Bertrand Russell
My appeal to the American Conscience poses to the American people the
relation of war crimes in Vietnam to their Government, society -— to their
very lives. Not only the American people are confronted by these events.
So are we all. World opinion and world action must halt these vast
atrocities, or "Eichmann" will come to stand for Everyman. "We," said
Eichmann, "only provided the lorries." "He who witnesses a crime in
silence, commits it", said Jose Marti.
Eichmann symbolises damaged mimanity: those who do not know; those who
do not think; those who cannot care. Marti expresses the quick,
unfettered sense of human responsibility, of impatience with excuses for
horror and of contempt for moral evasion. Who, among us, is not 4 witness
to these crimes?
There can be few literate adults in the Western world unfamiliar with the
war in Vietnam waged by the United States Government. The mass media of
communications, notably television and news magazines, have displayed
unremittingly the most graphic evidence of atrocities carried out by
American forces and those responsible to them in Vietnam.
Photographs showing mtilation and torture of villagers and National Lib-
eration Front prisoners have appeared on the front pages of the New York
Times, New York Herald Tribune, the Washington Post arid innumerable other
newspapers and journals, Newsweek, Time, Life and Look magazines have
carried large numbers of photographs of American forces engaged in
operations in Vietnam with phosphorus, poison gas, chemicals and napalm.
Such captions as "Smoking out the Vietcong: phosphorus more deadly than
gas", have accompanied pictures in these journals.
The bombardment of hospitals, schools and tuberculosis sanatoria has been
recorded unselfconsciously. The mere compilation of the photographs,
reports and data from the Western Press affords a list of crimes as
terrible as many of the acts for which Germans were executed at Nuremberg.
Chief Prosecutor Justice Jackson of the United States Supreme Court said
in his opening statement at the Nuremberg trials: "The real complaining
party at the bar is civilisation. Civilisation is asking whether law is
so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of such magnitude
as Germany's .... Civilisation expects this Tribunal to put the forces of
international law, its precepts, its prohibitions and most of its sanctions
on the side of peace."
The precedent of Nuremberg has direct relevance to our present situation. This was again articulated by Justice Jackson: "Certainly no future lawyer
or nation undertaking to prosecute crimes against the peace of the world will have to face the argument that the effort is unprecedented and,
therefore, by inference, improper."
In holding a War Crimes Tribunal in 1966 we maintain that our situation is
analogous to the circumstances which made necessary the Nuremberg trials,
We feel as people felt twenty-five years ago when:Jews were. being crammed
into gas.chambers. . We are compelled to speak out, indeed. to cry out,
against crimes committed in Vietnam.
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We maintain that there is overwhelming evidence of a prima facie character, evidence shown daily by the very media of communication of the Western countries. This evidence supporting the charge of war crimes has induced us to prepare the international Tribunal which will function as a commission of enquiry. What, then, is the nature of this Tribunal? Witnesses who are under accus— ation are free to attend, but will not be compelled. It has no power to sentence the accused or carry out penalties. It is not the spokesman of any government. These facts rule out an adversary procedure because without the ability to bring the accused to give evidence in their defence a trial is impossible. A mock trial would not serve the needs of the Tribunal, for its procedures would be inadequate to its purpose. The War Crimes Tribunal will, therefore, be more an international commission of enquiry which, as in the case of a grand jury, has prima facie evidence sufficient to investigate the crimes it believes to have been committed. The weight and impact of the Tribunal will be a result of the eminence and representative character of its members. They will be men who are unimpeachable and whom no-one could accuse of treating evidence inadequately or unfairly. This point is emphasised because there will be some who will say that those who believe crimes to have been conmitted cannot judge the . evidence impartially. This is to confuse an open mind with an empty one. We are not blank slates with no feelings or impressions. The Tribunal is called into being because of a passionate conviction that terrible atrocities and crimes against humanity are taking place at this moment against a small people. The Tribunal, like the grand jury which brings an indictment, will weigh evidence fairly but will hear that evidence because of its belief that crimes are being conmitted. There will be the most precise examination of the characteristics, proper ties and effects of the chemicals, gas and other weapons used in Vietnam. More than two hundred witnesses and victims will come to testify from Vietnam. Scientists who have studied weaponry will give evidence. Doctors, nurses, newspapermen and witnesses will testify. Motion picture film and still photographs of the raids and the victims will be presented > for the Tribunal's consideration.. Documentary film will be made from the testimony of the witnesses, the proceedings of the Tribunal and the evidence. Tape recordings will be made of the hearings and pressed into gramophone ‘ records for wide distribution, Full data and testimony will be published. The mere announcement of the Tribunal has led to the most widespread international interest and support. Spontaneous actions in favour of the Tribunal have taken place in many countries. Petitions calling on people everywhere to support the Tribunal are being circulated prior to the hearings. Committees of support are being formed in many countries. Teach-ins, debates and meetings concerning the Tribunal are being organised. Funds are being collected. Badges and stickers are being distributed. By such means as these it is becoming clear that a considerable mandate is being produced for the Tribunal proceedings. These proceedings will last twelve weeks and will take place in Paris. The initiative in forming the War Crimes Tribunal is that of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, We have sought to invite esteemed and accomplished people who have made a special contribution to human civilisation. Several of them are experts.in international law with particular
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knowledge and experience concerning war crimes. These latter include Professor (Dr. Juris) Vladimir Dedijer of Yugoslavia and Lelio Basso, international lawyer and Editor of International Socialist Journal. Other members include: Gunther Anders, the Austrian writer; Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre from France; former President Lazaro Cardenas of Mexico; Stokely Carmichael, National Chairman of the Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating Committee in the United States; Professor Josue de Castro of Brazil, former head of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation; Isaac Deutscher, the British historian; Danilo Dolci from Sicily; and Peter Weiss, the Swedish playwright. It should be clear that the Tribunal is geographically representative as well as prominent. Because of the eminence of the Tribunal members, not all of them can be in Paris for twelve weeks. The legal staff of the Tribunal will take depositions from witnesses and present findings to Tribunal members wherever they are, At the conclusion of the hearings the judgement of the Tribunal will be printed. Support for this judgement will be solicited on the most intensive and world-wide scale. There are those who raise the question of violence on the part of the National Liberation Front and the Vietnamese resistance to the United States. The War Crimes Tribunal would no more think of considering as crimes the Vietnamese resistance to American aggression than did the Nuremberg Tribunal treat the rising of the Warsaw Ghetto, the struggle for survival of the partisans of Yugoslavia, the resistance of Norway, the underground in Denmark and the Maquis in France as worthy of condemnation. It was the Gestapo who were condemned and not their victims. That assessment was central to the Nuremberg trials themselves, and so it is with respect to the War Crimes Tribunal and Vietnam. Although it is impossible to compel defence witnesses to appear, the Tribunal is prepared to hear witnesses for the defence, but only those who have been formally requested by the U.S. Government to appear on its behalf. Unauthorised witnesses cannot be accepted in defence of the United States' actions because they would inevitably be considered inadequate or unfair by the U.S. Government, which would insist on regarding the matter of its defence to be its own concern. The serious and solemn character of the Tribunal proceedings require that Government approved defence only will be permitted where the U.S. is concerned. For these reasons, I have written President Johnson requesting him to appear in his own defence or designate persons to come on his Government's behalf. The Tribunal views its responsibilities to be to civilisation and to mankind. Chief Prosecutor Justice Jackson of the U.S. Supreme Court had said at Nuremberg: "If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us." This Tribunal was called in the conviction that these crimes have again been conmitted and that judgement mst again be invoked against those responsible. It is important to note that the Nuremberg Tribunal was conducted by victorious nations against a defeated one. The international War Crimes Tribunal has no victor's powers, nor any State authority. It holds a brief for the decent feelings of people everywhere. The international investigating committee will travel throughout Vietnam, gathering evidence. It will report in November, 1966, in Paris. People of all countries: Help the War Crimes Tribunal, Make it a Tribunal of the conscience of mankind.