Getting off too easily

Editorial

Recent news reports suggest war criminals are getting off especially easily these days. In France, Maurice Papon was released from jail last week. Papon, a Nazi collaborator and the highest-ranking French civilian ever convicted of war crimes, was the beneficiary of a French law that permits prisoners to go free if they suffer from life-threatening illnesses or if officials believe continued incarceration could hasten death. Papon, 92, had served three years of a 10-year sentence.

Here in Canada, the federal government is considering abandoning its policy of extraditing war criminals and simply stripping them of Canadian citizenship.
Reaction to these events may vary based on one's perceptions of what punishment is intended to accomplish.

One could argue that punishment (such as incarceration) is intended to prevent reoffending. There is little reason to believe that a 92-year-old will reoffend, but there may be reason to believe that others, such as war criminals in Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia, could see a three-year sentence as proof that punishment will not fit the crime.

Perhaps one's view of incarceration is not about deterrence, but about punishment. Never mind the effect of closure or relief that the sentence might provide others, the purpose of incarceration could be seen solely as a personal penance for one's actions.

Should old age and infirmity negate this punishment? Consider the historical situation we are talking about in the case of Papon. During the Holocaust, old age and infirmity were not causes for sympathy or amnesty. Indeed, they were precisely the opposite: those who were ill or aged were often the first to be sent to gas chambers.

Regardless of one's philosophy on the intent of punishment, it is difficult to view the apparent easing of sanctions against war criminals as anything but the abandonment of the long-held view that there can be no statute of limitations on inhumanity.

In fact, the only logical basis on which one could justify these events is that the Holocaust is a remnant of the past that is best forgotten. This is the bastion of Holocaust deniers.

At the same time, in the Middle East, a familiar scene is playing out in Ramallah. In response to a resurgence in terrorism over the past month, Israel has encircled Yasser Arafat and, once again, imprisoned him in his own compound. The first question one is inclined to ask, upon seeing images on television of Israeli soldiers destroying his compound, is "How does Arafat have any buildings left?" The second response should be, "Why again?"

The rerun of Arafat's siege is emblematic of the cycle of terrorism in Israel.

Palestinian terrorists kill Israeli civilians, Israel isolates Arafat for a while then sets him free, Palestinians kill more Israelis, Israel confines Arafat again and so on. Arafat has never tasted any consequences for his actions that lasted longer than a few weeks. Meanwhile, Israeli families grieve forever the loved ones lost in this seemingly endless pas-de-deux.

Arafat has proven himself an untrustworthy partner in peace so many times that the very phrase "partner in peace" is ludicrous. Yet Israel refuses to finish the task at hand by putting him on trial in Israel or by expelling him.

Too many in the world community still view Arafat, anachronistically, as a viable voice for the Palestinian people. International opinion restrains Israel's hand when Arafat should be put before Israel's (or the international) justice system and receive the punishment that has been meted out, over the years, to other war criminals.

Arafat's fate – like that of Papon and war criminals residing in Canada – is being guided more by misperceptions than by reality or any overriding philosophy of crime and punishment.

In the case of Papon and other Nazis, the world sees aging people, bearing a resemblance, perhaps, to our own parents or grandparents. We don't see the atrocities they committed 60 years ago, but a senior citizen whose old age is being interrupted by troublesome legal hassles.

In Arafat's case, we witness an abiding and blind optimism that this old terrorist will somehow change his spots and prove to be the ultimate key for peace.

Both scenarios are indicative of a happy human optimism and a willingness to see the best in fellow humans. Both scenarios, unhappily, are mistaken.

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