The International Criminal Court and the "Black Hole"

The International Criminal Court and the “Black Hole” by Steve Clemens. October 28, 2010

Professor/Lawyer Peter Erlinder sat in front of us with his eyeglasses perched on his upper forehead very reminiscent of another lawyer of the recent past who also blazed a path for justice in defending the unpopular and marginalized: William Kunstler. While Kunstler actually defended the Chicago 8 after the Democratic National Convention in 1968, Erlinder was not part of the recent RNC 8 case protesting another American war of imperialism – but many of his friends and colleagues were. Instead, Erlinder was sitting in a jail cell in Rwanda as the result of his attempts to defend a candidate for President of that nation from charges of “genocide denial”.

It’s been only four months since his release for “health reasons” (and significant pressure from the U.S. State Department and the world community) and Erlinder’s talk at the Mad Hatter’s Coffeehouse on Tuesday evening was designed to give the 20 or so of us in attendance a broader context to understand what is happening in east-central Africa.

Before addressing the International Criminal Court (ICC), Professor Erlinder gave us a quick update on Rwanda. After his arrest and imprisonment and the attention of the world placed on this small African nation sandwiched between The Congo, Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda, a Green Party candidate for President was beheaded, a prominent journalist was killed, and there was an assassination attempt on the life of a former Rwandan General who had fled to South Africa. On August 26^th, a 600-page report from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (aka The Mapping Report) very critical of the Kagame regime’s actions in the DRC (Congo) was leaked. This was only weeks after Kagame’s reelection with more than 90% of the vote – often a telltale sign of a rigged election.

With the release of the leaked UN report, Erlinder said, “the story is starting to unravel” – meaning that for the first time the world media is beginning to seriously reexamine the dominant story-line about the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s and the role Kagame and his Tutsi rebel army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front or RPF, may have played in it. The U.S. White House recently issued their first-ever critical statement about the Rwandan administration. Kagame just signed a military agreement with the Chinese. And Victoire Ingabire, Erlinder’s former client and Presidential candidate, was rearrested - this time for “material support of terrorism” and jailed in the same cell where Erlinder had been held. She has just been denied bail and was shipped to one of Rwanda’s notorious prisons.

With the recent FBI raids in Minneapolis, it seems like Rwanda is learning quickly to imitate its imperial masters with phony charges meant to intimidate others.

To understand the role and history of the International Criminal Court, Erlinder told us to look at the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals after World War II if we really want to explore how the ICC reinforces American foreign policy. Both of these post-war Tribunals were designed to condemn the vanquished; they weren’t designed to be even-handed in looking at war crimes, they were legitimated by military victory and provided only “victor’s justice”.

When the United Nations Charter was established, there was no vehicle within it to hold individuals accountable for war crimes or egregious human rights violations, just those of nation-states through the vehicle of the World Court. Erlinder claimed that it was Stalin rather than Churchill or FDR/Truman who pushed for trials of Germans and Japanese in order to delegitimize the vanquished. With the Security Council’s veto power held by the five “permanent members”, the US and the UK held the Soviets at bay – and visa-versa - for much of the next 40 years.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s, the US and UK had much freer rein because the Soviets were too weak and China was just becoming an economic and military power. Within this vacuum, the US and UK initiated an International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 1993 and a similar tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 1994. They were justified under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter that allows for peacekeeping forces but Erlinder contended that the US/UK wanted to have “peacemaking” powers as well – thus the Tribunals. However, these tribunals were designed on the adversarial system and clearly limited in scope of which crimes to prosecute – only those by “them”, NOT by NATO or other allies of the US like Kagame.

By the end of the 1990s, the UN sought to establish a more permanent vehicle to prosecute individuals and the Treaty of Rome in 2000 established the International Criminal Court. However, once again with the initiation of the US/UK domination, the ICC severely restricted who could initiate cases: only nation-state signatories or the UN Security Council, NOT non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International. Erlinder claims it was set up to prosecute rebel groups but not state forces.

Although President Clinton signed the Treaty before leaving office, he did not submit it for ratification with the US Senate. After George W. Bush succeeded him, he “unsigned” the Treaty to prevent any Americans from being prosecuted by a world body. Even though the US cannot bring cases before the ICC as a non-signatory, as a powerful permanent member of the Security Council, it carries the ability to initiate cases against those with whom we wish to oppose. So, through the Security Council, the US can refer cases to the ICC without risking any prosecution themselves!

Erlinder described the power of the US in the world community by using the language initiated by physicist Stephen Hawking: a “black hole” which sucks everything within its gravitational pull into its orbit, eventually absorbing it with its power. Like the black cylinder at the Science Museum where kids roll a coin around and around until it is “swallowed up” at the center, The US uses its role as “the world’s only superpower” to dominate anything within its ever-expanding sphere. Everyone is aware of its power and influence even as the empire is collapsing. Still it sucks everything into its gravitational pull. What a great metaphor!

A perfect example of this occurred when Carla Del Ponte, the Chief Prosecutor for ICTY and later ICTR chose to broaden her investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity to include the actions of Kagame and his rebel forces. She developed evidence that Kagame should be indicted for his role in the assassinations of Rwanda’s and Burundi’s Presidents in April of 1994 which triggered much of the genocide which followed but was summarily dismissed from her position soon after she visited Washington, DC and was told to drop the investigation. She said she “worked for the UN, not the US” but soon found out otherwise when she refused to stop her investigation, mistakenly thinking that the Tribunal was after the “truth” rather than just to persecute political enemies. Erlinder pointed out that “everyone” connected with the Tribunals or the ICC know what happened to Del Ponte - and why - and thus won’t try to challenge the limits the US tries to place against prosecution of those who do our bidding. In fact, the prosecutor who replaced her in 2003 has only prosecuted members of the defeated group of Hutus.

We know about Carla Del Ponte because her memoir, Madame Prosecutor, was published in February 2009. However, she has since been appointed as the Swiss Ambassador to Argentina and her government has ordered her not to talk about what she wrote in her book.

To date, every defendant charged by the ICC is African – and all of them find themselves on the “other side” from US interests. After the US pressured the ICC (through the Security Council) to indict the leader of Sudan (another country that refused to sign or ratify the Treaty), all the African presidents unanimously voted not to cooperate with the ICC.

The struggle to restrain power through law can be traced back to the Magna Carta forced on King John by those he was oppressing. This process has had fits and starts. In war, Erlinder observed, there are always cases of crimes on both sides. When a Tribunal or Court only looks to one side of the ledger, one can’t get justice. There is an imbalance built into the ICC that gives more power to nation-state actors than others.

While leaving much of the detailed story of Rwanda’s genocide for another talk to be given two nights later at William Mitchell Law School where he is a Professor, Erlinder did observe that most Americans know about Rwanda through the camera lens of the movie “Hotel Rwanda”. (Erlinder is friends with Paul Rusesabagina, the real-life hero of the movie that features actor Don Cheadle in that role and he is a member of the nonprofit board Rusesabagina established.) As “good a story” as the movie is, the law professor said, “ ‘Hotel Rwanda’ is as accurate about the Rwandan civil war as ‘Gone With the Wind’ is about the US Civil War.” If you only see the latter movie, you come to think “the damn Yankees” and General Sherman are the real villains and slavery wasn’t all that bad.

Erlinder concluded with the observation: if you ultimate goal is to learn the truth of what happened and to work to heal the nation, going the route of a Tribunal will not get you there. Tribunals are just good for condemnation and retribution. Instead, take the path modeled by South Africa – a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. But there is a trade-off – it will often mean that the perpetrator will not be punished (even though he/she will probably be shamed). But, Erlinder continued, “righteous indignation” will almost never get the whole story right. Erlinder didn’t say it but the thought came to my mind: in order for that to work, one also needs a Mandela-type to order it and a Bishop Tutu-type of leader to run it. Now that they are both retired, the world could use a few more like them.

Punishment To Fit the Crime?

Punishment To Fit The Crime? By Steve Clemens. October 2010

In the past two years, I have been given the “opportunity” to do court-ordered “Community Service”. Often the sentence is to pay a monetary fine (plus “court costs”) and then the Judge allows a substitution of community service to be performed in lieu of paying the fine. Historically, community service was a way for poor people to be “punished” for their conviction in court when they were unable to pay the fine. Today it is sometimes used to assuage the “convictions” of protestors who object to paying money to the government (the fine) as a “tax” on their conscience.

So, how does a Judge determine the amount of community service to equal the fine – or, how much community service should be required to heal the “breach of the peace” which led to the guilty verdict in the courtroom?

Years past my position was clear: don’t pay the fine or agree to community service when convicted of the “offense” of acting on your conscience. Most of my convictions were resulting from “trespass” charges – usually on the property of an activity which should not exist: the plant assembling nuclear bombs, a plant building first-strike submarines, a military base training soldiers in techniques designed to sew terror in the hearts and minds of Latin Americans. The list goes on and on.

Sometimes the arrest comes at a public place in protest of a specific activity or policy advocated by the resident office holder: at the White House against the current war or practice of torture, at the Capitol in protest of taking from the poor to give to the military, at the Immigration Office to protest deportations. Yet other morally legitimate things also happen at those sites: new immigrants are welcomed as citizens, policies are passed to help protect the environment, and decisions are made to end discrimination against marginalized groups and individuals.

One of the things I’ve learned from U.S. history is that a lot of the significant change (for the better) that we’ve seen has been principally brought about politically because of citizens taking to the streets or lunch counters in protest, risking arrest and imprisonment. Women’s suffrage, the 5-day workweek, civil rights, human rights, shortening wars of aggression, even preventing the development or deployment of some weapon systems has been facilitated by acts of conscience and protest, mostly through nonviolent action.

Under our present “justice” system, we’ve evolved theories which primarily see the State (or city or federal government) as the “victim” of the “crime” for which we are arrested. This often leads to the notion in a trespass case that the “owner” of the property (often a war merchant or an elected official who supports the wars or other evil policies) is at most peripheral to the case to the Judge but absolutely central for the defendant.

Therefore Judges often choose not to listen to arguments about intent or motive from the defendant because to do so is too threatening to the established order. The Courts mostly see their role in protecting the establishment, the status quo – that is from where their power emanates. Not many judges are willing to face the fact that the Nuremberg Tribunals also convicted German judges for their roles in the perversion of justice during the reign of the Nazi Party.

At what point do judges ever look back on their own history to see what should have been done differently? Are there any judges alive today who now wish they’d handled Martin Luther King differently when he stood before them in the dock? Plans are underway to erect a monument to him on the Washington Mall yet there are still probably a few of the lifetime-appointed Federal Judges who still defend sending him to jail.

When we finally (and we will) abolish nuclear weapons and give human rights to sexual minorities, society will have a different take on the Berrigan brothers and GLBT/queer activists. But until that day, principled protesters will be cuffed and shackled and hauled before judges for their civil disobedience. Sometimes the result will be jail or prison; more often it will be a fine, probation, and possibly “community service”. What community service is appropriate when the charge is pointing out that the emperor has no clothes?

After blocking the ICE Center to prevent undocumented immigrants from being deported, I was assigned work picking up trash and mowing grass at public boat landings in the wealthy suburbs. The only connection to the “crime committed” is that often those tasks are done by low-wage workers, many of who are new arrivals to this country or those who have been marginalized for decades if not centuries.

The protest against the wars during the Republican National Convention resulted in 24 hours of community service – this time of my own choosing, as long as it was in Ramsey County. I counted my many hours transporting Iraqi visitors around the Twin Cities for that sentence. At least there was a connection for me between opposition to the war and working to heal some of the wounds by acts of reconciliation with those who may have been our “enemy”.

Arrested at the headquarters to the local war profiteer Alliant Techsystems last fall, my judge was very creative: he told the four defendants about his sister who had polio as a child and how local Shriners and Children’s Hospitals gave her great care. He told us after hearing our testimony that we cared deeply for victims of indiscriminate weapons, especially children, so he recommended we do our community service at one of those hospitals – which we did with great joy. This hospital is now providing free treatment to a young Iraqi boy who lost his leg during the war.

Most recently, my judge in Kansas City allowed me to perform my 10 hours of community service (for protesting the use of city funding to build a nuclear weapons plant) at a place of my choosing, adding, and “I hope at least some of it will be here in our city”. I chose to work with a Catholic Worker community that lives, works, and serves with the homeless of Kansas City – the population that should have received the tax monies that were earmarked for blighted neighborhoods but ironically spent on a weapons plant that could wreak blight on the entire planet.

While I like the sense of symmetry that my last three stints of community service engendered, whenever possible I’d prefer a jail sentence over a fine or “sentenced-to-service”. There is something powerfully symbolic about being in jail when one’s society and government are out of whack. Thoreau’s challenge to his friend Emerson – “Why aren’t you in here with me?” – is a testament of marching to the beat of a different drummer. Martin’s call for us to become “drum majors for justice” continues to beckon us to risk jail or community service, even when others say it is “unwise or untimely” like his critics claimed when he was in the Birmingham Jail.

I don’t expect to receive a posthumous Monument on the Capitol Mall – but I do want to be part of those struggling to become the “beloved community” that Martin dreamed of and embodied – that would be a true “community service”!

Blinded By "The Law"

Blinded By “The Law” by Steve Clemens. October 19, 2010

Judge Teresa R. Warner, perched above the packed Courtroom 131 B in Ramsey County Courthouse. A special hearing had been called to allow the 4 remaining defendants in the notorious RNC 8 case to agree to settle their cases with a plea bargain, thus avoiding the 4-6 week jury trial scheduled for beginning next week. She listened as each of the four young men pled “guilty” to either a charge of “conspiracy to commit damage to property in the third degree” or “conspiracy to riot in the 3^rd degree”.

She meticulously insisted that each of the defense attorneys go over what rights the defendants were “giving up” in exchange for their pleas: the right to a jury trial, the right to confront the witnesses, the right to testify oneself, … and on and on – as though these “rights” could somehow even the scales of “justice” when the State retained almost unlimited resources in the desire to win a conviction.

The prosecutors and the defendants (and their lawyers) had agreed to a plea bargain over the weekend: in exchange for a guilty plea, the State would ask for no jail time, no restitution, credit for “time served” after arrest, and agree not to force them to testify against other defendants about incidents around the Republican National Convention in September 2008. They recommended that those pleading guilty be given 100 hours of “Community Service” and requested a 2-year probation period be placed on each of the four.

Each of the Defense lawyers asked the Judge to “stay” (suspend) execution of her sentence for a shorter period of probation until the community service could be performed. Noting that each of the defendants had limited income and had all qualified for court-appointed attorneys due to their economic status, they also asked any fines be limited as well.

One-by-one, each of the four defendants came before the Judge, accepted the guilty plea, and was then asked if they had anything further to say before they were sentenced. Nathanael Secor stated that this case was about the criminalization of dissent. He said that while he was guilty of violating the law, local law enforcement personnel did “many acts” which were also illegal and have not been charged. He commented about the police being part of a network of “social control” which allowed the furtherance of “colonial wars”. He reiterated his desire to “abolish institutions of domination”.

Judge Warner, in preferencing her sentence, stated that she was sentencing Mr. Secor for “his acts, not his political beliefs or motivations”. She stressed she was following the law; he pled guilty to violating the law and was being sentenced for his actions, not his beliefs. After giving him “180 days in jail and a $1000 fine” she then said she would stay the execution of that sentence in exchange for one year of supervised probation (remaining law-abiding with no same or similar offenses and abiding by all the rules of the probation), 100 hours of community service, no more than 10 hours per month for 10 months, no restitution, would not be compelled to testify against others in related cases, and fined $200 plus court cost fees of $81.

Max Specktor was the next defendant to stand before Judge Warner. After his guilty plea, he stated that “conspiracy is only part of the story.” He decried the “spectacle of democracy” that we claim is practiced in the U.S., claiming he preferred to live in a more “decentralized world”. He preferred to address real economic needs he sees: “real needs versus conspicuous consumption”. “I refuse to sleep-walk through life”, he continued. He recognized that he and other defendants have had a lot of privileges in life, including being able to speak on their own behalf while “many too others lack those privileges.” He ended by saying he was committed to help “build the world we wish to see.”

Again, Judge Warner went out of her way to claim her sentence “is based on your acts, not your motivation.” It is what she feels is “appropriate, fair, and just.” It is not about “political opinions or ideals”. To quote Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “Methinks the Lady doth protest too much.”

This case is all about politics. From pre-emptive house raids to ridiculous trumped-up felony charges alleging “terrorism”, it has been from start-to-finish about “politics”. It was about politics to dismiss the charges against both the women and another male defendant. The County Attorney who brought the initial charges was running for Governor as a tough law-and-order candidate. And then there is the real reason any charges were brought at all: Sheriff Bob Fletcher. Most of what he does is political – playing to his political base while mired up to his eyeballs in corruption. His press conferences just prior to the Republican National Convention were designed to ramp up fear and hysteria about “anarchists” coming to his city to create mayhem. For me, the biggest tragedy of this plea bargain deal is that we won’t get to see Sheriff Fletcher in the witness chair, facing committed movement lawyers about what he did and why before and during the Convention.

But the most significant reason this case is all about politics is the utter silence in the courtroom about the grossest violation of law: what the Nuremberg Tribunal calls the supreme international crime: “to initiate a war of aggression”. The main reason thousands of citizens came to protest at the RNC centered around two wars initiated by the President of the United States in contravention of the United Nations Charter. For the court to pretend to strictly follow “the law” while ignoring the context of the war is not only disingenuous but absurd. The fact that both these wars continue (and continue to be ignored by both the media and the courts) is an indictment on our entire society.

Spector’s sentence differed only in the fine amount: $500 rather than $1,000 – most likely due to the different sentencing guidelines between conspiracy to riot rather than to commit property damage.

Rob Czernik followed with his statement of “proudly” when asked if he was guilty-as-charged. His answers of “yep” and “nope” to the questions asked him by the Judge and attorneys certainly did nothing to endear him to the Judge. When asked if he wanted to make a pre-sentencing statement, he responded, “Nope. Get on with it.” Judge Warner gave him two years of supervised probation instead of the one year the two prior defendants received. When asked by his attorney, Jordan Kushner, about the discrepancy, Judge Warner responded briskly that she wasn’t about to negotiate. Her decision was the “court’s discretion”. Excuse me, but “politics aside”, is such a statement from the court based “entirely on ‘the law’”? I doubt it.

Finally, Garrett Fitzgerald was the last defendant. He talked about the dedication of “his whole life to community”. He lives a life of voluntary poverty and sobriety. He was not “wanton” in breaking the law; he broke the law on the basis of his principles. He too claimed that he and the other defendants were specifically targeted for their “political beliefs”. After being cut-off by the Judge from reading a passage from Dr. Suess’ book, The Lorax, Fitzgerald concluded, “What we allow and what we don’t allow says a lot about our society.”

He must have struck a nerve: he got the extra year of probation as well.

I left the Courtroom with a conviction reaffirmed: the law is inherently political. These “laws”, especially protecting “property” do not come down from Mount Sinai; members of our legislature whose election is more often than not determined by who has the most money hash them out. Governors or Presidents who are also “elected” by a money-polluted system then appoint judges. Our system of check-and-balances counts on the Judiciary to help “establish justice”. I don’t think I witnessed much “justice” in the St. Paul Courtroom today.

It Doesn't Matter If You Should Jail Us

(photos by Bill Cordaro; National Catholic Reporter staff)

“It Doesn’t Matter If You Should Jail Us” by Steve Clemens. August 16, 2010

14 of us stood in front of the huge Caterpillar dump truck with our hands outstretched, holding on to one another as we sang, prayed, and read our statement on why we were protesting the building of the first nuclear bomb plant to be constructed in 32 years on the south side of Kansas City, MO.

We sang the South African freedom song: “It doesn’t matter if you shall jail us, we are freed and kept alive by hope …”. We talked with Janice, the dump truck driver after she read a copy of our statement. Neither she nor the nearby bulldozer driver knew that what they were working on was to clear a site for a nuclear weapons plant. She was also unaware of the toxic waste that pollutes the present Kansas City Plant now operated by Honeywell that makes 85% of the non-nuclear components for the US nuclear bomb arsenal.

I hadn’t planned to risk arrest as I traveled down I-35 through Iowa to Kansas City last weekend but what I heard from the locals convinced me that I needed to act as well as speak against this crime. After hearing two retired workers tell about their friends dying of cancers and other diseases after working at the Bendix (and now run by Honeywell) Plant, I was stunned to learn that it was only recently that the EPA was forced to list the site as a source of major toxic pollution. Yet a day-care center remains on the grounds that sit atop this toxic mess. It looks like the federal government (and Honeywell) will walk away from this site once the new plant is built, leaving the local taxpayers stiffed for the clean-up bill.

Speaking of taxpayers, the city government of Kansas City decided to use funds earmarked for urban blight remediation to purchase the soybean fields and trees on the southern edge of the city for this plant with the promise to turn it over to private owners for $10 after 20 years- all under the cynical guise of protecting about 2,000+ jobs.

Presbyterian pastor and local Catholic Worker member (yes, one in the same), Eric Garbison spoke in a loud voice over the dim of the construction equipment this morning to the construction supervisors and the police who had come to arrest us: “I’m a pastor who lives in Northeast Kansas City at 12^th and Buford. I heard 4 gunshots last night. There are crack houses and abandoned houses in my neighborhood. The homeless come to our house for food and showers – yet the city government took funds for blighted neighborhoods and use it for this”, as he pointed to the vast expanse of bulldozed land in front and behind us.

“I went to the city council meetings two years ago to try to stop this plant. That is why I’m standing here today, risking arrest, to stay we cannot use this money to build weapons of death.” He, Brian Terrell, and Steve Jacobs had just returned to our group after walking over to two other large construction machines, a power shovel and a bulldozer, to try to talk with those equipment operators while the rest of us tried to engage the dump truck driver we had stopped with our bodies in front of her huge machine.

Garbison told the JE Dunn Construction supervisors and the police, “We want people to have jobs. They could take all of this equipment over to the old Honeywell bomb plant on Bannister and begin to clean that site up.” He went on to inform them that a day-care center remains on that deadly polluted site and asked them if they’d want to have their children to be cared for there. As a father himself, he didn’t want any children exposed to the beryllium, arsenic, and other deadly chemicals being used to make these nuclear weapons.

It is beyond ironic, in fact numbingly stupefying, that our nation can decry Iran’s attempt to enrich uranium for a potential bomb while we continue to modernize our illegal nuclear weapons and extend the life of present bombs for another 40-60 years – all at a time when our President claims a goal of zero nuclear weapons, beginning with the New START Treaty.

Half of the 14 arrested came from outside of the KC metro area: from Des Moines and Malloy in Iowa, from Tuscon, AZ, Columbia, MO and Minneapolis. The other 7 were from Kansas City, primarily from two Catholic Worker communities that live and serve among the poor and marginalized. They see a direct connection between the neglect of human needs and the obscenity of dumping billions into the troughs of arms merchants. Committed to a faith-based nonviolence, these activists chose to risk time in jail rather than to allow this plant to proceed without protest.

Catholic Worker troubadour Steve Jacobs from the St. Francis Catholic Worker in Columbia, MO sang his version of a Bob Dylan classic, changing the title and words to say “I ain’t gonna work on Uncle Sammy’s nuke plant no more. I ain’t gonna work in Kansas City’s nuke plant no more …”

The developer, Jim Cross, pleaded with us to walk away from his earth-moving equipment so his workers could resume, promising us “cold drinks and a place to sit and talk in the shade”. “I don’t want to have you arrested”, he claimed as he returned three times asking us to leave before the police put us in handcuffs and drove us downtown. We were booked on trespass charges and released with a court date on October 7.

__________

Statement carried by the 14 and given to workers:

Statement of Resistance to Nuclear Weapons Production in Kansas City, Mo., Aug. 16

We are gathered today, August 16, 2010, at the site of the future nuclear weapons production plant in Kansas City, Missouri, to protest the continued manufacture of U.S. nuclear weapons.

We also denounce the existence of the current Kansas City facility, where 85% of the non-nuclear components for the U.S. nuclear arsenal are produced, and demand its closure and clean-up.

The current plant and the future plant threaten the health and well-being of workers, our environment and the Kansas City community. The new plant is the recipient of funding by the city government through the explicit misdirection of funds intended for the improvement of urban blight.

The 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty requires an end to all planning, preparation, production, threat, or use of nuclear weapons and adherence to the fundamental rules and principles of Humanitarian Law. Further, ratified treaties are enshrined by the U.S. Constitution as supreme laws of the land. Building the first new U.S. nuclear weapons production facility in 32 years is in obvious violation of these laws.

The cardinal rules and principles of humanitarian law require that civilians never be the object of attack and prohibit weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilians and military targets.

The International Court of Justice found that the destructive power of nuclear weapons cannot be contained in either space or time, and nuclear weapons have the potential to destroy all civilization and the entire ecosystem of the planet, and thus are illegal. In keeping with the Nuremburg Principles, we choose to act nonviolently rather than be complicit.

The intended use of the new Kansas City Plant is to improve and extend the life of nuclear weapons. Any complicity in planning, preparation, threatening to use or use of these weapons is a crime against peace, war crime and crime against humanity.

Under principles of democracy we exercise the right of every citizen of this republic and this planet to peacefully resist the nuclear threat that attacks every core concept of human rights.

We act to exercise our basic rights to life and freedom from violence and we exercise our duty to protect children and future generations.

We act to ensure that our government fulfills its promise and responsibilities to unequivocally pursue and achieve nuclear disarmament in good faith.

We call on national, state and local Kansas City government to end the use of our tax dollars to wage permanent war and demand clean-up of all chemical and radioactive contamination.

---

Open Letter to Attorney General Eric Holder

July 28, 2010

Attorney General Eric Holder

US Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW

Washington, DC 20530-0001

RE: US Attorney in Eastern Tennessee District

Dear Mr. Holder,

Let me begin by saying “thank you” for challenging the recent Arizona law seeking to intimidate immigrants. This is the kind of leadership I hoped for with President Obama’s election and your subsequent appointment.

However, the subject of this letter is less optimistic. I write to you as a nonviolent activist with a long history of nonviolent protest against war and weapons, the death penalty and present prison policy, and other justice issues. As a result, I have found myself as a defendant or supporter in a number of courtrooms since my first arrest at the White House during the last major demonstration against the Vietnam War in March of 1975, mentored that day by Daniel Berrigan, Jim Peck, Dick Gregory, Liz Macalister, Ladon Sheats, and others.

While I always enter the courtroom with the hope that somehow truth and justice might prevail, I have seldom left feeling optimistic. A few times when juries have been allowed to consider International Law and Treaties, I have been acquitted. Most of the time, however, I see the courtroom as a place to continue my witness for nonviolence, truth, and justice despite the outcome. I consider it an honor to have been a prisoner for reasons of conscience several times over the past 35 years.

So my recent experience in Knoxville on July 6, 2010 shouldn’t have shocked me - but it did. Please allow me to set the stage for you. Along with 200 + others, I attended a Conference for a Nuclear Free Future at Maryville College over the 4^th of July weekend which concluded with a nonviolent protest at the entrance to the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant (now called the Y-12 National Security Complex since the 9-11 attacks in an attempt to further obscure the dirty secret of our continued production/modernization of nuclear weapons in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) on Monday morning, July 5^th under the banner reading “Independence from Nuclear Terrorism”. 23 of us chose to peaceably block the state road entrance to the facility with the banner (the road had already been blocked by Oak Ridge Plant security) and were arrested and charged with “obstruction of roadway”. That, being a state/local matter, is not the focus of this letter.

13 others, with two in their 40s and most in their late 60s, 70s, and 80s, chose to risk Federal Trespass charges by ducking under a barbed wire fence and then sitting in a circle singing, praying, and sharing poetry prior to their arrest. Most anticipated spending the night in jail although with at least three of the arrestees in their 80s, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they would have been cited and released with a court date. All were jailed overnight.

The following afternoon, many of us crowded into the Howard Baker Federal Courthouse in Knoxville to witness the first appearance of our friends under these Federal charges. They all knew of the possibility of up to 1 year in prison for their act of conscience but it was still shocking to me to see 83 year old Jean Gump, 82 year old Brad Lyttle, and 73 year old nun, Sister Mary Dennis Lentsch enter the courtroom with leg irons and hand cuffs attached to waist chains. This for a nonviolent protest offense! (I’ve written at greater length about this in my blog (http://mennonista.blogspot.com/2010/07/obscenity-in-courtroom.html ).

After overcoming the shock and disappointment that these defendants weren’t even released from these ridiculous shackles during this entire court appearance (for which I hold both your US Attorney, the US Marshalls, and the Federal Judge accountable) I was further taken aback when the Judge asked your Assistant US Attorney to read the charges and legal consequences for the offense. (I’m sorry I did not hear her name. She is a blond-haired woman in her 30s.) I almost fell out of my bench in the back of the courtroom when she replied that the defendants not only faced “up to one year in prison with supervisory release of not more than a year and a $100. assessment” but they were also subject to “a fine of up to $100,000.”

That’s correct. I didn’t accidently add a couple of zeroes. One hundred thousand dollars! For a nonviolent offence! For people of conscience intent on peaceably demanding that our nation live up to International Laws and Treaties (and the ruling of the International Court) which clearly identify nuclear weapons as illegal. For such an absurd (and obscene) penalty – even if only threatened and never meant to be carried out – I hold both you and the President to account. Those Assistant US Attorneys are acting under your jurisdiction and supervision.

Neither you nor President Obama can pretend to take the high road by lofty speeches calling for the abolishment of nuclear weapons like he did early in his term in Prague or more recently with the signing of the New START Treaty while at the same time threatening and intimidating men and women of conscience who should be your allies in this struggle for a world with fewer threats of annihilation.

Setting aside the “criminal trespass” offense itself, do you really wish to convey a message with such outrageous threats of hundred-thousand-dollar-fines for nonviolent protest? Have you learned nothing from the legacy of Rosa Parks and Martin King, from Susan B. Anthony and Cesar Chavez, from Dorothy Day and AJ Muste? (The list, as you well know, could go on and on. … ) President Kennedy presciently said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”

Frankly, I expected such reckless and calloused threats and charges from some of your predecessors like Ashcroft and Gonzales, John Mitchell and Dick Kleindienst. But from Eric Holder and Barack Obama? Surely we can hope for real change – but so far, it hasn’t been too much in evidence.

Please, Mr. Attorney General, use your position and office to help our nation realize and appreciate the valued contribution that civil disobedience has played in our history and instruct your US Attorneys to adjust “punishment” to “fit the crime”.

(Still) Hopefully and Respectfully yours,

Steve Clemens

2912 E. 24^th St.

Minneapolis, MN 55406-1322

steveclemens@gmail.com

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Should I Stay or Should I Go? : Wrestling With Pax Christi and the Roman Catholic Institution by Steve Clemens. July 16, 2010

It was the article in this morning’s paper that was the straw that broke the camels back. The Vatican announces new restrictions or threats against the scandal of pedophile priests but, in the same breath, announces that the attempts to ordain women as priests is as grave a sin as molesting children. When the hierarchy’s commitment to misogyny and patriarchy is so strong that it risks watering-down its defensive strategy to cover its shameful pedophilia, the entire religious institution must be condemned as woefully corrupt, morally bankrupt and socially insensitive. To identify itself with The Body of Christ is a blasphemy. Roy Bourgeois and Joan Chittister may be today’s Martin Luther but does it also herald another Reformation of the Church that boasts continuity to the time of Jesus?

Pax Christi is the international peace organization within the Roman Catholic Church. Over the decades it has vied for recognition from both the Vatican hierarchy as well as local diocesan leaders, hoping against hope that the church will recognize the moral vacuity of its silence and/or acquiescence (not to mention outright endorsement) of wars and instead embrace the Peace of Christ, a choice to follow the radical nonviolence of Jesus of Nazareth. Because of its desire to be heard on the subject of the morality of war and peace, it has often chosen to remain silent (or less militant) on other controversies surrounding other moral issues the church should address – immigration, the growing gap between the rich and poor, role of women in the church, acceptance of GLBT people, …

But peace can only be the product of justice; peace cannot come at the expense of silencing or marginalizing certain groups over others. We can’t really enjoy “the peace of Christ” if our gay brothers are excluded, if our immigrant sisters are threatened with deportation, if poor families find their homes foreclosed by greedy bankers and hedge fund criminals.

All of this could be a moot point. I’m not even Roman Catholic. I was asked to serve on the local Pax Christi Board as a non-Catholic representative – yet I find that many of my mentors and colleagues in my peacemaking endeavors are Catholics, some of whom are still priests and nuns under the jurisdiction of these Vatican mis-rulers. Several of my fellow Board Members are members of a congregation which has been excommunicated by Rome and now holds its own services without recognition of the Archbishop or the presence of a priest. Another has left the church and now attends a Quaker Meeting. So why should it bother me, a jack-legged Anabaptist to be associated with these other obvious rebels?

The problem, as I see it, is with its association with the institution of the Roman Catholic Church. Some of my friends who have remained within the church tell me that they are really the true church, not the pretenders in Rome or in the Bishop’s garb. But unless I see a wholesale exodus of the faithful from the pews, I can’t pretend that the Vatican doesn’t represent the realities of the institution. To continue with even a modicum of association with the present cabal in Rome and the Bishops it has steadily appointed over the past three decades to undue the reforms of the Vatican II Council is to send a message to the on-going victims that we are not on their side.

Work within or without?

There comes a time when one must chose to work within the system for change or to leave, hoping the shock of disassociation might motivate a change from without. Sometimes the choice is couched as remaining ideologically pure vs being effective. Others see a distinction between a prophetic witness vs coalition building where compromise or “agreeing to disagree” on other issues is central to building strength for the specific movement. When does the need for compromise quell the Spirit? Without the pull of an ideological pole, how does compromise move us closer to the goal of resembling the realm of God here on earth?

I seem to face a similar dilemma with my association with the Democratic Party in the political arena. I admire the courage and tenacity of Dennis Kucinich and Russ Feingold (most of the time) in a similar fashion to my respect for the outspoken leadership of Chittister and Bourgeois, Gumbleton, and Rohr. But I frankly cringe when I hear that Fr. John Dear considers acquiescing to the directive of his pro-nuke Bishop in New Mexico to stay away from prophetic witness at Loa Alamos so he can continue to say Mass for his mostly poor and marginalized parishioners. I no more want to countenance a Catholic Church that restrains a Franciscan priest from prophetic prayer at a nuclear weapons plant than identifying myself (when asked by a pollster) as a Democrat when President Obama and his accomplices in the Congress continue to wage wars of occupation in defense of empire.

Is there really any more hope for reforming the Roman Church than the Democratic Party? How does having one fewer non-Catholic members of Pax Christi help further the work of Jesus? But following one’s conscience is essential for being faithful over the long haul. We can’t be purist but we can be confessional. Some will confess their complicity and chose to remain within; others will hear a call to “come out from among them” – but to whom do we go? The disciples in their fear and uncertainty respond to Jesus, “To whom would we go? You are the one with the words of eternal life!”

To be on the way to discipleship, we need to travel with like-minded travelers. Maybe we don’t have to ask to see what other identity cards each other carries with them and be satisfied that we are journeying toward the same Shalom, the holistic peace-with-justice of the Bible.

--------
Addendum - July 22, 2010:

Less than 5 days after writing this I was informed that the disease emanating from the Vatican is spreading and metastasizing, infecting even what was formerly healthy within the church. The Maryknoll Order had been quietly supporting Fr. Roy Bourgeois despite his differences with the Church hierarchy. However, they just informed the School of the Americas Watch organization that they would no continue to contribute the $17,000/year for the annual commemoration/protest at the gates of Ft. Benning, GA as they have in the past Novembers. Why? Because of Roy’s outspokenness on the justice of women’s ordination.

So, this once great missionary order will “cut off its nose to spite its face”. There is no better a recruiting tool today for Catholic young people to see the relevance of the church and religious ethics than the movement to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC. For the past dozen years it has attracted a growing number of both high school and college youth – from primarily Catholic schools – to the 20,000 + people of conscience gathering calling for an end to this school of assassins. There those young people meet seasoned activists in a truly inter-generational gathering that is filled with hope, compassion, and power. Now Maryknoll wants to tell young Catholics that hanging on to a system of patriarchic domination is more important than the call of the Gospel to do justice and stand for the marginalized and oppressed. Good luck with that when they send their missionaries back to Central and South America and have to explain their new-found silence about a military-run school designed to continue their oppression.

The Vatican has its charges scared. Threats of withdraw of pensions goes a long way to keep priests and nuns from leaving their orders (and the Church). Closing schools and parishes due to a combination of dropping attendance and lack of funds due to massive pay-offs to the victims of sexual abuse by priests does not bode well for the future. Instead, a “hunker down” mentality has been adopted, thinking that all these problems arose from the “liberalism” of the Vatican II Council. Fear among so many who have donated their entire lives to the Church is both tragic and sad. Maybe out of this turmoil can another reformation (or revolution) arise.

May it be so.

[Another] Miscarriage of Justice

[Another] Miscarriage of Justice by Steve Clemens. July 10, 2010

Oak Ridge, TN is the site for the Y-12 Nuclear Bomb Plant, renamed “Y-12 National Security Complex” after the attacks in NYC and Washington, DC on 9/11/2001 – a day that led to hysterical power grabs and a multitude of retrenchments on civil and human rights around our nation. It is an appropriate target for political and moral dissent due to its continued role in producing a new generation of nuclear weapons.

OREPA, the Oak Ridge Environmental and Peace Alliance, has held a weekly Sunday vigil by the entrance to the large facility for several years. Committed to active nonviolence, the group has occasionally encouraged activists to engage in conscientious civil disobedience in opposition to the continued role Y-12 has in threatening the rest of the world with nuclear death and destruction while squandering financial and scientific resources which are desperately needed to address needs in our own local communities.

A pernicious combination of hatred and fear of government, especially on the federal level but now creeping ever and ever closer to local governmental expressions as well has been growing ever since President Reagan opined in his grandfatherly way that “government IS the problem” [rather than the solution]. “Tea Party” members are merely a louder, more visible manifestation of this philosophy.

“Philosophy’ is maybe too strong a word since it implies a well thought out position rather than a knee-jerk reaction. But one constant theme of these reactionaries is to “cut taxes” – to “starve the beast”, to downsize the government so it is small enough to “drown it in a bathtub”. [However, most notably, at the same time increase the military budget (which has less and less to do with “defense” and more and more to do with projecting empire/domination over others) and local police forces and private “security” outfits like Xe (formerly Blackwater), Wackenhut, and other mercenary types.]

This downsizing, coupled with a persistent economic recession, had led to a crisis in many areas of both federal and local governments. Although the federal entities can run a deficit and borrow from our grandchildren to pay the debt later, state and local governments are forced to balance their budgets and often find novel means to accomplish it. It is particularly evident in the criminal justice system.

How does this manifest itself in Oak Ridge, TN? For one, Anderson County now charges inmates (often those with the least ability to pay) $50/day for their use of the jail while incarcerated. To add insult to injury, the jail is grossly over-crowded with about 1/3 of the inmates sleeping on the floor, some even without a mattress, at any given time. Maybe the motto “crime doesn’t pay” needs to be adjusted if it comes to mean that one needs to subsidize ones own captors. (I think the term for that used to be “being held for ransom” or kidnapping; now it is fiscal solvency). But apparently (as I discovered last week), the “per-diem fee” doesn’t accrue until after one is sentenced – pre-trial time is courtesy of the taxpayer.

But getting to sentencing and thus contributing to ones own “room and board” expense comes also with other charges. When activists are arrested for “obstruction of a highway” for blocking the entrance, nonviolently, of the Y-12 facility (which had already been blocked by the Wackenhut security so no vehicular traffic could enter while the demonstration was taking place so the protest is primarily symbolic), the normal sentence for a first offense has been a fine of up to $50, the legal limit set by the State of Tennessee. However, coupled with the fine are “court costs” now in the range of $240 – much more if one seeks ones constitutional right to a jury trial. So even if a principled civil disobedient agrees to expedite the case with a guilty or no contest plea, taking up very little of the court’s time, the disproportionate court costs are levied.

If the true penalty for obstruction of a highway should be a fine of up to $50 (along with up to 30 days in jail for truly criminal offenses), then there should be a mechanism where one could take responsibility, pay the fine, and avoid taking up the time in the court system. However, we were told no such option exists. We were given the ultimatum of staying in an illegally overcrowded jail for 8 days before seeing a judge and being told to pay a $50 fine (and court costs) as first-offenders of this law or returning to court after release from custody-upon-arrest and booking 8 days later only to be socked with court costs of $240 and the fine. So, no credit is given for one’s 8 days in the Anderson County Jail.

One of the purposes of civil disobedience has been to create an [artificial] crisis in the judicial system in order to draw attention to the injustice they wish to address. What happens when court costs become punitive is essentially a tax on one’s conscience. One remembers President Kennedy’s warning: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.” Fortunately for Anderson County officials, those arrested at the “Declaration of Independence From Nuclear Weapons at Y-12” event are committed to nonviolence. But the growing divide in the US between the haves and have-nots is increasing at an alarming rate and the more desperate a people becomes, the greater the variety of responses they may choose.

The Bomb (and its protection by the judicial system) does not make us more secure – it breeds fear (occasionally) but mostly contempt and consternation from the world community. The blatant hypocrisy evidenced in our crusade (yes, that is a deliberate choice of word) against Iran for trying to get what we already possess in spades is mostly ignored by Americans because of their acceptance of the doctrine of American exceptionalism.

The fact that any President is held hostage by militarists in both political parties makes “change we can believe in” very unlikely in this area. We are captivated by (and captive to) the Bomb. Back in the 1980s, some religious leaders used the term idolatry to describe the relationship between Americans and “national security”. Since 9-11, many of those voices have been stilled or grown weak – precisely at a time when they are most needed.

I suspect we will have to decide if filling the jails to create a crisis (or expose the conflict that has been below the surface for decades) is the way to go. We could be at an historic turning point – or once again, by our inaction, we may fail to act in a timely fashion.