Sunday, April 10, 2011

What would this house do?

This weekend was all about debating among the best people in Romania, and abroad. Issues raised were of importance and actuality, but one stroke me as highly demanding: "This house would grant amnesty to dictators who willingly stand down from power".
Being on the government side, I supported this cause. But, it also happens that this is my belief as well. Make it a short story, I consider that in order to avoid more blood spilling, such a consensus must be made. Further on, so many examples in history where dictators were trialed by international courts only to discover later that the whole process was one huge joke, are numerous: Saddam, Milosevic, and many more. Today, we live in times when status quos are changing from one day to the other. Look at North Africa and the Middle East. Further on, leaders who willingly gave up power are now held into account and persecuted. As such, Hosni Mubarak, the former head of state of Egypt is now under threat of prosecution, a demand supposedly requested by the egyptian people. His assets were frozen upon departure, and his swiss bank accounts also. I ask myself: If Switzerland is a neutral country, why does it allow banks to do so? At the moment of Mr. Mubarak's bank account block, he was not indicted for any crime, therefore he was not a criminal. This also happened to Muammar Gaddafi's bank accounts. This makes way for worrying precedents. But, to come back to my initial topic, I quote one fellow debater: "So what if some human lives are lost in the process of apprehension? This happens so that in the future, no more lives are lost." Well, if politicians and heads of state think the same, then we have a big problem. Who has the right to decide who must die for better causes? I say: nobody! If you can make it such as to create a context in which a dictator can leave power and so, combat the killing of innocent victims of both sides, then why not do so? Because, as we see in the case of Gaddafi, when one's life is threatened, one will fight 'till the bitter end. And, let's not forget: Behind every major political decision, reasons are of all sorts. Some, of the gruesomest motif.

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