Belgian Prosecutor Looks at Sharon Role in ’82 Massacre

As he prepares to visit Europe to appeal for support against Palestinian violence, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has come under investigation in Belgium for a 19-year-old wartime massacre in Lebanon--a case that aims to expand the reach of cross-border justice for crimes against humanity.

A prosecutor’s decision to open the inquiry, under a Belgian law permitting trial of any leader for war crimes committed anywhere, drew a furious Israeli protest. Sharon, who leaves Thursday for Germany and France, scratched Belgium from his itinerary, Israeli officials said Tuesday.

Survivors of the massacre welcomed the move as an advance in the globalization of justice--a trend that landed former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in a U.N. court far from home Tuesday. But international law experts said the Belgian case is also an example of how the process might work against diplomatic efforts to end armed conflicts.

It is, on one hand, a humiliation for Sharon, a retired general who is trying to escape his well-known past and gain respect as a statesman grappling with the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He stands accused in the slaughter of hundreds of Palestinians in two refugee camps under Israel’s control during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

But the Belgian case is also awkward for European leaders, who are trying to coax Sharon to be more flexible in applying the latest cease-fire accord. Israel accuses Europeans of pro-Palestinian bias, and the news from Belgium--which this week assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union--has put them on the defensive.

The Belgian prosecutor, in a ruling Friday that came to light Monday, found merit in two complaints filed by survivors from the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. An examining judge is now trying to determine whether to send the complaints to trial and order Sharon’s arrest.

Meanwhile, “any advisor in his right mind will continue to tell Sharon not to go to Belgium . . . to avoid the possibility of any embarrassment,” said an Israeli Foreign Ministry official who requested anonymity. “If the Belgians want to be active in the Middle East, they will have to come here.”

The 1982 slaughter cost Sharon his job as defense minister that year when an Israeli government investigation found him indirectly responsible. A new BBC documentary aired last month quoted Morris Draper, then a special U.S. envoy to the Middle East, as saying he pleaded unsuccessfully with Sharon to stop the killings, which were carried out over three days by Lebanese Christian militiamen allied with Israel.

“I’ve waited for this for years,” Suad Seror, a Palestinian survivor, told reporters in Brussels this week. She testified that she was raped and maimed by militiamen, saw her family murdered and still needs crutches to walk.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the Belgian case as “provocative and unfounded . . part of a campaign to defame Israel and its prime minister.” Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Belgium has “no moral right to judge Israel” after refusing the use of its port for oil shipments to the Jewish state during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

The Belgian government distanced itself Tuesday from the prosecutor, noting that he serves an independent judiciary.

“Belgium wants to play a role in the Middle East, so we must not give the impression of being partial,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Michel Malherbe said in an interview. But he conceded that the case against Sharon has produced “embarrassing effects” that could “limit our diplomatic possibilities at a Belgian and European level.”

European and U.S. leaders are warning that a June 13 cease-fire accord between Israel and Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority is on the verge of collapse. They have condemned violations on both sides, including Israel’s policy of tracking down and killing suspected leaders of the 9-month-old Palestinian uprising.

Resisting the pressure, Sharon and his closest advisors decided Tuesday to continue the policy, which they describe as “active self-defense” against Palestinian militants en route to carry out terrorist attacks against Israelis.

“The Palestinian Authority is behind terror and has done nothing to stop it,” Sharon said on German television. He has likened Arafat to accused international terrorist Osama bin Laden. And he has insisted on a total absence of violence during a seven-day “quiet” period agreed upon during Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s visit here last week. Until that period is completed, Sharon has said, Israel will not move on to other stages of a U.S. peace plan that would require negotiations and concessions.

Sharon is expected to make the same argument to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Thursday and French President Jacques Chirac on Friday--and hear more criticism. “He will be confronted by a sense of urgency, a concern that the peace process is on the verge of collapse,” said an Italian diplomat based in Israel.

“We will tell him that Mr. Arafat is a partner in the peace process, that Arafat cannot by himself stop this violence,” a French official said, adding that Chirac wants to see immediate Israeli concessions--such as a freeze on new Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The same official said he was worried, however, that the Belgian inquiry could undermine Europe’s efforts to engage the Israeli leader.

Reed Brody, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said the Belgian prosecutor’s case against Sharon points up the conflicting needs for justice and diplomacy. His New York-based organization had called for a criminal investigation of Sharon’s conduct in Lebanon.

“No one should be allowed to get away with crimes against humanity,” he said. “But on the other hand, a dialogue among state leaders is necessary to end conflicts and achieve peace. Sometimes those leaders have blood on their hands.”

Recognizing the need for such balance, Belgium’s government has recently proposed some modifications to the 1999 law allowing war crimes prosecutions. The revisions would give the justice minister or the leaders of Parliament a say in whether the incumbent leader of another country could be tried.

Israeli leaders say they are not optimistic that the law will be modified to shield Sharon from prosecution--even though they doubt that any European government would cooperate in a Belgian warrant for his arrest while he is still in office.

Ordinary Belgians have taken pride in the law since the conviction in their country last month of four Rwandans on charges of genocide. Since then, Belgian prosecutors have been flooded with more than 100 complaints against alleged war criminals, including Presidents Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast.

The law came under challenge in the International Court of Justice after a Belgian judge issued an arrest warrant for the foreign minister of Congo for a speech that allegedly incited genocide against members of a rival tribe. The African country accused Belgium of interfering with its internal affairs. The case is pending.

“Six weeks ago, everyone thought [the case against Sharon] was a joke, but not anymore,” said the Israeli Foreign Ministry official.

Israel has dispatched a team of diplomats and lawyers to monitor the case. The Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz reported Tuesday that Israelis in Belgium were studying a possible use of the law there to launch a war crimes case against Palestinian leaders.

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Times special correspondent Achrene Sicakyuz in Paris contributed to this report.