Issue No.328
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5 - 11 June 1997 Issue No.328 Supplement |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
'Never forgive, never forget'
Two years after Israeli soldiers revealed the atrocities committed by the Israeli army, the men who murdered Egyptian POWs in cold blood are still at large. Omayma Abdel-Latif reports
"Suddenly, I heard Biro's tank. He stopped near me and asked me what I was doing. I said transferring the POWs to Sharm El-Sheikh.
"He jumped up, pulled out his pistol, and shouted at me: 'Soldier, move away.'
"The Egyptians understood what was happening and they encircled me, begging me to spare them. Minutes later, they were dead."
With no show of remorse, retired Brigadier-General Aryeh Biro exposed the chilling details of this and similar murders to journalists in August 1995. During the 1956 war in Sinai, he was inconvenienced by the Egyptian soldiers he had taken prisoner, so he ordered them to lie face down on the ground, then killed them.
The reports opened the door to more disclosures of Israeli atrocities which were committed in cold blood during the war. Another Israeli soldier recounted how, in June 1967, he watched as five prisoners were marched, one by one, to the outskirts of his camp in Sinai, ordered to dig their own graves and shot.
Years later, these war criminals are still at large. Even the committee appointed by former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres to look into the subject did not present the long-awaited report on the result of the investigation.
Many of those who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly expressed deep concern that "the subject may be closed for now so as not to damage further Egyptian-Israeli relations, which are at their lowest ebb."
Government sources insisting on anonymity disclosed to the Weekly that "Israel has imposed a news blackout on the findings of the committee. Every time we ask for the result of the investigations, we get a different answer. This has been going on for a long time now. The Israeli media said the report has been issued, but the Israeli government denies that."
One political expert told the Weekly that Israel fears the report will cause an explosion in relations between the two countries at a time when the peace process is going through its worst phase in a decade. "The findings could further jeopardise Egyptian-Israeli relations, but only if Israel refuses to act which is what is taking place."
The revelations of the war-time atrocities, according to the political expert, have been especially embarrassing given Israel's pride in its army's alleged moral standards.
Some of those who spoke to the Weekly, however, questioned the wisdom of pursuing crimes that took place so many years ago. But others believe that "the failure to address the crimes of the past will only encourage further atrocities today".
In the words of one expert, "Israel continues relentlessly to pursue and prosecute war criminals from an even more distant conflict, so it should realise the need to apply the same approach when its own citizens are guilty of murdering innocent people."
Although the Israeli government chose to ignore the revelations, adding insult to injury, its decision to appoint a committee to look into the allegations was, in the words of Ibrahim El-Bahrawi, an expert in Israeli affairs, like letting off war criminals with a slap on the wrist.
"When the Israeli government engages in cover-ups and its own war criminals are left unpunished, the message to the military is clear: you can get away with murder. That is what the Israeli soldiers have been doing ever since."
When the killings were first revealed, Egyptians were outraged. A public campaign was launched, human rights activists documented as many cases as they could, the places where the POWs corpses had been buried were located.
In a bid to widen the scale of the public campaign, a group of human rights activists are now planning a public rally to pay homage to the Egyptian POWs. The rally, according to its organiser, lawyer Amir Salem, will be a public statement that the issue "is still alive in the memory of the Egyptians and the world community, despite the fact that no concrete steps have been taken to avenge the killings."
The testimonies of witnesses and the recollections of the victims' families will be heard for the first time.
To mark the 30 years that have passed since the 1967 war, the Legal Research and Resource Centre for Human Rights, headed by Salem, has compiled a file containing over 200 cases titled Sinai International Tribunal for Israeli War Criminals: Never Forgive, Never Forget. It contains the personal testimonies of Israeli soldiers detailing the war-time atrocities they committed. Another chapter contains eye-witness reports, documents and testimonies of members of the Egyptian families, while a third contains a bill of indictment presented by the human rights organisations in Egypt to different international human rights watch organisations.
"The low-key approach that has been maintained during the past year or so has made people believe that the issue was shelved but the fact of the matter is that the campaign will gather momentum soon despite obstacles," Salem said.
Salem's efforts to organise an international tribunal have yet to bear fruit, however. Seven judges representing the Peoples' Tribunal, a Geneva-based court which investigates cases of human rights violations at the request of NGOs, were to come to Egypt sometime last year. Due to mounting pressure from the pro-Israel media, the visit was canceled, however.
"We thought an international tribunal would do justice to our cause," Salem said.
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