuma administration as worse than the apartheid regime after the Dalai Lama
was denied a visa to enter South Africa. Tutus obsession with publicity is
also curious, and Nelson Mandelas graceful exit from public life continues
to contrast starkly with his constant craving for the limelight. But was
Tutu right to suggest Blair be tried at the Hague?
Tony Blair was in power between 1997 and 2007 and was the most successful
contemporary leader of the Labour party, winning three general elections.
He contributed to peacemaking in Northern Ireland and oversaw Scottish
devolution. He, however, sometimes demonstrated a muscular born-again
Christianity and sanctimonious self-righteousness. His obsession with
poll-obsessed popularity lowered the tone of British politics, often
descending into manipulative spin and empty sound-bites. The man who had at
first been depicted as a wide-eyed cartoonish Bambi happily skipping
around the forest would eventually earn the nickname Bliar from the
British public, one million of whom protested his decision to go to war with
Iraq. Many felt, like Tutu, that he had acted in bad faith and misled the
British parliament and public. The largely plagiarised dodgy dossier and
an earlier one that falsely claimed that Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, had
the capacity to launch biological weapons within 45 minutes, were a
particular nadir in this debacle.
The Iraq invasion had been undertaken by Bush and Blair with the
justification that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
United Nations (UN) inspectors had warned that no evidence for such weapons
existed. That the invasion had failed to uncover any weapons made Blairs
ex-post facto humanitarian justifications of the invasion appear absurd and
dishonest. A war of aggression which many around the world considered to
have been both illegal and illegitimate had been launched by two
self-appointed sheriffs with a hurriedly gathered posse without the UNs
blessing. Some of Blairs cabinet ministers and his attorney-general had
cautioned him against waging the war without a UN mandate. Even Western
allies, France and Germany, opposed this hare-brained fiasco, an
anachronistic neo-imperial attempt at gunboat diplomacy aimed at imposing
democracy on an Arab autocracy through the barrel of a gun. The British
bulldog was widely portrayed as an American poodle, and it was clear that
the key decisions had been taken in Washington, with London largely
following Bush down a blind alley.
Both in his 2010 memoir A Journey and in his recent response to Tutu, Blair
sought to justify the Iraq invasion on the grounds that Saddams
egregious human rights abuses had justified the intervention. Quite aside
from the difficulty of crusading Western governments going around the world
deciding which morally deficient leaders to topple, what Blair has
consistently failed to detail is the extent to which the West had armed and
funded Saddams chemical weapon-fuelled war of aggression against Iran
between 1980 and 1988, and condoned his gas-fuelled massacres against his
own people. Neither elicited vocal condemnation from Saddams Western
allies. He was the monstrous Frankenstein of cynical Western scientists, a
mad dog fed and sustained by both America and Blairs own country. This
history greatly discredits Blairs belated humanitarian justifications.
Blair can also be tried for often erroneously portraying himself as
Africas best friend. Like a modern-day missionary, he condescendingly
described the continent as a scar on the worlds conscience without any
evident awareness of the offensiveness of such broad stereotyping. He paid a
state visit to Africa only at the fag-end of his premiership; supported
autocratic regimes in Ethiopia, Uganda, and Rwanda; and failed to fulfill
promises on massively increasing aid to Africa. Even if Blair does not end
up in the Hague, some 25 countries have laws on their books against wars of
aggression. His trial may therefore not be as fanciful as it once seemed. He
must wish as King Henry II once did about Thomas Becket that someone
would rid him of South Africas troublesome priest.
Dr. Adekeye Adebajo is Executive Director of the Centre for Conflict
Resolution, Cape Town, and co-editor of The EU and Africa.
BusinesssDay (South Africa), 10 September 2012.
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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