By Fra Hughes – May 4, 2022
The guilty must be punished, the innocent must have justice, the dead must be remembered, and the living must be held to account.
Where will the Russian ‘special operation’ in Eastern Ukraine go next after the complete liberation of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of the Donbass
Well if I was in charge, the next step after fully liberating Mariupol from the Azov fascists and right-wing nationalist Ukraine army units with their paid mercenary assets would be taking them straight to jail and making a televised appearance before organizing an official war crime panel.
It wasn’t that long ago in modern history that the Nuremberg trials were held and convened to try Nazi war criminals for their heinous and horrendous crimes against humanity.
Their use of gas chambers, forced death marches, systematic murder, torture, and brutalization of civilians – mainly gypsies, Romani, Jews, socialists, communists, partisans, and prisoners of war, which necessitates bringing them to trial.
The guilty must be punished; the innocent must have justice; the dead must be remembered; and the living must be held to account.
The Bandera type of fascists from Ukraine and the Nazi leaders and their cohorts in Finland, Greece, Sweden, Italy, France, and the Netherlands, indeed from all over Europe, should all have been made to face their accusers for their political policies of killing those they believed to be less human.
While some paid the price for their crimes, many were set free.
A large number of Hitler’s governmental scientists ended up developing the space programs at NASA having first perfected their craft on the flying bombs and rocket missile technology for the German Air force.
Many of the leaders of the German army went on to have leading roles in NATO.
Some war criminals were never brought to court.
The crimes they perpetrated against tens of thousands of unarmed civilians went unpunished.
The defeated parties in WW2 were not the only war criminals of the time.
Bomber Harris of RAF command firebombed Dresden.
Fleeing civilian refugees were murdered for no military advantage but as punishment and leverage on the collapsing German war machine.
America dropped not one but two atomic bombs on Japan.
No military target was selected; only civilian cities where people cowering from the American onslaught on Japan were vaporized into thin air.
The legacy of the radiation exposure at that time still causes birth defects to this very day.
This was not the biggest war crime carried out by the American administration on the Japanese population.
They bombed Tokyo, killing more people there than in the two Atomic bomb attacks.
Winston Churchill, who was designated by the people of the United Kingdom as the greatest British leader in the history of that country, presided over the death of nearly 4 million Bangladeshis in a famine he refused to help end.
When coal miners in Wales were on strike, he infamously said, “If they are hungry fill their bellies with lead.”
Today, we have the successors of ‘Bandera’, the Ukraine nationalist leader and fascist from WW2, who are leading the fascist zealots in Mariupol.
The Azov Battalion, along with the Ukraine nationalists, is refusing to surrender.
They are not alone. It is claimed that up to 8000 paid mercenaries are killing the civilian population of Eastern and Southern Ukraine.
Mercenaries are paid killers. They murder for hire, and death to them comes at a price.
In a recent interview with one of these captured killers for hire, it became obvious he was not in Ukraine for any ideological cause.
He had been in Syria as a paid mercenary, killing Syrians for money.
He didn’t travel to Ukraine when Russia initiated its special military operation in Feb 2022. No, he had been a paid mercenary since 2018. For 4 years, he had been a paid killer in a Ukraine infantry unit that rotated to and from the line of contact.
He was in the marine brigade presently under siege in Mariupol.
A self-confessed war criminal.
The Minsk Agreements were the basis of an internationally recognized and agreed ceasefire protocol that prohibited the use of heavy weapons, such as mortar artillery shells being used to break the ceasefire and cause death and destruction.
The British man who surrendered in Mariupol wasn’t a coward: he wasn’t an opponent of the Azov Battalion or a nationalist commander.
He was a man happy to bomb and shell innocent civilians whom he had never met, people who had never attacked him, his family, or even his country. Without a doubt, they posed no threat to him.
He is a coward who happily caused death misery, mutilation, and injury to possibly countless people, and then took his pay, celebrated, and laughed with his mates about how brave they all were!
He told his captors he surrendered because they were beaten, and he had no desire to die for Ukraine.
He wanted to live for his family.
If the people of Donbass released him, he would promise to go back to England and never return.
He just wanted to go home and live a normal life!
He was quite aware: when he participated in destroying people’s lives, these people could never get home again.
The people whom he helped to mutilate and injure would never have a normal life
The family and friends of the people he helped kill would never recover from his criminal actions.
I was shocked, saddened, disgusted, and sickened watching his recorded interview.
It was an interview he requested.
He solicited the British government to help get him released in a possible prisoner exchange.
As a mercenary, under international law, he has no right to be treated as a prisoner of war.
He is not someone defending his home, land, or family. He is not a conscript.
He has wandered around Syria, willingly committing murder, and he did the same thing in Donbass.
Had he not been caught/surrendered, he would have continued to murder and mutilate citizens of other sovereign nations for pay.
He is beneath our contempt. He is beneath our sympathy. He is beneath our mercy.
However, he is not above the law. In Donetsk, for example, he faces the death penalty; a sentence I believe would be appropriate under international law.
RELATED CONTENT: Why Russia’s Intervention in Ukraine is Legal Under International Law
Should we, as a society, allow guns for hire killers to simply travel to where they are asked to and murder without any sanction, without conscience, and without accountability, like some psychopathic madman taking human life as a trophy, while demanding his own right to life, to freedom, to having a family, and to living in peace?!
As his crimes were committed against the people of Donbass, against the Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, perhaps the local judiciary (of these Republics) recognized internationally by Russia should hold those guilty of murdering their citizens since the imposition of Minsk Agreements to account.
All the mercenaries and commanders of those accused of war crimes, including killing prisoners of war, torture, rape, murder, and mutilation of Donbass citizens must be brought before War criminal tribunals
Let any evidence be presented, a verdict reached, and justice achieved.
Mercenaries who traveled to Donbass to kill people for money should not be allowed to leave Donbass, as they will only return to murder the innocent people of Eastern and Southern Ukraine again.
They might even return to Syria or perhaps travel to Yemen or Libya to murder at will, while all the time filling their bank accounts with blood money and coffins with the bodies of their victims.
When the conflict is over, let us keep the guilty in jail, keep the society safe from psychotic murderers and mercenaries, and let those who have committed war crimes face the justice they deserve.
Featured image:Â File photo.
Fra Hughes
Fra Hughes is an Irish political activist, commentator, and author. His most recent books are My Walk with Palestine: an Activist's Taleand Voices from Donbass.
