Is Ireland facilitating possible genocide at Shannon?
international |
crime and justice |
news report 
Saturday January 10, 2009 19:35
by Shannonwatch
4 Hercules C 130 US military aircraft refuelled at Shannon over the past 48 hours
Israel has been using a huge amount of munitions and explosives in its assault on Gaza. War crimes have been committed during this assault in which over 800 Palestinian people have been killed including as many as 250 children. Over the past 48 hours four Hercules military aircraft landed and were refuelled at Shannon airport. Their destination is not yet known, but in recent times only about four military aircraft were refuelled at Shannon per month. The possibility exists that Israel is being resupplies with munitions expended in its murderous attacks on Palestinians by aircraft transiting through Ireland and Irish airspace with the permission of the Irish Government.
Given that almost six millions Jewish people were killed in the genocide committed in German death camps, known as the Holocaust.
I might seem outrageous to now accuse the Jewish Israeli Government of genocide against the Palestinian people. However, an examination of the Genocide Convention 1948 reveals that Israel may well be in serious breach of several aspects of the Genocide Convention in its treatment of and attacks on the Palestinian people since 1948, and in particular in its most recent attacks on Gaza.
Israel is one of the 142 countries that have ratified the Genocide Convention 1948. Given the horrific Jewish experiences of the Holocaust Israel should be one of the strongest supporters of the Genocide Convention, and should be exemplary in its compliance and enforcement of this convention. Yet a study of the behaviour of the state of Israel since its foundation in 1948 shows that the treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli state has been in breach of the spirit and in some cases the letter of international laws on genocide. The full title of the convention is: Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Its first two articles are:
Article I: The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious groups, as such:
a. Killing members of the group;
b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Israel has been in very serious breach of Article II especially, including in the following respects:
1. The virtual ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their lands and homes in 1948, and is subsequent conflicts, and by other means including restrictive planning, purchase, and destruction of property including farm land and crops.
2. The deliberate targeting of religious buildings particularly Mosques.
3. The killing of large numbers of the Palestinian group in a very disproportionate manner (approximately 100:1) contrary to Article II a.
4. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, contrary to Article II b.
5. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, contrary to Article II c.
In recent years prominent national leaders and others from several countries, including, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Rwanda and Liberia, have been brought before international courts for crimes against humanity. The leaders of Israel should be no exception, and if any Palestinian leaders have been involved in crimes against humanity, they should also face trial before international courts.
Given the above legal situation, it behoves the Irish Government and the Irish people to ensure that Ireland and its territory and airspace are in no way being used to facilitate or be complicit in war crimes that may amout to acts of genocide.
Peace activist monitoring US aircraft breaching Irish neutrality
Comments (7 of 7)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7The Hercules C 130 photographed above at Shannon airport at 3 pm on Sat 10 Jan 09 has the registration number 21454, is operated by the US Air National Guard, and name Charlotte appears on the tail of the C 130 presumably referring to Charlotte/Douglas International Airport Air Guard Station.
Perhaps this and other recent refuelling of Hercules C130 aircraft have a more innocent mission than refuelling the Israeli attacks on Gaza. Perhaps they are only being used to carry munitions and other war materials to resupply the wars that are killing thousands of innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By any other name it's still genocide. We all condemn Nazism, and the German civilians who stood by and ignored this atrocity in Nazi germany..... but we here in Ireland stand idly by and march up and down the streets of every city in the country on weekends and completely ignore the site of our complicity-Shannon Warport.
There were 20 people at the most at the vigil in Shannon on Nollag Na Mna, the 6th anniversary of the peace camp.
There has'nt been an all out call to blokade this airport from any group to try and stop it, and pin point that Shannon Airport is the US military hub for this genocide. Instead, those who broke the silence (and a plane or two) were actually ignored also.
You can shout 'Shame, shame, shame' all you want in your thousands and it will not cause a blink in an eye of a single politician.
It will not bring one murdered child back to life,
it will not put an arm back on a dismembered boy,
it will not prevent any more death
it will not change the heart of a single politician, no matter how much you believe it.
The time for marching is long over, it was over before it started because nothing was achieved by marching. The killing continnues and will continnue until people do something about it down at Shannon where it is all going on.
When all avenues of peaceful protest have failed.....was it Martin Luther King aid it????
Reuters report, the US is about to resupply them with 5.8 million pounds dead weight of weaponry.
“The United States is seeking to hire a merchant ship to deliver hundreds of tons of arms to Israel from Greece later this month, tender documents seen by Reuters show.
The U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command said the ship was to carry 325 standard 20-foot containers of what is listed as “ammunition” on two separate journeys from the Greek port of Astakos to the Israeli port of Ashdod in mid-to-late January.
A “hazardous material” designation on the manifest mentions explosive substances and detonators, but no other details were given.
“Shipping 3,000-odd tons of ammunition in one go is a lot,” one broker said, on condition of anonymity.
“This (kind of request) is pretty rare and we haven’t seen much of it quoted in the market over the years,” he added.
The U.S. Defense Department, contacted by Reuters on Friday in Washington, had no immediate comment.
I think ifn there were enuough people at Shannon to keep the focus on Shannon and not a bunch of shouting bullhorn hoarders in Dublin there would be a shift in the feeling about the helplessness most feel re Snn, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. A constant watch of military craft is vital to the exposure of the governments fraudulent notion of nutrality and innocence in this genocide.
Enough people in the right place can do wonders, but, the exclusion of NVDA must be addressed and approved at all levels and not some notion that this is law breaking. Acquittals have already been won on every continent and also in Ireland for Acts of Non Violent Direct Action
It should be generally supported by the masses, and supported by the leadership of the likes of SF,SWP,IAWM, PANA, IPSC. It is a misnomar to think that you can be an antiwar activist and condemn NVDA, the two are actually hand in hand though some would have you believe that this is against that notion.
Please attend the peace vigil at Shannon tomorrow (almost today) Sunday 11 Jan, and demonstrate your outrage at what is happening in Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan, with the Complicity of the Irish Government and of the Irish people by default.
But done just confine your visits to Shannon to tomorrow. The killing of over 250 innocent children in Gaza, and the deaths of up to 250,000 innocent children in Iraq and Afghanistan, cries out for justice, reparation and accountablity.
Do you not all find it bizarre to say the least that there are 'laws' that can result in the closing down of websites and also imprisonment for acts considered as incitement to violent behaviour but it is considered OK for a country to bomb, maim and murder civilians?
Just a thought ....
Today's vigil at Shannon demonstrated that there is some opposition at least to Shannon and Ireland's war effort. There were 30 - 35 people there despite the rain and probably as many Gardai. But I agree that many, many more need to get up and protest at what Ireland is now doing to oppress, starve, even destroy, whole societies.
In a conversation with a member of an Garda Siochana today, I asked if he and his colleagues were satisfied there was no covert or illegal transportation of weapons/munitions through the airport to Israel. His reply was: "Do you have evidence that there is?".
Well lets see ...
- we know that Israel is killing Palestinian civilians indiscriminately, and destroying their homes, hospitals, schools and places of worship;
- we know that Israel is being supplied with deadly weapons to do this by the US;
- we know that US transporters - including Kalitta Air, a company known to covertly supply the Israelis - have passed through the airport in recent days/weeks.
That should be enough to merit investigation. But of course it is insufficient "evidence" for those who claim to be Guardians of the Peace. So how do we get more "evidence" for the Gardai - whose rank and file were ordered again today to stand behind barricades erected between us and the airport entrance. On the one hand they say "Give us the evidence"; on the other "You are not permitted to go close enough to see what's going on" ...
As with the known rendition planes passing through the airport, this can best be described by paraphrasing Joseph Heller's Catch 22 ...
"anything can happen at Shannon that you do not have enough evidence to have investigated".
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