The first move in the struggle for peace is to ensure that the people know the truth about war, said former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad today.

To realise this, he called for the establishment of an international network of activists and groups to counter the 'lies and propaganda' of powerful media corporations 'owned and controlled by warmongers'.

"We know the media is owned and controlled by warmongers. The majority of them would support wars, would invent excuses for wars, would lie to encourage wars," he said in his key-note speech at the international conference 'Expose War Crimes - Criminalise War' in Kuala Lumpur.

"They would ignore this conference and exhibition or would lie about what we are doing. We have to have our own means of contact and communication or network to counter their propaganda and lies," he told some 3,000 people who had packed the Merdeka Hall of the Putra Wold Trade Center (PWTC).

About 1,000 people were outside the hall watching his speech on the large television monitors.

Survivors and victims

Mahathir is also the chairperson of the Perdana Global Peace Foundation which is the organiser of the three-day conference.

The event will see scores of internationally-renowned researchers and specialists, present and former government officials, journalists and lawyers speak on the horrors of war and the 'global military-industrial-financial-media' complex behind global conflicts.

In addition, a number of war survivors and victims of military atrocities will relate their ordeals, including Ali Shalah - the 'man in the hood' whose image symbolised the Abu Ghraib torture and Abbas Abid, who survived the Fallujah Massacre of 2003.

Members of the United Nations War Crimes Commission will arrive on the last day of the conference to hear a presentation and petition from war crimes victims and witnesses, as well as to deliberate on the establishment of the War Crimes Tribunal proposed by Mahathir.

Mahathir, who has been nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize by four civil groups in Bosnia for his efforts to promote economic, political and humanitarian aid in the war-ravaged nation, is hoping the Tribunal will hear charges against 'warmongering' leaders and governments of aggressor nations guilty of war crimes.

"Until war is criminalised we would not be truly civilised," the former premier told his audience.

"We appreciate that the tribunal we set up will have power of enforcing its punishment. The people who tried may be too powerful. But we should not be daunted by this.

"We should find ways and forms of punishments that are within our capacity until such time when the international community respects and upholds the jurisdiction of the tribunal," he added.

'Killers of children'

Prolific author and activist on global militarisation Prof Michel Chossudovsky from the University of Ottowa agreed that global media corporations should be countered.

"The media bears a responsibility for obfuscating war crimes," said Chossudovsky in his speech.

However, he added that the prosecution and punishment of individual government leaders and figures would only provide for a short-term measure of addressing and preventing war crimes.

Chossudovsky said the larger economic interests and historical processes and dynamics behind global wars have to be more seriously tackled in order to address and prevent war crimes.

US president George W Bush and British premier Tony Blair were tagged as war criminals in the opening remarks of Perdana Foundation executive director and Mahathir's son Mukhriz.

His father later said that history will remember Bush and Blair as the 'killers of children or the lying prime minister and president'.