The International Commission of Jurists: Global Advocates for Human Rights

6. Responding to Crisis

Chapter 6 Responding to Crisis Justice of any sort, in principle as in execution, emanates from the State. -Charles De Gaulle Real justice must derive its strength equally from the State and from the masses. -Jean Paul Sartre 1 Throughout the 1960s states promised justice in new human rights treaties, but they practiced the most extreme barbarism. The IC] struggled to protect life and liberty in crisis after crisis. In 1963 the IC] Secretariat received 5,878 letters and sent 6,592. 2 SecretaryGeneral MacBride left to Amnesty International rescue efforts for individual victims and devoted IC] resources to combat systemic racism , fascism, and communism in states North and South, East and West. African liberation from white minority rule in South Africa, Angola, and Rhodesia became a top priority. Fascist repression in Greece, Spain, Indonesia, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic were investigated and exposed. Communist invaders cut short Czechoslovakia 's democratic reforms, and the IC] publicized injustice throughout the Soviet empire. The IC] used both cooperative and confrontational approaches, a range of tactics from quiet diplomacy to public condemnation. After bloody riots, two governments invited the IC] to conduct inquiry commissions quite unlike its confrontational proceedings on Hungary , Tibet, and Bizerte. In private communications IC] officials pressed officials to respect law when restoring order. Trial observers Responding to Crisis 115 could be friendly private advisers to the misguided, or hostile public adversaries to the malicious. The IC] indicted uncooperative regimes with negative publicity and well-documented complaints to intergovernmental human rights commissions. Part III of this book concludes by explaining how the IC] responded to its own nearly fatal crisis. Revelations of covert CIA funding in 1967 threatened the Commission's public standing and triggered a total cutoff of American support in 1970. A new Secretary -General obtained sufficient European government contributions to keep the IC] barely functioning for another year. Advocacy, Protest, and Inquiry African Liberation from White Minority Rule African winds of change toppled colonial regimes up to a white redoubt south of the Zambezi River. In five territories white minorities of between 2 and 18 percent legalized oppression to retain privilege. Portuguese colonialists used forced African labor, white Rhodesians unilaterally proclaimed independence from Britain, and apartheid created a South African caste system that was also imposed on neighboring South West Africa (Namibia). As liberation movements took up arms for freedom, the IC] raised international challenges to military repression and racist legality. In correspondence with South African minister of justice B.]. Vorster , Sean MacBride demonstrated a willingness to use quiet diplomacy even with an unrepentant adversary. MacBride established his bona fides by recalling that his father had fought with the Boers against the British. That credential moved Vorster to write a personal reply that disavowed any official response to the meddlesome IC].3 The IC] publicly confronted South Africa for both its internal apartheid and its domination of South West Africa. The Bulletin reported on each new piece of repressive legislation-the Sabotage Act, the No Trial Act, the Bantu Laws Amendment Act, and the Terrorism Act. IC] trial observers praised occasional acts of judicial independence and witnessed political prosecutions of so-called communists. The IC] protested harassment of defense lawyers and dispatched a British member of Parliament to aid an attorney whose passport was withdrawn." Two special reports exposed South African injustice; the regime countered with its own publication, South Africa and the Rule of Laui? Two Journal articles and a special report criticized the World Court's decision that Ethiopia and Liberia could not bring suit on South West Africa." After the General Assembly officially stripped 116 Chapter 6 South Africa of its right to govern the territory, the IC] publicly condemned the trials of South West Africa Peoples' Organization (SWAPO) freedom fighters. In Angola and Rhodesia IC] members had personal relationships and political sympathies that muted public criticism. The IC] sent observers to Leopoldville and Angola who prepared a special report on Portugal's brutal response to the Angolan independence movement." MacBride visited Lisbon to discuss the findings with Portuguese officials , and the Bulletin announced the forthcoming report. The Executive Committee insisted on seeing the final draft, and it was never published. Instead, the Bulletin reported U.N. resolutions opposed by the United States and Britain that condemned Portuguese colonialism and called on NATO allies to cut off military assistance to the Salazar regime." Several press releases and two Bulletin articles denounced Rhodesian...