Bringing Monsters to Justice

In the past few weeks a lot of attention has been focused on a video by the advocacy group Invisible Children called Kony 2012 which went viral and sparked a major debate. I should first state that I have not seen the video myself, but I had already heard of Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army, and I knew that they stood out for their brutality, even among the many violent groups that plague Africa and other war-torn parts of the world.

Some of the criticisms of the video sound legitimate, others less so. It sounds as if it oversimplified history considerably, and even gave the impression that Kony was still an active danger in Uganda, where he and his group originated, when in fact they were forced out of the country in 2005. Ugandans were upset that the video did not seem to consider their views at all, as this report explains. Though some degree of simplification is inevitable, the lack of a Ugandan perspective is regrettable. Criticism of how the group spends its money seems less justified, since, as the report notes, their main purpose is advocacy. Some critics have also argued that it would be better to be drawing attention to some of the groups that are bigger and more active, such as some operating in the Congo (coincidentally, a Congolese warlord named Thomas Lubanga was convicted last week by the International Criminal Court of using child soldiers, which is one of the main abuses the Kony video focuses on – but a warlord who was accused along with Lubanga is still active in the Congo, as are others who are guilty of atrocities). If the video brings attention to the issue of child soldiers in general, this may not be a problem – and in fact Amnesty International referred to the video in a petition they recently circulated that called on Western governments to increase pressure on African governments over this issue – though there is something to be said for tackling the biggest threats first.

It sounds to me as if the Kony 2012 video would have been better if it were framed not so much as advocating efforts to stop a present threat (though LRA depredations continue on a small scale in countries near Uganda) as calling for a murderous war criminal to be brought to justice. The little I have read about on Kony in the past was enough to make it clear he certainly should not be allowed escape paying for his crimes. Unfortunately, if he did manage to do so, he would hardly be the first one. I (and I’m sure many other people) have often felt it to be one of the great injustices of the world that many people who commit atrocities manage to escape any sort of punishment.

Not long ago, the infamously brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin died peacefully in exile in Saudi Arabia without ever having to pay for his crimes, and he was hardly the only African dictator to escape justice, though he may have been the most notorious. And Africa is not the only place which has had leaders that have slaughtered huge numbers of people. While the leader of the murderous Khmer Rogue, Pol Pot, was eventually arrested and put on trial for treason by his own followers in an apparent effort to boost their own chances of getting amnesty in a peace deal (Pol Pot coincidentally died soon after – perhaps by suicide or poison), the only other leader of the regime to be convicted by any sort of court so far has been Kang Kek Iew, aka Duch, the former head of the Tuol Sleng prison (one of the most depressing places I’ve ever been to). Three other Khmer Rogue leaders are currently on trial (with a fourth being examined for fitness to stand trial due to Alzheimer's), but the tribunal has faced many problems, such that many fear the accused – all of whom are quite elderly – will die of old age before they are convicted. Though several others have already been implicated, the Cambodian government has blocked further investigation of these cases, in part because many in the current government, including long-time prime minister/dictator Hun Sen, were also once members of the Khmer Rogue and fear being implicated. As a result, prospects of trying anyone else from the regime are dim.

In one of my previous posts, I referred to the US-backed leader of South Vietnam, Ngô Dinh Diệm, and his much-hated brother and hatchet man Ngô Dinh Nhu, and how they were killed after having been captured following a coup in a manner not unlike the way Muammar Gaddafi died (their relationship was also somewhat analogous to that of Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria, and his even more murderous brother, Maher al-Assad, who heads the country’s security forces). What I find particularly unfortunate is that Nhu’s wife Tran Le Xuan, known as Madam Nhu, died in Europe only last year without ever having to face any punishment for her own misdeeds (aside from abetting her husband and brother-in-law in their brutality, when a number of Buddhist monks self-immolated to protest the government’s anti-Buddhist policies, she said “Let them burn and we shall clap our hands”, prompting her parents to disown her). But she was far from the only person who had a hand in atrocities in Vietnam to escape justice. One of the most infamous atrocities ever committed by US soldiers was the My Lai massacre in 1968, and yet only one soldier, William Calley, served a short prison sentence. Some others who by most accounts were guilty of taking an active part, such as Stephen Brooks, David Mitchell, Gary Roschevitz, and Calley’s commander Ernest Medina all got off without punishment, and some of them are still alive and free today. Even here in Taiwan there are no doubt some people still alive who participated in political murders such as that of Chen Wen-cheng or the family of Lin Yi-hsiung.

Unfortunately the list of people who have committed atrocities in war or as while acting in a position of authority (whether as police, soldiers or political leaders) and yet never were called to account is endless. More to the point today is the fact that there are many such people who are still alive and in some cases active (the Assad brothers are only the most egregious case; no one has been brought to trial for recent atrocities and war crimes in places like Guinea, Sri Lanka, Tibet or Bahrain either). While it is too much to hope that everyone guilty of participating in crimes against humanity will face justice, it would certainly be good if more people like Kony were brought to trial. If the Kony 2012 video helps accomplish that, it will have done something good. However, people should keep in mind that there are many others like Kony out there, and every effort should be made to bring as many of them to justice as possible.

Postscript: To learn about another horrendous situation, read this article, and read this for things that can be done to help.