05/02/2007
Malaysia's Mahathir Slams Bush, Blair as Killers Worse than Saddam

Tough stand: Participants and guests listening to Dr Mahathir speaking at the conference in Kuala Lumpur

(Kyodo) _ History should remember U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair as war criminals, "killers of children" and liars worse than former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Monday.

Speaking at an antiwar conference organized by the Perdana Global Peace Organization Mahathir founded, he said the wagainst terror has killed far more people than the destrwrought by the terrorists who attacked the New York World Trade Center in 2001.

"For the suicide pilots killing 3,000 people, 600,000 Afghans and Iraqis have been killed and will continue to be killed. I do not think we should sanction terror attacks, but neither can we sanction the cruel retaliation by powerful countries and their proxies against puny attacks by their victims," he told the conference.

Mahathir said Bush and Blair had sent humanity into the "Dark Ages" with their disregard for international human rights laws, their ill-treatment of prisoners of war and the use of torture.

Mahathir recently established a tribunal made up of former judges and legal experts to hear victims' stories of abuses and torture in conflict zones such as Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territory.

Several victims are expected to give testimony to a commission chaired by Mahathir on Wednesday.

The commission will verify if the testimony merits a hearing by the tribunal.

The tribunal's judgment carries no legal weight, but Mahathir said that does not matter.

"Bush and Blair are now totally reviled and condemned by the world and by their own people. To a certain extent, they have been tried and sentenced by their own people and media. It was a trial in absentia," he said. "History will also judge them."

"They should be accorded the names they deserve for the evil deeds they have committed...What is Blair if not the co-murderer of 500,000 children and the liar who told the British that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction which could be launched against Britain within 45 minutes," he said.

"History should remember Blair and Bush as the killers of children or as the lying prime minister and president. What Blair and Bush have done is worse than what Saddam had done. We should not hang Blair if the tribunal finds him guilty, but he should always carry the label 'War Criminal, Killer of Children, Liar.' And so should Bush and the 'pocket Bush' of the bushlands of Australia," he added.

The "pocket Bush" refers to Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a staunch ally of Bush who sent troops to Iraq.

Mahathir also blasted the United States and other nuclear-weapon states for being hypocrites asking other countries not to develop nuclear weapons.

To illustrate the horror of nuclear weapons, Mahathir brought Shoji Sawada, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, to give a talk Tuesday.

Mahathir said the world must come up with laws to make going to war a criminal act and the use or production of depleted uranium in weapons and other weapons of mass destruction illegal. He called on the people to vote only leaders who are antiwar.

Mahathir, who ruled Malaysia for 22 years with an iron grip before retiring in 2003, has since reinvented himself as a peace activist.

Four nongovernmental organizations from Bosnia-Herzegovina even nominated him for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, according to the Star on Sunday.

The move was reportedly spearheaded by the former President of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina Ejup Ganic who had worked closely with Mahathir when Malaysia provided humanitarian aid during the 1992-95 conflict that ravaged the former Yugoslavia state.

The four organizations are the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, the Congress of Bosnik Intellectuals, the Serb Civil Council and the Croat National Council. The latter two are Christian organizations.