As the 2011 Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference was rounding up in Australia, the family of the murdered Libyan leader, Colonel Abu Minyar Kaddafi, declared that they would take the NATO to court in order to seek redress for the murder of their father.
I shall examine the legal issues in the case later in this epic narration. It will be purely academic in keeping with the didactic code of BOSAS INTERNATIONAL LAW BUREAU, to disseminate the tenets of international law and propagate its cardinal objectives.
My assessment of the psychology of human intelligence in the United Kingdom enriched my appreciation of the Concept of Intelligence.
Intelligence in the German-speaking countries ranks very highly. One cannot explain the reason why some earth people are more advanced than others, except one studies and understands the diligence that propels their forward march.
Time was when Britannia ruled the waves and was proud to sing, “God save the Queen.”
Aware that their colonial empire, being a human contrivance to lord it over nations in far-away-places, would inevitably come to an end, British Intelligence designed a geo-political outfit called the British Commonwealth of Nations. Britain was the Head of this Commonwealth.
” The term Commonwealth was given to Cromwell’s government of 1879-52 and more loosely to the whole of the period from the execution of Charles 1 in 1649 to the restoration of Charles11, in 1660.
It next appeared in British history as the name given to the Federation of Australia states in 1900-1. The term “Commonwealth of Nations” of the British empire by Lord Roseberry in 1883. It was General Smuts, who invented the term “British Commonwealth of Nations in 1919, as a suitable description of self-governing countries of the British empire and this conception was defined by the Imperial Conference of 1926.As a result the Dominion Office was renamed the Commonwealth Relations Office.”
The name Commonwealth was cleverly used to give the impression that the wealth of members was common to all. This was false and it is still false. During one of the London talks for Nigeria’s independence, was it Sir Winston Churchill or Harold Wilson, who said” What we have we hold.”
Mazi Mbonu Ojike was reported to have replied, “When what you have is hot, you will drop it.” Nigerian nationalists were stern in their attitude to preserve human dignity and never responded with grinning from ear to ear, with a bovine stare and hanging lips.
After the independence of many British colonies, the British Commonwealth was then simply called, “The Commonwealth of Nations”, which was a misnomer because those nations had become independent, sovereign states which were now equal in international law.
So, the organization became known as “The Commonwealth”. The Queen was no longer the de jure Head of the organization, but a titular head.
The British Commonwealth is a geo-political institution, which enabled Britain to maintain it post-colonial relations with its former colonies. She generously allowed an Indian and a Nigerian diplomat to become the Secretary-General of the Organization.
Unified by the English language and culture, ex-colonial states were able to relate to each other through the Commonwealth Relations Office. Britain established the British Council and High Commissions throughout its former empire. It also exported the Chatham House intellectual concept, of which, in Nigeria, the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs stands proud.
The Nigerian Institute of International Affairs has always managed to assemble some bright scholars, but the various Heads of States, have not given the Institute the necessary funding to enable its scholars to perform.
Let us hope that under the administration of my friend, the Sorbonne-trained international affairs scholar, Professor Bola Akinterinwa, the intellectual rigour of the “Nigerian Chatham House” will return.
The Commonwealth is gradually losing its relevance because most of the ex-colonials have adopted independent attitudes. Also, the old colonially-trained officials of the Oxbridge genre have left office through inevitable retirements and other forces of nature.
The present Nigerian universities do not produce useable intellectual trading post agents, suitable for recruitment into the old-boy network.
The business thrives elsewhere, where drop-outs are available for use against their countries and people.
The relevance of the Commonwealth has declined since British immigration policies are no longer as liberal, when the Commonwealth was British. As a student , the British immigration officer, politely ushered me into Britain, without even opening my green passport.
Now, “it is easier for the camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for Nigerians to enter Britain”. The last time, the immigration officer let me travel to Cambridge University’s Lauterpatcht Centre for international Law; I was grilled for sometime before I was admitted.
One may not blame the British for having adopted a stricter immigration rules. At the rate people, entered Britain, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the stay-put attitude of casual tourists, Britons are beginning to ask “Who owns “MAMA’s land?
During the last meeting of the Conservative Party, Mrs. Theresa May, the Secretary of Internal Affairs, was absolutely furious about the immigration situation in Britain. However, she cannot be seen to violate provisions of the European Human Rights Convention and the British Human Rights Act.
It was not reported that Commonwealth Prime Ministers took her to task about her position or did they?
The Commonwealth did not seem to have taken a concerted resolution on the Libyan crisis. However, some Commonwealth commentators have examined the positive and negative aspects of the era of Murmmar Abu Minyar al-Kaddafi.
At BOSAS INTERNATIONAL LAW BUREAU, Fugar, Edo State, Nigeria, we took an academic interest in examining the alleged acts of Kaddafi against his people and the alleged merits of Kaddafi, in order to give a clearer picture of the man. We also reviewed NATO/s role in Libya.
The independent scholar and the independent judge everywhere stand on a footing of manifest equality because, unlike hired writers and propagandists, who later claim vindication, the scholar and the judge know that whatever is written is for the whople world to see, till time indefinite.
It was said that Kaddafi was high-handed in dealing with his opponents, but all leaders do, if and when they feel threatened, otherwise, why do they call out the police in all Commonwealth states and in other states? That Kaddafi was arrogant and acted like a Pharaoh, who often defied Western Powers in annoying fashion. He was intolerant and thought too much of himself.
Some other leaders do. That he stayed in office for too long, but this happens in states governed by Kings and Queens, descendants of Royal families take over from each other. He was accused of orchestrating the bombing of a discotheque in Berlin, where American soldiers entertain themselves. He also orchestrated the Lockerbie bombing in which over two hundred people died. That he exported terrorism world-wide. He was also hated for seeking to create the United States of Africa.
It is very remarkable that after its historic meeting in Brussels last week, the European Union is considering setting up a United States of Europe!
According to Timothy Bancroft Hinchey, “Muammar Abu Minyar el-Qathafi “inherited the poorest country in the world and turned it into one of the richest in Africa. He provided Libyans with literacy and a free education and then paid for university grants. Ten per cent of Libyans studied abroad in Europe and America, paid by the state in board and lodging. He gave each married couple US 50,000, to settle down. He paid half the price of the first car. He provided interest-free bank loan
s. He provided free medical care. He built the world’s most advanced irrigation system, bringing water to most of Libya across the desert. He provided farmers with seeds, land, tools and instruction. He constructed free high-ways.
In the height of the civil war, when Tripoli, Misrata and Sirte were under heavy bombardment “to defend the Libyan people”, the electricity was defiantly on.
Although he inherited the poorest country in the world from King Idris, he gave it the highest Human Development index in Africa. He provided African states with free loans in order to free them from the debts peonage .He paid funds from oil into the bank account of Libyans.”The international community she check out these claims!!!
He wrote an inchoate, philosophical treatise, without much intellectual range, in which he enunciated his Jamahiriya ideology.”It is the attempt and not the deed that confounds us.” The thoughts in his Green Book, must have etched the idea in Libyan psychology that any attack on Libya has always been associated with the quest for Libyan oil.
Experts estimate that Libyan oil production for marketing might take, quite a while. So, from where will Libyans find the resources to re-build their Carthage?
The Romans chanted the mantra “Carthage must be destroyed” and was indeed destroyed.
Since its destruction, Carthage lays in ruins, so is Kosovo and other war-ravaged entities around the globe.
The Commonwealth, which could have assisted Libya in its reconstruction efforts, is having economic problems.
If Timothy Bancroft Hinchey’s expose on Libya under Qathafi are true, the people of Libya in Tripoli and Benghazi would for a long time lament their Paradise Lost.
I have observed that each time the US tries to bring about democracy in foreign states, it backfires. For example, when the US combated communism in the Soviet Union for over thiry years, the idea was to liberate East European states from communism. When in 1989 the Soviet Union collapsed, the East European states did not embrace America. Its plans in Poland did not materialize.
After all the efforts to turn Iraq into a democratic state, the efforts pushed Iraq into the Shitte orbit, with Iranian influence now obvious.
Pakistan receives a lot of assistance to fight radical groups. The story that the radical groups receive help from PAKISTAN is going the rounds. After nine years of fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, there does not seem to be progress.
The Kaddafi’s substitutes in Libya have declared that Sharia Law will be state law. The Muslim brotherhood may find good allies in Libya. The West has heard and they are abashed. The United Nations Security Council has ended NATO operations in Libya and the NTC is abashed.
It is a fact that there are many deadly weapons in the hands of the pro-Kaddafi insurgents, who will now be the new rebels. The NTC rebels seem to have wasted their bullets in celebrating the death of Kaddafi.
The Tuareg fighters are reported to be ready for armed struggle. With a lot of money and weapons in their arsenal, the future of Libya is an open question.
In all these events, the Commonwealth did not seem to have played any role, although some of its members gave moral and material support to the NTC rebels.
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2011
The Commonwealth Heads of Government and Business Leaders met in Perth, Australia and took constructive decisions on instituting an Infrastructure Fund for Africa. A Commonwealth Business Council would oversee the plan’s implementation. The business cooperation between Commonwealth states could facilitate Africa’s international economic relations.
What worries me is the habit of making grandiloquent speeches at such venues, only to find little or no action on the ground years after ebullient proclamations.
At the UN, Nigeria is canvassing for preventive diplomacy. Unfortunately, African states and other states always suffer and the concept cannot be applied to big powers. The Commonwealth did not implement a balanced policy of engagement, with its leaders blaming leaders they do not like.
Hate was an excuse for the Libyan tragedy. What and who is next?
Kaddafi Vs NATO
It has been announced that the family of Murmar Kaddafi has filed a petition/suit against NATO for events that culminated in the brutal death of Colonel Murmar Abu Minyar el-Kaddafi, at the ICC in the Hague.
The Libyan War and the International Law of Armed Conflict
The family has to establish that the Libyan war led to the sum of human misery and destruction of property and infrastructure in Libya. That Col Kaddafi was murdered as a result of NATO military operations, which were prosecuted through the excessive use of force, excessive bombardment of homes, and car convoys in which Kaddafi was travelling. That NATO bombardment of Sirte was in violation of the rules for the conduct of hostilities and this led to the death of Kaddafi on 20th of October, 2011.That excessive force was used against civilian populations and combatants.
Those NATO military operations violated the following Treaties, Conventions and Declarations, thereby violating the norms of jus covens and international law of Armed Conflicts.
1. American Convention on Human Rights, “Pact of San Jose. Costa Rica, 22 November, 1969.
2. European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Rome, 1950.
3. Convention for the Protection of War Victims, (Sick and Wounded Armed Forces in the Field)
-Prisoners of War
Geneva-Civilian Persons, Geneva, 12 August 1949.
4. Convention on Prohibitions and Restrictions on the Use of Conventional Weapons which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (protocol) 10 October, 1980.
5. Declaration concerning the Prohibition of Using Projectiles the Sole Object of which is the Diffusion of Asphyxiating or Deleterious Gases, The Hague, 29 July, 1899.
6. Declaration concerning the Prohibition of using Bullets which Expand of Flatten easily in the Human Body. The Hague 29 July, 1899.
7 Convention Relative to Opening of Hostilities- The Hague, 18 October, 1907.
8. Convention Respecting Bombardment by Naval Forces in Time of War- The Hague, !8 October,
9. Rules of Air Warfare The Hague, December, 22- February 1923 ( as authoritative guide.)
10. Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of War (with Annexes: Regulations and Protocol), The Hague 14 April, 1954.
11. Protocol Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, Geneva 8 June, 1977
12. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, New York, 10 December, 1948.
13. Principles of International Law Recognised in the Charter of the Nurnberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal (United Nations International Law Commission), June -July, 1950.
14. Convention on Non-Applicability of Statute of Limitation to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity UN General Assembly Resolution 2391(XXX111), 26 November, 1968.
15. Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from being Subjected to torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or degrading Treatment or Punishment. UN General Assembly Resolution3452 (xxx) 9 December 1975).
16. Convention Against the taking of Hostage. UN General Assembly Resolution 34/169, 14 December, 1979.
It is hereby declared that the war in Libya was an international armed conflict because a group of states invaded Libya in order to overthrow a government that was a bona fide member of the United Nations Organisation, in order to aid and abet a rebel group to overthrow the existing government known as the Jamahiriya Libya Republic., in the full view of members of the United Nations Organisation, whose mandate was wantonly disregarded by the military organization, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The NATO Secretary -General, Mr A.F Ramussen is ready to disprove these observations. The lawyer to the
Kaddafi family of whas accused NATO of crimes against the Libyan people and the destruction of the State of Libya.
That reparations should be paid by NATO to the people of Libya and the family of Col Muamar Kaddafi. This deposition is on all fours with the judgment of the Nurnberg Trials.
Saif Kaddafi Vs the ICC
Around June, 2011, the ICC framed charges against Saif Kaddafi, but could not execute the processes to bring him to trial. It can be argued that the leaders of the NTC committed war crimes and they too, should be probe by the ICC.
There is evidence of criminal negligence by the NTC, whereby, a soldier under its authority captured alive, but summarily executed Col. Kaddafi and was seen to admit and be proud of his act. There is evidence of excessive bombardment for a period of over one month of Sirte, without caring whether civilians were killed or not and firing bullets in the air to terrorize Sirte civilians killing many citizens in the process.
ICC and Nigeria.
The ICC made sweeping generalizations about human rights violations in Nigeria, without specifics. The law does not thrive on generalizations.
A statement by the ICC Prosecutor said” The office made its examination of the situation in Nigeria public on October 18, 2010. Nigeria is a State Party to the Rome Rome Statute since September 21, 2001.”
The big and overwhelming question, which the ICC must clarify is , is Libya a State Party to the Rome Statute and if not, what justification propels sending the Libya case to the ICC?
It is very curious for the ICC to base its investigations about Nigerian internal affairs on an inchoate report, which should have exhausted internal judicial procedures before the cases were externalized. If the matters are already in Nigerian courts, they should not be admissible at the ICC because of the principle of Litispendency.
I have continued to marvel at a judicial system which has extended its jurisdiction to even states that are not State Party to the Treaty of Rome
This was why I had advocated that the TREATY OF ROME should be revised. I am of the same opinion still. We are waiting to see how the ICC will deal with the case of Kaddafi Vs NATO. It will make or mar the ICC.
The Ghoulish Enterprise in Libya
There are demoniacs in every culture, who are always enamoured by sadistic, ghoulish and satanic horrors. They relish the most wanton destruction of the Sons and Daughters of God in the name of geopolitical struggles, wars and other events that debase the human soul.
There were sophomore diplomats, who relished the death of Kaddafi as “vindication “of their diplomatic miscalculations. As it happened throughout the unfortunate incident, they would later somersault to look good.
Any state that does not see the injustice in the decimation of another because of the hatred of their leader must be candidates for insipid metaphors. They must be capable of enjoying the ruins of Vietnam, the skulls of Pol Pots irreverent killings, the horrors of Rwanda, the Holocaust, the killings at Odi, the Hitlerism at Leningrad, the ruins of Warsaw, which saw war and was no more, the killings in Mexico and Columbia.
Those, who applaud the death of any man or woman, are sick in the soul, a God-forsaken lot who cannot enter the Paradise of the most High God, whose creatures, the Luciferian hierarchy emboldens the agents of the anti-christ to decimate, during wars, muggings and sinister engagements.
JEHOVAH ADONI is sounding the End-TIME warnings through the winds, the rains, thunders, hurricanes, monsoons, lightnings that JESUS is coming soon. When will the celestial light descend on the black race?
