[Intl-tobacco] Eichmann's Prosecutors son: Call to prosecute tobacco executives]

[Robert Weissman]

Call to prosecute tobacco executives
by Judy Siegel
Source: Jerusalem Post, 2002-03-17KEY QUOTES:

[We must] define the international crime of tobacco. Those behind it
have to face an international tribunal for their ongoing crimes and
past behavior.  . . 

The consequences of some acts are so horrific that their illegality
transcends the boundaries of any local law. Indeed, the concept of
'banality of evil' is apt here. People who are considered honorable
citizens, good family people, members of the mainstream of society,
and yet their day-to-day functions involve the deaths of tens of
millions - deaths that are masterminded not with knives and bullets,
but at a managerial desk. It is time that these evils remains
'banal' no longer.

JERUSALEM (March 17) - The son of the man who prosecuted Nazi
arch-murderer Adolph Eichmann for crimes against the Jewish people
proposed prosecuting the world's tobacco executives in an
international tribunal, for their "deception," which has "killed
tens of millions of people every year."

Attorney Amos Hausner, son of the late MK and attorney-general
Gideon Hausner, recently called on Israel Radio for the prosecution
of senior tobacco company officials for adding addictive substances
to cigarettes and other "crimes." Hausner, for decades the country's
leading anti-smoking activist, is currently suing local and foreign
tobacco companies on behalf of Clalit Health Services for the
billions of shekels it costs the health fund to treat members who
smoked.

"The deaths of smokers and non-smokers exposed to second hand smoke
are not accidental. The people involved in its manufacture, sale,
and marketing are fully aware of the consequences. They deliberately
manipulate the degree of addiction. They have defrauded the public.
They have been involved in worldwide smuggling as well as many other
illegal acts," Hausner argued.

"Two days after the World Trade Center was destroyed, Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres compared the war against terrorism to the war
against smoking - good versus evil. Thomas Friedman of The New York
Times, in his article of September 14, 2001, agreed and called the
tobacco people 'peddlers of cancer.'" Hausner continued.

The time has come to fill these words with content, Hausner said.
"Today people (such as Milosevic are tried in an international court
in the Hague for crimes which did not cause even one percent of the
death toll from smoking. Moreover, these crimes are a matter of the
past, while the tobacco crimes are carried out on a continuous
basis, and their consequences are felt today and will continue for
many years to come - even if everybody stopped smoking today."

His proposal, which has not been raised publicly before, is that "we
define the international crime of tobacco. Those behind it have to
face an international tribunal for their ongoing crimes and past
behavior. The nature of an international crime is that the illegal
acts committed were actually lawful at the time and place; but this
is an invalid defense for the international criminal.

"The consequences of some acts are so horrific that their illegality
transcends the boundaries of any local law. Indeed, the concept of
'banality of evil' is apt here. People who are considered honorable
citizens, good family people, members of the mainstream of society,
and yet their day-to-day functions involve the deaths of tens of
millions - deaths that are masterminded not with knives and bullets,
but at a managerial desk. It is time that these evils remains
'banal' no longer."

These trials will save far more many lives than any international
proceedings currently under way.

Asked to comment, Dr. Derek Yach, executive director of the World
Health Organization and senior official in charge of the WHO's
Tobacco Free Initiative, said the WHO "certainly supports all
efforts to ensure that tobacco industries are held accountable for
the deaths they cause, although it would not go as far as citing
tobacco industry actions as crimes against humanity. This was why we
supported a meeting last April in Jordan to develop approaches to
litigation for developing countries - the outcome of this meeting, a
major monograph on litigation as a public health tool, is to be
released soon."

Yach noted that "now, most tobacco industry executives acknowledge
that their products kill. The head of British-American Tobacco is
the latest to do so. Executives thus no longer deny causing serious
harm to health, but they continue to push products that kill 4.2
million people a year, and they do little to stop millions of youth
starting to smoke." Tobacco companies, Yach concluded, use the best
marketing expertise to get kids to start and continue smoking, and
vehemently oppose effective action by governments to curtail sales.
They pay lobbyists to spread the lies, they pay "scientists" to deny
the truth, and they set up voluntary organizations which pretend to
act for the public interest, claiming that polluted air is no more
dangerous than smoking.