The Iranian government has filed a lawsuit against the US, in the International Court of Justice in the Hague because of the confiscation of 2 thousand million dollars from its frozen funds.
A Court decided Iran had to pay those 2 thousand million to the victims and families of the US Marines, who died in an attack against a military base in Lebanon. Washington blamed the Islamic Republic of carrying out that attack but, even Judge John Roberts opposed to that argument because he considered this decision to be completely arbitrary: “This is as arbitrary as signing a law that said “applicants win”, the Congress decided on this case by adopting a special statute designed for this case, which solved the legal specific disputes of the parts guaranteeing the victory of the petitioners”.
According to the President of Iran, Hassan Rohani, Iran was not involved in the death of the American Marines in Lebanon and the Court decision, adopted by the US, is a “shameless robbery”.
Washington’s accusation against Iran is related to an event that happened 33 years ago: on October 23, 1983, when 241 Marines died. This was amidst an intervention led by the US with some other members of OTAN (France, Italy and Great Britain). Two trucks full of explosive driven by suicides, exploded at the same time in front of a U.S. military base and at the French control post in Lebanon, where 59 skydrivers also died.
But, what did those military men did in Lebanon? Why were they there? A cable from UPI agency, dated September 30, 1983, stated: “the gunboats who bombed the anti-government positions (or foreign bases), during the biggest maritime operation since the conflict in Vietnam, are part of a fighting force assigned to operate in Lebanon. It includes 15 warships and 16,238 American soldiers and marines.
One year before that, Israel had taken advantage of a suspicious and hurried withdrawal of the multinational forces and invaded Beirut, slaughtering refugees from the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Chatila, in an operation that was later described as a genocide, by the UN.
During 40 hours thousand of unarmed civilians died, including women, elderly people and babies. Since then, the clashes grew strong and so, multinational forces came back to Lebanon. At the same time, Washington promoted an agreement between the Lebanese and Israeli authorities, which was rejected by Syria and by the Palestine Liberation Organization, because they considered the presence of Israeli troops in Lebanon to be legal.
An organization called the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack of October 23 and a former Mossad agent, Victor Ostrovsky, has affirmed that the Israeli intelligence service knew about the plan against the American, but did nothing. This makes perfect sense: After the attack against Ronald Reagan, it was said that the U.S. “was more determined than ever to make their Marines stay in Lebanon so that they could cope with the ones who wanted them to leave the region”. The US forces got more and more involved in the conflict, however, due to the internal implications, Washington and it allies were forced to retire in 1984. The Western press didn’t refer to what happened in Sabra and Chatila as “terrorism”, where thousands of civilians died. But when they communicated the decision of the Supreme Court against the Iranian funds they referred to Marines “victims of terrorism”.
The implication of the United States in terrorist actions is obvious. Mainly in Latin America, where only in Cuba 3,478 people died as “victims of terrorism” carried out, financed and supported by Washington. The perpetrators of those acts are quietly living in the United States, far from Courts. The Cuban frozen funds in the US under the American blockade to the island —which lasts more than 5 decades—. And thanks to venal judges, this turned out to be a great business for them and their “sponsors” from extremists forces, who have historically taken advantage from the confrontation between this two countries.
The International Court of Justice of the Hague is an organism of the UN which once ruled against US, telling it to “stop and refrain itself from the illegal use of force” against Nicaraguan government in the 80s.
The Court said then that the US had committed “an offense of its obligation under the International Law”, a customary law of abstention of using the force against another State” but Washington never obeyed that decision nor paid the compensations established by it, despite it had accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court, since it was created in 1946.
The fact that the Iranian government turned to the Hague says much about its innocence and its respect for International Courts but ..Will the US accept the sentence this time? Or will they consider themselves above the Union Nations? Will it act “a the owner of the world” who applies its own law to all but never accept the law of all for itself?
