Dues to Progeny

What do we owe to our progeny?

I went to the Siemens' web-page today to see what slant they threw on their business's history. Labelling the time from 1919-1945, as a "Period of Change," they conveniently forgot to mention where they were located while building those electron accelerators in the '40's. Siemens, along with I.G. Farben and Volkswagon, was one of the largest corporate supporters of the Nazi Party. Nazi engineers purposely constructed concentration camps around the Siemen buildings.

Today, there's a Siemens building in my hometown. When I first read about Siemens' role in WWII, I was literally in a state of shock that this coporation, who proudly flaunts their role in globalization, could exist so easily in a pre-dominantely Jewish town.

What corporations will we look back on in horror fifty or even a hundred years down the line? More importantly, after the initial shock wears off, will we continue to tolerate them? On a microcosmic scale, what of the dictators from whom the corporations profitted?

Augusto Pinochet, dictator of the military government in Chile between 1973-1990, implemented neoliberal philosophies and committed grave breaches of human rights while in office. While on medical leave to Britian in 1998, he was arrested by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon. After house arrest for a year, he returned home to Chile for medical reasons. Due to 'vascular dementia,' he is not required to stand trial for his crimes.

This is not by any means the first time a dictator has escaped the hook of public scrutiny and trial. Beyond medical reasons, often the leaders of such crimes plead impunity via sovereignty, an act which has its modern origins in the American arguement in Versailles. (One never knows when the winning side will finally lose)
During the Nuremberg Trials, this impunity was questioned and subsequently, in theory, destroyed.
"The idea that a state, any more than a corporation, commits crimes, is a fiction. Crimes always are committed by persons...It is quite intolerant to let such a legalism become the basis of personal immunity." (Jackson, Goring's American cross-examiner)

It was thus the world swore humanity must come before personal gain, and if such humanity is violated, those offenders must be sanctioned.
Of course, the Cold War then set in, and the Japanese scientists under legal and social persecution suddenly found themselves being courted by both the East and the West. Such is the example in Unit 731 in Manchuria, where the US, in a race with the USSR, granted the scientists immunity in exchange for their results of their Mengele type experiments.

One step forward, two steps back, with another half step forward.

And still, the question remains, what do we own to our progeny? The obligatory 'erga omnes' arises only post facto a crime against humanity. When John Bolton was under consideration for the post of U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., he was asked what actions he would have taken during the Rwanda genocide of '94. He replied, in an extremely euphemistic speech, that it would depend on the 'logistics' of the situation.

No 'erga omnes', no action.

To argue the other side, there have been successful cases in the field. In Trajano vs. Marcos, the Federal Appeals Court found the "Act of State" doctrine did not protect the former Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos, who had pled immunity regarding the torture, murder, and disappearance of student Decleimedes Trajano. US $150 million was awarded, to be split among 10,000 plantiffs.

"Riddle"

From Belsen a crate of gold teeth,
from Dachau a mountain of shoes,
from Auschwitz a skin lampshade.
Who killed the Jews?

Not I, cries the typist,
not I, cries the engineer,
not I, cries Adolf Eichmann,
not I, cries Albert Speer.

My fried Fritz Nova lost his father-
a petty official had to choose.
My friend Lou Abrahms lost his brother.
Who killed the Jews?

David Nova swallowed gas,
Hyman Abrahms was beaten and starved.
Some men signed their papers,
and some stood guard.

and some herded them in,
and some dropped the pellets,
and some spread the ashes,
and some hosed the walls,

and some planted the wheat,
and some poured the steel,
and some cleared the rails,
and some raised the cattle.

Some smelled the smoke,
some just heard the news.
Were they Germans? Were they Nazis?
Were they human? Who killed the Jews?

The stars will remember the gold
the sun will remember the shoes,
the moon will remember the skin.
But who killed the Jews?

"Riddle"
William Heyen
The Swastika Poems