Inside the glass house

NEW YORK - As the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) continues to probe the widely-condemned killings of 17 Iraqi civilians by gun-toting employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA, the claims for compensation have triggered the hitherto unanswered question: how much is human life worth in Iraq?

When the Bush administration last week offered $12,500 for a single wrongful death of a 10-year-old child caught up in that wild shootout in the streets of Baghdad last month, a family member of the victim rejected the paltry compensation. "A humiliating figure," the father of the child was quoted as saying. He said he wants to sue Blackwater USA for compensation in an American court.

While refusing to accept the US offer, one of them pointedly told a US embassy official in Baghdad: "You are fighting terrorist groups who are offering $100,000 for people who blow themselves up." The $12,500 has been dismissed by families of the victims as "an insult". But US officials say these are only "condolence payments" and not a final settlement of claims.

In contrast, when mostly American and British lives were lost in the December 1998 bombing of a Pan Am aircraft over Lockerbie, Scotland, the Libyan government, which was accused of complicity in the bombing, was forced to cough up about $2.7 billion in compensation for the 270 who died in that plane crash, including 11 on the ground.

The argument about the cost of human lives also played out at the United Nations in the late 1990s when the world body was accused of paying about four times more for soldiers from Western nations dying in UN peacekeeping operations than for soldiers from Third World nations who lost their lives in the same cause.

At one time, the UN Secretariat paid about $85,300 dollars each to families of soldiers, mostly from industrialized countries, as compensation for lives lost in the pursuit of peace. But families of other soldiers, mostly from Third World countries, were paid only about $19,500 dollars as compensation for deaths.

Pakistan, which was providing the largest contingent of soldiers for UN peacekeeping operations at that time, put it more bluntly: "You cannot have one rate for whites and another rate for non-whites." But the problem was eventually resolved when the UN decided to pay a standard rate for all lives lost -- irrespective of whether the peacekeepers came from rich or poor nations.

The controversy over compensation claims in Iraq has also shifted the spotlight to the thousands of private security guards who have been accused of running rough shod in the streets of Baghdad. They have been hired -- at a cost of millions of dollars -- to protect mostly American diplomats holed up in the heavily-fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.

Blackwater USA, perhaps justifying its heavy-handed tactics, proudly claims that none of the American officials under its protective umbrella has either been killed or seriously injured. The UN has already complained about the excessive force used by these private armies who do not come either under US laws or under military jurisdiction.

At a Congressional hearing last week, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was forced to admit that there was a "hole" in US laws that permits private security firms "to escape legal jeopardy" for crimes committed in Iraq. Under international law, the indiscriminate killings of civilians should really come under the jurisdiction of the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

But neither private security firms nor the US military can be brought before the court because of US refusal to be a party to the statute creating the tribunal. Either way, the US escapes scrutiny by international tribunals for some of the killings which may well be deemed war crimes.

The US initially signed the treaty but has so far refused to ratify it. Former US President Bill Clinton signed the treaty on Dec. 30, 1991 -- a day before the Dec. 31 deadline for signature. Senator Jesse Helms, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described Clinton's action as a blatant attempt "to tie the hands of his successor."

Reflecting the Bush administration's scepticism, Helms said he fears that the ICC would subject the American military to prosecution in future wars around the world. The Bush administration has argued that, given Washington's global military predominance and "unique responsibilities" for maintaining international peace, its soldiers and officials would be particularly vulnerable to "politically-inspired prosecutions" by the ICC.

The ICC was created on the premise that those who commit war crimes, genocide or other crimes against humanity will no longer be beyond the reach of justice. But the crimes that are being committed in ongoing wars worldwide-- specifically in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan-- belie that premise.

Blackwater beyond the reach of justice