Congratulations to the three Mau Mau Kenyan torture victims who recently won a landmark victory of immense global repercussions against their former colonisers, the UK. Kudos to the honourable judges of Britain’s High Court for their brave decision which will open wide the floodgates for all the unsettled cases of atrocities committed against human beings around the world to seek justice.
Undoubtedly this decision will generate a lot of opposition from the British government which will probably try to stop it before or during court proceedings, but the mere fact that a case was honoured and decided by a legal institution as significant as the Britain’s High Court, is already a huge victory not only for the three Mau Mau torture victims and for all the victims of atrocities.
Though this case has a long way to go until any actual compensation for the victims is realized, undoubtedly it has opened a huge Pandora’s Box. Together with the case won by the Aborigines of Australia few years ago, it raises many disturbing questions related to the fairness and distribution of justice by the highly politicized international legal system and the United Nations itself.
During WWII, Greece was firstly attacked by Mussolini’s Italy, which resulted to substantial damages. Immediately after the failure of Mussolini to invade and occupy Greece, Hitler’s Germany attacked the country from the north. Despite the heroic efforts of the Greek army, after months of fierce resistance, the superiority of the German army broke the Greek army’s line of defence.
Germany invaded and occupied Greece for almost five years. Following the invasion, the Germans instituted a system of detention, torture and executions which resulted in the worst atrocities Greeks ever experienced during their entire history of existence as a nation. Soon, the Greek Resistance Movement was born and started to fight the occupiers, but the Germans reacted to this movement with harsher measures, declaring that for every German occupier killed by the resistance, one town would be burned and its inhabitants executed.
Indeed the Germans kept that promise, and reduced to ashes thousands of towns all over Greece and executed their inhabitants, mainly women, children and elderly, in the town plazas. The end of the brutal occupation found Greece with several hundred-thousand lives lost, mostly innocent civilians. Productivity facilities were destroyed and infrastructure reduced to a pile of debris.
While Greeks were dying by the thousands every day of starvation, the occupiers forced Greece to make available a $3 billion loan which till now remains unpaid! Every Greek town is decorated with monuments where the names of the innocent victims are engraved with black letters, serving as a clear evidence of documented crimes. Certainly some of the Nazi criminals were punished for their dreadful atrocities, but unfortunately the names of the victims on the monuments are still crying and waiting for their long delayed justice.
Despite all the above, Greeks, loyal to their deeply rooted civilized values and love for peace, soon forgave the Germans, re-established friendships and harmonious relationship, etc., but that doesn’t mean that Greece ever waived the demands for war compensations and repayment of loans. Greeks must learn from cases like the Mau Mau to remind Germany and the United Nations International Courts of Justice that these cases are not to be treated lightly and be brushed aside. Germany never misses an opportunity to demand from erring nations compliance with the rule of law.
Instead of exerting efforts to frustrate the clamour for justice of a whole nation, they must now use the same moral values and compensate the Greeks. It is incomprehensible how members of International Courts of Justice have brushed aside the grave Greek cases by justifying the penning on their decisions simply as “Lack of Merit” or “Lack of Jurisdiction”! Only a corrupt or incompetent legal system will resort to utilizing legal technicalities and deny justice to such cases with massive and compelling evidence.
German, instead of listening to the legitimate grievances of Greece, adds insults to the feelings of the entire Greek population when informally branded them titles such as lazy, crooks, etc., which are totally untrue and baseless. Though ironically Germany in effect was rewarded lavishly for the crimes with the generous Marshall Plan. It is also an undeniable fact that displaced by the war, young hardworking Greeks ironically became part of the cheap labour force which helped to rebuild the German economy.
Oftentimes we watch and listen to UN officials, politicians and other legal personalities standing in front of a podium and trumpeting through a microphone about the observance of international legal obligations, the rule of law, honouring treaties, etc. but we have never seen them be enthusiastic in punishing wrongdoing nations and deliver justice to countries with cases like Greece.
Therefore, it is about time that Greece starts to demand worldwide publication of all court proceedings in order to find out what obscure legal methods were used by opponents to the legitimate claims of Greeks and start to correct the legal wrongs. I hope the above will help all those who are criticizing Greece to understand that the demands are not fresh but immorally and scandalously over delayed, unsettled cases.
* Ilias Sourdis is a freelance 60-year-old Greek expatriate and businessman. He has lived outside Greece since 1976 – with most of his experience in Asia, and short travels in other parts of the world.