There’s been a storm in the teacup that is the blogosphere following the publication of Neil Clark’s online column in the Guardian’s Comment is Free section in response to a recently-begun campaign to pressure the British government to grant asylum to Iraqi civilians who have worked for the British forces in Iraq and whose lives and families are now threatened by various factions inside the country.
Clark objects to two things. Firstly, that the bloggers
who cheered on a brutal, murderous assault on a third-world country that was always going to result in mass loss of life would now like us to believe they are concerned over the fate of 91 people. But what I suspect worries the pro-war brigade most is not the future of the interpreters but that future military “interventions” may be jeopardised unless Britain promises citizenship rights to locals who collaborate.
I frankly could care less about Clark’s views on the motives of those organising this campaign. I suspect that there is almost nobody who would have been interested in his views on this issue, had he not yoked those views to his second argument. In his own words, that argument can be summarised as follows:
A group of pro-war bloggers is playing a prominent role in a campaign to grant asylum to Iraqis who have been working as translators for [an illegal occupying force]… the Iraqis in question live in real fear of their lives in their newly “liberated” country… they are paid around £16 a day, an excellent wage in Iraq… Let’s do all we can to keep self-centred mercenaries who betrayed their fellow countrymen and women for financial gain out of Britain. If that means some of them may lose their lives, then the responsibility lies with those who planned and supported this wicked, deceitful and catastrophic war, and not those of us who tried all we could to stop it.
Clark is free to air his opinions, no matter how wrongheaded, and the Guardian is free to publish them, no matter how little they contribute to the debate around this particular issue. I am less interested in the questions around free speech and editorial standards raised by the publication of the piece, and more in the astonishing absence of compassion that Clark exhibits. This is combined with his poor understanding of international law, which is ironic since his main argument against the war in Iraq is that it was illegal.
Clark’s argument is that these people should be refused asylum on the basis that “all those who aided the occupation are complicit” in a criminal enterprise. Despite what he would like his audience to believe, people’s rights under international law are generally not determined by one’s opinion of their employer, and the basic argument against Clark’s position is vanishingly simple.
Clark is very fond of lauding the Iraqi “resistance”, but if he believes that there is an organised resistance, then he must also acknowledge that the Geneva Conventions apply to them, since “all parties to an armed conflict whether States or non-State actors are bound by international humanitarian law.” The distinction between combatants and non-combatants is a basic principle of international humanitarian law, outlined quite clearly in common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which states that
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:
(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
and Article 48 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I.
In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.
Interpreters are clearly not taking an active part in hostilities, and therefore are not legitimate targets for US forces, the “resistance” or anybody else. Clark does not disagree that the interpreters and their families have become targets – on the contrary, he appears to relish it. Essentially he acknowleges that they have a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of… membership of a particular social group or political opinion”.
Under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, this is the basic test of whether somebody is eligible for refugee status; clearly these people meet that requirement, and the only real question is where they should be granted asylum. If they choose to apply to the British government for asylum, the government has no legal argument against granting asylum.
I’m no lawyer but it seems to me that the legal principle of duty of care means that the British government should accept liability for this claim by their Iraqi employees, since their actions have “caused a loss or harm to the individual which would have been reasonably foreseeable in all the facts and circumstances of the case.” This seems to present a fairly compelling legal and moral case for why the British government should grant asylum to those who, as a direct result of their employment, are now subject to persecution.
As far as I’m aware, there is no international law which states that “collaborators” occupy a special category which places them outside the protection of either of these two existing laws. If there were, presumably Clark would also like to see anybody who works for the current Iraqi regime kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered, since the Iraqi government also “collaborates” with the US.
Clark believes that the “true heroes in Iraq are those who have resisted the invasion of their country”, although I doubt that his understanding of the nature of that resistance is particularly nuanced. This would, however, explain his support for a “resistance”, whose recent targets tend not to have been US forces but have included schools, hospitals, police stations and football fans (I’m not sure how the football fans were “collaborating” with the occupation, but I’m sure that Clark can furnish us with some shabby justification).
Clark stands in firm opposition to the war in Iraq – an opposition which I share, having campaigned fairly vigorously against it prior to the UK parliament’s decision to go to war, but which is the only thing we have in common. My opposition was based on my professional experience in Kosovo and Afghanistan – specifically the likely negative impact that such an intervention would have on the people of Iraq. Clark’s is based solely on knee-jerk disapproval of US foreign policy and a bizarre defence of the principle of sovereignty which has a peculiar focus on those leaders who have been accused of crimes against humanity.
He is motivated more by his desire to score political points than by any concern for the lives of people who are affected either by interventionist wars or his favoured dictators. His stance on this issue only reveals that he is prepared to sacrifice peoples’ lives in pursuit of his political hobby-horse – a position which he of course shares with his favoured dictators.
UPDATE: Neil Clark has now changed his position to say that they should be allowed in to the country, but he is now campaigning instead to force people who supported the war to pay for the costs of resettling these refugees. My only reply must be “Doh!”
If the invasion was aggressive, then the logical course of action is to put the interpreters on trial for aiding and abetting aggression, and Nick Cohen et al. for propagandising in favour of a war of aggression.
However, the UN Security Council has recognised the government of Iraq presently in place, and has passed many resolutions inconsistent with a judgement that the Coalition are aggressors in contravention of the UN Charter. The Security Council is fully entitled in law to do this as long as it was reasonable to determine that Iraq was threatening the peace, or breaching it, or was committing aggression.
In the event, there were at the time of the invasion sixteen Chapter VII Resolutions in place in regard to Iraq, determining the persistence of the threat to international peace and security which had arisen when Iraq invaded Kuwait.
Absent such a determination, and any reason for one on the facts, the Security Council cannot lawfully authorise the use of force, because this would contravene customary international law (jus cogens). In that event the UN had no business accepting the credentials of Iraq’s Permanent Representative from anyone other than Saddam Hussein and his successor Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri as the legitimate Head of State.
No matter what the status of the invasion (and I am much less clear on it than Conor is), it’s by no means a logical course of action to put the interpreters on trial. This precedent would mean that you would have to put on trial every Iraqi currently working for the Coalition forces (cleaners, cooks, truck-drivers and so on) as well as every Iraqi that worked for the Iraqi administration prior to the transfer of sovereignty in June 2004 (including the current administration and most of the civil service). This is a huge number of people, many of whom are completely unrelated to combat operations, and I fail to see how this is either feasible or desirable.
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