ZAZ: Bad idea: Granting amnesty

It can be a good or bad idea depending on the circumstances. Do you watch the dictator take out as many people as possible in an attempt to delay his fall? Or do you cut a deal and say we won't kill you if you give up peacefully?

South Africans seem to be satisfied with their amnesty, based on reports I read from the other side of the world.

That's cuz black rugby players were allowed on the national team and they started winning the Tri-Nation competition.

Heh, U-R-Guay.

I'm ambivalent about granting amnesty to those who were only following orders. Those giving the orders, though, should face the gallows.

I actually do have a problem with this. What good is amnesty if it can be revoked? I don't know the particulars in this case, so i don't know if the amnesty was granted under duress or something, but freely and fairly granted amnesty, if it can be simply revoked, is pretty useless. It'd be like the next Governor coming in and saying "Yeah, that pardon of the death penalty the last guy gave, nah, I take it back, you go die now."

vanish57: I actually do have a problem with this. What good is amnesty if it can be revoked? I don't know the particulars in this case, so i don't know if the amnesty was granted under duress or something, but freely and fairly granted amnesty, if it can be simply revoked, is pretty useless. It'd be like the next Governor coming in and saying "Yeah, that pardon of the death penalty the last guy gave, nah, I take it back, you go die now."

Or: That draft evation pardon from Vietnam? About that.

"State Of Siege" by Costa Gavras

Yves Montand plays Philip Michael Santore, an official of the US Agency for International Development (an organisation sometimes used as a front for training foreign police in torture methods). Posted to a fictional South American country in the early 1970s, Santorean is kidnapped by a group of urban guerrillas.

The story is based by Costa Gavras on an actual incident in Uruguay in 1970 when U.S. Embassy official and torture consultant Dan Mitrione was kidnapped and killed.


Using Santore's interrogation by his captors as a backdrop, the film explores the often brutal consequences of the struggle between the repressive government of Montevideo and the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas.

_________________________________________

Read up on Mitrione and you'll find some interesting stuff. His good buddy was Jim Jones of Jonestown / Koolaide fame.

Nobody ever deserved to be executed more than that scumbag.

TofuTheAlmighty: I'm ambivalent about granting amnesty to those who were only following orders.

Ever hear of Nuremberg

'They gonna give us full amnesty then?'

'Yup, a full amnesty'
-------------------

'You told me these men would be decently treated!'

'They were decently treated. They were decently fed, then they were decently shot'

--------------

'Hah, Capn' Redlegs Terrel and 5 men against Josey Wales.'

'Make it ten men'

Parliament: Hai guys...just checking to make sure you're enjoying your amnesty. Is this still a good address for you? Great, thanks.

**revokes amnesty**

Former Oppressors: FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

I wonder if any of the Tupamaros can still be tried for human rights abuses? They committed a few of their own, you know.

Nice fellas.

One presumes that violence on the part of the Tupamaros will also be investigated and prosecuted now?

As far as the political unrest of the previous years, Sanguinetti settled on a peaceful solution: an amnesty that would cover both the military leaders that had inflicted atrocities on the people in the name of counterinsurgency and the Tupamaros who had fought them. The military leaders were allowed to live out their lives with no fear of prosecution and the Tupamaros were set free. (new window)

ZAZ: It can be a good or bad idea depending on the circumstances. Do you watch the dictator take out as many people as possible in an attempt to delay his fall? Or do you cut a deal and say we won't kill you if you give up peacefully?

Exactly. Amnesty is basically paying the guy to leave without burning the joint down. This removal of the amnesty is actually worse as it undermines the credibility of such offers. Imagine for example of ten years after the fact we'd just randomly nullify deals with guys who turned state's evidence in exchange for sentence reductions. We'd end up with a system where it was a hell of a lot harder to get people to snitch.

Unusually intelligent commentary for a Fark thread. I fully expected cheering mouth breathers happy that the dictator will finally get his with no concept of why we give some dictators amnesty, or the harm this does to efforts to peacefully oust tyrants. Instead, I see that at least some people understand that:

1) Amnesty can be an appealing alternative to violence. It would have been much better all around if Saddam and Sons had peacefully retired to some central African mud hole instead of fighting the Iraq War. Yes, some very bad men would have gotten away with very bad things. But tens of thousands of lives and a trillion plus dollars would have been saved.

2) Revoking this amnesty makes it harder to peacefully resolve future efforts to oust tyrants. A dictator looks at this and realizes that his choices are to go down fighting, or accept an "amnesty" that could later be revoked, and he realizes that's no choice at all. He might as well take his chances fighting, no matter how many people die or how much destruction ensues.

I guess we can be happy that this guy will be punished. But that punishment comes at a high price sometime down the road.

ZAZ: Bad idea: Granting amnesty

It can be a good or bad idea depending on the circumstances. Do you watch the dictator take out as many people as possible in an attempt to delay his fall? Or do you cut a deal and say we won't kill you if you give up peacefully?

South Africans seem to be satisfied with their amnesty, based on reports I read from the other side of the world.

As one of those South Africans, personally I'd be quite happy if some of those bastards had had some very unpleasant accidents post-94, but ultimately it's better to get a whole country, even if the price is letting evil sons of biatches get away with it.

Still, one can always day dream.

Yep, sooner or later the US is going to have to catch up to the fact that the leader of this country from 2001-2009, is a war criminal, along with several key members of his administration, and has still managed to elude justice.

vanish57: I actually do have a problem with this. What good is amnesty if it can be revoked? I don't know the particulars in this case, so i don't know if the amnesty was granted under duress or something, but freely and fairly granted amnesty, if it can be simply revoked, is pretty useless. It'd be like the next Governor coming in and saying "Yeah, that pardon of the death penalty the last guy gave, nah, I take it back, you go die now."

This. Civilized nations use similar reasoning to forbid ex post facto laws: A prior act, once deemed lawful, cannot be later deemed unlawful without destroying the credibility of the rule of law.