‘…80 years after the Second World War and the Nuremberg trials, when we think about this being an effort to put the Trump administration and those complicit with it on trial [for crimes against migrants and countries], we think about this as kind of a People’s Nuremberg.’
Editor’s note: On Oct. 23, the People’s Tribune interviewed Camilo Pérez-Bustillo about a series of special hearings held in Latin America and the US over the last eight months by the International Tribunal of Conscience of Peoples in Movement (ITCPM) and a number of co-conveners. These tribunals have dealt with the crimes of the Trump regime and its predecessors and accomplices against migrants and refugees within and outside US borders, and internationally against other countries, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean. Pérez-Bustillo is general coordinator of the ITCPM, and is the former executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. He is also a member of the leadership team of Witness at the Border.
The hearings were launched in Mexico City in March, and there have since been other hearings in Colombia in April, in El Paso, TX – Juarez, Mexico in September, and then again in Mexico City Oct. 14-16. A report on the most recent hearings is expected soon. Pérez-Bustillo spoke to the People’s Tribune from his home in Mexico City regarding the October hearings, which involved testimony from about 40 witnesses from more than 16 countries.
Bob Lee – Could you give a general overview of what went on in Mexico City and your impressions of that, and the regions and groups and people that were represented there and so forth?
Camilo Pérez-Bustillo – I think it’s key to frame this as a continuing process and Mexico City as a key moment, but as part of an overall, unfolding framework. This all began in March with the launch of the initiative here in Mexico City and online. And then the first stop along the way was actually in Bogota, Colombia on Earth Day, April 22nd. That was when we had the first in-person hearing. And that’s what we described as a preliminary hearing. And so basically there were a series of events that fed into this process. Bogota was one of the first in-person. Even before that, there was a virtual hearing in Colombia. So Colombia played an instrumental role in feeding into the process. The Colombia hearing, the one on April 22nd, was important because it was a preparatory hearing for a global summit that was held in Colombia a couple of days later in a Caribbean port called Santa Marta.
This was when the Petro government was still in power [in Colombia]. And that’s important to underline because, of course, in the aftermath of that, unfortunately, there were elections that went in the wrong direction, similar to what happened in Peru. And of course, as we speak, we’re on the eve of the second round of elections in Brazil [on Oct. 25]. And those electoral processes, you know, respectively in Colombia, Peru, and now Brazil, shaped much of what happened in Mexico City in terms of our planning and thinking, because what we realized is that we had to respond to what was going on, what was unfolding in Latin America, as there was increasing intervention by the US, of course, in the form of military intervention.
You know, if we step back and think about it, we’re having this interview towards the end of October, and at this moment, there are more US troops on the ground [in Latin America] than there have ever been since the mid-60s, the Vietnam War era. And that’s really stunning. That’s striking. We’re talking about hundreds of US troops. We probably don’t know the real number. There’s a reported number of about 600, that’s at least according to mainstream media. That includes troops on the ground in Panama, supposedly as part of a training exercise at the jungle training school that is there. But it also includes boots on the ground, so to speak, in Ecuador where the so-called drug war is being militarized in a very active way. And there’s a petition for troops on the ground in Colombia, which of course responds to that election that I mentioned which was in two different stages in May and June.
In Peru, there’s a similar request from the new government there, from the government of Keiko Fujimori. And we fear a similar scenario if things go the wrong way in Brazil. And all of this is part of the so-called Shield of the Americas Initiative, which is now headquartered in Colombia, in Medellin. There are 15 countries that have formally signed on and 22 countries total that are affiliated in one way or another. And all of that was on the agenda in Mexico City last week, exactly a week ago [Oct. 14-16]. So we started with these hearings in Colombia, ironically enough, given how things unfolded in Colombia with the elections. They were within the framework of this summit, which was around one of the thematic issues that we addressed through the hearings and the events in Mexico City, which was environmental justice and extractivism.
And that might seem distant from the issues I was mentioning around militarism, but in fact there’s a real overlap and connection between what’s happening in terms of extractivism and these agreements that were hatched during Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s travels very recently. Just about a month ago, he traveled to Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, kind of taking a victory lap in the wake of the elections in Colombia and Peru, and cutting these deals around access to critical minerals, but at the same time, intensifying what’s framed as military cooperation with each of those countries. So it’s all in tandem: the access to critical minerals – extractivism, basically – on the one hand, the most naked forms of capitalist exploitation, kind of going back to the old days, going back to the 500 years of colonial and neo-colonial rule — but on the other hand, indirect and direct forms of military intervention, and one sort of going in coordination with the other. All of that was on the agenda.
We didn’t know when we were in Bogota in April what was coming, the exact forms all of this would take, but by the time we gathered in Mexico City last week, the first day of events was a forum dedicated to analyzing these trends. It was a continental and global forum, that really was about sort of analyzing this moment, this historical moment, this conjuncture, and asking ourselves what are the implications of these unfolding trends and these new forms of US intervention. Obviously the more open forms of intervention, the threats and actions in contexts like Venezuela, what we all woke up to in the early morning hours of January 3rd – the actual invasion, the troops on the ground in Caracas, the kidnapping, flouting all of the most basic norms of international law, of Venezuela’s then-president Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who was a sitting deputy of Venezuela’s National Assembly, the deaths of dozens of Maduro’s personal guard and Cuban troops that were part of his personal guard, but also of civilians. It’s really an untold number, but dozens of people.
And the continuing presence of the military in Venezuela, and then the terrible earthquakes, the dual earthquakes that took place, and then the continuing excuses for US intervention veiled in the form of humanitarian assistance in the wake of the earthquakes. And then the signing of this extraordinary deal, essentially handing over the bulk of Venezuela’s oil resources where we have Venezuela with the largest single oil reserves in the world, exceeding Saudi Arabia, and this being essentially handed over to the US. All of this in the last few months. And so these were many of the issues that were on the agenda in Mexico City and what we were seeking to respond to, both in terms of political analysis, geopolitical analysis, but also in terms of their legal implications.
So the first day was more of the analysis in terms of policy, and the second two days was the framework of the tribunal, the International Tribunal of Conscience, where cases like Venezuela and Cuba that, again, are the more direct cases of US intervention and threats and sanctions and blockades and so on, but also the continuing threats against Mexico, for example. And these cases that are extraordinary of more than 200 instances of fishing vessels, of innocent people on those vessels, that had been blown up and people killed, in the Caribbean, in the Pacific, in the name of so-called anti-drug policies, all of this on the periphery of Colombia and Venezuela and of Ecuador. We had, from Ecuador, through live feed via Zoom, we had family members and representatives of Ecuadorian fishing communities, fishermen, presenting that case of the bombing of their vessels, for example.
And meanwhile, Ecuador is under a state of siege imposed by a US-backed militarily sustained government that suspended basic rights, and that, in fact, just in the last few days, has imprisoned the leading opposition candidate in the last elections. So that’s just sort of a microcosm of the kinds of issues that were raised. So we had a series of hearings the second two days, four different thematic clusters of cases – raising cases of crimes against humanity, of war crimes, of genocide, of ecocide; raising cases of neo-imperialism and intervention; raising cases of what we have alleged and described as migrant genocide and of carceral imperialism; and then the fourth cluster raising cases of environmental justice and extractivism. We had attendance, participants from over 16 countries from throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, from Central America, from Honduras, but all the way from Argentina up through Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, many of the countries I mentioned, and from the US.
If I estimate the number of folks who testified, it must have been around 40, in English, Spanish, and in Haitian Creole, but with interpretation. It was interesting because it was a mixture of testimony and cases that were presented through lawyers or human rights organizations. There was also a lot of documentation submitted [including videos].
There was testimony about current cases, but also there was context that was provided that was more thematic. And there was also some historical testimony. For example, there was very powerful testimony about the issue of the demand for historical reparations for African slavery in the Americas from a colleague based in Jamaica who submitted a video, who’s leading the campaign for historical reparations for slavery in Jamaica and through CARICOM, through the organization of Caribbean states. And this is an ongoing battle that’s actually being submitted to the Privy Council of Great Britain, which is the highest judicial body of the, the British Commonwealth, since Jamaica is part of the British Commonwealth and is a former British colony.
And also a related case, at least in terms of the theme, submitted by Haiti against France, its former colonial master, for reparations for French enslavement of Haitians and restitution for that slavery. So it’s a similar kind of argument, and that was submitted by a colleague, Jemima Pierre from the Black Alliance for Peace, which was one of our co-conveners, and also by another colleague of Haitian origin, more about the cultural dimensions of the demand for reparations for slavery. So all of those were more in a historical mode, let’s say, but also laying the groundwork for demands by contemporary communities of African descent in countries like Mexico, where only within the last five years has there been constitutional recognition that people of African descent exist and have rights, even though, of course, there’s 500 years of presence of people of African descent in Mexico, but not as a community that has rights because of their identity.
So there were those kinds of connections being made as well. There were many cases presented by indigenous communities in Mexico, in Colombia, in Chile, in Ecuador, and elsewhere, particularly connected to the way in which mega projects and extractivism disproportionately affect and displace indigenous communities. So that was another kind of theme. Also the disproportionate impact on women and on young people of environmental injustice, environmental racism, in the context of migration also, again, those transversal or intersectional kind of factors. And then this whole issue of the root causes of migration, for example, related to militarism and to extractivism as well, traceable back or attributable to US policies in terms of so-called development and the role of the IMF and the World Bank, you know, more structural issues in contexts like Honduras.
And also the way in which US migration policy more and more – beyond issues about deaths and detention and abuse and deaths in custody and terror on the streets of Minneapolis and LA and Chicago and beyond, the role of ICE, all that, of course, and terror at the border, which was very much on the agenda – but also the way in which US migration policy is getting exported to third countries, to Mexican territory, to countries like Honduras and beyond, and the role increasingly that third countries play, the way in which US deportation flights are sending people to countries where they have no ties, not only in Latin America, but in Africa, for example, and the sort of gulag that the US is developing around the world, particularly with El Salvador and this prison called CECOT. The conditions there are tantamount to torture, and where people are stigmatized as gang members simply because of their appearance or their tattoos, regardless of whether or not they have any gang affiliation, and even if they did have gang affiliation, being tortured or being submitted to mistreatment because of that, all as part of the so-called drug war, and being tagged as terrorists because of that – you know, the drug war becoming a supposedly an anti-terror war.
That’s being also used as the excuse for sending troops to Ecuador or to Peru or to Colombia, where the drug war is being completely militarized, again, quote, “As an anti-terror war.” And that, of course, is also what we’re fearing in Brazil, because that’s already been the tendency in Brazil, in the favelas of Rio or of Sao Paulo, et cetera, and all of that being in danger of being intensified if Bolsonaro’s son wins, because that was what happened under his father’s government already. We already have that precedent. So connecting all of these issues, I guess, connecting the tissue between these different points.
BL – Are there particular pieces of testimony from individuals or countries that really stood out to you, things that you would highlight?
CPB – There was a four-person delegation from Venezuela, and to me, it was really powerful to hear firsthand their testimony and description of what people are experiencing in Venezuela today, Venezuela still being a country under siege, and a people under siege, and a revolution that’s under siege. You know, it’s a very complex landscape. There’s a lot of debate on the left, of course, about what’s really happening in Venezuela and what’s left of that revolution. But what I heard was a spirit of resistance and of resilience. There’s a need for debate, and there’s a need, I think, for dialogue about what’s going on there on the ground. But what I heard was also a cry and demand for solidarity, and I think it’s very important that there be a response along those lines.
So we sought to respond by making the tribunal available in the sense of a space where there could be that voice that could be heard. And so I think we were able to respond in that mode. That, I think really was powerful. Also those who spoke from the perspective of Cuba. Those [testimonies] really stood out to me because of the circumstances from which they speak. Also, the companeras and companeros who spoke, who came from Peru, from Colombia, from Brazil, the fishing communities that spoke and participated from Ecuador, because they’re directly under attack and they’re seeking to respond. There was a companera who spoke from Honduras, where sadly it’s a country that very rarely receives international attention, but what she reminded us is how things came to the point in Honduras where their elections were intervened in by the US, the electoral result was dictated by the US, their former president, who was directly involved in drug trafficking, was pardoned by Trump, and was sent back home, and was sort of back in the saddle, let’s say, thanks to US intervention.
She basically said that Honduras was a warning to the rest of the region. Her testimony was very powerful because it was a sort of a testament to what happens when things go wrong. And it was a voice also crying out for solidarity. And Honduras is one of those third countries that’s been turned into a dumping ground for migrants deported from the US. And she was also talking about what happens when Honduran migrants are deported en masse from the US and sent back home to a country that’s no longer sustainable for them because of extractivism and militarism that’s the product of US intervention. So those voices from Venezuela, from Brazil, from Colombia, from Honduras, from Cuba, from Ecuador, really, really stood out to me.
And from Argentina under Milei where they’re fighting back, where again, they lost the elections, but they’re very, very busy resisting, fighting back in the streets. So those are voices that really were inspiring. Bolivia, where they’re fighting back again, where there’s a government that’s very repressive, but they’re very much deeply engaged in resistance. And so they were voices that also inspire. And from here in Mexico where, you know, there’s a government that’s better than most, but where there’s also very deep contradictions in the countryside, and processes of forced displacement, and a drug war that’s militarized, and continuing conditions of upheaval in terms of the causes that produce forced migration. And Mexico is caught between a rock and a hard place with the US continuing to pressure, you know? The stories of Ayotzinapa, for example, of the 43 missing students, we had the parents from Ayotzinapa, [including] Doña Cristina Bautista, crying out for solidarity.
And October 26th is yet another anniversary of the missing students. So to have her stand with us was very important, very significant. So all of those voices were very inspiring. And the folks from Witness at the Border, who are struggling within the US and demanding justice and standing up for dignity for migrants.
BL – I understand there’s going to be a final report issued later on this year, and that that’s going to be presented in New York. Is that going to go to the United Nations or where does that go exactly?
CPB – Definitely. We’re still not sure whether we’ll actually be physically present in New York. In any case, these findings will be channeled to the UN, to the Organization of American States, to the respective governments, to the US, to Mexico, to the governments in Central America and beyond, to the governments of Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, the ones I mentioned. If we step back and think about this, and this is something we talked about at the inception of the tribunal, and when we launched it, one way to think about this is 80 years after the Second World War and the Nuremberg trials and all that, and when we think about this being an effort to put the Trump administration and those complicit with it on trial, that’s really what’s at the heart of this effort, is we think about this as kind of a People’s Nuremberg.
And if we think about that moment, that historical moment back in 1945, that was kind of a popular front moment. You know, we had the Soviet Union, we had the US, it was FDR, initially, you know, then Truman. It was the founding moment of the UN, it was the founding moment of this so-called international world order that’s now sort of collapsing around us. Eventually we had the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we had the convention that established genocide as a crime, and the Nuremberg trials themselves, we had the first labor government in the UK, you know, that kind of thing. And social democracy was kind of the mode, let’s say. This is a very different moment right now. That [in 1945] was kind of an anti-fascist moment, and that was sort of the, the thread that held all this together.
It was the great anti-fascist war, that’s how it was understood. And, we’re at another moment now where we need that kind of spirit of anti-fascism and anti-imperialism. That’s sort of the grounding out of which the tribunal has emerged. That’s how we see ourselves, that’s how we position ourselves – in an anti-fascist mode, in an anti-imperialist mode. And so we try to think of ourselves, in a very humble way – we’re obviously very limited in our resources and in our reach – but we’re trying to lay the groundwork for a People’s Nuremberg. And that has to be something that comes from people’s movements. We hope to contribute to that, to that kind of thinking and to that kind of movement.
And that means that we want to make sure that these findings reach people in the broadest possible sense in the US, in Mexico, and Latin America, around the world, in both languages and other languages, and that we think in those terms – that this is a moment when the peoples of the world can hold governments and systems that oppress accountable, and that the tribunal can be a vehicle for that. That’s our hope.
I think that the call for a People’s Nuremberg would be the theme I would really try and emphasize. And that there’s a way of framing that, which is what the Genocide Convention says and what the Nuremberg principles say. And this is what led to the Russell Tribunal in the 1960s. It’s this idea that we have the duty not to be complicit with genocide. Like when we think of Gaza, right now, and what’s happening in Palestine as we speak, because it looks like there might be a new offensive, it might have already begun, on the eve of the elections in Israel. We have the duty not to be complicit with genocide. That’s the lesson of the Holocaust – never again – right?
That’s the lesson of Nuremberg. We have the duty not to be good Germans, right? And that was the lesson of Vietnam, and that’s why Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre and Simon de Beauvoir and others, Tariq Ali, organized the Russell Tribunal. They said, “Okay, the US and the allies tried the Nazi war criminals and applied to them these standards. Now it’s the US’s turn. We have to apply these standards to the US and it’s war crimes in Vietnam.” Well, now we have to apply those same standards to the Trump administration. And we have the duty to do that. You know, those of us who are US citizens, it’s being done with our tax dollars, right? You know, the concentration camps in the US and beyond. And so that’s the spirit of Nuremberg. When I say a People’s Nuremberg, that’s what I mean. So it’s saying that we have that duty to give those principles life and to apply them. And we can’t wait for somebody else to do that. We have to do that ourselves. That’s the idea.
BL – And would you see that People’s Nuremberg as some kind of a formal proceeding or more of just a motion within society?
CPB – Well, it really comes from below. We did it in Mexico City because we know that it’s very hard for most of the people who participated to ever get visas to come to the US, right? But what we’re thinking is maybe the next stage should be inside the US. Maybe we should hold one of these hearings in the US. And, you know, we can Zoom people in who can’t get visas. But I think it’s important for US society as a whole to sort of take this up. And, the elections are coming, and hopefully there’ll be some kind of verdict from these elections that’s favorable. But we can’t rely on Congress. We can’t rely on the Democrats. I think we’ve learned that lesson. And so even if the Democrats “win,” quote unquote, you know, the House or the Senate or bot, we have to hold them accountable too. We have to exert pressure inside the US. So I think we could probably hold some hearings in New York and the Bay Area and Chicago and key places and keep this going in some way. I think that might be the next step.
BL – Do you have a sense of when the final report will be pulled together? Will that be made public at any point before December?
CPB – It will. We’re hoping, if not late today [Oct. 23], then by Monday [Oct. 26]. We should have it very soon. The jury’s working on that right now. And we’ll do a webinar soon, to help get it out there.
Bob Lee is a professional journalist, writer and editor, and is co-editor of the People’s Tribune, serving as Managing Editor. He first started writing for and distributing the People’s Tribune in 1980, and joined the editorial board in 1987.
