Former Army chiefs are not sacred cows anywhere now

[sonicboom]

Former Army chiefs are not sacred cows anywhere now


By Sabir Shah

LAHORE: Contrary to the case in Pakistan, where retired army chiefs are treated as sacred cows-no matter how serious crimes they may have committed-the world has seen numerous top-ranking military personnel getting convicted for their misdeeds since the Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46 that had witnessed the prosecution of at least half a dozen prominent members of the Nazi Germany’s defence leadership on charges including the Holocaust.

During these last six-and-a-half decades since the Nuremberg Trials, the most prominent military personnel brought to book by the law include the likes of Lt Gen (R) Hussain Muhammad Ershad (Bangladeshi Army Chief-turned-President), Sarath Fonseka (former Sri Lankan Army Chief), General Roberto Viola (former Argentinean army chief-turned-president), Lt. General Leopoldo Galtieri (former Argentinean commander-in-chief and President), General Rafael Jorge Videla (former Argentinean commander-in-chief and president), Cristino Nicolaides (former Argentinean army chief), Emilio Eduardo Massera (former commander-in-chief of Argentinean Navy), General Manuel Noriega (Panama’s military ruler), Rasim Delic (former Bosnian army chief), Faustin Nyamwasa (Rwanda’s former army chief) and Momcilo Periasic (former Yugoslavian army chief).
It is noteworthy that most of these afore-mentioned army chiefs had even gone to become their country’s presidents, both through power and ballot. The names in this list show that Argentina has witnessed four of its former army chiefs and a navy commandeer-in-chief getting 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 1970 and 1983.

Around 30,000 Argentineans were either killed during the “Dirty War” or had disappeared mysteriously. Former Bangladeshi Army Chief Lt Gen (R) Hussain Muhammad Ershad was elected his country’s president in 1986 and remained in office till 1991.

He even won the parliamentary elections three times after being toppled from the presidency. He was arrested in 1990, but was convicted on a separate charge 11 years after his original arrest.

Ershad was convicted in the Janata Tower Case. During the 1991 and 1996 polls, Ershad contested the election from jail and still won from all the five different constituencies each time. He was released from jail in January 1997.

Although commonly termed as an autocratic military dictator, Ershad publicly apologized in 2009 for all wrong doings of the past and had sought forgiveness from the masses. In a recent landmark verdict on August 26, 2010, a high court in has declared illegal the seventh amendment to the Bangladesh constitution that had legalized the autocratic regime of Hussein Muhammad Ershad and he may face a trial yet again after the final verdict comes from the Supreme Court.

The former Sri Lankan Army Chief, Sarath Fonseka, had played an instrumental role in ending the 26 years old 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 unsuccessfully challenged Rajapaksa in the 2010 presidential election.
He remained commander of the army from December 2005 to July 2009 and was appointed chief of defence staff by President Rajapaksa, few months after the defeat of the Tamil Tigers. However, Fonseka saw the move as an attempt to sideline him. Soon after retirement, Fonseka formally announced his candidature in the 2010 Sri Lankan Presidential Election. His candidacy was endorsed by the main opposition parties and Fonseka became the main opposition candidate challenging President Rajapaksa.

On January 26, 2010, he was convincingly defeated by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had obtained 57 per cent of all votes cast. Following his election defeat, Fonseka was arrested on February 8, 2010 and was court-martialed for committing military offences.

After he was found guilty in the first court martial, President Rajapakse stripped Fonseka of all military ranks on August 14, 2010.The second military verdict of September 2010 sentenced the former Sri Lankan army chief for 30 months, having found him guilty of violating tender procedures in procurements for the army.

Former Argentinean army chief, Roberto Eduardo Viola had also served as his country’s president from March 29 to December 11, 1981. Viola was arrested and held responsible for the human rights violations committed by the military junta during the “Dirty War” and sentenced to 17 years imprisonment.

He was pardoned by the former Argentinean Carlos Menem in 1990, along with all other convicted members of the military junta.Former Argentinean commander-in-chief, Lt Gen Leopoldo Galtieri, was his country’s President from 1981 to 1982.

He was removed from power soon after the British retook the Falklands Islands. Along with other members of the former Argentinean military rule, he too was arrested in 1983 and charged with human rights violations during the “Dirty War” and with the mismanagement of the Falklands War.
The Argentinean army’s internal investigation report recommended that General Galtieri be stripped of all ranks, be dismissed from service and face a firing squad for kidnapping children and killing opponents.

He was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 1986 and stripped of his rank in 1989.Galtieri was also among the military officers who received President Carlos Menem’s pardon. Another former Argentinean army chief, Cristino Nicolaides, was sentenced for 25 years in 2007 for torture and forced disappearance during the “Dirty War.”

The list doesn’t end here. Yet another former Argentinean army chief, General Rafael Jorge Videla, was also among those prosecuted for human rights abuses during the infamous “Dirty War.”

The accusations against General Videla also included the theft of many babies born during the captivity of their mothers at the illegal detention centres. The 85 years old General Videla was appointed commander-in-chief in 1975. Having also served as the 43rd president of Argentina from 1976 to 1981, 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. Videla then briefly returned to prison for 38 days in 1998 when a judge found him guilty of kidnapping babies during the Dirty War.

Luck never favoured Videla as a federal court struck down his presidential pardon in April 2007 and restored his human rights abuse convictions. While Argentina no longer recognizes Videla as having been a legal president of the country, his portrait has since been removed from the military schools.

On July 5, 2010, Videla had taken full responsibility for his army’s actions during the “Dirty War.”

Emilio Eduardo Massera, former commander-in-chief of the Argentinean navy, was tried for human rights violations and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1983.

Massera was promoted to the rank of full admiral in 1974 to assume charge as commander-in-chief of the Argentinean navy. He too was pardoned by then-President Menem in 1990.

Massera was free until 1998, when he was imprisoned again for committing crimes against humanity.

In 2005, Massera suffered a stroke and was declared legally irresponsible because of insanity. Consequently, all cases against him were suspended.
General Manuel Noriega was the military dictator of Panama from 1983 to 1989.

The 1989 invasion of Panama by the United States removed him from power and he was detained as a prisoner of war.

After being flown to the United States, Noriega was tried on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering and money laundering in April 1992.
At his trial, Noriega intended to defend himself by presenting his alleged crimes within the framework of his work for the US Central Intelligence Agency. After the trial, Noriega appealed this exclusionary ruling by the judge to the United States Court of Appeals, which ruled in his favour.
However, the Court of Appeals refused to set aside the verdict.

On September 16, 1992, Noriega was sentenced to 40 years in prison (later reduced to 30 years).

cont'd..........

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Noriega’s US prison sentence ended in September 2007, following the outcome of extradition requests by both Panama and France, for convictions in absentia for 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.
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 in the cities of Sarajevo, Srebrenica and Zagreb during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s.

He is also charged with aiding and abetting and planning the crimes of extermination, murder and persecutions in Srebrenica, where thousands of Muslim men and boys were killed in 1995. The verdict in this case is awaited though.

Former Bosnian Army Chief, Rasim Delic, was sentenced to a 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 until September 2000.

The charges against him also stated that he had failed to take necessary measures to punish those soldiers who had executed and captured Bosnian Croat civilians in central Bosnia.

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.

Meanwhile, Spain has recently asked South Africa to extradite Faustin Nyamwasa, a former Rwandan army chief, who is wanted on charges of genocide in his country and the murder of four Spaniards in Rwanda in the 1990s.

Spain’s National Court in 2008 had charged Nyamwasa with genocide and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the lead-up to and during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in which 0.8 million people were killed.
It also charged the former army chief with the murder in Rwanda of a Spanish missionary in 1994 and three other Spanish aid workers three years later.

Former Army chiefs are not sacred cows anywhere now