War Crimes Charges for Gul Madred

[Timo]

To be fair, we know little about the real Gul Darhe'el. Armin Marritza tried to paint the picture of a monster, inserting among other things a story about how he wanted to execute all the workers when the orders to withdraw came. The story itself makes it clear that the mass murder did not really take place - but did the real Darhe'el try to get it to happen or not?

Earlier on, Marritza tells a different story - about how no torture took place, about how Bajorans died of "accidents, illnesses, feuds". While that's not the story that Kira wants to hear (and Marritza knows this well indeed, hence his telling of it), it may actually be closer to the truth than the version where Darhe'el was a monster.

We don't know what Gallitep was, either, besides both sides agreeing that it was a "labor camp". Was that forced labor of random Bajorans? A prison camp for Bajoran criminals? Labor of "volunteers" who tried to make a living, if not for themselves, then at least for their families, on a planet where there were no other opportunities? The one word that never gets used in the context is "slave", intriguingly enough.

(Adding to that intrigue, the only time "Bajoran slaves" are actually mentioned is when Quark in "A Time to Stand" speaks about how things on DS9 are actually going pretty smoothly under the Dominion occupation. According to him, it's telling that there are no "exhausted Bajoran slave laborers sprawled on the ground after a grueling day in the ore processing center". Does it follow that there were such things back during the first, Cardassian occupation? Not necessarily - the episodes actually dealing with that occupation in flashbacks made no mention of slaves.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Maritza's first story was designed to enrage Kira in order to make killing him more satisfying. If there weren't people screaming for mercy he wouldn't have been traumatized the way he was.

It's pretty clear there was forced labor on Bajor and that all the miners were not compensated or allowed to quit. Cardassians probably avoided the term 'Slave' because their line was that there were not brutally taking slaves, they were overseeing an inferior culture as is the natural order of the universe.

 

[Timo]

It would really be interesting to learn more. It's not just Cardassians but Bajorans as well who totally avoid using the word "slave"... Including both collaborators and diehard freedom fighters.

It's all the more intriguing that Quark would use the word, as the Ferengi supposedly have never known slavery!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[seth29]

Recall that in the beginning of Part II, Gul Lemec informed Jellico etc.: "Then how do you explain the fact that a Federation team launched an unprovoked attack on Cardassian territory less than fourteen hours ago?" Jellico: "I don't know what you're talking about." " "Then let me explain. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Lieutenant Worf and Doctor Beverly Crusher landed on Celtris Three, attacked one of our outposts in a brutal assault and killed over fifty-five men, women and children." The Cardassians were making the excuse that the assault team had already killed dozens of people, which justified Picard's detention. Nothing else was ever made of that but the fact is quite simple. The Federation was launching a preemptive strike against what they thought was a weapon that could kill millions and leave a planet perfectly intact, with the Cardassians apparently deploying three divisions of ground troops on the Federation border and increasing their subspace communications by 50%. But regardless of that, launching an unprovoked assault on another sovereign nation's territory, regardless of faulty intelligence, is an act of war. Under current international law as well as I'm sure, interstellar law, the Cardassians were the wronged party, since false information is not an excuse for invading another's territory (ahem Iraq, ahem). Furthermore Jellico expressly refused to acknowledge (in the name of plausible deniability I'm sure, which by that point, was moot) that the mission Picard was on, had been authorized by Starfleet, which meant he was not protected under the Solitis Convention, since the Federation refused to acknowledge he was a prisoner of war. As Lemec then said, "He will be treated as a terrorist," which meant in Cardassian terms, torture and execution. The Federation was in the wrong by tolerating substandard work from Starfleet Intelligence .

 

[DonIago]

Yeah...either Our Heroes acted alone as Jellico claims and consequently get to be treated as terrorists, or Our Heroes didn't act alone and it becomes a political matter which likely wouldn't make Starfleet come off very well.

 

[Mojochi]

The Federation overlooking Madred's crime was probably just the price to be paid for the Cardassians overlooking Picards.

And that's the fine point of it. In all honesty, threat of violence was the only ground upon which Jellico had to regain Picard, who was apprehended in an illegal act, which Starfleet saw fit to disavow entirely. Through diplomacy alone, Picard probably doesn't get let go. He is what we commonly refer to as the sacrificial lamb. Jellico didn't just save Picard. He save Starfleet from a pretty awful blemish on their glorious reputation of being honorable. The honorable thing would be to admit they'd sent him under orders, & they weren't going to do that