Month: April 2026

US & Israel bomb 307+ medical facilities in Iran

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From Mint Press News
April 9, 2026
Alan McLeod

The United States and Israel are systematically targeting hospitals in Iran. In one month of bombing, the two countries have hit at least 307 health centers across the country, according to reports from the Iranian Red Crescent. The carefully planned destruction of the Islamic Republic’s medical infrastructure fits into a long history of deliberate U.S. attacks on hospitals. Since the end of World War Two, Washington has targeted medical centers in at least 16 countries, and the 307 Iranian sites hit does not even come close to the record for the number of hospitals in any country destroyed by American bombs and missiles.

IRANIAN DESTRUCTION

There was no warning. U.S. and Israeli airstrikes hit Gandhi Hotel Hospital in northern Tehran on March 1, and again on March 2. Locals were fasting for Ramadan as missiles tore into the building, shattering glass and wrecking its neo-natal unit and ICU. Completed in 2009 and described as “beacon” of Iranian medicine and one of the most advanced medical centers in West Asia, the 17-storey building was among the country’s most important hospitals. Images of the aftermath show a once proud building in ruins, with floor after floor devastated. Gandhi Hotel Hospital is one of more than 300 medical centers that have been hit by U.S. and Israeli strikes. Nine days afterward, on March 11, the Persian Gulf Martyrs Educational and Medical Center in Bushehr on Iran’s southern coast was targeted and severely damaged.

Missile explosions destroyed much of the hospital’s medical equipment. Even as the glass was still falling, authorities made the decision to rush patients to the nearby Nuclear Scientists Martyrs Hospital, despite the fear of a double-tap strike, like the ones often seen in Israeli attacks on Palestine. On March 21, the Imam Ali Hospital in Andimeshk, Khuzestan Province, was targeted. Video footage from the aftermath of the attack shows wards, waiting rooms, and corridors completely devastated, with both walls and roofs collapsing under the strain of U.S./Israeli bombardment.

The Imam Ali is Andimeshk’s only hospital, and patients were forced to be bussed to healthcare facilities in other cities, according to Hossein Kermanpour, head of public relations for the Iranian Ministry of Health. I wish [Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu] understood that this is a crime against humanity,” he said.

Other medical infrastructure, including a first responders’ center, an Iranian Red Crescent office, and the Pasteur Institute, a medical research laboratory, have also been hit. “What message does attacking hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and the Pasteur Institute as a medical research center in Iran convey?” asked Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian; “As a specialist physician, I urge WHO, the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and physicians worldwide to respond to this crime against humanity.”

The attacks have been largely ignored by Western media. Few newspapers or TV news reports have even mentioned the damage to the country’s healthcare system, let alone centered it as a major news story.

THE U.S.’ LONG HISTORY OF BOMBING HOSPITALS

President Trump has a history of targeting medical facilities. Last year, U.S. forces carried out 14 separate airstrikes on the Al Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Hospital in Saada, Yemen, the centerpiece of the country’s healthcare network. For a full investigation into the attack, and the U.S.’ long history of targeting civilian medical infrastructure around the world, see the MintPress News report:

“With Yemen Attack, U.S. Continues Long History of Deliberately Bombing Hospitals.” Repeated attacks against hospitals is more of a pattern than an aberration for Trump. In 2017, the U.S. carried out 20 strikes against a hospital in Raqqa, Syria, using white phosphorous munitions to do so, killing at least 30 civilians in the process.

Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, was not less fond of targeting healthcare facilities. In 2015, his administration ordered a bombing campaign against a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The building was one of the largest and most recognizable in the city, and an internal inquiry found that the airmen aboard the gunship pushed back against the order, citing its illegality. They were overruled and forced to carry out the strike, killing at least 42 people. Obama’s attack on Doctors Without Borders marked the only time in history that one Nobel Peace Prize winner has attacked another one. During his time in office, Obama bombed seven countries, including Libya, where U.S. planes struck a hospital in Zliten, leveling it completely. At least 11 people were killed in the operation.

Perhaps no nation on Earth has felt the impact of American power in the 21st century as badly as Iraq. Successive administrations attacked critical infrastructure there, including in 2003, when President Bush bombed the Red Crescent Maternity Hospital in Baghdad. While many were killed in the strike, the real death toll, as UNICEF noted, was far higher, as with no medical care, maternal mortality spiked after the attack. The 1990s is often remembered in the West as a time of peace. Yet President Clinton used the period to target medical infrastructure in three separate countries. In Yugoslavia, U.S. planes bombed a number of hospitals, including dropping now-banned cluster munitions on a facility in Niš, killing at least 15 people.

In Somalia in 1993, U.S. soldiers carried out a mortar attack against the Digfer Hospital in Mogadishu, destroying the building’s main reception area. They then proceeded to bomb the journalists attempting to cover the incident. Meanwhile, in Sudan, Clinton ordered a hit on the Al-Shifa medicine factory in Sudan. Fourteen cruise missiles pounded the plant, turning what had been the largest producer of medicine in the country into a pile of twisted metal. The German Ambassador to Sudan estimated that, without the antibiotics, antimalarials, and other drugs it produced, the true death toll of the strike was in the “tens of thousands.” Few Americans know about this incident. The 1980s were a dangerous time to be a doctor in a country designated for regime change.

The U.S. invaded Grenada in 1983, in order to put an end to the socialist revolution on the Caribbean island. In the process, it bombed the Richmond Hill Mental Hospital, killing dozens. In El Salvador, U.S.-backed death squads flying in American aircraft stormed a hospital in San Ildefonso, killing five people. Paratroopers also kidnapped, raped, and tortured the staff, including French nurse Madeleine Lagadec, causing a major diplomatic incident. Between 1981 and 1984, at least 63 health centers in Nicaragua were forced to close, due to attacks from U.S.-backed and trained “Contra” death squads, whom President Reagan labeled “the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.”

The violence meted out on Asia by the U.S., however, was on another level entirely. Bombing hospitals was official (if unstated) policy. “The bigger the hospital, the better it was,” said  former Army intelligence specialist Allan Stevenson, explaining the U.S. military’s position on Vietnam.

The most well-documented case of U.S. attacks on Vietnamese medical infrastructure occurred in December 1972, when American planes dropped over 100 bombs on the giant Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi, killing at least 28 staff and an unconfirmed number of patients. During a Congressional hearing on clandestine activities in Laos and Cambodia, lawmakers were told that bombing of hospitals in those countries was “routine.”

To this day, Laos remains the most bombed country in history. North Korea, however, suffered the brunt of American attacks. In the course of the Korean War, the U.S. military destroyed an estimated 1,000 hospitals through bombing, as entire cities were leveled. Professor Bruce Cummings, America’s foremost expert on Korea, estimates that the U.S. killed around 25% of the entire North Korean population between 1950 and 1953.

ISRAELI CRIMES AND AMERICAN DREAMS

Israel, of course, is no stranger to bombing hospitals, either. Virtually every health center in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed. Israeli Defense Forces snipers have targeted healthcare workers inside hospitals, and have kidnapped, and tortured doctors. A particularly noteworthy example is that of Adnan Al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at al-Shifa Hospital. In December 2023, al-Bursh was arrested and detained for months, and was likely raped to death by IDF troops.

Israel is now systematically targeting Lebanon’s health system, as it did with Palestine, shelling hospitals deep inside the country. As a result, at least 57 Lebanese healthcare workers have died. The U.S. attacks on Iranian infrastructure are part of a wider regime change operation aimed at overthrowing the Islamic Republic and installing a U.S.-compliant administration. In recent times, Washington has assassinated the country’s supreme leader, carried out protracted economic warfare that has seriously harmed Iran, and fomented protests aimed at destabilizing and dislodging the government.

Trump also confirmed that his administration smuggled arms to Kurdish groups and to protestors leading the recent anti-government demonstrations – a key wanfactor in the violence that erupted. Thus, while systematic U.S./Israeli attacks on Iranian hospitals are shocking acts, they fit into a clear pattern stretching back over 80 years. As cataloged here, the United States has bombed healthcare infrastructure in at least 16 countries since the end of World War Two. Hitting hospitals may be a war crime, but it is as American as apple pie.


Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. He completed his PhD in 2017 and has since authored two acclaimed books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams. Follow Alan on Twitter for more of his work and commentary: @AlanRMacLeod.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-israel-bomb-307-medical-facilities-in-iran-carrying-on-long-tradition-of-targeting-medical-workers/290826/

Iran: A Declaration to the Conscience of Humanity: 6 Non-Negotiable Terms from International Scholars and Former Officials from 30 Countries to End the U.S. War on Iran Amid Trump’s Threat of War Crimes

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From Global Research
April 10, 2026

The conscience of humanity resists “everything for us, nothing for others,” the creed of the predatory empire erected on the corpses of nations. The shameless rapacity and insolence have reached their zenith, and Trump’s threats illustrate the depraved spirit of a decaying civilisation. We must not be passive witnesses, but active architects of a new world where arrogance crumbles and righteousness prevails.

A large transnational group of prominent voices—including former UN officials, Retired career diplomats, former ministers, scholars and intellectuals, political figures and former parliamentarians, military and security professionals, artists, lawyers as well as journalists, activists, and antiwar leaders, from 30 countries—has released an open letter sharply criticising the global role of the United States and calling for a new international order centered on sovereignty and resistance to what they describe as Western domination.

Most of the signatories are from Western countries, alongside participants from Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The declaration, titled “A Declaration to the Conscience of Humanity,” was signed by over 170 signatories from countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Serbia, Poland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lithuania, Russia, China, Malaysia, India, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran. 

In this fact-based public letter, the authors deliver a sweeping critique of American foreign policy and historical conduct. The letter states that for “249 years—spanning the entirety of its existence since 1776—the United States built a record of atrocity that belonged to a darker, pre-civilised age,” describing the country as “a predatory empire erected on the corpses of nations.”

The signatories, including current and former professors affiliated with 52 universities and academic institutions worldwide, accuse Washington of maintaining global military dominance through an extensive overseas presence. They state that the United States operates “over 800 military garrisons poisoning more than 90 foreign countries and territories” and has cultivated what the signatories call “a doctrine of absolute predation.”

The declaration also condemns U.S. involvement in major wars of the 20th and 21st centuries, referring to what it calls “the genocidal horror of Vietnam,” “the annihilation of Cambodia,” and the “systematic slaughter of Koreans,” as well as the destruction of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan.

A central focus of the document is the ongoing confrontation involving Iran. These public figures argue that the current situation reflects what they describe as an expansionist U.S. strategy aimed at dominating global resources. According to the statement, the United States government is driven by “the demonic creed of ‘everything for us, nothing for others’,” which they say seeks control of global resources ranging from “the oil of Venezuela” to “the mineral wealth of Greenland” or “the energy reserves of Canada”.

The undersigned further assert that U.S. policy now “fixates on Iran” because the country possesses “over seven percent of the world’s mineral and energy wealth,” which they describe as “the final frontier of plunder.”

The document also criticizes contemporary American leadership, arguing that the “moral collapse of the West finds its embodiment in the pathetic figure of Mr. Trump,” and calling for what they describe as an end to “the era of pillage.”

Beyond its criticism of U.S. policy, the announcement proposes several demands that the signatories say are necessary to end the current war on Iran. These include guarantees against future aggression, the dismantling of U.S. military installations in the region, formal international condemnation of acts of aggression, reparations for damages caused by war, the establishment of a new legal framework for the Strait of Hormuz, recognising Iran’s sovereignty, and the prosecution and extradition of operatives in anti-Iranian media who have incited this bloodshed.

The authors also call on intellectuals, scholars, institutions, and civil society organizations worldwide to condemn what is described as the normalization of violations of international law and to challenge the global  structures that sustain domination and military intervention.

In conclusion, the signatories argue that the present moment represents a decisive historical turning point. “We stand with justice—not as passive witnesses, but as active architects of a new world,” the letter states, emphasizing that the international community must confront what it calls the return of predatory power in global politics.

Among the signatories are prominent scientists and figures representing a wide array of expertise and leadership, including philosophers, economists, historians, sociologists, jurists, theologians, Islamologists, reverends, biologists, physicians, musicians, filmmakers, songwriters, singers, entrepreneurs, engineers, novelists, theorists, as well as a physicist, a psychologist, an anthropologist, and a comedian. This diverse coalition reflects the global conscience of humanity, uniting professionals, scholars, and advocates from multiple disciplines in a shared call against U.S. exceptionalism.

The full text of the declaration, along with the complete list of signatories, has been released publicly in more than ten languages.

A Declaration to the Conscience of Humanity

To the peoples of the world, to thinkers, to scholars, and to those who believe in justice:

A specter now haunts the conscience of humanity—the return of predatory power— and it shall no longer go unchallenged. 

For 249 years—spanning the entirety of its existence since 1776—the United States built a record of atrocity that belonged to a darker, pre-civilised age; the predatory empire erected on the corpses of nations; from the genocide of nearly 5 million Indigenous peoples, to the brutal enslavement of over 4 million Africans, to the lynching of more than 4,000 Black citizens under Jim Crow. With over 800 military garrisons poisoning more than 90 foreign countries and territories, it cultivated a doctrine of absolute predation. From the genocidal horror of Vietnam, with over 3 million dead; to the annihilation of Cambodia, where 2 million perished under US-backed terror; to the systematic slaughter of Koreans, with more than 4 million Korean lives extinguished; to the destruction of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan, where one million Iraqis and tens of thousands of Libyans were consumed by US fire. 

Yet the rational order that governs the world once helped humanity move beyond such practices. Humanity had consigned this barbarism to history. But now we are witnessing its return. The ongoing, systematic immolation of Gaza through the sustained support for the genocidal Israeli regime, where over 77,000 civilians in Palestine have been butchered—the scale of this atrocity reveals an inescapable truth: the pre-civilised practice has returned, and Washington has once again become its willing executor.

This is the demonic creed of “everything for us, nothing for others.” With shameless rapacity, it claims the resources of the world—whether the oil of Venezuela, the mineral wealth of Greenland, or the energy reserves of Canada—as objects of strategic entitlement. And now, that gluttonous eye fixates on Iran. Because Iran—possessing over 7% of the world’s mineral and energy wealth—is seen as the final frontier of plunder.

Yet this is no longer a matter of economics. It is a matter of honour. The world witnesses that the United States is actively engaged in a criminal enterprise termed the “Ramadan War” against the Iranian nation. This ongoing butchery has already claimed the lives of 208 innocent children. Let the world mark the date—168 of them were little girls, elementary students at the Shadjareh Tayyebeh School in Minab city in Iran, extinguished in their classrooms by US ordained terror.

Their futile and desperate contrivances aim at so-called “regime change” and the fragmentation of Iran—stripping the nation of its sovereignty and, thereby, facilitating the systematic plunder of its resources. In pursuit of this ultimate depravity, the U.S. brutally assassinated Iran’s spiritual and intellectual leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei—recognised globally as a voice against arrogance and terrorism—along with his family.

They have waged a war of targeted terror against the very pillars of the Iranian state. To date, US aggression has criminally murdered 39 Iranian statesmen, including the scientific genius Dr. Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.

Now, the insolence has reached its zenith. The US President openly threatens the Iranian people on social media with the destruction of their energy infrastructure. This is the depraved spirit of a decaying civilisation. The moral collapse of the West finds its embodiment in the pathetic figure of Mr. Trump—a man whose catastrophic conduct over the last two years has exhausted not only the world, but his own people. The time has come to declare, with one voice: Enough! The era of pillage is over.

But the United States has made a fatal miscalculation. What stands before it is not merely a nation, but a civilisation that has weaponised its own DNA—ancient organisational genius fused with 21st-century scientific sovereignty. This is the reality of active deterrence by Iran; a global pole of power that dictates the terms of engagement, forcing strategic retreat by rewriting the very rules of active defence. Now, its adaptive reorganisation, civilisational continuity, and social unity have fused into a singular, unbreakable force.

Iran’s all-encompassing defence and active deterrence represents a golden opportunity to end global hegemony. The historical and civilisational doctrine of Iran is absolute: power does not confer right, and domination cannot serve as a foundation for justice. This is recognised as the bedrock of Iran’s invincibility. The world may avail itself of this historic turning point, drawing upon this very doctrine of liberation, to bring an end to domination and oppression wherever they may exist. 

US and Israeli exceptionalism have dragged the world into an epoch defining choice between might and right, sovereignty and subjugation, dignity and dishonour. This moment must serve as the wake-up call for humanity to recognize that there is another way. It must impel people everywhere to do everything in their power to challenge the structures undergirding a global system that desecrates every moral value including the right to life itself. 

Iran is the final frontier. If it falls, the hope of a better, enlightened future for the world dies with it. We cannot let that happen. The aggression against Iran is part of a system of global power that oppresses all of us. We cannot afford to stand by and watch arrogant authoritarianism running amok. Our very future depends on the success of Iran.

Therefore we cannot countenance any outcome of this war that involves a return to the status quo ante. Those who inflict such suffering must be made to pay a hefty price for their crimes. They must be made to realise that military might does not absolve them of the responsibility to uphold the laws on which the peace and security of our world depend. To that end, we support the terms set out by Iran for ending this war.

From the perspective of global justice, the terms for ending this war are absolute and non-negotiable:

  1. Guarantees against repetition and a binding international commitment ensuring no future aggression.
  2. The immediate dismantling of all US military installations in the region.
  3. Formal admission of aggression, international condemnation of the aggressors, and full reparations for life and property.
  4. An immediate end to war on all regional fronts.
  5. A new legal regime for the Strait of Hormuz, recognising Iran’s sovereignty.
  6. The prosecution and extradition of operatives in anti-Iranian media who have incited this bloodshed.

We, the undersigned in spirit, call upon our peers, the thinkers, the scholars, the institutions of conscience, and the advocates of justice across the world:

  • Condemn the United States unequivocally for its systematic normalisation of contempt for international covenants and its reversion to the spirit of historical savagery and barbarism.
  • Isolate the rogue regime of the United States diplomatically and economically for its ongoing crimes against humanity.
  • Recognise Iran’s inherent right to active deterrence against unprovoked aggression.
  • Demand the immediate cessation of American and U.S.-sponsored terrorism and the prosecution of those who order it.

As it has always done, history will record the courage of those who refuse to remain silent. We stand with justice—not as passive witnesses, but as active architects of a new world that has reached its threshold where arrogance crumbles and righteousness prevails. The arrogant must be dismantled. The world demands it. Justice will enforce it.

For a list of signatories
https://www.globalresearch.ca/six-non-negotiable-terms-end-us-war-iran/5921902

‘Attempted assassination’: Tucker Carlson extensive interview of RT correspondent on Israeli attack and actions in Lebanon, journalism, and more

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From RT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3z8GwKz-7U
Video

Steve Sweeney and cameraman Ali Rida narrowly survived a missile strike last month while filming in southern Lebanon
4-10-26

American journalist Tucker Carlson has said an Israeli strike targeting RT correspondent Steve Sweeney in Lebanon was an “attempted assassination,” as he spoke with the reporter about the attack and his work in conflict zones.

Sweeney and cameraman Ali Rida Sbeity were injured last month when an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at their filming position near the Al-Qasmiya Bridge in southern Lebanon, close to a local army base. The crew, who were wearing clearly marked press gear, said the jet “deliberately attacked” them, with Rida’s camera capturing the moment the blast struck less than 10 meters behind Sweeney as he ducked for cover.

In the interview, released by Carlson on Friday, he told viewers that the strike was “an attempted assassination.” Sweeney said they “were incredibly lucky to come out of that situation alive.”

Sweeney said the munition, which he identified as a GBU-38 bomb fired from an F-16 fighter jet, passed through a hole in the bridge which was already destroyed, arguing that there was “no military objective” in striking it again. He described the attack as “an assassination attempt by Israel to silence the voices on the ground, to silence the truth.”

Carlson asked why a British citizen and former reporter for the Morning Star chose to work for RT. Sweeney quipped that MI5 “would never clear” him to work for the BBC, while arguing that the space for challenging official narratives in the Western media, particularly over the Ukraine conflict, has “completely disappeared.”

“I have complete freedom to report exactly what I want, and nobody tells me what to say,” Sweeney said regarding his work at RT. He noted that RT is banned in the US and EU, while Western broadcasters are still allowed to operate and question officials inside Russia.

See also
https://www.rt.com/news/621612-uk-police-rt-journalist/
https://www.rt.com/news/635531-rt-crew-injured-lebanon/

UK counterterrorism police detained and interrogated Sweeney at Heathrow Airport last July over his work for RT and his reporting from Donbass and Lebanon, and he told Carlson that he is currently being investigated for potential terrorist activity “based on my journalism” alone.

Sweeney told Carlson that despite the near-fatal strike in Lebanon, he has “no intention of leaving” the country or stopping his work.

https://www.rt.com/news/637991-carlson-sweeney-lebanon-israeli-attack/

Belgian court decides on criminal trial against Bilderberg’s Étienne Davignon for role in 1961 Lumumba assassination

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From RT

The Bilderberg titan on trial: This murder waited 65 years for justice
By moving from a ‘moral apology’ to criminal liability, the Lumumba family is forcing a global reckoning with the mechanics of regime change

April 4, 2026
Mustafa Fetouri

The Council Chamber of the Brussels Court of First Instance last month made the historic decision, subject to appeal, to open a criminal trial against Étienne Davignon, a former Belgian diplomat, for his alleged role in the abduction and transfer of Patrice Lumumba.

This March 17 ruling delivers a blow to decades of Western legal immunity, challenging the long-standing practice of burying the 1961 assassination under the vague ‘moral responsibility’ of diplomatic apologies. The court must now decide if this will finally be prosecuted as a war crime. It is a live-wire legal precedent that connects the ‘Decapitation Doctrine’ – the strategic removal of a head of state to induce systemic national collapse.

This pattern stretches from the 1953 ousting of Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala in 1954 to Lumumba’s Congo in 1961 – directly to the 2011 destruction of Libya, the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president, and the current open war to topple the Iranian regime. By framing these actions not as isolated incidents but as a calculated shortcut to engineer state failure, the Lumumba case threatens to dismantle the very architecture of modern external intervention.

In a statement, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), acting as legal counsel for the Lumumba family, described the ruling as one of “major legal significance.” This is because the court “went beyond the submissions of the Federal Prosecutor” by extending the scope of the trial to include the assassinations of Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito, Lumumba associates who were executed alongside him on January 17, 1961.

After six decades of impunity, Étienne Davignon, the last living alleged perpetrator. must finally answer for these war crimes.

At 93, Étienne Davignon stands as the last surviving link between that colonial execution and the modern Western establishment. A former diplomat in the Belgian Congo and a titan of the Bilderberg Group – an informal, off-the-record gathering of political and business leaders – and the EU, Davignon embodies the “colonial administrative mind”: a mindset that didn’t vanish with independence but was rebranded into the very international organizations which fail to protect sovereign nations today.

By shifting the legal threshold from a 2002 “moral apology” to the 2026 criminal trial (a judicial battle the family ignited in 2011), the Lumumbas are forcing a global reckoning with the mechanics of regime change.

This dismantling begins with the “decapitation doctrine.” The elimination of Patrice Lumumba was never an isolated act of colonial cruelty; it was the birth of a strategic blueprint. This doctrine operates on a simple, lethal premise: When a sovereign leader refuses to serve as a Western proxy, the intervention disintegrates the state’s institutional core. In 1961, the removal of Lumumba served to paralyze the Congo, ensuring its vast mineral wealth remained accessible to Belgian and American interests.

Exactly fifty years later, this same script was dusted off and deployed against Libya. The 2011 NATO intervention followed the Congolese model to the letter – justifying “regime change” under the guise of humanitarianism, only to leave behind a vacuum of governance and a shattered national identity. This is the recurring nightmare of the Global South: a cycle of manufactured crises where the “civilizing mission” of the 20th century has evolved into the “democratization” invasions of the 21st.

This trial, whose specific start date is yet to be set, represents a violent collision between two versions of history, the sanitized “moral apology” offered by Belgium in 2002, and the cold, criminal liability demanded in 2026. For a quarter-century, the Western establishment has hidden behind the veil of “institutional failure” and “unfortunate excesses,” treating the assassination of Lumumba as a tragic footnote of history.

However, Étienne Davignon cannot plead the passage of time as a defense against the charge of war crimes. By elevating this case from a diplomatic grievance to a criminal prosecution, the Lumumba family, through the Lumumba Foundation, is effectively putting the entire colonial era on the stand. They are arguing that the destruction of a nation’s leadership is not a political maneuver protected by sovereign immunity, but a foundational crime that continues to bear bitter fruit – from the streets of Kinshasa to militia-dominated Tripoli.

The legal battlefield in Brussels is no longer a debate over historical “regrets,” but a forensic dissection of command responsibility. At the heart of the 2026 trial lies a cache of declassified cables and administrative records that strip away the veneer of “local tribal conflict” that has long shielded Belgium. These documents suggest that the execution of Patrice Lumumba was not a meticulously choreographed operation directed from the highest levels of the Belgian colonial office.

As the court examines the role of a then-junior diplomat named Étienne Davignon, it is forced to confront the “Bureaucracy of Assassination.” This is the moment where the colonial administrative mind meets the criminal dock, challenging the long-held Western legal defense that high-ranking officials are immune to the blood shed by their strategic directives.

This is the shift that terrifies the architects of modern interventionism. By treating Lumumba’s death not as a closed domestic coup, but as a war crime, the case has, effectively, stripped away the expiration date on colonial accountability. If Étienne Davignon can be held criminally liable for a telex he sent in 1961, the implications are seismic. What does this mean for the French officials who choreographed the “dirty wars” in Algeria, or the NATO commanders who signed the directives that turned Tripoli into a playground for militias in 2011, or the Trump administration who orchestrated the kidnap of sitting president Nicolas Maduro?

The Brussels ruling is a direct threat to the “immunity of the directive.” It forces Belgium, as a former colonial power, to face its dark history and the deeds of its cruel colonial officials.

For decades, the Western establishment has relied on procedural dead ends to ensure that the mechanics of regime change remain a matter of historical debate rather than criminal liability. The ruling shatters the 65-year-old shield of “moral responsibility,” transforming a hollow diplomatic apology into a live prosecution. It is a test of whether modern international legal frameworks can ever truly hold their own architects accountable, or if the blueprints of state-dismantling, from the Congo to Libya, will remain legally untouchable.

This is the “Aussaresses Precedent” that continues to haunt the Global South. Much like the unrepentant French General Paul Aussaresses, who admitted to horrific torture and summary executions in Algeria only to boast that he “slept fine” afterward, the architects of colonial violence have long relied on a legal suit of armor. Aussaresses died in 2013 at the age of 95, shielded by amnesty laws that ensured he was only ever fined for “justifying” war crimes rather than being prosecuted for committing them.

The March 17 ruling in Brussels represents a definitive crack in this armor; it is a refusal to let Étienne Davignon follow the Aussaresses path into a comfortable, legally shielded grave. By securing this criminal referral, the Lumumba family is fighting to ensure that “doing one’s duty” is no longer a valid legal defense for the clinical destruction of a sovereign people.

The trial of Étienne Davignon is the first tremor of a continental tectonic shift. This was reinforced on March 25, 2026, when the UN General Assembly, led by a historic resolution from Ghana, formally designated the transatlantic slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity,” a move that directly challenges the institutional architecture of Western states.

This global momentum aligns with the African Union’s transition from the 2025 ‘Year of Reparations’ to the 2026 adoption of the Algiers Declaration. As the AU moves toward the active implementation of this blueprint, the ‘immunity of the directive’ is collapsing. By designating November 30 as a continent-wide day to honor the martyrs of colonialism and moving to codify these historical atrocities into international law, Africa is signaling that the era of the ‘moral apology’ is over. The blueprints of state-dismantling, from the Congo to Libya, are no longer a matter of historical debate – they are now a matter of criminal accountability.

https://www.rt.com/africa/636836-lumumba-case-blow-to-western-legal-immunity/

Trump’s Doomsday clock: “A whole civilization will die tonight” — Tuesday April 7, 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT). Impeachment forum convenes Wednesday

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Reuters’ summary of events

As Trump’s deadline nears, last-ditch effort seeks Iran ceasefire
Parisa Hafezi and Trevor Hunnicutt
April 6, 2026
with video

Excerpt:
U.S. President Donald Trump warned Iran on Tuesday that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran refuses to reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz shipping lane by his evening deadline, while Pakistan proposed a two-week ceasefire in a last-ditch attempt at ​mediation.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” ​Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “deeply troubled” by Trump’s statement, his spokesperson said. Pope Leo ‌said threats against ⁠the population of Iran are “unacceptable.”

Brian Finucane, ⁠a former U.S. State Department legal adviser now with the International Crisis Group, said Trump’s remarks “could plausibly be interpreted as a threat to commit genocide” under U.S. and international law.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/iran-defiant-eve-trumps-ceasefire-deadline-2026-04-07/

Expert Legal Symposium on Impeachment and the Meaning of “Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors”

https://nader.org/2026/04/02/expert-legal-symposium-on-impeachment-and-the-meaning-of-bribery-or-other-high-crimes-and-misdemeanors/

Wednesday April 8th, 2026
9 AM to 1:30 PM
Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2044

Please observe the following to enter the Rayburn Building.

Livestream link via The Real News Network.

Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein Present: 

Expert Legal Symposium on Impeachment and the Meaning of “Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors” 

9:00 am – 9:10 am: OPENING REMARKS BY RALPH NADER
 Consumer advocate, lawyer, and author.

9:15 am – 10:25 am: Panel 1 – President Trump’s usurpation of the congressional war power conferred by Article I, section 8, clause 11 exemplified by his gratuitous, ongoing, criminal war of aggression against Iran.

Moderator: Theresa Amato (Opening statement, 10 minutes) Principal, Amato PLLC

Panelists (15 minutes each):

Dennis Kucinich Member of the U.S. House of Representatives 1997–2013, Mayor of Cleveland 1977–79 
Doug Bandow Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in foreign policy and civil liberties 
Jeffrey Sterling Lawyer, former CIA officer and whistleblower 

Open Q&A (remaining time, approx. 15 minutes)

10:30 am – 11:25 am: Panel 2 – The credible fear that President Trump will obstruct, interfere with, or outright cancel the 2026 midterm elections unless impeached and removed from office.

Moderator: John Bonifaz (Opening statement, 10 minutes) 
John Bonifaz is a constitutional attorney and the Co-Founder and President of Free Speech For People.

Panelists (15 minutes each): 

Bruce Fein Constitutional Lawyer and scholar, former Assistant Deputy Attorney General and general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission
Oliver Hall: Founder, Executive Director and  General Counsel for the Center for Competitive Democracy

Open Q&A (approx. 15 minutes)

11:30 am – 12:25 pm: Panel 3 – President Trump’s industrial scale bribery and extortion exemplified by auctioning pardons, demanding free legal services to escape government retaliation, and conferring government favors or benefits in exchange for donations to Mr. Trump’s sprawling business empire or pet projects like the White House ballroom.

Moderator: Jack Rakove (Opening statement, 10 minutes)
Pulitzer Prize-winning Stanford Professor of History and American Studies, political science and law

Panelists (15 minutes each): 

Alan B. Morrison Former Associate Dean for Public Interest & Public Service and professor of civil procedure and constitutional law at GW Law. 
Rob Weissman Co-president of Public Citizen, public interest advocate and activist 

Open Q&A (approx. 15 minutes)

12:30 pm – 1:15 pm: Statements by Public Scholars, Civic Leaders, Activists and Writers

Moderator: Mark Green (Opening statement, 10 minutes) 
Author, Lawyer, and first New York City Public Advocate

Presenters (5 minutes each):

John R. MacArthur Publisher Harper’s Magazine
Andy Shallal CEO and Founder, Busboys and Poets
David Kelley Political Policy Advisor & Writer
Ellen Barfield Co-founder of the Veterans For Peace Women’s Caucus 
Jessica Denson Founder of the Removal Coalition
Ben Cohen Co-Founder, Ben & Jerry’s 
John Koskinen Former Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

This event is co-sponsored by RootsAction, Free Speech For People, and Essential Information. 

From Dennis Kucinich
April 7, 2026

No matter what happens tonight, Congress must return to DC immediately. The President must be impeached and removed from office

There is an unprecedented urgency for Congress to return to DC immediately to consider an impeachment resolution and begin the process of removing the President from office.

Tomorrow, I will join constitutional scholars in Congress to present the case for the impeachment and removal of the President, a responsibility I have taken up before in defense of the Constitution.

Since that meeting was announced, Donald Trump has stated that if Iran does not accede to his demands, “a whole civilization will die,” at his direction and instance.

This statement alone underscores the unprecedented urgency of Congress returning to full session immediately to consider an impeachment resolution and begin the process of removing the President from office.

Victor Davis Hanson, in his book The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, offers a sweeping historical account of how civilizations collapse through war driven by human passion. In a 2024 review in Law & Liberty, Graham McAleer writes: “The historical record shows, Hanson argues, that no matter how sophisticated a great power is, there is always the risk of annihilation when a strategy relies on hope, stokes vengeance, overstates prowess, and displays arrogance.” We must ask plainly: Are we checking those boxes now?

The President cannot commit cultural homicide against Iran without committing cultural suicide on behalf of so-called Western civilization, changing forever how America and Americans are seen across the world. We are not immune from the consequences of this misuse of power. This path risks both the end of Iran, and the end of America as we know it. It propels the world to war.

The President must be brought to account for his threat to unlawfully unleash violence, or every American will be stained by actions already taken. Thousands of innocent Iranian civilians have been killed, including 180 children in the February 28 missile strike on an elementary school in Minab, Iran.

The destruction of Persian civilization is already underway. The President and his Secretary of War have usurped unto themselves the authority to direct assassinations of educators, philosophers, and scientists, and to order the bombing of universities, hospitals, and mosques. We have seen this pattern before in the pulverization of Gaza and Lebanon. Now it extends to Iran. World treasures of antiquity are being destroyed.

A President associated with the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, rooted in the exploitation of children, now presides over the killing of children abroad. This is a gigantic moral collapse.

The President has repeatedly threatened that this evening, at 8 p.m. Eastern, 3 a.m. Tehran time, he will misuse the power of his office to attempt the destruction of a civilization, through means that could surpass even the devastation inflicted upon the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

If such a plan proceeds, the consequences will not be confined to Iran. The unleashing of destruction upon countless millions of innocent people will reverberate across the world and across generations.

We now find ourselves watching the clock, 8 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Central, 6 p.m. Mountain, 5 p.m. Pacific, as if counting down to a new year. But this is not a celebration. It is a doomsday clock, driven by one man’s will.

No matter what happens tonight, Congress must act. The President must be impeached and removed from office, for the sake of our nation and for the sake of the world. Silence is complicity.

https://kucinichreport.substack.com/p/no-matter-what-happens-tonight-congress