Jean-Paul Sartre's answer to de Gaulle was made publicly in the columns of the Paris weekly Le Nouvel Observateur (April 26). The world press scarcely noted it, although they gave big publicity to de Gaulle's letter to the French philosopher and playwright barring the International War Crimes Tribunal from meeting in France. The attitude of the bourgeois press, naturally, reflects the pressure emanating from the State Department.
(Below, World Outlook offers a translation of the full text of the interview in which Sartre defends the work of the tribunal which he heads as executive chairman. ]
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I wrote de Gaulle, as a matter of fact, concerning the Yugoslav historian Vladimir Dedijer. The reason was this -he is one of the members of the "tribunal" which Lord Bertrand Russell took the initiative to found and he was chosen as chairman of its sessions. I am "executive" chairman myself; but when we meet it will be Dedijer who will direct the working sessions and the rest of us will only be members of the jury.
Vladimir Dedijer visited London several times in recent months to meet with Bertrand Russell and other members of the tribunal. On each occasion he has been able to stop in Paris for 24 hours on a French transit visa. On his last trip, about ten days ago, he asked the French embassy in London for a visitor's visa instead of a transit visa so he could attend the tribunal's first meeting which had been scheduled for April 26 in Paris. Not only was he turned down on this but his transit visa was withdrawn. In other words, he had become an "undesirable" in France.
This was a serious matter because the tribunal could not meet without its presiding chairman and because this decision ran counter to the indirect assurances we had been given. We had sounded out persons close to the government on four occasions and each time we were led to believe that we could meet in France without difficulty. Confirmation of this official authorization was even given one member of the tribunal two days before the cancellation of Dedijer's visa.
The tribunal then asked me to write a letter to de Gaulle -- in its name, of course, and not in my own. I did this. I said in effect: "Up to now nothing has indicated that the government is opposed to the tribunal's meeting in France, but the incident which has just occurred in London seems. to demonstrate that the authorities have changed their mind; I cannot imagine our being informed of this through the actions of the consular service and I presume to hope that visas will be granted not only to Dedijer but to all those who will be called upon to sit on the tribunal or to testify before it." I emphasized the fact, moreover, that Dedijer had never meddled in French affairs either here or from abroad.
Twenty-four hours later, I received the letter which you have read. De Gaulle calls me "mon cher maftre."* This is to make it clear, I suppose, that it is the writer he is addressing and not the chairman of a tribunal which he does not want to recognize. I am only "maftre" for the cafe waiters who know that I am a writer -- in reality de Gaulle is replying to the representative of the tribunal.
His letter, moreover, had so little of the "private" about it that two days later it was followed by a second letter from the prefect of police which began by repeating de Gaulle's very words: "As you know, the government has concluded that it would greatly overstep international law and customs for an organization called ‘the international Tribunal Against War Crimes in Vietnam' to meet in France..." And the prefect of police informed me that the meetings we had scheduled were banned. I therefore consider that de Gaulle's letter -- which moreover was later published by courtesy of the government -- is an open letter to which I must reply openly.
- It. is constructed, as his speeches often are, in two parts: de Gaulle begins by saying "of course, naturally," to conclude thereafter with "obviously not."
The "of course, naturally," is the paragraph on the fact that "in our country, freedom of the pen and of expression exist" and that "it would...not be a question of restricting private citizens whose theses on this subject are, moreover, close to the French Republic's official position." This protestation of liberalism impresses me all the less since recent incidents demonstrate that, to the contrary, the government intends to ban all free and popular demonstration against the war in Vietnam.
For example, the National Vietnam Committee, which has no connection with the tribunal, rented the hall at the Issy-les~Moulineaux municipal theater to hold some meetings. However, it received a letter from the Hauts-de-Seine prefect that stated: "We are forced to prohibit these meetings because it would be neither customary nor lawful for a meet-— ing of a political type to be held ina municipal theater." This is particularly comic because numerous political meetings have already taken place in this theater and in many others. The National Vietnam Committee was finally able to hold its meetings in Paris itself, in the Pleyel Hall, but the decision of the Hauts-—de- Seine prefect along with the banning of
*Maitre is a title, analogous to maestro in this sense, which is given to respected artists, writers, etc. -- Translator. the "Russell tribunal" indicates the intention to impede the development of mass movements against the war in Vietnam as much as possible.
Two reasons, in my opinion, explain this very marked change in the government's attitude. The first is that the American pressure is continually mounting. To mention only the tribunal, it is very likely that Vice-president Humphrey stressed the importance the Americans attached to preventing us from meeting in France when he met with de Gaulle two weeks ago. And the United States holds many means of blackmail, despite de Gaulle's policy of "independence." The French economy's dependence on the American economy is not decreasing, as they would have us believe; it is increasing. It would. be sufficient for the Americans to stop lending France their big computers to disorganize our entire economy; and they could do it ina score of other ways. — :
Today, the government is still more vulnerable to American pressures -- and this is the second reason for its, aboutface --. because its failure in the recent elections, far from forcing it to "turn to the left," as some naive persons believed, compelled it to seek new support from the right, from the "Atlantistes" [pro-American partisans of the North Atlantic Alliance]. The banning of the tribunal is a favor to Lecanuet and Giscard, whom de Gualle will need more and more. .
Le Nouvel Observateur: De Gaulle's main argument is that of a statesman. Opposing the war in Vietnam is the government's affair -- and it is taking charge of it. Don't interfere in its business, it doesn't need you. But the government has responsibilities with respect to its allies nonetheless and it cannot permit: anyone to pass judgment on one of them on its own territory in a parody of justice.
Jean-Paul Sartre: I will answer those two points: the "don't interfere," and the "parody of justice."
The first is the most important. It expresses de Gaulle's concept of political authority. In his view, the government must not rely on the support of the country, but stand above it without ever bringing it directly into the actions it undertakes. But a country is not just its government. This attitude which consists in censuring the policy of the United States in measured words and terms while forbidding the masses to directly demonstrate their opposition to the war in Vietnam is completely antidemocratic.
The same thing happened with the OAS.*
*Organisation de 1'Armée Secréte -- Secret
The government fought the OAS singlehandedly with its "special agents," but at the same time used clubs on those who yelled "OAS murderers!" It was even responsible for killing eight of them at the Charonne metro. All of Gaullism is expressed in this ~- the leader has his ideas on Vietnam, he voices them in his speeches as the opportunity arises -- all the while adding that he can do nothing effective for the present -- but, above all, he does not want his view to take hold among the people, to receive their support; because that would bind him to them and that, basically, is what he dreads the most.
Now for the formal argument on which de Gaulle bases the second part of his reply, that we are setting ourselves up as a tribunal "in violation of the law." Here we come up against the Gaullist concept of justice. Justice, he writes in his letter, can only belong to "the state." In the beginning the state exists, which then creates institutions for itself and chooses the men to.run them. Judges thus become representatives of the government, and the state can, as we have seen in the Ben Barka affair and in many others, exert direct pressure on them. This leads to complete subordination of the courts to the state.
Real justice must draw its force both from the state and the masses. This was the way it was conceived at the time of the French Revolution; the jury system was created to give citizens a part in the 2 legal system.
But this isn't even the question; because we do not claim, although de Gaulle affects to believe it, to substitute ourselves for any existing courts. This would be the case if we met to try a private citizen who was guilty in our eyes of an ordinary crime when, in fact, there are courts to try hin.
What we propose is something different. In the first place, we will not put on judicial trappings, even symbolic ones -- jurors, as de Gaulle should know -- do not do that. We will simply hold the sessions of a trial which should properly come before an international tribunal which does not exist. Up to now, the Western nations have done everything they could to prevent the creation of such a tribunal and today they deny our body the right to hear evidence -- without judges, without a verdict -- in the Vietnam war
Army Organization, the terrorist network set up by the French colonialists in Algeria which staged many bombings and other savage acts against those who favored withdrawing French troops from Algeria or even. negotiating with the Algerian freedom fighters. -~- Translator. ~486-
trial.
Why? Because these nations want to prevent their policies, at all cost, from being seen from the standpoint of law and criminality, which would permit the people to judge the acts of their governments according to criteria other than skill or ineptness, effectiveness or ineffectiveness. There was Nuremburg, of course, but after having applied the victors' law to the vanquished -- a just law for once -- they hastened to dissolve the tribunal for fear of finding themselves in the dock one day. During the Algerian war, for example, such a tribunal would have had its work cut out for it.
Why have we appointed ourselves? Precisely because no one has done it. Only governments or peoples could do that. But the governments want to continue to be able to commit war crimes without running the risk of being brought to the bar -and they are not going to create an international body empowered to do that. As for the peoples, except in cases of revolutions, they appoint no tribunals; therefore, they could not appoint us.
Moreover, the tribunal has never considered passing judgment and it will not do so. It will limit itself to presenting the conclusions that it will draw from the testimony of witnesses and the reports of commissions of experts, some of whom have already been to north Viet-— nam. These conclusions will establish whether this or that action conducted by the American army constitutes a war crime according to existing international law and if it does will specify the penalties for the same sort of crime imposed at Nuremburg. The tribunal, moreover, will not judge solely in accordance with the laws applied at Nuremburg, which are insufficient. It will likewise refer to the Kellog-Briand Pact and to the Geneva Convention, which the Americans are failing to respect in Vietnam. Even then, the scope of the law will remain insufficient. What is really necessary is for the jurists to meet and set up an international code -- embryonic for the time being -without any intention of applying it to any particular war, and that a permanent international court be charged with apply ing this law on all occasions. The conclusions we reach will be of no interest if they remain the conclusions of a few persons. They will have to be endorsed by the masses and we will merely inform them with the maximum honesty.
Take the example of the "guava" bomb, the small bomb filled with pellets which cannot destroy any military or industrial installations or any structures being solely "antipersonnel" weapons. A commission from the tribunal went to conduct an on-the-spot investigation to ascertain what use the Americans are
making of such weapons. The press has already discussed this but in a vague way. The tribunal will not reveal anything to the public of which it is not already aware, but it will present a detailed and precise report which will further strengthen public opinion.
Our intention, therefore, is to inform public opinion at the same time we inform ourselves, with the hope that people will share our feelings regarding the use of napalm and fragmentation bombs and that they will draw the same conclusions as we.
Therefore, the reports of our commissions must be widely disseminated in order to have an impact on the masses, and the press can play a great role here. I know that some newspapers, including Le Nouvel Observateur will be on our side. But I also know that most of the others will only devote a few lines to the matter and then quickly let it drop. Thus we will have to carry out the publicity campaign ourselves. When we have collected all the testimony and the reports of the experts and drawn our own conclusions, we will publish a White Paper and, simultaneously, we will attempt, with all the means at our disposal, to promote demonstrations and trade-union and student mobilizations, and we will launch a petition campaign in the hope that our conclusions will gain endorsement. We will follow up our commitment to the limit and it is then that the tribunal's actions will acquire their real meaning.
But, once again, we are not substituting ourselves for any existing court, and we do not even claim to be the international tribunal which ought to exist. We are "private individuals," as de Gaulle says, who have taken a step on our own to remind the governments that the masses are the source of all justice, and who in informing ourselves inform others. Moreover, if de Gaulle forbids us to address ourselves to the masses, while maintaining that his position on Vietnam is "close" to ours, the real reason for this is that the source of his power does not reside in the people, because he does not draw his authority from the masses, as the last election -- in which he was in a minority -- proved.
De Gaulle affects to believe that we can do nothing more than bear witness with a certain weight because of our "moral credit." This is a joke. We cannot be satisfied, as he is, with a proclamation recommending withdrawal of American troops and the organization of talks among the Vietnamese. We must bring pressure to bear to have it declared straight out that there is only one party against whom aggression has been committed in this war and that is Ho Chi Minh.
N.O. What effective policy could a government not limiting itself to words, and which really wanted to act, conduct against the Vietnam war?
J-P.S. First of all; it would have to align itself resolutely with Ho Chi Minh and the FNL (Front National de Libération], and endorse those stipulations which they consider to be preconditions for any negotiations and which amount to nothing more than a summary of the Geneva accords.
Next, this government would have to convince the governments of other countries to adopt the same position and join with it in common action. Given what England, Germany, and Italy are today, I know that this would be difficult; but do not forget that a government is only strong when it has the support of the masses. If a left French government with the support of the masses took a forthright position in opposition to the American action in Vietnam, there is no doubt that the masses of the neighboring countries would be "infected" and would deal with their governments in the most effective way. At present, since there is no real democracy in Europe, one must deal government by government. In a genuinely democratic systen, the masses would mediate between one government and another.
N.O. But do you think that the European masses today, and in particular the French masses, can be mobilized against the Vietnam War?
J-P.S. Much more than I imagined. It strikes me that the public temper has changed. Let us recognize the reality: this change is due in part to de Gaulle. But the people thought he would carry his condemnation all the way; and they took him seriously; although he was only trying to pose as the champion of the "third world." In my opinion, if a left government wanted to mobilize the masses today, it would succeed. Look at Great Britain -- even with Wilson, large demonstrations have taken place. Look at Japan, in spite of the American influence, a general strike was launched -- it was not a hundred percent success, but it took place nonetheless. We have not yet reached that point today in France but the people are beginning to move.
I would like to stress a point -in banning our meeting, de Gaulle invoked, among other things, "the traditional friendship" binding us to the United States. This clearly shows, as I just told you, that as soon as a moral judgment is involved, the governments don't function. There is a general effort to eliminate the concept of morality from political life.
This strikes me all the more because in all the socialist countries I have visited since the beginning of the de-Stalin-
ization, the first problem that arose was how to reintroduce the element of morality into Marxism (and therefore into political life). It is quite evident that in the West there is no concern anywhere for this problem: there is nothing in political life here but pure utilitarianism and self-interest.
N.O. Is another country ready to receive you?
J-P.S. No. Several countries have already forbidden us to meet on their territory and I am afraid that we will meet with other refusals --~ some governments will be only too happy to cite General de Gaulle's refusal to justify their own. Perhaps, we will finally even be . forced to meet on a boat anchored outside -488-
territorial waters, like the English pirate radio stations. In any case, without fail, we will meet.
Paradoxically, these obstacles put in our way, establish the legitimacy of our tribunal and, in addition, they prove one thing, they are afraid of us. Certainly not of Bertrand Russell, who is 94 years old, nor me at 62, nor our friends. If we were merely a dozen intellectual simpletons ridiculously presuming to set ourselves up as judges, they would let us go about our business in peace.
Why are they afraid of us? Because we are posing a problem that no Western government wants to see posed: the problem of war crimes, which I repeat, they all want to continue to be able to commit.
BERTRAND RUSSELL'S OPENING STATEMENT AT WAR CRIMES HEARING
(Continued from page 482.]
evidence we marshall will be undeniable. Let us rest confident in this mission. let us repudiate the demand that we feign ignorance of the Lidices and Guernicas occurring daily in Vietnam.
Our enquiry is inspired by deep conviction. That is its strength. When brutal crimes are committed, conviction is a test of respect for facts and the courage to display that respect.
It is good that Sweden has received us. To our supporters we owe much gratitude. They deserve the credit for ensuring that the democratic achievements of Sweden are not submerged. This too is part of the struggle of our time. Weak men protect cruel men. Good men are the victims of both. When the. Dewey Commission met in the United States no one used the absurd sanctity of a head of state to equate a brave historic enquiry by renowned men with insult. Politesse is not at issue. The right to criticise men of power should be inviolate even if governments are more culpable than any individual spokesmen for them. It is our historic duty to transform cruelty and cowardice by upholding values on which civilization has always depended.
We do not supplicate for the right to investigate the crimes of war committed by Western governments in Vietnam: we demand it. We do not hesitate about the connection between our knowledge of crimes and the necessity to test this knowledge in public enquiry: we proclaim it. Moral purpose cannot be separated from the concern for truth. The burning children of Vietnam are martyred by the Western world. Their suffering, like that of the gassed Jews of Auschwitz, is a basic feature of the civilisation which we have built. There is, however, another part of our culture which has also been built and which has produced our own martyrs over the centuries. This Tribunal is in the tradition of that struggle and of that achievement: our art, our science, our music, our humanity.
It is our culture which is at stake. It is our barbariam which menaces it. It is not possible to organise society for plunder and mass murder without terrifying consequences. Our scientists and engineers, our chemists and researchers, our technology and economic system have been mobilised for murder.
In Vietnam we have done what Hitler did in Europe. We shall suffer the degradation of Nazi Germany unless we act. "Untermensch" is a word which lives again in the vocabulary of powerful men in Washington who speak of "yellow dwarfs" and "coonskins. "
The pity is not in the suffering of Vietnam. Her people resist and are heroic. The pity is in the smug streets of Europe and the complacent cities of North America so debased as to be indifferent even as our own fate is enacted in Vietnam.
The International War Crimes Tribunal is a revolutionary tribunal. We have no armies and no gallows. We lack power, even the power of mass communication. It is overdue that those without power sit in judgement over those who have it. This test we must meet, alone if need be. We are responsible before history.