I can claim to have had a small hand in instigating the legal complaint to the International Criminal Court by the Comoros Islands against the murders by Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmara. The Washington Post writes:
In a filing, lawyers from the Istanbul-based law firm Elmadag argued that the events that took place on the Mavi Marmari should be considered as having occurred on the territory of Comoros.
As though this were in any sense a matter of dispute. That crimes committed on any ship outside of territorial waters are under the jurisdiction of the flag state of the ship, is both customary international law of ancient standing and a fundamental provision of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Article 92:
Ships shall sail under the flag of one State only and, save in exceptional cases expressly provided for in international treaties or in this Convention, shall be subject to its exclusive jurisdiction on the high seas.
The Comoros Islands are a tiny state off the East coast of the continent. They are part of the disgraceful system where small or failed states lease out their shipping registers – often corruptly – to western companies who run them, enabling major shipping owners to evade safety, conditions, qualifications and pay regulations of more serious states. Liberia has been the most notorious example. The Comoros government therefore deserves huge congratulation for taking its flag state responsibility so seriously, and so bravely, in taking on Israel.
It is a responsibility Turkey deliberately shed just before the Mavi Marmara was attacked.
There is, in this regard, as I reported from my meetings with organisers and bereaved families of the Mavi Marmara in Izmir two years ago, something extremely disturbing about the case of the Mavi Marmara:
Shortly before sailing, the registration was switched from Turkey to the Comoros Islands. This exempted Turkey from the responsibility of jurisdiction. It also made discussion at NATO much easier for the US; if the Israelis had attacked in international waters a ship flying the flag of a NATO state, that would have been a much more difficult thing for the alliance to ignore.
It turns out that the change was made at the insistence of the Turkish Ministry of Transport. They carried out a number of inspections of the Mavi Marmara prior to the Gaza trip and made repeated demands for changes: mattresses and cushions had to have more modern, fire resistant foam. Internal walls had to be upgraded for fire resistance. Whatever changes were then made, the Ministry found new faults. In the end, the Ministry had said that the Mavi Marmara would be impounded unless it changed its registration, as it could not meet the safety requirements for a Turkish flagged ship.
The strange thing is that the Mavi Marmara had been Turkish flagged for years, and hade been running tourist cruises out of Istanbul. None of the faults the Ministry found resulted from any changes, yet none had apparently been a problem on past inspections. The family told me that, before the Mavi Marmara sailed, they had been in no doubt the Turkish government had been deliberately obstructive and had forced the change of flag.
Part of the Turkish state was insistent on giving the Mavi Marmara no protection. You have to ask the question, did these people know in advance the Mavi Marmara was to be attacked? The fatal shootings on board were mostly not random – they were targeted shots to the head of selected people. If Israel had planned this, how long in advance, where did they get their intelligence on who was aboard? If they had assistance from within the Turkish state, of course the Turkish state would want to ensure they did not have legal responsibility over the killings.
Let me be plain. I am not accusing the current government of Turkey. But they inherited a bureaucracy and political establishment riddled, especially at the most senior levels, with ultra-nationalists and relatives and connections of the Turkish military. The Turkish Foreign Office in particular is notoriously ultra and completely penetrated and corrupted by Israel. The Turkish government has had a most difficult job in changing the direction of the country without provoking violent nationalist reaction. That has been a process; and the result is that those apparently in power did not in reality get control of all the levers of power at once.
We are a long way yet from knowing the full truth about the Mavi Marmara: and Israel is not the only place to look.
Thanks for that very cogent post, Craig. I’d missed the reregistration issue completely. And it explains some of the other features of the case. Comoros is to be congratulated on its stand.
Could it not just be, more prosaically, that they thought there was a pretty good chance something would happen? Anyone waiting for the MM to depart would’ve expected at least for it to be stopped from entering Gazan waters – the fact that it was stopped in as bloody a way as it was was the unprecedented part?
Neal,
If they just stopped it, it would not be such a big issue that you would want the flag changed. None of the other flag states – and there were several – took similar action. The only flag state that insisted on a change was the vessel that had the people killed on board. Yes, that might be coincidence and your explanation is possible – but even then, it shows active pro-Israeli and anti-Palestinian action by Turkish authorities.
Thanks Craig. Good to be reminded of this background, some of which I had forgotten.
And yes, congratulations to the Comoros government, indeed.
The swedish broterhood party was heavy involved in this affair, Peter Widerud was one of the planners and Anna Ardin was the coordinator (the same Ardin that is involved in the Assange-case). There was some Swedish people on this ship that was arrested as well, they all told swedish media that the israel-troops knew exaktly were people was located on the Mavi Marmara when the attack begun. Another strange thing is that the same reporter that made the Assange-case world-known was also the only one that suceeded to get on the same flight out from Ben Gurion airport as the expelled swedes was placed on with only 1,5 hrs notice, not even the swedish state department had that info, the name of that reporter is Niklas Svensson, so there is more fishy fact on this episode.
Something else. Your “not random” link goes to a site which in turn cites Middleeast.org as its source. From there:
Regarding the complicity of other foreign states in this crime, it has transcended that the Germans Parliamentarians who were on-board, Annette Groth, Inge Höger and Norman Paech, had repeatedly asked the German Foreign Ministry for support and protection, but were rebuffed and instead they were warned to get off the flotilla because of unspecified “dangers”. The strange attitude of Cyprus, which neither allowed the ships to enter port, nor allowed a delegation of Parliamentarians to board the ships, can in retrospect only be explained with the prior knowledge and complicity in the crime if the Cypriot regime.
http://www.middleeast.org/mereport/go.php?bWlkZGxlZWFzdC5vcmd8fG1lcnx8aHR0cDovL3d3dy5wcmlzb25wbGFuZXQuY29tL3R1cmtpc2gtc291cmNlcy1pc3JhZWxpLWFkdmFuY2UtdGFyZ2V0LWFzc2Fzc2luYXRpb24tbGlzdC1mb3VuZC1vbi1mbG90aWxsYS5odG1s
gordon bennett. Could a mod fix that, please? In Firefox the link goes off the edge of the screen.
RIP.
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/aug2010/460_0___30_0_0_0_0_0_flotilladead1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comoros_Islands
and one of my favourite videos, especially for Regev’s smile being wiped off his face at 2.09
Gaza flotilla video mashup: Internet Killed Israeli PR http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME_NpnH7jDc&bpctr=1368702083
You have to agree to ‘continue’ as Google say it contains offensive material or somesuch.
Did you hear about their HoC committee appearance this morning saying that they have no responsibility to pay tax in this country as no money changes hands in this country as they iperate out of Ireland? Chutzpah.
This is interesting … I’d forgotten so many details and missed others …
Now I’m asking myself a question … could it be that the US had advanced knowledge and issued warnings to various governments?
Or is this site infecting me with the bug of questioning everything?
There’s a major investigation into Western complicity in the murders on the Mavi Marmara, published as an interactive ebook, with active links that take you to all the evidence. Find it here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Auschwitz-Propaganda-murders-Marmara-ebook/dp/B00B239VF4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1358557511&sr=8-3
Not only does it go into serious detail about the subservience of British and US media outlets to the official Zionist line, but it looks at Greece’s use as Israel’s proxy in preventing the second Flotilla to leave for Gaza, as well as a lot of evidence of libellous lies repeated by the BBC. Lord David Trimble is proved to have lied in his part as observer of the Israeli “investigation” into the Mavi Marmara, and many other figures (such as Joe Biden) are proved culpable as well. A powerful read.
“if the Israelis had attacked in international waters a ship flying the flag of a NATO state, that would have been a much more difficult thing for the alliance to ignore.”
Of the five other ships in the convoy one was registered in the US, two in Greece and one in Turkey. All were boarded by the Israelis with varying degrees of violence.
Most reports of the incident state that many of the victims were shot from above, from helicopters, so they could hardly have been targetted.
” with ultra-nationalists and relatives and connections of the Turkish military. The Turkish Foreign Office in particular is notoriously ultra and completely penetrated and corrupted by Israel.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t get me head around of Turkish “ultra-nationalists” being “corrupted” into selling out at the expense of Turkish lives & at the expense of the Turkish State being openly humiliated.
“The Turkish government has had a most difficult job in changing the direction of the country without provoking violent nationalist reaction”
It was popular “nationalist reaction” that demanded violent revenge against Israel.
There’s something deeper involved, which would also explain how previous Palestinian supporting countries like Greece & Cyprus, suddenly decided to act in Israel’s interests.
Macky
It relates to the particular politics of Turkey, where friendly relations with Israel were a key plank of the policy of military governments and nationalist governments which the military controlled – which is all the governments of Turkey up to this one, just about.
The current Greek government has an open policy of cultivating Israel. That is very largely a factor of Turkey now having a different kind of government, and cash too.
‘Most reports of the incident state that many of the victims were shot from above, from helicopters, so they could hardly have been targeted.’
That statement is completely wrong.
Gaza flotilla activists were shot in head at close range
Exclusive: Nine Turkish men on board Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times, autopsy results reveal
Robert Booth
The Guardian, Friday 4 June 2010 22.00 BST
Israel was tonight under pressure to allow an independent inquiry into its assault on the Gaza aid flotilla after autopsy results on the bodies of those killed, obtained by the Guardian, revealed they were peppered with 9mm bullets, many fired at close range.
Nine Turkish men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times and five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head, according to the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, which carried out the autopsies for the Turkish ministry of justice today.
The results revealed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. Two other men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, said Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the council of forensic medicine.
/..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/04/gaza-flotilla-activists-autopsy-results
Kempe
Precisely. The only ship which was reflagged was the only one on which there were murders. Including the other Turkish ship, on which there were no murders, and which the Turkish government had not made reflagged.
Most of the dead were shot in the head at close range. Unlike you, I have interviewed eyewitnesses.
Turkey is playing a dangerous game; residual Ottoman empire aspirations. The fact that it was humiliated by her so called “friend” ie zionistan, and in response stopped talking to the ziofuckwits is a shame that Turkish government will find difficult to live with (Turks have a long memory).
However the traitorous behaviour of the Turkish government does not lie only in allowing her nationals to be targeted and killed by the rabid, out of control ziofuckwits, whose barbaric behaviour seemingly is a point of pride to be boasted about by the said ziofuckwits (the same predatory tossers have 400 nuclear and thermonuclear war heads and the delivery mechanism thereof).
As we debate Turkish government is playing the conduit to the Qatari supplied weapons into Syria, and the war in Syria is gradually spilling onto the Turkish soil, as in the latest bombings in a border town which was not all that widely reported by the Western Corporate Media.
History shall not deal kindly with those sponsors and syanim who helped the rabid out of control ziofuckwits to carry on with their war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.
Comoros Islands ought to be congratulated for their stance, in view of the fact that pusillanimous Nato, Turkish. Cypriot et al, playedg roll over and let the ziofuckwits to get away with yet more murderous atrocities.
The Wikipedia entry under “Gaza flotilla raid” appears to be the work of hasbara agents.
“This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page.”
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“This article may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_flotilla_raid
“It relates to the particular politics of Turkey”
Well, in effect what you are describing is a Turkish “Deep/Secret State”, in reality not so different to that our own one that is known to have targeted Harold Wilson to a dirty tricks campaign, run by officers and ex-officers of MI5, MI6 etc.
No doubt our “Deep/Secret State” is still operating stronger than ever, despite our veneer of “parliamentary democracy”, which begs the question can democratic governments ever be free from ultimate “Deep/Secret State” control ?
No need for an off-topic debate, just pointing out that Turkey is not unique in this respect.
Still confused about the 360 degree turn-around of Greece & Cyprus; yes, possibly to spite Turkey, and yes probably for monetary reasons, no surprise given their recent economic problems; still I would like to think that the overwhelming majority of ordinary Greeks & Cypriots do support the struggle of the Palestinians as they have always done.
Still confused about the 360 degree turn-around of Greece & Cyprus…?
Plausible analysis here:
http://electronicintifada.net/content/how-greece-abandoned-palestine/10171
Well Craig those self same witnesses have gone on record as saying that two of those killed were hit by machine gun fire from Israeli helicopters before the commandos even landed on the ship. They won’t help their case if they keep changing their story.
Killings/murders/assassinations aside four ships flying the flag of NATO member states were boarded and captured in international waters and the crews assaulted. That ought to have been enough by itself to trigger an international incident.
Thanks for the link Komodo; makes interesting & bleak reading, at least the corrupt George Papandreou is no longer in power, but I guess it’s still that ““Deep/Secret State” factor at work again !
Macky, it seems likely to me that the PASOK government of Greece, legendarily pusillanimous, was simply obliging friends in high places, in the hope that financial aid would be forthcoming.
As to the “deep state” theory, comrade Occam, taking a look at Erdogan’s record would probably settle for the probability that he was “running with the Palestinian hare and hunting with the Israeli hounds.” As he so often does. Right now he is weeping copiously about the troubles of the Syria people, even while he provides explosives to car bombers and bases for imperialism’s cannibal legions.
With the Papandreous, as with the Bushes, I think there might be an element of the son wilfully taking the opposite direction to the father. So no doubt Junior surrounded himself with all the people Dad had kept at arms’ length.
And Greece is this paranoid about Turkey …
http://euobserver.com/defence/115513
I’d have thought being bankrupt and having nothing special in the way of products was as good a defence against invasion as any. Well, that’s the way to get there.
“Well Craig those self same witnesses have gone on record as saying that two of those killed were hit by machine gun fire from Israeli helicopters before the commandos even landed on the ship. They won’t help their case if they keep changing their story.”
Source links please !
You will understand the need, given that your previous statement of “‘Most reports of the incident state that many of the victims were shot from above, from helicopters, so they could hardly have been targeted.’, doesn’t seem to fit in too well with the autopsy reports showing that, as Craig has already told you, most of the dead were shot in the head at close range.
Gruesome and shocking details of the killings is best explained by the report of the UN HRC report on the matter. The report was adopted by the 15th session of the Commission in September 2010. Para 170 reads as follows:
Report available here
Summary here
There is little doubt that the Mavi Mamara killings have severely dampened enthusiasm for further such protests – arguably the rationale for the killings – and so far, for all the huffing and puffing, Israel has not paid a serious price for its viciousness (when has it ever done?). The Zionist State knows it can get away with blatant murder whenever it suits – so that’s exactly what it does. Plus ca change?
Best of luck the Comoros with the case, but I won’t be holding my breath.
Erdoğan has to deal with the fact that Turkey is majority Sunni, but has a sizeable, and hitherto peaceful, Shi’a minority. He has borders with Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Azerbaijan -oil-rich and being purposefully subverted by Israel. He would be unwise to favour parties identifiable with either sect unduly, especially as he has relaxed Turkey’s policies towards its religious tendency and has to watch his back for the ultras and the army.
The Iraq invasion set something of a precedent for the West destabilising countries by setting Sunni against Shi’a, enthusiastically helped by the mad fundamentalists of both sides of that divide. Erdoğan probably doesn’t want that to happen at home, and Syria is very near home. He may now be regretting deviating from the purely secular state which Kemal founded.
“And Greece is this paranoid about Turkey …”
No, not necessarily; I would say that your link is just high-lighting a well-known fact, that the “arms industry” is just a blatant racket; think of it as a money laudering operation in which money from everybody’s taxes is transferred to line the pockets of everybody connected with the “”arms industry”; just think of how many of our own ex-mps suddenly become employed by weapons makers on leaving office.
As per your linked article, financial blackmail, as much as corruption, is all part & parcel of the “arms industry”;
“No one is saying ‘Buy our warships or we won’t bail you out.’ But the clear implication is that they will be more supportive if we do.”
@Alister
Thanks. Will settle down with it this evening.