To the generations (plural) of people having grown up -- like hot-house plants
-- in the suffocating atmosphere of Holocaust propaganda, it may come as a surprise
to learn that concentration camps are not illegal.
There is nothing in international law prohibiting concentration camps, even
today.
See footnote: *
The following are a few quotes on the subject only:
“That, in case of general devastation, the peaceful population may be
detained in so-called concentration camps there is no doubt”.
INTERNATIONAL LAW, A TREATISE, L. Oppenheim, Vol II, Disputes, War and Neutrality,
Longmans, Green and Co., London, Fifth Edition, September 1935, footnote 2,
p 289
“The practice, resorted to during the South African War, of housing the
victims of devastation in concentration camps, must be approved. The purpose
of war may even oblige a belligerent to confine a population forcibly in concentration
camps.”
Ibid, p. 332.
“Concentration camps are practically internment camps for non-combatants… Such an extreme measure is only to be justified by very extreme circumstances; in fact, by such circumstances as make concentration not only imperatively necessary for the success of the belligerent’s operations, but also the lesser of two evils for the inhabitants themselves…” [emphasis added].
WAR RIGHTS ON LAND, J.M. Spaight, McMillan and Co., London, 1911, pp 307. (It
should be noted that WAR RIGHTS ON LAND, a classic of international law, was
written only 4 years after the Second Hague Conference, which -- in the form
of the Fourth Hague Convention on Land Warfare of October 18, 1907 -- formed
the basis for nearly all the so-called violations of “international law”
invoked to hang the defendants at Nuremberg.).
“If devastation is justified, then some system of concentration is not
only justified, but demanded by considerations of humanity.” [emphasis
added].
Ibid, p 310
“A similar policy of devastation was carried out by the British in the
former Boer Republics. Whole regions were laid waste to prevent their being
used as a base by the enemy, the non-combatant families having first removed
from them and sent to concentration camps. There is no doubt that these camps
were essential for the security of those deported to them, both against natives
and to secure for them the means of life.” (emphasis added).
WHEATON’S INTERNATIONAL LAW, Seventh English Edition, Stevens and Sons,
London, 1944, Vol. 2, WAR. Page 214.
“Devastation on a broad scale was carried out by Spain in Cuba in 1897.
The practice of ‘concentrating’ the civilian population in garrison
towns, which accompanied the devastation, led to protests from the United States
which ultimately formed part of its grounds for war. In 1901 The British armies
in South Africa interned the civilian population in ‘concentration camps’,
with the result of serious loss of life. At the same time the country was laid
waste far and wide as a means of cutting of off the supplies of the guerrilla
forces.”
INTERNATIONAL LAW by Chas. G. Fenwick, Third Edition, New York, Appleton-Century
Crofts, Inc., 1948, p. 567.
The same work, one of the most objective, points out the difficulties involved for a defeated power:
“How could Germany, blockaded by Great Britain during the four years
of the first World War, be expected, even had there been the will to do it,
to feed prisoners according to the standard of its own army which had to bear
the burden of the war, or even according to the standard of its factory workers
whose work was essential to the winning of the war? And if prisoners revolted
against the meagre fare to which they were subjected, disciplinary punishment
appeared to be justified.”
Ibid, p. 575.
The fact is that “concentration camps” were, and are, legal under
international law, and have existed in one form or another in practically all
countries. One reason why they cannot be abolished is because no objective definition
of the term “concentration camp” appears possible. Note that, to
J.M. Spaight, a concentration camp is an “internment camp for non-combatants”,
during wartime only. Whether American Civil War (more correctly: “Secession
War”) prison camps can be assimilated into the same category as “concentration
camps” is entirely a matter of definition.
What has not changed is the spirit of American-British hypocrisy and contempt
for human life. For example, had it not been for Northern refusal to exchange
prisoners, there wouldn’t have been any Northern prisoners in Confederate
prison camps, at Andersonville or anywhere else in the South. Despite the fact
that the problem was the North’s own doing, and that the Southern armies
and population were starving as a result of the blockade and Union destruction
of Southern crops and infrastructures, Confederate prisoners in Northern prisons
were starved deliberately, in retaliation for the alleged “deliberate”
starvation of Union prisoners in the South.
The commander of Andersonville prison camp in Georgia, Commander Hartmann Wirz,
was a Swiss-German who visited Europe as an official representative of the Confederacy
several times during the war, running the blockade. After the war, he was indicted
for “conspiring with Jeff Davis and his rebel cabinet” to “render
Union prisoners unfit for service through a policy of deliberate mistreatment
and starvation”, and for killing a Union prisoner with a right-handed
blow to the head.
Wirz was subjected to a medical examination during his trial. He was found
to be suffering from malnutrition; and atrophy and paralysis of the right arm
as the result of unrepaired fractures. Wirz was convicted and hanged with a
short drop, taking 14 minutes to die.
Photographs and engravings of Union prisoners from Confederate prison camps suffering from malnutrition, diabetes, gangrene and cancer [!], in addition to all the usual contagious diseases, were then printed by Congress and widely distributed for 30 years after the war to keep the Republican Party in power. This was known as “waving the bloody shirt”.
Since one lie requires another, and since Andersonville provides a perfect
explanation for what happened at German camps in 1945, the more irresponsible
of the Holocaustians have now come full circle, and are referring to Andersonville
as “America’s Auschwitz” -- for example, http://www.trutv.com/search/index.html?q=andersonville
Concentration camps in their modern form are generally thought to have been
invented by General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, a Spanish General in Cuba, in
1897. Weyler was Spanish, but of Prussian descent, leading to the myth that
such camps were a “Prussian invention”.
The Cuban War of Independence was fought with enormous destruction of property on both sides. Rebel guerrillas moving along the length of the island burned Spanish sugar plantations and other property in an attempt to render the island valueless to Spain; Weyler moved all “loyal” Cubans into “campos de reconcentramiento”, announcing that all civilians outside the camps would be treated as guerrillas and shot on sight. The intention was to cut the island in two and hamper the movements of the guerrillas.
The camps were shut as a result of American protests and Weyler was recalled
to Spain, a concession which failed to satisfy American greed for Spanish overseas
possessions. Weyler served as Minister of War 3 times and died in 1930; there
is a monument to him in Madrid. Modern Cuban sources estimate 25,000 deaths
in the camps, down from a propaganda figure of 250,000.
[NOTE: The Spanish point of view is somewhat different. They argue that the
strategy of the Cuban rebels, under the leadership of Máximo Gómez,
was to drive all civilians unwilling to cooperate with the guerrillas into the
towns, which were then to be deprived of food through the destruction of crops.
Weyler simply reversed a situation created by the rebels: all civilians unwilling
to cooperate with the Spanish were to be driven into the countryside, after
which the COUNTRYSIDE was to be deprived of food by the same methods. The rebels
could never have defeated the Spanish and never tried; their only hope was to
involve the United States.]
Following the Spanish-American War, Cuba was granted its independence, while
all other Spanish overseas possessions were retained. Following Filipino defeat
in regular warfare intended to free the country from its American “liberators”,
guerrillas under the leadership of Emilio Aguinaldo continued the war using
irregular tactics. At this point, the Americans imitated the tactics of “Butcher”
Weyler, building concentration camps on the island of Mindanao, “to protect
non-combatant civilians”. The number of civilian deaths in these camps
is unknown.
If, as is usually estimated, 28,000 Boer women and children died in British
concentration camps during the Second Boer War, this amounts to a death rate
of 10-20% of the total civilian population in enemy occupant “death camps”.
The only historical parallel to concentration camp mortality on this scale must
be sought in Stalinist policies in the Baltic States. Special taxes were levied
upon “loyal Boers” to enable the British to pay the costs of interning
their relatives. The population of the camps amounted to virtually every woman
and child in the Transvaal and Orange Free States; the western Transvaal, in
J.M. Spaight’s own words, was turned into a “smoking desert”
on the grounds of “military necessity”.
In 1914, with the invasion of Belgium, Britain became the champion of the “independence
and neutrality of small nations”, a chief propaganda aim of the First
World War.
The 1944 Edition of Wheaton’s INTERNATIONAL LAW (published in London)
alleges that the South African Republics “warred against Great Britain”
(p. 99), and that the British went to war to defend the rights of British subjects
abroad (a right never conceded to National Socialists where ethnic Germans in
Poland were concerned).
At Nuremberg, concentration camps were held to be “criminal” (as
long as they were German), while members of resistance groups were held to be
patriots and heroes; shooting or imprisoning them (“Night and Fog”)
was held to be “criminal”.
With the advent of alleged Al-Quaida prisoners at Camp X-Ray at Guantánamo
Air Force Base in Cuba in 2002, it was once again discovered (by the idealistic
Americans) that concentration camps are “legal”, and that irregular
combatants are “criminals”. Where was this knowledge at Nuremberg?
Since Camp X-Ray is “not on American soil”, and since the inmates
are “not U.S. citizens”, they are not protected by U.S. law; but
since it is a “domestic matter”, they are not protected by "international
law" either. How very convenient.
The manner in which international conventions are intentionally drafted in
vague language permitting interpretation in any manner one likes, has been brilliantly
described by G. Lowe Dickenson in THE INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 1904-1914, Century,
New York, 1926 (for example, the Hague Conferences were never expected to produce
any practical results and were ridiculed privately by all the statesmen involved,
pp. 347-358).
That the same is increasingly true of almost all law, is probably obvious to
anyone who has ever been involved in legal proceedings.
Thus, like “weapons of mass destruction” (another undefined term),
“concentration camps” are illegal, immoral and emaciating only when
possessed by our enemies; our own concentration camps are perfectly legal, lawful
and laudable.
All nations intern enemy aliens during wartime. The Fifth Hague Convention
even requires the internment of belligerent troops on neutral soil. How are
they to be interned, if not in “camps”?
That the Jews were “enemy aliens” resident in National Socialist
Germany is apparent from their own many “declarations of war” against
Germany, beginning on March 24, 1933. Yet only a minority of all Jews were ever
interned, even during wartime (the highest percentage occurring in Holland as
the result of fears of an Allied invasion) - a degree of moderation never imitated
by the United States, Britain, Australia or Soviet Russia.
It appears to me that, far more important than the nomenclature of the penal
institution in which one is incarcerated, are the procedures and rules of evidence
according to which one is imprisoned, and the conditions of confinement. American
prison conditions, despite expensive infrastructures, are among the worst in
the world (see NO ESCAPE: MALE RAPE IN U.S. PRISONS, a 378-page report from
Human Rights Watch, 350 Fifth Ave., NY NY, 1018-3299 USA, also available from
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/prison/report.html;
see also SCOTTSBORO BOY, by Haywood Patterson, Bantam Paperback, 1952, a book
which, in many respects -- forced sodomy, prison rackets, slave labour for outside
private commercial firms -- could have been written yesterday, describing almost
any prison in America. If anything, the situation is far worse as a result of
the inversion of racial roles and the abolition of segregated prisons. When
Americans solve their own problems, they will be qualified to preach to the
rest of the world.
Why exclusive attention should be focused on Jewish “suffering”
in German prison camps 60 years ago, is something only the Jews can explain,
particularly in view of the fact that their complaints of hardship are neither
unique, nor, in many respects, even true.
- C. P.
* Footnote: To verify the truth of this statement, go to
http://iate.europa.eu/iatediff/SearchByQueryLoad.do?method=load or
click “Source Language: English”, “Target Language: English”,
“Hit List Only” or “All Fields” (it makes no difference),
and search for “convention concentration camps”, “treaty concentration
camps”, or any combination of these words, for example, “convention
concentration”, or “treaty camps”.
The Eurodicautom is an official dictionary for use by the European Commission, and lists hundreds of treaties and conventions. For example, if you search for “convention concentration”, you will find many international conventions relating to concentrations of food additives, etc. But you will find nothing under “internment camps” or “concentration camps”, and nothing under “camps”. Try the same with “Treaty”.
FURTHER READING:
KONZENTRATIONSLAGER 1896 BIS HEUTE, Eine Analyse, [Concentration Camps 1986
to Today, An Analysis], by Andrjez J. Kaminski, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1982 (exceedingly
extensive bibliography, somewhat marred by wholesale acceptance of Holocaust
propaganda);
FIRST GUIDEBOOK TO THE USSR: PRISONS AND CONCENTRATION CAMPS OF THE SOVIET
UNION, by Avrahim Shifkin, Stephanus, 1980, illustrated by 170 maps and drawings;
the author is an Israeli whose father was murdered by Stalin;
THE BRUNT OF THE WAR AND WHERE IT FELL, by Emily Hobhouse, London, 1902;
WAR WITHOUT GLAMOUR, OR WOMEN’S WAR EXPERIENCES WRITTEN BY THEMSELVES,
1899-1902, Collected and Translated by Emily Hobhouse, Bloemfontein, no date;
THE MARTIAL SPIRIT, by Walter Millis, Literary Guild of America, 1931 (Cuban
guerrilla war tactics; “reconcentration centres”, “camps”
and “garrisoned towns”; anti-Spanish atrocity propaganda);
BELGIAN NEUTRALITY UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW, by Alexander Fuehr, Funk and Wagnallis,
New York, 1915;
JÜDISCHE KRIEGERKLÄRUNGEN AN DEUTSCHLAND. WORTLAUT - VORGESCHICHTE
- FOLGEN, [JEWISH DECLARATIONS OF WAR AGAINST GERMANY - TEXT - PRIOR HISTORY
- CONSEQUENCES], by Hartmut Stern, (available from Arndt Buchdienst, Postfach
3603, D-24035 KIEL, 25 Euros.)
THE GERMAN PRESENCE IN QUEENSLAND, by Manfred JÜRGENSEN, Alan CORKHILL
and Raymond EVANS, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, 1988 (expropriation
and internment, etc. of German nationals during First World War).
THE AMERICAN PAST, Roger Butterfield, Simon & Schuster, NY, 1947. Quote on p. 191: "Yet General Grant himself had refused to save these men by exchange because -- as he said -- the South needed its soldiers back to carry on the war, while the North could always get new ones."
OTHER LOSSES, James Bacques.
CRIMES AND MERCIES, James Bacques.
============================
DISCLAIMER:
I EXPRESSLY REPUDIATE ANY AND ALL PHILOSOPHICAL OR MORAL CONCLUSIONS WHICH
MAY APPEAR TO ARISE FROM THE ABOVE ARTICLE. I MERELY DESCRIBE THE LEGAL SITUATION
AS IT EXISTS.
IF BRITISH ACTIONS DURING THE BOER WAR - TRAVELLING SIX THOUSAND MILES TO INVADE
THE BOER REPUBLICS AND STEAL THE GOLD MINES OF THE TRANSVAAL, MURDERING 10-20%
OF THE TOTAL WHITE POPULATION OF THE COUNTRY IN CONCENTRATIONS CAMPS IN SO DOING,
etc. etc. – WERE NOT, AND ARE NOT, ILLEGAL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW, THEN
“INTERNATIONAL LAW” IS A MOCKERY AND A CYNICAL FARCE.
WE WOULD BE FAR BETTER OFF IF THERE WERE NO SUCH THING AS “INTERNATIONAL
LAW”, BECAUSE, IN THAT CASE, THERE WOULD NO BASIS WHATSOEVER UPON WHICH
TO MAKE FRAUDULENT, SANCTIMONIOUS AND HYPOCRITICAL ACCUSATIONS AGAINST THE GERMANS:
IN 1933-45, OR AT ANY OTHER TIME.
CARLOS PORTER
JUNE 10. 2003
On concentration camps in America, see: On the Way to the Camps at http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/haiku/haiku.htm and other links.
On concentration camps in the Boer War, see: http://www.boer.co.za/boerwar/hellkamp.htm
See also: http://www.prairieghosts.com/campd.html (Camp Douglas, one of the most notorious Northern prison camps during the American so-called "Civil War")
http://www.rheinwiesenlager.de/Rheinwiesen.htm (Rheinswiesen, a REAL "extermination camp" run by the Americans; in German)
http://bbet.org/leesvoer/eisenhower_deathcamps.htm [DEFUNCT; DESTROYED BY BELGIAN PIGLETS IN 2006 OR THEREABOUTS]
NOTE: Eisenhower's "death camps" were illegal under international law, for a wide variety of reasons. They were set up after the war, in violation of every single treaty relating to the treatment of prisoners of war. The link is included only to show that this is the way Americans have always treated people.
There appears to be little or nothing on the Internet about General Weyler's concentration camps in Cuba; I have seen photographs of inmates from these camps at photographic exhibitions on the history of Cuba, and they are in no way different from the photographs of sick and dying inmates at Bergen-Belsen or anywhere else. In Spanish, the inmates were referred to as "reconcentrados" and the camps as "campos" [or "centros"] "de reconcentramiento". Obviously there were no gas chambers in Cuba.
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