Venezuela to offer asylum for American military deserters fleeing illegal wars
By: Sorcha Faal, 7 July 2006

Kremlin sources are reporting today that Venezuela's Foreign Minister, Ali Rodriguez, has finished preparing a report for President Chavez that will be released to the world upon the Venezuelan Presidents upcoming visit to Russia and which will announce that their South American nation will become the first to offer sanctuary and asylum to American Military Soldiers fleeing the Internationally condemned United States and illegal war in Iraq.

Foreign Minister Rodriguez notes in this report that refugee status will also be granted to US Military Soldiers families and children, and as we can read as quoted in their main text of this document, and which says:

"The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela believes that the rights of refugees are very important for the improvement of human rights conditions within a country’s regional neighbors and the world in general. Following the war in our neighboring Colombia with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) we have made significant effort to accommodate refugees who have migrated into our borders.

We have made tremendous efforts to ensure that the refugees have all the necessary protection; legal assistance and asylum, which seek to ensure that they are kept out of harm’s way. International law as well as our own constitution clearly recognizes the right to asylum for anyone facing human rights violations. We realize that not a single person should be forced to return to a country consumed with the violence of war and that soldiers of any nation ordered to fight in an illegal war should likewise be given protection.

Like every member of the United Nations who has signed and ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child , The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela takes pride in ensuring that extraordinary precaution to protect the rights of all minors that come into the nation are very adequate. These minors may be unaccompanied because they had been orphaned or separated from their parents by the war."

This extraordinary action by Venezuela mirrors their actions of last century when they offered secret refuge, and asylum, to German Soldiers, and their families, fleeing the Nazi Empire, and became one of the few South American nations to break diplomatic relations with Germany, Japan and Italy following the Japanese Empires attack upon the American Naval Forces in December, 1941.

Venezuela’s actions in providing protection for American Soldiers fleeing their country also mirrors those actions of Canada, and which during the American war in Vietnam during the 1960’s and 1970’s provided refuge and asylum to tens of thousands of young Americans fleeing service in that war, but which during this war has all but closed their borders to those fleeing the horrors of war.

These reports further mention that ‘cracks’ are beginning to appear among the United States Army’s Officer Corp as charges have been brought against one of them for refusing his illegal orders, and as we can read as reported by the Reuters News Service in their article titled "Army charges officer for refusing to fight in Iraq", and which says:

"The U.S. Army filed three charges on Wednesday against an officer who refused to fight in Iraq due to objections over the legality of the war. First Lt. Ehren Watada, who supporters say is the first commissioned U.S. officer to publicly refuse to serve in Iraq and face a military court, remained at Fort Lewis base in Washington state when his unit shipped out to Iraq on June 22. Watada called the war and U.S. occupation of Iraq "illegal" and said participation would make him a party to war crimes. In a statement, the Army said it had charged Watada, 28, with missing movement, contempt toward officials and conduct unbecoming an officer."

Not being fully explained to the American people by their propaganda media organs is that their recent Supreme Court decision against their Top Military Leaders provides yet another ‘link in the chain’ to the eventual War Crimes Trials to which many of them will be brought before, and as more fully explained by the Los Angeles Times News Service in their article titled "Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld could expose officials to prosecution", and which says:

"THE SUPREME Court on Thursday dealt the Bush administration a stinging rebuke, declaring in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld that military commissions for trying terrorist suspects violate both U.S. military law and the Geneva Convention. But the real blockbuster in the Hamdan decision is the court's holding that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention applies to the conflict with Al Qaeda — a holding that makes high-ranking Bush administration officials potentially subject to prosecution under the federal War Crimes Act.

The provisions of the Geneva Convention were intended to protect noncombatants — including prisoners — in times of armed conflict. But as the administration has repeatedly noted, most of these protections apply only to conflicts between states. Because Al Qaeda is not a state, the administration argued that the Geneva Convention didn't apply to the war on terror. These assertions gave the administration's arguments about the legal framework for fighting terrorism a through-the-looking-glass quality. On the one hand, the administration argued that the struggle against terrorism was a war, subject only to the law of war, not U.S. criminal or constitutional law. On the other hand, the administration said the Geneva Convention didn't apply to the war with Al Qaeda, which put the war on terror in an anything-goes legal limbo."

Not just to the present US Military Leaders are war crimes being put against, but also to the present American Presidents father, and who was once an American President himself, and as we can read as reported by the Uruknet News Service in their article titled "Criminal Charges Filed Against George H.W. Bush (Sr.) in Iceland", and which says:

"A group of ten Icelandic citizens filed yesterday at the Office of the State's Police Chief criminal charges against George H.W. Bush, former U.S. President, who is expected in Iceland this evening at the invitation of Icelands's President Olafur R. Grimsson.

The group accuses former President Bush for participation in war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes against the peace, and crimes against internationally protected persons. It demands that former President Bush be detained by the Icelandic authorities and investigation on these charges. Should the investigation conclude that legal proceedings against him are warranted, the group requests that he be tried before an Icelandic court or extradited to an international criminal tribunal which possesses the requisite jurisdiction to deal with his case. Icelandic courts are, under international law, qualified to try individuals suspected of having committed international crimes.

George H.W. Bush is charged of initiating a war of aggression against Panama in 1989, in breach of international law and the UN Charter, constituting a crime against the peace, and of ordering the kidnapping of Panama's President Noriega in violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons. George H.W. Bush is furthermore charged for his command responsibility for the multiple war crimes committed by US forces in the Gulf War in 1991, including the policy of deliberately bombing civilian targets and the massacre of soldiers hors combat.

His command responsibility for these crimes is equivalent to those of other heads of states who have been charged, indicted and convicted for international crimes, including torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. George H.W. Bush is also charged for inducing an uprising of Kurds and Shi'ites in Iraq during the Gulf War and then ordering US forces to withhold aid from those who risked the uprising, thus leaving unarmed uprising masses unprotected against Saddam Hussein's brutal forces."

Russian Social Scientists have long noted the striking similarities between the average citizens of the former Nazi German Empire and those of the present American Empire, with the most important being their inability to see their Military Leaders coming to eventual trial for their war crimes.  Russian International Legal Scholars, however, state that the differences between Nazi Germany and the present American Empire lie in the Nazis having a dictatorial fascist government, and where under Emergency Laws no elections were held this does not apply to the current Americans, who are still able to elect their Military Leaders, and who according to these scholars are as liable as their Military Leaders for the War Crimes being committed by them.

Sadly though, and from all the evidence that can be seen in the United States, their citizens remain like their German Nazi counterparts, not seeing the storm clouds gathering around them….not because they are not there, but simply because they will not look to see them.

It has been well said before, the American Dream is just that, a dream…the true reality of the Americans present existence is not a dream, it is a nightmare.  But to those American Soldiers able to flee to the safety and refuge of Venezuela, perhaps their lives as true and free human beings can begin again.

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