Crimes Tribunal transferred to Stockholm, opening its hearings May 2.
(Due to his frail health, Bertrand Russell, who initiated the tribunal, could not attend. He sent the tribunal a statement, however, which was read by his secretary, Ralph Schoenman.
[The text of Bertrand Russell's statement, which served to open the sessions, was as follows. ]
*x* * *
The world is numbed by the arrogant brutality of the United States Government. We meet in this opening session of the International War Crimes Tribunal at an alarming time. The United States is beginning an enormous new onslaught against the people of Vietnam. The sordid military machine which rules Washington is readying itself for greater destruc-— tion. In a fever of frustration over the humiliating defeats inflicted on her occupying armies in South Vietnam, the United States Government in hysteria and hate boasts of its intent, and its intent is evil.
Our Tribunal is not a group of disembodied formalists, quibbling over definitions or posturing an immoral lack of decision about these events. There is one reason for this International War Crimes Tribunal: Overwhelming evidence besieges us daily of crimes without precedent. Each moment greater horror is perpetrated against the people of Vietnam. We investigate in order to expose. We document in order to indict. We arouse consciousness in order to create mass resistance. This is our purpose and the acid test of our integrity and honour.
How frantic is the United States Government to stop us. Lies are hurled like napalm bombs. The fragments of these planned untruths find their way into the media of communication so responsible for the deception of ignorant men. The Government of France exposes itself before the world as a pathetic citadel of hypocrisy and spinelessness.
This is no token of our weakness. It is the very opposite. The feverish effort to conceal American crimes is matched by the frantic campaign against those who stand out against them. Let us take this as a tribute.
Hitler's Nazis buried the evidence of their barbarism throughout Europe. This Europe is a vast grave of interred -482-
STATEMENT AT WAR CRIMES HEARING
cruelty. Auschwitz aia its work for years. The evidence tannot be denied.
When Nazi power was defeated belatedly, did anyone lack knowledge of the extermination and experiment, of the cold cruelty and arrogance of the Nazi war criminals? The evidence was overwhelming.
Must we contort ourselves to deny the equally compelling evidence of war crimes in Vietnam? It is unseemly for men with a particle of self-respect to dissemble about what the United States Government has done to Vietnam. Auschwitz existed. It was all the more incumbent upon men to investigate why it was built, what it did and who was responsible. The vast evidence was no reason to hold back: from enquiry; it was a mandate to expose, in the vain hope that men might learn the shameful lesson of their moral cowardice -- for Auschwitz is our responsibility. We failed to stop it. We condemned it too late.
Crimes, barbarous crimes, are reported daily from Vietnam. They are crimes of an aggressor, an occupier, a tormentor. Our task is to display this truth to the people of the world. Our duty is to investigate every fact so that every fact will serve to arouse passionate resistance. We do this because we have knowledge which compels us to act against inhuman behaviour. Those who wish to apologise for. U.S. crimes and who would excuse their own,failure to act against them will try to impose a distinction between moral clarity and intellectual probity. In doing so they project their own double default. We must state the evidence before our eyes. Without this overwhelming evidence there would have been no Tribunal. Where crime is known, it is cause for enquiry and judgment. The® truth compels an exhaustive investigation to document and compile the full record.
The full record includes the moving and unparalleled resistance of the people of Vietnam. Those who would call the rising of the Warsaw Ghetto a crime will consider the resistance in Vietnam in the same light. Those who lack all feeling for the heroism of the partisans in Yugoslavia, Denmark and Norway will seek to equate the relentless annihilation of Vietnam by the U.S. rulers with the valiant resistance of the Vietnamese partisans. Let apologists for Nazism make this equation. There is no truth in it, less honour in its advocacy and complete moral turpitude in its imposition.
The force of our Tribunal lies in the impeccability of its procedures and the thoroughness of its investigation. The
[Turn to page 488.]
TEXT OF DE GAULLE'S LETTER BANNING WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL
[When the International War Crimes Tribunal sponsored by Bertrand Russell announced shortly after its formation last year that it would hold public hearings in Paris, heavy pressure began to be applied to block the tribunal's work.
[This ranged from attacks on the concept of the tribunal and invidious propaganda about its individual members ~- including poisonous essays on the personality of Bertrand Russell himself -to direct government moves. Thus the U.S. State Department revoked the passport of Ralph Schoenman, the secretary of Bertrand Russell and one of the most active figures in the tribunal, and the French authorities took him into custody for a night in a petty move to block his flight plans on one occasion.
[The source of this pressure was not difficult to determine. In fact it was indicated by such knowledgeable newspapers as the New York Times. Forecasts were made that General de Gaulle would concede to this pressure and bar the hearings from being held in Paris.
[The petty obstructions placed in the way of the tribunal by the French authorities reached the point of an international scandal when one of the key figures in the tribunal, the Yugoslav historian Vladimir Dedijer, was denied a visa on the eve of the hearings. Jean- Paul Sartre thereupon wrote a letter to de Gaulle April 13 asking the general to intervene.
[De Gaulle replied April 19. His