Author: Sreeram Chaulia
Publication: Asia Times Online
Date: January 11, 2003
URL: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/EA11Aa01.html
The Trial of Henry Kissinger, by
Christopher Hitchens
"Everything on paper will be used
against me."
- Henry Kissinger, admonishing
his State Department staff for writing memos on the illegality of Indonesia's
occupation of East Timor in 1975.
The line separating a master statesman
and a master thug is assumed to be of infinite length. This is not so in
the case of Henry Kissinger, former US national security adviser and secretary
of state. For myriad American diplomats, politicians and academicians,
Kissinger is a living deity who personified realpolitik and shrewd tactical
thinking, a genius practitioner who sits in the same pantheon as Bismarck,
Castlereagh and Metternich. However, as new information leaks out every
day about his misdeeds under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (1969-76), only
the ignoramus and the sycophant can glorify a man whose heartlessness and
guile wrought terrible agony and human loss in the Third World.
Christopher Hitchens has pieced
together some of the most odious of Kissinger's foreign policy wrongdoings
in a bill of indictment that can be made the basis of prosecution for crimes
against humanity, war crimes and offenses against international law. Aiming
to affix direct responsibility and criminality, Hitchens has excluded material
on Kissinger's crimes committed as part of a larger policymaking group,
such as betrayal of Iraqi Kurds in 1974-5, support for apartheid South
Africa to destabilize Angola, chairmanship of the presidential commission
that sanctioned death squad murders in the Central American isthmus, and
political protection for the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran that put thousands
of innocent civilians through torturous meat grinders. The main investigation
in the book is about those crimes for which Kissinger has complete or most
significant culpability.
Double-crossing his way to power:
The 1968 election
Unlike Zbigniew Brzezinski or Condoleezza
Rice, Harvard professor Kissinger did not make it to the pinnacle of the
foreign policy machinery through academic repute or connections with politicos.
He rode to power by double crossing the Johnson-Humphrey administration
in the Vietnam peace talks and passing confidential information on the
details of LBJ's peace plan to the Nixon camp. Thus informed, Republicans
counseled the South Vietnam negotiators in advance to reject the Democratic
government's proposals by dangling the carrot of an even better peace plan
if Nixon won the presidential election.
One of the factors propelling Humphrey's
defeat in the closely fought election was the rebuff South Vietnam gave
to LBJ's demarches. Kissinger was rewarded for this unconstitutional (the
Logan Act in the US prohibits private diplomacy with a foreign power by
any American citizen) and treacherous gambit as soon as Nixon came to power
in 1969. A "mediocre and opportunist academic" (p.16) turned overnight
into an international potentate and America's national security adviser.
So adroitly had Kissinger disguised his cards that if Humphrey won, he
would still have bagged a top position in the new Democratic regime.
Ravaging Indo-China
Soon after taking office, Kissinger
embarked on a second round of protracted warfare, despite promising a "better
peace" to the South Vietnamese before the election. When Charles de Gaulle
asked him the reason for escalating punitive bombings that killed thousands
of Vietnamese civilians, Kissinger replied, "A sudden withdrawal might
give us a credibility problem." At one point, Kissinger angrily threatened
to use thermonuclear weapons to obliterate the railway link between North
Vietnam and China and flood the Viet Cong areas by target bombing irrigation
dykes.
Kissinger intensified US air attacks
in neighboring Laos and Cambodia, leading to a further loss of at least
a million civilians. In April 1970, Kissinger was described by Nixon as
"really having fun today" as more B52s raided Cambodia without US Congressional
knowledge. Air Force Colonel Sitton recorded, "Not only was Henry carefully
screening the raids, he was reading the raw intelligence on mission patterns."
(p. 38) As late as 1975, when the US had disengaged from Vietnam, Kissinger
pressured President Ford to sanction a "credibility enhancing" 15,000 pound
bombing of Cambodia on the pretext of the Mayaguez ship incident. More
than 35,500 Vietnamese civilians were separately murdered or kidnapped
by the CIA's "Phoenix counter-guerrilla program" planned by Kissinger's
top-secret "Forty Committee". When some of his own staff members leaked
these illegal deeds to the press, a vindictive Kissinger telephoned FBI
Director Edgar Hoover asking him to "follow it up as far as we can take
it and destroy whoever did this if we can find him, no matter where he
is". (p 42)
'Genocidal diplomacy' and coup in
Bangladesh
The American consulate in East
Pakistan sent a cable to the State Department in April 1971 stating starkly
that Pakistani military brutalities had reached a crescendo, horrifying
enough to be considered genocide. Direct evidence of aerial bombardment
and mass killings of Bengalis by General Tikka Khan was available with
US diplomats, thanks to a radio station they ran, despite Pakistan's ban
on foreign media and press. But Kissinger was not to be moved. He sent
a message to President Yahya Khan congratulating Pakistan for its "delicacy
and tact" in the eastern wing of the country. Knowledge of Kissinger's
secret diplomacy with China via Pakistani good offices and Nixon's "tilt"
against India freed Pakistani army hotheads from any moderation or inhibition
in pulverizing Bengalis. Many US foreign service officers protested in
memos to Kissinger that he was backing a genocidal regime, only to have
their ranks demoted in the bureaucratic ladder.
Kissinger nursed a deep grudge against
Mujib-ur-Rehman, the freedom fighter who won Bangladesh independence with
Indian help in December 1971. He began encouraging US spies and diplomats
to contact Bangladeshi rightwing army officers who intended a coup. Junior
and senior officer cadres plotting to overthrow Mujib checked with their
US point persons in advance, and were told by "high circles" that the overthrow
was "no problem". (p. 53) Predictably, US-Bangladesh and Pakistan-Bangladesh
relations prospered from 1975 following Mujib's assassination, widespread
human rights abuses against minorities and military capture of power in
Dhaka.
Installing Pinochet in Chile
Kissinger once pooh-poohed Chile
as a "dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica", but flexed his muscles
and scheming mind as soon as Salvador Allende's government won the 1970
elections. Unknown to the US ambassador in Chile, Kissinger's Forty Committee
authorized a "track two" policy of destabilization, kidnap and assassination
designed to provoke a military coup. Fascist military plotters led by Roberto
Viaux were supplied machine guns and tear gas grenades sent through US
diplomatic pouches to carry out the murder of moderate army chief Rene
Schneider. Hitchens quotes a newly declassified file where cable traffic
from Washington to the assassins is recorded: "It is imperative that these
actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American
hand be well hidden." (p. 60) Though Schneider's murder did not have the
desired effect of a military uprising against Allende, Viaux's group members
were sent "hush money" through CIA agents to prevent them from implicating
Kissinger.
From 1970 to 1973, Kissinger championed
"close relations" with military dictatorships in Chile's neighborhood,
a pressure tactic that ended in the dreaded Operation Condor raids. Covert
anti-Allende propaganda and the artificially generated crisis environment
in Santiago were achieved by the Forty Committee's Project FUBELT. Kissinger's
warm welcome of Pinochet's September 11, 1973, coup and the subsequent
reign of terror is only too well known to recount here. In 1976, Kissinger
met Pinochet in the Chilean capital and assured him of continuing assistance
thus: "My evaluation is that you are a victim of all leftwing groups around
the world." (p. 70) The barbaric general who tortured thousands and has
several international warrants for arrest and prosecution was to Kissinger
a "victim"! Kissinger also advised Manuel Contreras, the infamous secret
police chief of Pinochet who ran an empire based on human carnage, to continue
the "good work".
Aiding fascist Greece and militarist
Turkey in Cyprus
The legally elected president of
Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios, was viewed by fascist Greece as a hurdle to
Athenian control of the disputed island. Kissinger was aware that the Greek
fascists bankrolled Nixon's election campaigns and felt a natural sympathy
for the retarded view that "Makarios was the cause of most of Cyprus' tensions".
He had advance knowledge of the fascist plan to depose and kill Makarios.
A US State Department order of 1974 stood in complete agreement with Greek
fascist designs: "Remove Makarios once and for all and have Greece deal
directly with Turkey over Cyprus' future." (p. 83) Immediately after Greece
invaded Cyprus, Kissinger's office issued this statement: "In our view
there has been no outside intervention."
Not to be outdone by Greece, Turkey
conducted two retaliatory invasions to occupy 40 percent of Cyprus. This
time, Kissinger exerted his influence very strongly to protect Ankara,
a NATO ally and aid recipient, from US Congressional sanctions for this
shameful violation of international law. Most of the human rights violations
the Turkish army committed in Cyprus were achieved through US aid and ammunition.
Once the findings of independent monitors laid the blame entirely on the
Turkish and American governments, Kissinger did a crafty U-turn and claimed,
"We knew the Soviets had told the Turks to invade." (p. 88) Turkey acting
on Soviet behest in 1974 is a ridiculous notion without parallel!
Abetting ethnic cleansing in East
Timor
On the very day that General Suharto's
military invaded and vandalized East Timor in 1975, Kissinger told the
media in Jakarta, "The United States understands Indonesia's position on
the question." In December 1975, Kissinger chided his deputies in the State
Department for including a legal opinion that the Indonesian invasion was
a flouting of all norms of international law. He also authorized backdoor
shipments of weapons to Indonesian militias who went on an extirpation
spree against the Timorese people. Records of diplomatic meetings of the
time show Kissinger irritated whenever his staff broached the fact that
90 percent of weapons used against Timorese were American. According to
the CIA operations chief in Indonesia, "Without continued heavy US military
support, the Indonesians might not have been able to pull off the invasion."
On one occasion, Kissinger showed his utter disregard for human lives and
American law, saying, "I know what the law is but how can it be in the
US national interest for us to kick the Indonesians in the teeth?" (p.105)
Conniving in elimination of a journalist
Kissinger repeatedly tried to assist
his fascist client government in Athens with the physical elimination of
Greek journalist and rights activist Elias Demetracopoulos. Kissinger promised
the contract killers "cooperation of various agencies of the US government"
in a secret cable, mainly because Elias was investigating the links between
the Forty Committee and the Greek junta. The journalist's knowledge of
secret campaign donations from the Greek fascists to Nixon's party was
also too uncomfortable a truth for Kissinger to sit silently by. Greece's
ambassador in Washington recalled in his memoirs that the Greek desk of
the US State Department, "One of Elias' most vitriolic enemies" sent him
"useful advice on extermination". (p. 118) Kissinger's papers contain a
secret file titled, "Acknowledging Mr Demetracopoulos' death in Athens
prison." Elias survived the attempts on his life and is to this day trying
to subpoena Kissinger for releasing the contents of this puzzling letter
dated December 18, 1970.
The tightening noose
Kissinger Associates, a global
consultancy firm, now operates on the strength of all the shady dealings
its proprietor had with undemocratic regimes around the world. The CEO
of Heinz credits Kissinger Associates for "helping with contacts in that
shadowy world where that counts". (p. 121). Freeport McMoran and Daewoo
gained access to oil and gas rights and plant construction privileges in
the most repressive state of Indo-China, Myanmar, through Kissinger's exertions.
Exploiting his excellent ties with Suharto's crony capitalist network,
Kissinger helped another client close a deal for a 30-year lease of gold
and copper mines on the Irian Jaya island of Indonesia. These acts of "consultancy"
are the last straws on the camel's back as far as Kissinger's life mission
goes. His public diplomacy between 1969 and 1976 laid the foundation for
the present profits and commissions his firm earns by peddling "contacts".
So, will Kissinger Associates continue
to perpetuate its owner's valueless and hideous foreign policy? Will the
countless victims of Kissinger's greed and callousness remain un-rehabilitated?
Hitchens believes that the noose is tightening around Kissinger. The Alien
Tort Claims Act in America allows non-citizens to file cases against citizens
for violations of a US treaty or other international law. Chilean relatives
of Pinochet-era crimes are going ahead with suits against Kissinger. Sufferers
in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam are also queuing to prosecute him.
Judge Baltasar Garzon is trying to issue an arrest warrant for Kissinger
if he sets foot on Spanish soil, and has requested Britain to detain and
question Kissinger should he travel to London.
States are still hesitant to act
against an establishment guru like Kissinger, but in the court of the people,
he already stands convicted. Hitchens urges the American legal and human
rights community to take the lead and also indict Kissinger for his violations
of the US constitution on numerous occasions. A new documentary film, The
Trials of Henry Kissinger, is raising awareness about the ugly truths that
Americans always suspected but lacked proof or courage to substantiate.
Kissinger's days of innocent denial seem numbered.
Hitchens combines high quality investigation
with mordant irony to make this a sensational book that exhorts the cloak
of immunity to be removed from the high priest of impunity.
(The Trial of Henry Kissinger by
Christopher Hitchens, Verso Books, 2001, New York. ISBN: 1-85984-631-9.
Price US$22, 159 pages)
