Editor-in-Chief: Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman
Bush, Blair bigger murderers than Saddam, al-Qaeda:
Mahathir KUALA LUMPUR: Former Malaysian leader Mahathir
Mohamad accused George W Bush and Tony Blair of being more evil and bigger
murderers than Saddam Hussein and the Sept 11 attackers. In some of his most
provocative swipes at the US and British leaders, Mahathir said Monday that
their war in Iraq had caused worse terror than al-Qaedas suicide bombers
around the world.
History should remember Blair and Bush as the killers of children, or as the
lying prime minister and president, said Mahathir, long known for frequent and
scathing verbal attacks on Western countries and culture. As prime minister,
Mahathir was unabashedly vocal in his criticism of the United States, Britain
and Australia. After stepping down in October 2003, he has become even more
strident. What Blair and Bush have done is worse than what Saddam had done,
Mahathir, 81, said in a speech to inaugurate a three-day conference organised
by his non-government organisation, Perdana, and aimed at criminalising war.
On Wednesday, conference delegates are expected to formally launch a war
tribunal that would hold trials for world leaders, including Bush and Blair,
against whom common citizens file complaints. The tribunal will not have the
legal authority of any international organisation and will not be able to
impose penalties, but Mahathir said its aim is to condemn the accused in
history books.
We should not hang Blair if the tribunal finds him guilty, but he should
always carry the label War Criminal, Killer of Children, Liar, Mahathir
said. And so should Bush and the pocket Bush of the Bush land of Australia,
he said, referring to Australias Prime Minister John Howard, a staunch ally in
Washingtons campaign against terrorism. Seventeen people, nine from Iraq, five
from the Palestinian territories and three from Lebanon, have arrived for the
peace conference, where they will submit oral or written complaints to the
so-called Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission.
After investigations, the commission will decide whether the leaders accused in
the complaints should stand trial, albeit in absentia, at the war tribunal.
Mahathir said terrorist attacks, such as those of Sept. 11, 2001,are weak
peoples retaliation against oppression by powerful countries.
In the war on terror ordered by Bush, Mahathir was a front-line Asian ally of
the US immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, arresting and jailing more than
100 suspected Islamic sympathisers of al-Qaeda in Malaysia. However, Mahathir
maintains that the root cause of Islamic terrorism is the injustices of the
West, especially in thePalestinian territories and Iraq.
Terrorism cannot be condoned, but neither can the cruel retaliation by
powerful countries, he said. The Sept 11 attackers may have killed about 3,000
people, but about 600,000 people have been killed during the US-led war in Iraq
and Afghanistan, he said. The terror caused (by powerful countries) is
actually greater, and the powerful countries are much more terrorists than the
suicide bombers, he said.
ABDUL WAHID OSMAN BELAL
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