Towards an alternative international investigation of Flight MH17?

Personal impressions from the conference MH17: The Quest for Justice, Kuala Lumpur, 17 August 2019.

by Kees van der Pijl, Amsterdam

From 15 to 19 August I was in the capital of Malaysia for a conference organised by the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), the Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF) and the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). I had been invited as the author of Flight MH17, Ukraine, and the New Cold War, meanwhile in four languages. All signs were that this would be a landmark event because for the first time, critics of the Dutch-led investigation into the tragedy were coming together for what the organisers called ‘a modest endeavour to uphold the truth and to remain faithful to justice’. It would be much more than that and among those sharing that assessment was the Dutch embassy in Kuala Lumpur, which expressed its concern over the conference both to the Prime Minister’s office and to the organisers. In what follows, I give a brief account of what I see as the effective establishment of an international task force on MH17 solely motivated by the quest for justice, not by any political position adopted beforehand. Since I was only an invited speaker it will be obvious that the organisers are in no way responsible for these notes.