MILOSEVIC TRIAL DISCUSSION ARCHIVE

Is Slobodan Milosevic getting a fair trial?
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• discussion archive

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 1:06 am
  Vera..........thks

  Both Ramush Harandanjai (sp ?)and his brother are arrested and sitting in Prison. fer sure

  Ceku and Thaci are appointees of Albright-Rubin-Holbrooke. They are kept on very short leashes and know who butters their bread. The real power behind the KLA lay in Remi, Ramush, and Drini. Drini's dead.

  Remi hated the compormise positions of Thaci/Ceku. He even tried to destroy the Ramboullet set-up by setting off a few bombs in crowded marketplaces north of Pristina of course killing mainly Albanians.

  Ramush hated what he saw as rich people putting on airs. He was particualry vicious to those prosperous Albanians in his OZ. These Albanians tended to wish to stay put. Ramush had a difficult time "convincing" them to star in the CNN Refugee Epic Program. Ramush dislike for wealth conflicted with Ceku-Thaci's unabashed corruption.

  Kfor was tired of the murderous antics of Remi-Ramush and their followers. Ceku-Thaci were more than happy to get Remi-Ramush off their backs also.

  It took Kfor almost 3 years to admit that the KLA/KPC was the promblem.
  
  AP V
  NY
  NY

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 1:59 am
  According to sketchy information coming from BKTV in Belgrade Hashim Thachi has fled Kosovo and gone to Austria.

  Does anybody have any more information about this?
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 2:09 am
  VOJISLAV SESELJ

  A few days ago I was having a beer with a friend of mine who for the most part believes the media when it is about former YU but doesn't otherwise. There was the news on the radio saying Vojislav Seselj is going to The Hague:

  My friend: He DESERVES it.

  Me: I don't know if he deserves it but I do certainly know THEY DESERVE HIM.
  
  J M
  S

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 3:16 am
  I almost feel ashamed of lecturing on history, but the ICG is lying when it says that Kosovo became part in 1918 of what later became Yugoslavia. Try answering a question in a test that way and see if you pass it. The right answer is that (what later became known Kosovo) was annexed to Serbia in 1913, and Serbia in turn became part of Yugoslavia in 1918 (the official name change followed in 1929).

  I can hear someone protesting: history is not that important. But if it isn't, what is the point in rewriting it? The ICG is manned Cambridge PhD's on its staff, so I am sure they know better. It seems the ICG has become the institution for turning eggheads into dickheads.

  Is the correct answer to the question "When did Kosovo become part of Serbia" from now on "Kosovo became part of Yugoslavia in 1918"? That is not even an answer, let alone the correct answer. So what does this "rewriting history" mean? Do the powers that be mean that the general public are to be made so stupid that they don't know anything about the 1912 and 1913 Balkan wars? That hardly changes the history! Are the great strides in historical research now to be made by reinventing the wheel, like proving that Kosovo became part of Serbian in 1913?

  Maybe the ICTY is not just rewriting history. It is reinforcing history. Let me issue a conspiracy theory about Soros.

  We have to go back in time to the Austro-Hungarian double monarchy. Before the WW I, Hungary included (if I am not mistaken) Croatia, Vojvodina, Transylvania, Slovakia and some parts of the Ukraine. Look at Soros' actitivities. Even if Soros may not have been active in supporting Croatia by smuggling arms, he didn't protest against the Western backing of the Croatian independence. After the Croatian independence, the fight goes on against Serbia. Seselj is now indicted for his crimes in Vojvodina, as I read somewhere. I think Vasile said that Soros is funding the Hungarian separatist movement in Transylvania in Hungary. I think that Gogol said that Soros funding the breakup of Czechoslovakia, and keeps fomenting the Gypsy rebellion in Slovakia. That puts the pre-WW I Hungary nicely together again.

  In other words, Soros's plan is to resurrect the pre-WW I Hungary. You may say that Soros is active in many other areas too. That is true, but nowhere do his actual activities contradict his basic philosophy of bringing prosperity to the former East Bloc so flagrantly as in the former Hungarian territory.

  Hungary must have been the country that lost the most of its territory after WW I in relative terms. So it is natural that someone with enough power would try to address that injustice. Soros is also a Hungarian emigré, which means that he is sure to be a nationalist. Maybe that is what he means by his idealism.

  He escaped the communist takeover in Hungary after WW II. That puts him in the same group with the Croat emigrés, with whom he shares the Catholic faith.

  A lot has been said of the possible German expansion to the Adriatic Sea, but it is a fact that modern Germany is a very different thing from modern Nato Germany. On the other hand, the Hungarian expansionism has been left unadressed, although it must have been a much more resilient force after the collapse of the East Bloc, when the nationalistic fervour swept over Eastern Europe.

  Now, what does this all matter? Let us see how the prosecution is arguing the Croatia charges. It has kept very silent about the annex I of the Croatia indictment, which has the list of the dead people in Vocin, Bacin, Lipovanic, Vukovici, Saborsko, Skabrnja, Nadin, Bruska, Ovcara farm, Baranja, Lovas mine field, Erdut, Vukovar, and Grabovac. Insofar as any concrete crimes are adressed, it has been almost entirely about Annex II, which has to do with the shelling of Dubrovnik.

  But the real emphasis has been on the supposed illegality of the Serb autonomy in Croatia. If the Serb Autonomous Region of Krajina, for instance, was illegal, then the prosecution thinks it has no trouble proving that Milosevic committed war crimes by having any dealings with it, because he became part of the "joint criminal enterprise".

  This is almost funny. The international community pressured Croatia to grant autonomy to the Serbs in Krajina and elsewhere, and I think it was included in some of the preparatory documents of the Croatian Constitution. However, the Croats only gave the Serbs the autonomy but expelled the Serbs. In other words, Croatia didn't live up to its international obligations. What is the international community to do? The Croats are the darlings of the international financiers, so the prosecution argues that Croatia didn't violate its obligations, it was the Serbs that violated the Croatian sovereignty (though it was defined only at Dayton in 1995) by setting up the autonomous region.

  And spice that up with the arms trade. The Serbs may have got their weapons from what was still the same country, Yugoslavia, but that, of course, became illegal sanction-busting in retrospect when the international borders were already drawn between Yugoslavia and Croatia. That, by the way, takes the heat away from Croatian arms trade.

  You can do many nice tricks by applying later borders anachronously to an earlier situation. This is not limited to Croatia. As was already mentioned, Macedonia was part of Serbia before WW II. However, the ICG ignores this conveniently in its report, when it talks about the "ethnic cleansing" (again anachronistically) of the Albanians in Macedonia. Only by considering the borders that Tito drew between Serbia and Macedonia can you say that the Albanians were driven to the Macedonian periphery between WW I and WW II. On the other hand, if you remember that Macedonia was still part of Serbia at that time, you must conclude that the Albanians were inhabiting a strategic bottleneck in "Southern Serbia". What kind of ethnic cleansing would try to create such an anomaly?

  Truth be told, it was Tito, who drew the border between Serbia and Macedonia through the Albanian areas to minimize the Albanian threat. But similarly, he created two autonomous provinces (originally "areas") in Serbia (Vojvodina and Kosovo) to minimize the Serb threat.

  If the international community thought it could use this tribunal as a setting to rewrite history to suit its own needs, it provided the people with an equal opportunity to learn more about the real history - as well as the politically correct lies about it.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 4:12 am
  The central question in the prosecution's Croatia case is whether the Serb autonomous areas were illegal or not. No guesswork is needed here: they were not illegal. This is a rather lengthy quote from an academic writing, but I thought it would be worthwhile to write the relevant passage in full. (Matti Suksi: On the Entenchment of Autonomy. 1998. [emphasis added])

  "In Croatia, a Constitutional Law of Human Rights and Freedoms and of the Rights of Ethnic and National Communities or Minorities in the Republic of Croatia was enacted in 1991 on the basis of sections 14 and 15 of the Croatian Constitution of 1990. It appears to be an organic law placed in the hierarchy of norms between the Constituion and ordinary laws. However, the provisions pertaining to the autonomous regions in this Constitutional Law have been suspended since 1995 and will probably be revoked altogether. Sections 21 though 59 of this Constitutional Law regulate in a fairly detailed manner the municipalities with a special self-governing status, also called autonomus regions. According to section 21, regions in which memvers of an ethnic and national community or minority, on the basis of the 1981 census, constitute more than 50% of the population, shall have a special statute with the system of local self-government of the Republic of Croatia. The entering into force of some relevant sections of this Constitutional Law, such as sections 51-55 on the property and financing of the autonomous regions, as well as sections 56 through 61, was, however, made dependent on the establishment of a full and lasting peace in the whole territory of Croatia and on the organization of free multi-party elections under international supervision in these special statute municipalities. Before its suspension, this autonomy arrangement had, however, only been tried out in a very limited manner. The Croatian regulation appears to be a form of semi-general entrenchment."

  "Section 56 of the above-mentioned Croatian Constitutional Law, under the restrictions referred to above, envisions an international agreement for the supervision of the implementation of the provisions of the Constitutional Law as concerns the special statute municipalities. It is unclear how such an agreement would be concluded and an international supervisory body created, but given the restriction, Croatia is nevertheless expressing in the Constitutional Law its willingness to impelement the suggestions given by the supervisory body. The national observance of the autonomy arrangement would thus be internationally monitored. While recognizing the present unrealistic character of a Court of Human Rights for the territory of the former Yugoslavia, the court to which section 58 refers, it may be added that section 56 outlines the possibility of asking for a decision from such a Court of Human Rights in case a dispute should arise about the implementation of the recommendations put forward by the supervisory body."

  "The Croatian autonomy arrangement for the regions was obviously created under international pressure. When the Serb inhabitants of the areas for which the regional autonomy was created left the aread concerned and moved on to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the ethnicity to be protected by the autonomy arrangement at the same time disappeared. As a result of this exodus and as a consequence of elections in Croatia, the Croatian political system seems to be committed to a revocation of the Constitutional Law."

  And the next question has already been discussed. If the JNA was planning to take over Croatia, why were the Serbs leaving?
  
  J N
  Finland

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 4:18 am
  Correction: Soros is not a Catholic. I don't know what that does to my conspiracy theory. He is a Jew, but a "non-Jewish Jew". Read this about his Jewishness: http://www.jewishpost.com/jp0807/jpn0807e.htm .
  
  J N
  Finland

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 4:29 am
  

  Just a little about Soros:

  HERE
  
  G C
  USA

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 4:42 am
  Soros' father lived "under assumed Christian identity" according to http://www.rebeccamead.com/2001/2001_10_15_comm_soros.htm . In his books (but I must say I have read only one), Soros shows more intimacy with the Christian faith than the Jewish faith, which he doesn't even mention. But need I say that whenever you call Soros this or that, he is already somewhere else? For instance, it has been asked: if he is all for "open society", why does he keep the ex-communists in power? But even that is not the whole truth, considering the fate of Yugoslavia.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 4:54 am
  

  Sufice to say, money speculation was a crime in all socialists countries where currency was in many cases for that very reason not negotiable in monetary markets. Certainly Soros would not have made a penny out of the fluctuations in value of Eastern European countries currencies, now convertability is number one condition for any economical or financial international deal. Hence the list of disasters keeps growing.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 7:21 am
  

  Former intelligence chief claims Muslims were behind notorious shooting in Sarajevo

  The testimony by Aleksandar Vasiljevic, a key prosecution witness, contradicted the widely held belief that Bosnian Serb forces opened fire from the Holiday Inn hotel on the rally in downtown Sarajevo on April 6, 1992

  And today we have another interesting witness, a Serb who served in the Australian Armed Forces for six years, flew a single engine plane across the Atlantic and build a magnificent yatch by himself. Judge May (NATO) seems to be uninterested.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 10:46 am
  Useful background info: Bosnia Raid Yields al-Qaida Donor List JOHN SOLOMON Associated Press WASHINGTON - U.S. authorities recovered a list of 20 financiers they suspect funneled money to Osama bin Laden and others extremist Muslim causes among a cache of documents that provide insight into the financing of terrorism, an unsealed court record shows. The seized documents are a "treasure trove" and among other things indicate al-Qaida military leaders were at times paid salaries from Muslim charity proceeds and purchased weapons with money from charity leaders, prosecutors said in the once-secret court filing. Other evidence seized in March 2002 from the Bosnian offices of the Benevolence International Foundation, an Illinois-based Muslim charity, includes handwritten correspondence to and from bin Laden and documents detailing the origins, growth and expansion of his al-Qaida network in the 1980s and 1990s, the filing said. Though the original documents remain secret, the prosecutor described their contents and English translations for the first time in the filing unsealed this month in the case of the head of the Muslim foundation who reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors in Chicago. Enaam Arnaout pleaded guilty last week to illegally buying boots and uniforms for fighting forces in Bosnia and Chechnya under a deal in which prosecutors, in exchange for his cooperation, dropped charges that he aided bin Laden. In a pretrial document known as a "proffer," prosecutors said handwritten documents scanned into computer formats in the Bosnia office included a file titled "Osama's history" that contained "a handwritten draft list of people referred to within al-Qaida as the 'Golden Chain,' wealthy donors to mujahedeen efforts." "The list contained 20 names, and after each name a parenthetical indicating the person who received the money from the specified donor," the proffer said. The list suggested at least seven of the donors gave directly to bin Laden, and six of the others were listed as giving to the founder of a Muslim charity, the court document said. U.S. officials declined to identify any of the 20 donors, but said the list is one of several pieces of evidence the government has obtained since the war on terror began after Sept. 11 that identifies spigots of money that have financed bin Laden and Middle Eastern and Asian terrorists over the past two decades. U.S. officials estimate they have frozen roughly $124.5 million in financial assets belonging to terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, since the Sept. 11 attacks. One letter found in the files instructed a charity leader to pay a monthly salary of 4,500 Saudi riyals each - about $1,200 - to two of al-Qaida's top military leaders. The letter establishes "that military commanders were salaried by the support organizations," the prosecutors said in the proffer. Other documents discuss the purchases of weapons such as missiles, dynamite, fuses, rocket-propelled grenades and bayonets, the proffer stated. The documents found in the charity's Bosnian office also chronicle the evolution of bin Laden's movement from support of the once U.S.-based muhajedeen warriors fighting Soviet occupation of Afghanistan to a global terror network that posed threats to the United States and rest of the Western world. In one letter, an unidentified author writes to bin Laden asking for help for followers in the African country of Eritrea. The letter identifies as its top goal "facilitating the travel of the youth to the field of Jihad so they can benefit from the training possibilities, by providing them with tickets and entry visas," according to the government translation. Another letter from bin Laden "explains the time has come for an attack on the Russians," the court documents said. Other correspondence describe money transfers and weapons purchases showing that al-Qaida often facilitates such transactions with a simple letter from bin Laden or a top lieutenant asking the recipient to provide money to the bearer of the letter. For instance, one letter instructed the recipient to send 400,000 rupees of Pakistani money - about $7,200 - "to the owner of the weapon for delivery in Parachinar ... for security reasons," the proffer said. Another used an alias to refer to bin Laden and his request that a charity leader "give 500,000 rupees to the man bearing the letter," the proffer said. That's about $9,000. While most of the documents were a decade or more older, they provided U.S. authorities with significant insight into al-Qaida and helped confirm many suspicions about its finances, structure and evolution, U.S. officials said. Some details in the documents "were not known to the public," the proffer said. Handwritten notes detail the original formation of al-Qaida, including minutes of an Aug. 11, 1988, meeting bin Laden held to discuss "the establishment of a new military group." Those notes record bin Laden's own statements on the efforts to recruit members from Saudi Arabia for his network and to raise money. The notes quote bin Laden as saying "we took very huge gains from the country's people in Saudi. We were able to give political power to the mujahedeen, gathering donations in very large amounts, restoring power," the court document states.
  
  Michael Thomas
  London
  UK

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 12:34 pm
  I may grow too attached to my conspiracy theories, but there is more to Soros's Hungarian background than meets the eye. I said he is a Hungarian nationalist. That is a misnomer. I didn't mean he would use Hungary as a homeland for the Hungarians but as the cradle of something more cosmopolitan.

  The Jewish Post article that I quoted above puts it very well: "He loves the European culture and he never really, Kaufman points out, did Americanize himself."

  That is the word: European! There are millions of people living in the European Union, but there are few who would call themselves European. Soros might be one, but after all, he is not living in Europe.

  When the East Bloc collapsed, we had a period of Euroidealism. The problems with Yugoslavia were not a problem, they were a challenge. But let us put this in a bit wider perspective.

  There may be something to the popular claim that Germany wanted access to the Adriatic Sea and that is why it decided to break up Yugoslavia. Insofar as there is any truth in this, let us remember that the collapse of the Soviet Union made Austria a European player once again (when its perpetual neutrality suddenly didn't mean anything). So whatever German influence there may have been in Yugoslavia, it took place in the context of the coming Austrian accession to the European Union. Austria, in turn, would have appreciated very much neighbours which espoused market economy and were situated on the Adriatic Sea.

  Dalmatia and Slovenia were Austrian lands before WW I, so that suited the Euroidealism, tinted with nostalgia for the European greatness, which was palpable in the early 90's. In fact, one of the prime advocates of the European integration came from outside the European Community (as the EU was called): Austrian archduke Otto von Hapsburg. He was the spokesperson for European integration decades before Austria joined the European Union.

  But if the European integration provided the setting for the resurgence of former Austrian greatness, you needed Hungary on the world scene too. Otherwise the Austro-Hungarian double monarchy was not complete. Hungary also provided the bridge to Eastern Europe, and much destabilization could be undertaken in Romania, Slovakia and Yugoslavia by speaking to the Hungarian past.

  Soros may be a Jew, but he is a Jew in the same sense as Disraeli was a Jew. They belong to that rare breed of Europeans. Soros had the money, the vision and the ambition to use Hungary as a bridgehead to the East, so he got the job.

  This is not all speculation. A few years ago, when Yugoslavia was falling apart, such concepts as Alpine-Adriatic cooperation were floated. I think the former Hapsburg Empire was mentioned more or less explicitly in that connection. In any case, that Alpine-Adriatic cooperation was one of the justifications for the breakup of Yugoslavia.

  And as Gogol put it some time ago: Europe couldn't let Yugoslavia join the European Union in one piece. It was too strong. So that left the breakup as the only option.

  Besides, did you know that Art. 6(3) of the Constitution of Hungary has this to say:

  "The Republic of Hungary bears a sense of responsibility for the fate of Hungarians living outside its borders and shall promote and foster their relations with Hungary."
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 12:43 pm
  SERBIA AND MONTENGRO: US “freezes” Aid to Serbia

  2003-02-19 14:28:51

  The US Congress has attached a special clause to its law on aid for 2003 in which aid to Serbia and Serbia-Montenegro is to be frozen in international financial institutions until June 15.

  Along with the new clause, however, Congress has approved 110 million dollars worth of aid to Serbia, 85 million to Kosovo, and 25 million to Montenegro.

  The blockade may be lifted after June 15 if US Secretary of State Colin Powell judges that Belgrade has successfully fulfilled its obligations vis-à-vis The Hague Tribunal.

  If Powell’s report is positive, the suspension could be lifted in four month’s time.

  Aside from full cooperation with The Hague, America insists that Serbia suspend all financial, political, security, and all other forms of assistance to independent Republic of Srpska institutions, reported radio B92.

  www.seeurope.net

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 1:28 pm
  For the attention of Carla del Ponte, Chief prosecutor of the ICTY

  Crimes of the KLA:

  Hashim Thaqi:

  “Why doesn’t NATO challenge [KLA leader] Hasim Thaci? Why don’t they bomb Hasim Thaci,” he asked, “as he carries out massive ethnic cleansing? In Kosmet [Kosovo-Metohija] now, few Serbs remain, few Roma remain and few Gorans remain…. The Roma people are in a very hard situation. It is the same situation Jewish people faced in 1939. At that time, Hitler persecuted every Jew in his territory. And now we have Hasim Thaci. Now Roma houses are burned down. Roma are expelled by the KLA.” Bajram Haliti

  Agim Ceku:

  The ICTY's report accused the Croatian Army of carrying out summary executions, indiscriminate shelling of civilian populations and "ethnic cleansing," and concludes: "In a widespread and systematic manner, Croatian troops committed murder and other inhumane acts upon and against Croatian Serbs."

  Ramush Haradinaj:

  In the first half of September 1998 at least 39 bodies were discovered in various stages of decomposition in the general area of the village of Glodjane.

  Major criminals in Kosovo who, for reasons of political expediency, we do not expect to be prosecuted: “Trust-me” Tony and his allies in al-Qaeda: Who are the worst criminals: the terrorists or those who engage them:

  Wounded enemy soldiers were usually decapitated or slaughtered by mujahideen, Popowsky writes. Polish Press.

  We are still waiting for del Ponte’s promises of ‘indictments right up the chain of command to those principally responsible’ many years on from these crimes:

  "Everyone in Kosovo knows but none dares to speak about it," says the former prime minister of the exiled Kosovars and current chairman of the New Party for Kosovo, Bujar Bukoshi. "After the war the cruellest cleansings took place among the Albanians. Under the pretext that they were ‘Serbian collaborators’, the leaders of the KLA liquidated their political opponents; old blood feuds were settled, and Albanian civilians were executed by the Albanians themselves."

  The number of the victims is estimated to be more than a thousand. The perpetrators or instigators were usually former senior KLA leaders; after the war they were integrated nearly without exception into the KLA successor organization, the civilian Kosovo Protection Corps.

  Why are we still waiting so long for the KLA Leaders to be indicted?

  PS. Ramush Haradinaj has not, repeat not been indicted for war crimes by the ICTY: He has been charged by a UN court for “violent behaviour”. “According to an international prosecutor serving with the UN mission in Kosovo, Mr Haradinaj is responsible for a breach of the peace after his alleged involvement in a violent dispute that took place in the west of the province in August 2000.” BBC.
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 1:36 pm
  Thanks for the Great News that Washington won't be providing 'aid' to Yugsoslavia.

  This money is designed to make Belgrade dependent on Washington's whims. There is scant evidence that any of Washington's 'aid' ever had a long term positive effect.

  Washington and the HumWarriors dumped some $5- $15 Billion worth of 'aid' into Bosnia after 1995. The money only helped further destroy the local economy.

  Belgrade should be wise enough not to follow the example of Slovenia & Croatia. Slovenia staggers under a $5.5 Billion foreign debt.

  Croatia's economy has all but collapsed after 12 years of massive foreign 'investment' and 'aid. Unemployment is tsuck at 24%. Foreign debt is over $13 Billion and rising.

  If Yugoslavia wishes to prosper economically, it would do best to follow the Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tawain examples. None of these once dirt poor places ever relied on foreign aid
  
  AP V
  NY
  NY

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 2:26 pm
  The dimensions of the ICTY farce which was "The Indictment of Janko Bobetko" (indicting a major Croat General only after he fell too ill to stand trial), are so revealing of the "court" and its role in protecting real war criminals.

  If Bobetko was responsible for crimes against Serbs in those depopulated and abandoned "Pax America" areas now recognized as part of CRO, why have there not been indictments issued against Agim Ceku, and other senior staff of the HV (CRO Army) who worked alongside Bobetko? "THE COURT" and its chief prosecutor cannot claim Bobetko was exclusively responsible for crimes in CRO - or can they?

  Isn't it fair to ask why should the "COURT" limit itself to indicting the most aged and frail members of the Croatian military leadership (waiting until the accused's health does not permit them to proceed), when it has never considered rank when issuing indictments against Serbs? No court in the world can have it both ways, unless it is a biased political tribunal.

  And now, in this latest chapter of the ongoing farce, this judicial Frankenstein, "THE COURT", has appropriated itself the competence to try terrorism as a "war crime". In so doing, the court has stated its competence in dealing with terrorist crimes as "actions committed in the course of military conflict". In so doing, "THE COURT" has elevated the status of global terrorist groups like the K.L.A to that of a defense force of a sovereign state. It's difficult to comprehend how "THE COURT'S" sponsors can see such a move as in their interest, but that's the whacky world of hegemon politics. Whatever rulings made by "THE COURT" are regarded by SUPERPOWER as strictly limited to the "Former Yugoslavia", to be disregarded by SUPERPOWER at its pleasure, unless SUPERPOWER can use "precedents" established by THE COURT elsewhere, whereas they deserve consideration as relevant again.

  
  
  Nico Tarzanovic
  CAN

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 2:38 pm
  

  Jari,

  Yes, I think you're on the right track. America has a fascination with empires and while it could not have a say, hardly, in the reconstruction of the Austro-Hungary Empire it would love to see part of the influence of the Ottomans restored in the region meaning the Balkans. It would be a fair partition of labour, a little to the Great European Powers and a little to the Grande Porte or rather the Young Turks so inspired as they were by the American ideals of freedom , liberty and self determination, as long as this noble ideas were at the expense of others empires (it precipitated the collapse of the Ottoman). It was a German Jew, another European who became a very influencial figure in America, who as American ambassador to Turkey crafted this close relation between the two nations. His name was Morgenthau.

  Here is the book Henry Morgenthau wrote about America's intgerests in Turkey. HERE
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 2:44 pm
  

  Hungary is definitely working toward reconstructing pan-Magyariarism, any person of Hungarian ancestry never-mind his nationality has full rights in Hungary and can get free medical treatment in Hungary. This recent policy has sent chills to countries with seizable Hungarian minorities, such as Romania and Serbia. I don't know what position if any the EU has taken in regard to this problem.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 2:44 pm
  Link to detailed article on the arrest of Remi and Ramush

  http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/sep2002/koso-s04.shtml
  
  AP V
  NY
  NY

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 2:46 pm
  

  Of course, it is important to remind one self, the constitution of Austria, the post WW 2 constitution explicitly prohibits any contemplation of another Anschluss just in case.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 2:48 pm
  Any news on this

  "AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes trial was shown a secret video Wednesday which captured the ex-Yugoslav president at a ceremony paying tribute to Serb paramilitaries accused of ethnic cleansing. "
  
  Dan B
  Canada

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 3:22 pm
  

  The video was more than one can expect from the prosecution. An official ceremony described as secret with military bands, parade, review, national anthem, drinks, flowers to the fallen, a show of marksmanship, etc., is presented while Mr. Milosevic kept smiling as evidence. I just can't wait or the cross examination of this character, a Serb who served for 6 years in the Australian armed forces, who flew solo a single engine aircraft across the Atlantic, build a luxurious yatch and became quite popular in Serbia because his exploits.
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 3:24 pm
  

  The video was more than one can expect from the prosecution. An official ceremony described as secret with military bands, parade, review, national anthem, drinks, flowers to the fallen, a show of marksmanship, etc., is presented while Mr. Milosevic kept smiling as evidence. I just can't wait or the cross examination of this character, a Serb who served for 6 years in the Australian armed forces, who flew solo a single engine aircraft across the Atlantic, build a luxurious yatch and became quite popular in Serbia because his exploits.

  Judge May (NATO) seems to prepare himself for the coming storm, and told the witness to try to keep his answers short and focused.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 3:25 pm
  Ooops! Sorry.
  
  G C
  USA

• Wednesday February 19, 2003 at 4:40 pm
  Jari,

  You revealed something that surprised me but I think you are right. In 1988 I had a reunion in Hungary with relatives of my wife, ( She is a Serb but of those who lived in Hungary for three centuries). That relative, otherwise a very gentle and kind man told me about the “best solution” for the Balkan.

  He said: “ We should unite Croatia, Hungary and Austria into one country”. When hearing this I thought he was nuts. “And what official language will thay speak?” I asked. “English, of course” he said.

  Now I know where that comes from.
  
  D. Jovanovic
  USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 2:01 am
  I hope AP is right. However, how did Singapore and Hong Kong make it? Was it exporting to the US? How could Serbia do it?

  I know one thing for sure, you can only grovel for so long and then your back is going to tire. I hope the Serbs will soon have sore backs.

  Don‘t get excited Serbs, I am one of you and hoping for the best.

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 3:12 am
  I think this frozen aid takes us to the bottom of things. Why does Powell make a fuss about the freezing, if he know nobody wants it? Djindjic has stated publicly that such measures don't harm the Serbian economy? But does Powell know? Is he so infatuated with America's superpower status that he can't imagine someone might refuse US aid?

  If Powell were to say that Djindjic is trying to score political points, would he believe himself? Here we see that even the omnipotent US intelligence has its limits, and it has nothing to do with high-tech, is has to do with human frailty: some just won't believe things are that bad.

  There might be a more rational explanation for Powell's behaviour. He knows that the Serbs can't arrest Mladic, because they don't know where he is, and even if they do, they can't touch him. So Powell knows that he is asking for the impossible. Then he must also know how whimsical he makes the US aid appear, which is one more reason not to accept it).

  Or Powell might be trying to appeal to Mladic's (notorious) nationalistic sentiments by pressuring the Serbs as a whole to smoke Mladic out, on the assumption that Mladic can't see the Serbs suffer for him, while the US denies aid. But even that would mean that Powell thinks that Mladic thinks that the freezing of aid might hurt the Serbs. This, by the way, would suggest that Americans might have cut some deals even with Milosevic to revoke the rogue state status of Yugoslavia, as I put forward some time ago.

  Finally, there is the more human aspect. Powell had just defended the attack on Iraq by citing the tremendous success of Kosovo as an encouraging example. You see, Powell is not convinced of the use of the conquest of Iraq, so he says some dumb things, because he thinks those are the motions he is supposed to go through.

  And indeed, Powell's statement was pretty dumb. Maybe he was just parrotting Blair, who said the same things about Kosovo in defense of the campaign in Iraq. A few days later some of the KLA are transferred to The Hague. That shows what a great success the KLA, and hence the whole Kosovo experiment, was! So Powell tries to repair the PR damage by reassuring that it is the Serbs that the Americans hate (while Albright's words "the Americans don't hate the Serbs" is still conveniently ringing in everybody's ears).

  By the way, when we talk about the failure of Kosovo, we should not forget that the few Croats who still live in Kosovo do so in just as appalling conditions as the Serbs. The Kosovars have even expelled their co-religionists, the Bosnians out of Kosovo. That shows how cool these people are.

  So does the Western intelligence has its limits? Or do the Western governments do the things they do, even if they know better?

  A very strong suggestion that the Western intelligence knows perfectly well what the KLA is and what it did was AP V's Remi and Ramush link: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/sep2002/koso-s04.shtml . This is a passage on Haradinaj:

  "British officials characterised him as a psychopath who is said to be responsible for killing six teenagers at the Panda Café in Pec/Peje and murdering and disposing of 40 civilians in the Radonjic Lake canal in 1999. Nevertheless he was valued as “one of the few former commanders who can deliver”: a reference to his crucial role in the smooth transformation of the KLA into the Kosova Protection Force..."

  In other words, the British intelligence knows about the Panda cafe, the 40 dead and, above all, who did it. But what the heck, Haradinaj is a useful chap, so let's use him. This hardly exonerates the British in any way. Especially when the article says: Haradinaj was charged with nothing more than shooting, even if it is believed that he is in control of the NLA in Macedonia.

  If Remi and Haradinaj were arrested in September last year, where are they now? They can't languish in prison indefinitely even in Kosovo. So they must have been sentenced in Kosovo.

  Gogol, in the same connection as the Alpine-Adriatic cooperation has been discussed, the reentrance of the Turks in the Balkans has been put forward quite unabashedly. It was even suggested that the Nato presence in Bosnia should be put under Turkish command. I guess neither the Turks nor the Bosnians warmed up to the idea, but luckily, the Turks got their chance in Afghanistan.

  By the way, did you notice that Morgenthau opened his writing by saying that the conquest of the world is the greatest crime of all? Of course, he was talking about the Germans, so the Ms Rice shouldn't worry too much about it, even if she said that the Americans should conquer the world.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 4:01 am
  

  The whole problem with Serbia now is Kosovo, as it was before. Kosovo is to be separated from Serbia and put, formally, under some form of protectorate like Bosnia-Hercegovina.

  The promise of keeping Kosovo for only one year under Kfor, UN mandate is already broken, the DOS leadership in Serbia has failed in producing the necessary changes and reforms, in absence of those, the Rulers of the World will keep for themselves the Gates of the Balkans, under their responsibility, at least until the present debacle in Iraq unfolds itself.

  Turkey is barking at the Americans: "You can't expect our consent only because we are poor" Bush was told. To which, not untypical, a ultimatum is given as an answer.

  To the long list of broken alliances, this important one can be add. According to the megalomaniac everything will fall into place after the fall of Iraq. Including Kosovo, in June that is. In the mean time the old regime and alliances are falling apart.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 4:04 am
  

  It turns out the prosecution disclosed another 10,000 pages on Moday. Just for this witness.
  
  G C
  USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 4:24 am
  

  Morgenthau, the Americans, the British were concerned with the building by the Germans for the Ottomans of the Berlin-Baghdad railway with its southern branch to the Red Sea. This of course, was the conquest of the Word by Imperial Germany Morgenthau was referring to. The railway line was to reach Teheran, a prospect that made the English nervous about India and certainly Imperial Russia was more than worried about it. All this contributed to the out break of World War One and it is becoming more and more relevant every day, or so it seems.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 4:38 am
  

  The witness:

  " I am a really asahmed to be here, this is all so exagerated, I have been here for two weeks now, you had international observers in the Krajina, why do you invent this figure of 5, 000, it was all exagerated . . ."

  The witness breaks down and the prosecutor has to ask: "Is it all this untrue, ...?"
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 4:43 am
  The Turks may be barking, but the US forgiven Turkey quite a lot. Turkey could be turned into a rogue state at the twinkiling of an eye. They have their Kurdish problem, and I guess evidence could be produced that could make even Saddam look like a saint. And let us not forget about the genocide and expulsion of the Greeks and the Armenians. A couple of years ago, the US Congress was about to adopt a resolution condemning the Turkish genocide of the Armenians, but when the Turks started barking back, the Congress changed its mind. There are some genocides even the Americans prefer to keep silent about. But if Turkey goes too far, it might find itself another Iraq, which may be one reason for making the defense of Turkey more Nato-compatible at this early stage.

  Then to our own European Empire. I was trying to find some material linking Otto von Hapsburg and George Soros. I was dragged into pretty muddy waters, but since this thing is getting so conspiratorial, why not go all the way? The supposed link between these two men is a secret organization called "Le Cercle", founded by a former French prime minister Pinay. This is some kind of offshoot of the famous Bilderbergers. We have some hard evidence on this group, because the former German agent Langemann leaked some documents to the German magazine Kronket (as it is spelled on Internet, or should it be "Konkret"?). Le Cercle was supposedly also involved in some political killings, including the mysterious shooting of the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme.

  This is getting rather sinister, but that shouldn't discredit the observation that Otto von Hapsburg and George Soros have convergent interests, which is how this story began. Besides, even if this sounds conspiratorial, is it any worse than the prosecution's case against Milosevic with "insiders" and "joint criminal enterprise"? I think the allegations about Le Cercle, Soros and Hapsburg could be substantiated with more evidence than the "joint criminal enterprise" (even if Nice is trying to relieve his desperation with another 10,000 pages).

  By the way, Milosevic may have noticed that the prosecution case sounds like a whacky conspiracy theory, so he decided to answer it with his own: that about the French in Srebrenica. That still sound pretty "yellow press" to me, but if Milosevic has evidence, I guess it's all right. He should just realize how this stuff is going to sound when coming from his mouth. But who knows? Yesterday one Townhall columnist called Jacques Chirac a thug for his criticism of the Iraqi campaign, so maybe the Americans will still learn to love what Milosevic has to say.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 4:50 am
  This is somewhat old news by now (a few days old), but I must say Carla never stops amazing me: "Hague Tribunal chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte has revealed that investigations into another 35-40 suspects who held senior political, military, and police posts during the Yugoslav wars are now underway," according to B92.

  Is Carla a workaholic? Or does she consider this last push as her swan song?
  
  J N
  Finland

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 4:58 am
  By the way, that German magazine "Konkret" is the one that has Jürgen Elsässer on its payroll. He is the one who had the interview of Felipe Turover, the witness in the Russiagate investigation whose personal details Carla Del Ponte gave to the press.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 5:19 am
  

  More drama in the court room just before the first break. Mr. Milosevic began his cross-examination by asking why the witness was referred to as C073, a protected witness, had he requested protection? No, he never had and never wanted it, he wanted all in the clear, why was he then protected, Mr. Milosevic asked, the witness could not tell.

  Mr. Milosevic complained to judge May (NATO) and this time the judge asked an explanation from Mr. Nice (NATO) to which he asked for time to find out, why the two last witnesses had said they did not want to be protected but they had been forced to be by the prosecution until they appeared in chamber, where they could not be stopped from talking. May (NATO) instructed Nice (NATO) to do all the necessary for this practice to stop. Then Mr. Kay (NATO) said to the court the amici had already filed a written motion with the registrar addressing the same matter, motion the judges had no knowledge of it, and May (NATO) asked Kay (NATO) to produce a copy to them.

  Further the witness had refused to sign a legal waiver granting him immunity from self incrimination so he could freely tell the truth , saying he was telling the truth and did not mind being exposed to the consequences of telling it. To which judge May (NATO) said he did not to have to answer question that could self incriminate him. Interested thing I see, since May (NATO) has in the past told witnesses they have to answer questions.

  The wind is slowly changing no doubt.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 5:29 am
  

  Jari,

  Palme was involved in obstructing sales or delivery of weapons to some strategically important country, supposedly annoying the Yanks.

  I really don't know much about the political theory behind his murder.
  
  G C
  USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 5:37 am
  Palme's resistance to the arms sales is exactly why Le Cercle, a right-wing group, had to get rid of Palme, according to the theories I found on Internet. It is fairly well-known (if you can use that word) that the actual killer was from the South African secret service. From the Internet info, I found out that it was the Swedish secret service that arranged the killing.

  If we can call a pattern "substance", then we are talking about a group that has made large-scale political killings its trademark. I don't know if even the CIA can keep up with it. That might suggest a link with the past killings in Yugoslavia.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 5:42 am
  I saw a film, a Swedish film, I can't remember its title, putting the blame squarely on the CIA with Swedish inside collaboration.
  
  Gogol C
  USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 5:48 am
  I was trying to do an Internet search on that, but then I ran into a website explaining the true essence of the "Council of 13", Tribunal of Rothschildt, Maitreya and the Eye of Lucifer. I am sorry. I gotta go.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 5:58 am
  

  Before I forget. Swedish investigators were in Kosovo and in Bosnia in recent years interviewing people in relation with Palme's assassination.
  
  G C
  USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 7:31 am
  An interesting tidbit from The New York Times: New Defendant in Hague to Aim Defense at Serbs of the Future By DANIEL SIMPSON EMUN, Serbia, Feb. 19 - After a year of tirades from Slobodan Milosevic, the United Nations war crimes tribunal is likely to be treated to more bellicose nationalism next week when Vojislav Seselj travels to The Hague to face trial. Unlike his ally Mr. Milosevic, who was sent to the tribunal in handcuffs, Mr. Seselj has booked a seat on a scheduled flight and appears to be relishing the prospect of an international audience for his denunciations of Western policy in the Balkans. A 48-year-old politician and onetime paramilitary commander, Mr. Seselj was indicted this week for inciting irregular troops to commit atrocities against non-Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia and northern Serbia in the early 1990's. Like Mr. Milosevic, who endorsed Mr. Seselj's campaign for the Serbian presidency last year from his Dutch prison cell, Mr. Seselj plans to conduct his own defense and views the charges against him with the same contempt as his patron. "If the indictment wasn't fake, I wouldn't feel so confident," he said in an interview at his office in Zemun, a Belgrade suburb where he served as mayor during the latter years of Mr. Milosevic's decade in power. "It's not the first time I'm going to jail." Mr. Seselj likes to remind people that when Yugoslavia's Communist authorities imprisoned him in 1984 for protesting against the government, he received support from around the world, including a letter from Amnesty International. But after appearing at the front lines in the early days of the wars that ripped Yugoslavia apart, he was singled out as a leading instigator of efforts to purge other ethnic groups from territory inhabited by Serbs. "In November 1991, while Serb forces fought to take over Vukovar," the indictment against him reads, referring to a town in Croatia, "Vojislav Seselj visited the town and publicly pronounced, `Not one Ustasha must leave Vukovar alive,' thus instigating the killing of Croats." Mr. Seselj does not deny making the statement. But he argues that his choice of words proves that he did not order massacres of civilians. Rather, he says, his venom was aimed specifically at nationalists, named for the Ustashe fascists who ruled Croatia during World War II. "I didn't say that no Croat civilians should leave the town alive," he said, brushing aside the fact that several hundred non-Serbs were later rounded up and executed. His defense rests on his belief that Serbs were not to blame for starting the Balkan wars and that the responsibility lies with Croatia and Bosnia for declaring independence from Yugoslavia and foreign powers for endorsing it. It was only to be expected, he argues, that Serbs should seek to unite within a "Greater Serbia" rather than become minorities in these newly created countries. "Those who seceded from Yugoslavia should have lost," he said, adding that "Serbs will never put up with the loss of Krajina" in Croatia, or of Bosnia and Kosovo. "France waited 48 years to reclaim Alsace and Lorraine from the Germans," he continued. "If you want to resolve this issue definitively, you'll have to kill every Serb; otherwise we're going to think how to get back what we had." Such arguments still play well with some in Serbia, particularly those displaced by the wars. In his unsuccessful effort to become Serbia's president, Mr. Seselj twice won a third of the vote. "I will do everything to place my trial in The Hague in the minds of the next generation in Serbia," he said. "Today's politicians don't know what ideology really is.
  
  Jenny Morningstar
  Babylon
  USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 8:31 am
  Well, well...

  The issue of protected witnesses and secret sessions is now clear after Gen. Vasiljevic and Capt Dragan evidence:

  If the witness is possibly likely to say something not in favour of the "other side", they become eligible for "protection".

  The catch is that the protection is not for the witness but for the benefit of the "other side" and its case which is quite clearly laughable after the last two witnesses.

  If I were Nice, I wouldn't want their full story made public either as the bulk of it is in Milosevic's favour.

  On the evidence so far, Milosevic is starting to look like a saint. And Nice shouldn't even be running a toilet queue let alone a court case.

  If that's the best the other side can do, May and Co should just have the balls to call it quits, unless of course they've heard something beyond reasonable doubt in those secret sessions we are not privy to.

  Then again, maybe that's the whole reason for the secret sessions... To justify a decision on the basis of unheard of secret evidence.
  
  David
  Sydney

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 10:08 am
  
  ‘Genocide Games’ by Nebojsa Malic

  In this article Malic explores the reasons behind the now frequently heard appeals for people to ‘Look how we saved the Muslims in Kosovo from Genocide’ as made by the likes of warmonger “Trust-me” Tony in his quest to deflect criticism of the intended attack upon Iraq. Commenting on the book ‘America Defends Muslims’ by Stephen Schwartz, Malic states:

  It finally lays bare the intended place of Serbs in the Imperial Order, as the whipping boy for proving that the U.S. is not an enemy of Islam and Muslims.

  What exactly Blair did in Kosovo - as the campaign’s ‘moral’ leader - should make us all pause and shudder as he prepares, in “extreme” circumstances, to nuke Iraq. Malic goes on:

  And yes, the United States did support the terrorist KLA in Kosovo, but it used militant Islam merely as prop for greater Albanian chauvinism. Under the UN/NATO/KLA occupation, non-Albanian Muslims of Kosovo have faced the same persecution as Serbs: Roma and Ashkali, Gorani, 'Bosniaks' and even Turks have been killed, robbed or driven away. Not to mention the hundreds of fellow Albanians killed by the KLA as 'traitors' or 'collaborators' or simply because they were in the way.

  
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 10:36 am
  Concerning Jari's post above (today 04:58), here is a link to (translated) Turover's Konkret interview on the alleged role of Carla Del Ponte in the Mabetex scandal.
  
  Pythagoras C
  Greece

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 11:21 am
  -Viva Milosevic. Let him out Carla, let also the other mouses that are hiding in Serbia, let them destroy their country for another extra 100 years and let them enjoy their misery! It must be hard for you, arrivederci Kosova!
  
  I am sure you can guess!
  Powerful USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 11:28 am
  Moderator: As I have said before it is unfair to those of us who give our real names to allow people on this forum who use pseudonyms. Jennie Morniingstar is one who is using a pseudonym. Her name is Barbara.I know her last name but I will not reveal it at this time. She has been on the SUC forum for three years. She tries to provoke and uses all her ability to cause problems between Croats and Serbs in the US. She is a trouble maker.

  Pleas remove her comments until she uses her own name.
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 11:59 am
  B92 reporting Del Ponte made a secret visit to Albania to obtain evidence against Milosevic.

  QUOTE:

  Citing unofficial sources, TV Klan reported that a team of experts, lawyers and Defence Ministry representatives are to set off for The Hague in the next few days "with a huge file" containing documents collected between January and April 1999.

  END QUOTE

  Does anyone think it strange that while dragging off low level KLA members to the Hague it is reported USA to cut off aid to Serbia. Now the big “secret” Del Ponte goes to Albania for evidence. A Lot of pacifying the Kosovo Albanians. Walking on egg shells. About as diplomatic as the following.

  Another source tells us that the Kosovo Albanians were protesting the arrest of eleven Kosovo Albanians. About four thousand KAs carrying Albanian and American flags.The Kosovo Albanians were arrested for a cache of weapons which they no doubt intended to use against Serbs.
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 12:05 pm
  "YOU CAN NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEMS WITH THE SAME HEAD THAT CREATED THEM" I feel so sorry for all you people of Serb mysery.
  
  Rita Rita Rita
  USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 12:17 pm
  I go along with Kathryn. Moderator, would you remove the disruptive and anonymous posts, or do you think they add some value to this discussion?
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 12:25 pm
  David, if the prosecution doesn't want its witnesses to speak in public, why call them at all? We have arithmetics weighing on us. Milosevic will start his defense in May. That will leave a little more than two months for the Bosnia section of the prosecution's case. Wasn't Bosnia supposed to be the crown jewel of the prosecution? Do they really have a trump card this time, which would explain the short time they are planning for the Bosnia phase, or is the prosecution at a total loss for evidence in Bosnia?

  Besides, what is wrong with May? What is wrong with Nice? Milosevic points out there was no good reason for keeping this witness in protection. Suddenly May wakes up, as if it weren't his job to look to such minor details. After May washes his hands, Nice starts washing his and says he will look into the matter.

  Some concerned posts mentioned the video tape of Milosevic with the paramilitaries. I guess that alone makes the paramilitaries as guilty as Milosevic, who is guilty because he attended paramilitary ceremonies. Hello! You are running out of time. Show us where Milosevic gave an order to commit a crime. Or show us where the paramilitaries committed a crime and Milosevic was in a position to punish the perpetrators and didn't. It is not enough to "build a case" against Milosevic at this stage any more by showing who he was associated with.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 12:34 pm
  Now it is also becoming clear what Carla meant in January by hinting at the reopening of an investigation into Nato crimes. She still isn't after Nato. However, she starts by the KLA, which isn't going to make Nato particularly happy either. That might explain the renewed American interest in Mladic. That would certainly explain Carla's visit to Albania after she didn't get what she was looking for in Serbia.

  As to give one a hint of the tension between Carla and the US, one might remember that not so long ago Prosper suggested Serbia would give the ICTY three suspects after which it would be over. Now we read that instead Carla is investigating 40 new people. Since she must be running out of Serbs, one can only guess where her investigations are heading. This is getting interesting.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 1:10 pm
  Accoriding to media sources in Belgrade, the video tape that was show at the tibunal comes from theDeputy Head of Public Security Department Dragiša Ristivojeviæ, under the order from Jovica Stanisic. Mr Stanisic recently helped tribunal investigators gain documentary evidence showing that the Serbian security service was subordinated directly to Mr Milosevic during his last month as Serbian president.

  Yet, in February 2002, he stated: "I WON'T TESTIFY" and Stanisic said: "Everybody heard that." Stanisic said that he was watching the television broadcast of the trial and described it as "ugly". Asked if he had been in touch with the Tribunal's representatives, he said: "You ask me too much."

  Vera, I was wondering if you have had the chance to read the magazine REPORTER. They have an interview with JEVGENY PRIMAKOV.

  That's all for now
  
  Dan B
  Canada

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 1:10 pm
  

  I checked today how Bard College is doing with their archives. Well, not much better than before, today's four segments are reduced to three and at the end when Mr. Milosevic asks one of his very telling questions, the sound goes off and the tape stops. The footage covering the administrative matters where the court deals with the abuse of protective witness by the prosecutor is no where to be seen.

  I know this is a political trial, we know what the purpose is, but I think it would be wise to have a minimum of credibility risking otherwise to look not like a kangaroo court but like a bunch of scum.
  
  Gogol Charemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 1:34 pm
  Jari, it comes to legality of Krajina existence.

  Media made JSO - Group for special operations.(Jedinicu za specijalne operacije) as paramilitary force. If group operated undercover that does not necessarily meant that they operated illegally. And did they really operated illegally in 1991, almost two years as Slovenian TO and HDZ members got guns under, SFRJ laws?

  Group was established in May 1991 in Krajina from people from Krajina and volunteers from Serbia.- and according to Vasiljkovic’s testimony it was not financed by Serbia.
  The group demobilized as well as JNA in Croatia based on the agreement and upon UNPROFOR mandate in Croatia.

  Why they claimed that group was paramilitary? And where is the crime if a President inspected one of the regular groups for special operations. (I guess it would not be hard to prove that in 1997 the group was part of the Internal ministry of affairs of Yugoslavia - as opposite it would be hard to prove that it was part of Internal ministry of affairs of Republic Serbia, in 1991 - even if they prove that where is the crime?)
  Later some of the members of the group formed JSO and stationed in Kula, and become a part of Serbian official structure .So group has not been formed in Serbia and sent to Croatia.
  Jari does, the videotape from 1997 what prosecutor showed, established a connection between Milosevic and the group formed in Krajina in 1991?

  Regarding another issue: Jari even if prosecutors proved that there was a joint criminal enterprise what is the connection between someone’s guilt and “Joint criminal enterprise”?
  To make clear my question: Does the membership of the criminal group make every member of the group a criminal?
  
  Pero Peric
  Canada

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 2:02 pm
  

  People that understand Serbian may want to visit the following two URLs in order to check how yet the latest key witness for prosecution has become today yet another key witness for the accused. Even B92 was not able to twist this one:

  http://www.novosti.co.yu/vest.asp?vest=11680&rubrika=Dosije

  http://www.b92.net/news/indexs.php?&nav_category=64
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 2:25 pm
  

  Another good source:

  HERE
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 2:27 pm
  

  Another good source:

  HERE
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 2:40 pm
  

  The New World order justice in action in Serbia

  Interpol to issue a warrant for Milanovic arrest | 16:05 | B92, SRNA

  BELGRADE -- Thursday -- The Serbian Interior Ministry has sent a request to Interpol to issue an international warrant for the arrest of Dragoljub Milanovic following a recent court order.

  This is the latest from Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic.

  Mihajlovic told a press conference that the police do not hold any information on Milanovic's whereabouts, but that the Ministry is cooperating with interior ministries abroad. Milanovic was sentenced to ten years in prison for the killing of 16 Radio Television Serbia employees during the NATO bombing.

  Zanka Stojanovic, mother of Nebojsa Stojanovic who was killed in the NATO bombing of the Radio Television Serbia building, told Radio B92 that the state, i.e. its judicial bodies, are to blame for the fact that Milanovic is not serving his sentence now.

  "He could be just about anywhere - he’s on the run. Maybe Russia took him in, or Germany - he has friends there...The authorities are now on the case but they are the very ones who let him prepare his get-away for eight months, before the court's final ruling", said Stojanovic.

  Comment: I we did not know what happened we would think that Mr. Milanovic have given an order to NATO to bomb his own radio station.
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 3:23 pm
  

  Trial Report

  One more time, please.

  “All rise” One thought that the circus in The Hague could not get any crazier, but one was clearly wrong. After yesterday’s ‘secret’ publicly shown videotape, it was supposed to be an easy day for Mr. Nice, but it was not.

  Milosevic, once again, lectured judge Richard May that the prosecution was guilty of manipulation (“protected witnesses”) in order to reduce his preparation time for cross-examination. It was a clear slap in the prosecution’s face as both Mr. Milosevic and The ‘friends of the court’ attacked the amateurish “other side’. But maybe we ought to focus on something more negative. Captain, do you know that in this institution you are listed as a protected witness B073? I don’t know, I asked for everything to be in public. Did you in any time, ask to testify in secret” NO, not at any time. “I did not want any protective measures, and I arrived here, and I had said that I made a statement to the media, and I am not a protected witness.” “You had nothing to conceal from the public, ..., nor did you make any request to be anonymous…” Yes, absolutely so Then Mr. Milosevic turns his attention to ‘Judge May’. MR. MAY, I wish draw your attention to this,…, to prevent me from collecting facts! He never wanted to be a protected witness, THIS IS GROSS ABUSE!” The prosecution had a ‘good answer’ “We need a little more time to research” (quiet a good answer!) But Milosevic was brutal, calling it a “manipulation”. Then, another slap, “ This is good for the public to know, what the other side does, what you call the prosecution.”

  Well, negative for the prosecution, but there is some much one does not know where to begin. Let’s start with this.

  Today, it was Captain Dragan’s turn to be cross-examined and it was a clear feast -for the accused, while the prosecution was starved once again.

  “Do you know if anyone from the SDB of Serbia ordered for crimes to be committed in the Krajina.”

  “No (god)!”

  “Do you know of any ‘Greater Serbia’ plan?

  “Not even as a joke, that is stupidity!”

  He said once again that the only men from SDB who came to Krajina and only "for a few days" were: Frenki Simatovic, Dragan Filipovic, Milan Radonjic and Jovica Stanisic.

  None of the four officials of the State Security Service (SDB) who came to Krajina ordered crimes to be committed in that area and the government of Serbia did not finance that military operation, claims Dragan Vasiljkovic , the witness for the other side said in the trial against Slobodan Milosevic.

  Then, another slap, this time from the witness. According to Vasiljkovic, it was "technically impossible for them to engage in organizing activities because they had against them Babic and Yugoslav National Army."

  and another: "I did not take Simatovic to be Milosevic's man. He had nothing in common with Milosevic's politics. I always took him to be an officer of SDB who did fought against terrorism professionally," Vasiljkovic said.

  As you can see, it was a very bad day for the prosecution, but wait!, it does not stop there.

  Let’s move on. Captain Dragan decided that it was time to clarify his testimony, in other words slap the prosecution also in their face.

  Will you tell me please if you have received any money from the opposing party?”

  So far, I have received Euro 4000, most of that money is for the tickets and hotel accommodations.
  
  Dan B
  Canada

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 3:24 pm
  to be continued
  
  Dan B
  Canada

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 3:36 pm
  Did Helena Ranta give her testimony yet?
  
  Dakic Anna
  Serbia

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 3:42 pm
  No, not yet.
  
  Dan B
  Canada

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 3:47 pm
  Why not do you know?
  
  Dakic Ana
  Serbia

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 4:24 pm
  She will testify at a later point, as a witness from the court (not for or against the prosecution or Milosevic). She was invited bt the court.
  
  Dan b
  Canada

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 4:35 pm
  The constant media blackout on the Milosevic "trial" (and all other ICTY "trials"), as witnessed day after day after day, is really quite a marvel to observe. Here you have what was billed by the leaders of the offensive-military-bloc NATO, as "the trial of the century".

  As we know, the "trial of the century" has turned out to be something else, a PR disaster. What more can be said about the "COURT", than the simple and obvious fact that everything about "the trial of the century" is regarded as so damaging to NATO's case that it has been covered up by THE CONSPIRACY OF THE CENTURY. The NATO-bloc can't decide which is more dangerous to reveal, the court's own absurdly improvised and often illegitimate procedures in favour of the prosecution (with Judge MI6 introducing more than a few of his own), or the substantial testimony and evidence introducted to the court which contradicts the hideous lies and fabrications that formed the intellectual foundation of 13 years of aggression against a sovereign nation and one people, the Serbs, in particular.

  Frustrated by the ever mounting heap of unpleasant and unfavourable truths presented to the "COURT" by the prosecution's own witnesses (!), private propaganda services of the imperialist-military-bloc-NATO can only choose between taking themselves out of the game altogether through self-censorship, or by discrediting themselves completely with more "advocacy journalism". Although that particular term, "advocacy journalism" is far too inadequate as a general descriptor for how heavily biased these incredibly rare gems reporting on "the trial of the century" have been. The absurd foray into paranoia and surrealism which was the most recent editorial on the "TRIAL" published by The Economist shows how even a reputable journal is reduced to debasing itself in the service of Empire when the conditions present no alternative. Perhaps some will regard this step beyond "advocacy journalism" as indicative of a sort of despair on the part of the intellectual and political elites in the offensive-military-bloc-NATO in general, and not just the propaganda services. And certainly the nature of the "reportage" confirms such suspicions, especially when the only article you've seen from your favourite propaganda service on the Milosevic trial in several weeks tries to claim that the testimony provided by former Interior Minister Markovic was "heavily damaging to the defence". Then there is a deafening silence for several more weeks. When the silence breaks, another splendidly crafted piece of objectivity emerges, claiming that Milan Martic's 1993 desperate appeal for Milosevic's political influence is almost certainly a "major point in favour of the prosecution".

  Yes, I suppose we should hail the internet and the Bard archive as a useful counter to what is censorship, by anyone's measure, on a scale comparable to the worst days of Nazi Germany. Maybe we should be so grateful to the Bard that we decide there isn't censorship after all (!?). Perhaps it's redundant to ask why there aren't more web sites archiving the audio-visual broadcasts of the Milosevic case. It is after all, "the trial of the century".
  
  Nico Tarzanovic
  CAN

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 4:50 pm
  test
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 8:24 pm
  

  ICTY Transcripts up dated to February 18. Click HERE
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 10:56 pm
  

  It was another sad and dramatic day at the Tribunal today.

  But before I get to this, I noticed something astonishing in the transcript last night.

  THE ACCUSED: I think there must be a misunderstanding with the interpreters, because I see here on the transcript that the witness had a critical attitude towards the Serbian leadership, but I understood that the witness said he did not agree because meetings that he attended, Kadijevic had a critical attitude to the Serbian leadership. And this is a rather significant difference in relation to the LiveNote.

  JUDGE MAY: The transcript says otherwise. We will ask the witness to clarify. Was it yours or Kadijevic's attitude which was critical, General?

  THE WITNESS: It was not my attitude but the attitude of General Kadijevic and other members of the military leadership that I am aware of.

  There you have it, even the translation at this tribunal is not correct, but wait, it is incorrect to the degree that it would benefit the prosecution.

  And then, May once again decides what is history and what is not.

  “Can you tell us what happened to Martinovic, for instance, in 1985? He was physically mistreated. He was stripped naked and a beer bottle was pushed into his anus. Was this followed by massive departure from Kosovo?”

  “Yes. This process of the moving out of Serbs was a continuous process, but an event of this kind, such as rapes, also would speed up this process.”

  JUDGE MAY: I'm going to limit this questioning. You really must, Mr. Tapuskovic, deal with the time which this witness dealt with, which was 1999. If you want to ask him some questions about that, you can, but events back in history are not going to assist us. That is history. As far as we're concerned, it is. Now, move on. If you want to ask him something about 1999 and his evidence, you can, but asking general questions, you cannot. I've already explained, there will be an historian who can deal with it.

  As you can see, the most knowledge-able person that has appeared at this Tribunal is not allowed to tell the ‘court’ what all of Yugoslavia (now Serbia & Montenegro) know.
  
  Dan B
  Canada

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 10:56 pm
  Quislings say time is up,

  How in the world can you call for men who went off to fight for their country, and probably did not care to go, to go to the Hague. It is a sick world.

  Sorry but Mihajlovic is another traitor. Serbia does not need him. Send him packing.

  Quote: BELGRADE -- Thursday - Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic said today that "it won’t be long" before Miroslav Radic and Veselin Sljivancanin, officers of the former Yugoslav People's Army, are found and turned over to The Hague.

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Thursday February 20, 2003 at 11:05 pm
  Dear friends, I found this forum very shocking. I guess I would never think that someone in Srbia still calls for S.Milosevic.All the violent intercultural conflicts imperil societies throughout the world while, ethnic wars, tribal genocide, sectarian strife, acts of terrorism, communal divisions and territorial and resource disputes shatter trust and destroy communities. Nearly every nation is faced with persistent and seemingly intractable conflicts between groups and individuals searching for cultural identity and a secure future. Yugoslavia was a country, with all the above mentioned elements involved. Please, can anyone explain to me if you really believe that Milosevic will be a "secure future" for your country. Thank you. Dita P.S. I am a student in United States,Boston. Originaly from Prishtina, Kosova
  
  Dita Metiu
  US-Kos

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 12:47 am
  To Nico Tarzanovic: 'Advocacy journalism' may be seen regularly in Milosevic trial reports by CIJ (Coalition for International Justice), a Soros-funded NGO composed of jurists who are a recruiting pool for the ICTY lower-rank staff. Having in mind this dual reason for their bias (financing and headhunting), you can easily imagine where do their articles lean. For those unfamiliar, they can be found at the host site http://www.b92.net , then scroll down to the LINKS: Trial Reports (CIJ) and you will find all the articles written by one Judith Armatta. This is of course pure servicing of the ICTY, thinly veiled by a quasi legal approach. The reason I'm pointing this to you are their last 2 pieces, one before last titled 'The Trouble With Insiders II: Aleksandar Vasiljevic' and the last one, 'Captain Dragan Implicates Serbia in Croatian War'.

  The piece re the General clearly shows the utter despair of the ICTY, when even such apologists are forced to recognize it. In a troubleshooting mission, Armatta helplessly tries to salvage something, unaware that the next witness is to blow this damaged case into pieces. Btw, the General explicitly denied any involvement of the 'Vukovar troika' of the JNA officers in the whole Ovcara case. So, these last two witnesses not only debunked few previous 'key insiders', but also dismissed a case or two.

  The article on Capt. Dragan is the same despair projected into this new witness, in vain hope he would bring resurrection to the dead case of the Prosecution. But, everything in this article is based on wrong conclusions and virtually every item was vehemently denied by the witness today and the reason why these allegations appeared in the media was clarified: the witness had been deliberately misinterpreted. Listen to a bit of today's cross-examination. Milosevic: "Last night both Belgrade and Zagreb media reported that you have testified here how the armed units of volunteers fighting in Krajina were under the competence and control of the Army, Police and Security Service of Serbia. What I understood is that you spoke of the Army, Police and the Security of Krajina. Was it me who understood you correctly or the media?" May: "It's irrelevant what media say… The Accused claims that you spoke of the Security of Krajina, and not of Serbia?" Captain Dragan: "When I spoke yesterday, I spoke exclusively about the Police of Krajina, the Security Service of Krajina and the Army of Krajina." Milosevic: "So, when you say 'Service' you mean 'Security Service of Krajina', when you say 'Police' you mean 'Police of Krajina' and when you say 'Army' you mean 'Army of Krajina'? Captain Dragan: "That's right." And this is only one small example, there's so much more of the same.

  Tomorrow the cross-examination of Captain Dragan should be finished, but he has already not only debunked Babic completely and Vasiljevic in the part which concerned State Security Service, but also gave a sharp lecture to the Prosecution and the judges and he openly called the proceedings 'a theatre show'.

  I'm curious what kind of article will appear tomorrow - practically everything has to be revoked. May I suggest the title? 'The Trouble With Insiders III'. They should stop summoning them altogether.
  
  Vera Martinovic
  Belgrade
  Yugoslavia

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 2:32 am
  To shocked and wondering about S. Milosovich's place in Serbia's future, DITA Metiu

  - Slobodan Milosovich is HONOR and CONSCIENCE of the world community as a politician and a leader he was promoting multi-ethnic society (read HIS famous speech in Kosovo Polje)

  - he was defending the Constitution of Yugoslavia when the "freedom loving" ETHNICITIES like Croats, Slovenians, Bosnians and Albanians (who by the way were very eager and "succesful" collaborators of the NAZI GERMANY )inspired and illegally armed by the West were pushing for "independence" and ethnically clean territories outlined by J. B. Tito..... - He was rightfully fighting terrorism in Kosovo - Terrorism that was sponsored by the CIA and Bin Ladin at the same time . - He stood up against the organized scum of the world represented by 18 vassals and led by the US ..... and never cried "uncle" and never felt sorry.....

  - And right now in Haag He is demolishing all the attempts to rewrite the HISTORY and it doesn't look that he will have any mercy for the rich and the powerful........

  ...... and you thought that the "unbelievable stories" from KosovA processed and amplified by Western media has buried HIM alive.....
  
  vytas abrutis
  phila,PA
  USA

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 5:18 am
  

  Interesting first part of the session today. The issue of protective witness exposed the passivity of the judges and the abuse of the prosecution. Mr. Kay (NATO) saying the issue of protection is greatly exaggerated when in many cases it is blindly who the protected witnesses are. Judge Robinson (COLONIAL) asking for the protective measures to be exceptional and not the rule, etc., etc., it all seemed to be a jolly good show among fellow Britishers discussing some trivia only the scotch and soda missing. But I think, the prosecution is loosing ground quite rapidly, especially in view of judge's May (NATO) question regarding the number of witnesses left and the nature, all together, of the evidence.

  Mr. Nice (NATO) announced Miss Ranta, the Finnish forensic expert, will be testifying March 12, and since it is the prosecution's announcement I assume it will be a prosecutors witnesses.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn. USA

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 5:21 am
  

  Sorry for my confusing mistakes: I meant to say blindly clear referring to Mr. Kay (NATO) comments.
  
  G C
  USA

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 6:05 am
  To Dita: How refreshing to hear your comments and honest questions. Unfortunately you will at best be ignored or at worst ripped to shreds because of your ethnicity and perceived threats to the past leader of the former Yugoslavia. You have ventured into the never-never land of historical revision and it is laced with obsessive nationalism, ridicule of the media (other than its own)and a morbid hatred of any ethnic group outside its borders. Good Luck!
  
  Jenny Morningstar
  Babylon
  USA

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 6:16 am
  JN

  Why would the prosecution call the unfavourable witnesses?

  I guess there may a number of reasons. One is that they assume that some of the info may be valuable to the prosecution. Another is that they assume those people are Milosevic's political opponents and will most likely attempt to spit on Milosevic. yet another reason is that they possibly underestimate Milosevic's cross examination skills and do not anticipate the sorts of questions Milosevic might ask to elicit responses favourable to himself.

  And yet another reason may be that they can't get anyone else to come up with anything more relevant and meaningful, in which case we go back to the basic question as to the quality of witnesses and evidence.

  So far the best the prosecution witnesses have provided are their own personal views that Milosevic was responsible for everything but I haven't seen anything yet that suggests anything of the sort "beyond reasonable doubt". True there may have been many crimes committed and cumulatively it may seem that the number is so great that it appears there may have been a command chain which either ordered or tacitly supported such crimes or at least turned a blind eye to them. But the cumulative effect of such crimes is also just as readily explained in the context of any war including the American Civil War and the Vietnam war.

  Did Milosevic employ carpet bombing or Agent Orange? Certainly the employment of such tactics has a much more likely provenance in a structured military chain of command than in the more limited criminal acts of renegade, criminal, vigilante or racist type groups as was probably the case in YU. On a comparative level a greater prima facie case exists against the US leadership in Vietnam than against Milosevic in YU.

  That also raises the question of proportionality which Paddy Ashdown was so big on when he accused Milosevic of destroying infrastructure in Kosovo. But that needs to be contrasted against NATO's proportionality of bombing and destroying YU infrastructure on the basis of what was happening in Kosovo BEFORE NATO attacked YU. If the proportionality is even remotely similar, then Milosevic has as much of a case to answer as has NATO. But since NATO is in the clear according to Del Ponte, then so is Milosevic.

  By the way, can anyone confirm whether Del Ponte is really planning a centrefold spread when she ends her ICTY career? I hear Seselj thinks she's a bit of an all right type and he can't wait to see her in the Hague. Is that reciprocal sponsorship or what? LOL
  
  David
  Australia

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 6:31 am
  Throw. Glasshouse. Brick. (Not necessarily in that order).
  
  Alexei Gorbulski
  Brussels
  Belgium (where?)

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 6:42 am
  Dear Dita, I am very glad that somebody of the Albanian origin joined this discussion. It is great to hear different opinions. However, I think that you misunderstood the point of this forum. I don’t support Milosevic, I don't like him, and I never did. But this is not about him. It is about a having a proper law process. It is about having facts and not accusations. It is about examining who did what and making it right. At least it has to be. So far, that is not the case. I see you are from Pristina, so you must have a pile of horrible stories you can say. My godmother family is from Podujevo and I have also a pile of horrible stories to say. Maybe we should talk about it maybe not. But this is the point. I believe that law should be universal. I believe that law should be unbiased. I believe that rule of law is the only thing that keeps humans from killing each other. And I have a hope that international law should become reachable, unbiased and right. And if in that process we examine closely the firs attempt to do so (Hague) we see all the influence of the "might is right". That is what we are against. BTW based on your posting you seem like a really nice person.
  
  Dakic Ana
  Serbia

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 6:42 am
  Pero, as to your last question about the participation in the "joint criminal enterprise". § 5 of the Bosnia indicment as well as § 5 of the Croatia indictment says this:

  "Slobodan MILOSEVIC is individually criminally responsible for the crimes referred to in Articles 2, 3, and 5 of the Statute of the Tribunal and described in this indictment, which he planned, instigated, ordered, committed, or in whose planning, preparation, or execution he otherwise aided and abetted. By using the word committed in this indictment the Prosecutor does not intend to suggest that the accused physically committed any of the crimes charged personally. Committing in this indictment refers to participation in a joint criminal enterprise as co-perpetrator."

  So, judging by what the prosecution has written in the indictment, it seems that the prosecution thinks it is enough to show that there was some "joint criminal enterprise" and that Milosevic took part in it. However, the composition of that "joint criminal enterprise" is open-ended, so apparently the "joint criminal enterprise" can always be defined so as to include Milosevic in some kind of "joint criminal enterprise". It is a chicken-and-egg problem. And the composition of this enterprise is a mystery even to the prosecution. In § 7 the indictment says: "...and other known and unknown participants").

  However, even if the indictment has passed the initial review, the judge doesn't necessarily have to go along with every word, which gives us some hope. To me, the connection between the alleged participation in the "joint criminal enterprise" and individual criminal responsibility under § 7(1) of the Statute is tenuous in itself. You see, the individual criminal responsibility refers primarily to those things that the indicment mentions explicitly in § 5: "...planned, instigated, ordered, committed, or in whose planning, preparation, or execution he otherwise aided and abetted." This is a quotation from Art. 7(1) of the Statute, which is titled "individual criminal responsibility". Somehow, the prosecution wants to argue that participation in such an enterprise qualifies as individual responsibility, which it doesn't - by definition. The Statute says nothing of a "joint criminal enterprise". On the contrary, the UN Secretary-General stated in his report in May 1993 that the Statute doesn't criminalize membership in a group.

  As to the nature of the group itself, it seems important for the prosecution that the group was secret. Why, the prosecution suggests, would the group be secret, if it didn't have something to hide? Why would it have something to hide, if they weren't doing something criminal?

  The criminality of such a joint enterprise stands or falls on the question whether the Serb entities in Croatia were illegal, and as I argued a couple of days ago, they were not illegal, because Croatia recognized them in its Constitutional Law. It was Croatia that broke its obligations based on that Constitutional Law. The prosecution has to perform a coosal sleight of hand, so it is no wonder it is not doing any better.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 6:49 am
  Dan B.

  Thanks for your report on the Tribunal Hearings. Having you and Vera write reports is great !

  
  
  AP V
  NY
  NY

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 6:56 am
  As to the American aid, you can't live with it, you can't live without it. The aid is always a bit uncertain in practice, because it depends on the latest US foreign policy objectives (read: whims).

  But the aid is problematic also in principle. Suppose that the US should pay compensation for the bombing. What kind of supercourt would order the US to pay compensation, considering it has paid so much in aid? And even if some supercourt were to order the US to pay compensation, how would the aid be deducted from the compensation, if the aid has gone exclusively to US-approved projects?

  On the other hand, every step Carla takes up the KLA hierarchy takes her closer to Nato, so one must not exclude the possibility that Nato might be charged at some point. This would be very good news to those who have seen their lawsuits thrown out of the national courts, because Carla chose not to open an investigation into the Nato crimes. Then the freezing of American aid wouldn't feel so bad.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 7:07 am
  

  While Paddy Ashdown was talking about proportionality TV images from Israel were showing tanks, big tanks shooting at civilian dwelling in Gaza.

  Another wrangle at the trial when the prosecutor rather annoyed by the witness resort to cross-examine his cross-examination. Mr. Kay (NATO) once more had the strongest and more independent opinion embarrassing the complaisant troika of wimps.
  
  G C
  USA

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 7:28 am
  

  Further trouble for the prosecutor with the witness when he denounces the prosecutor of violating the agreement which did not allow to use part of the taped declaration because the witness was not sure, was taken out of context.

  Judge May (NATO): Mr. Groome (NATO) you might consider were you're because all what you're doing is to destroy the credibility of the witness, if that is what you want to do.."
  
  G C
  Conn., USA

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 8:31 am
  May is not himself any more. The question isn't why the protected witness rubbish was accepted in the first place, but why it isn't accepted now. Not only that. All of this seems to be a follow-up to something Milosevic said about the protection measures. And instead of giving the "professionalism" excuse, May doesn't want to be associated with Nice's antics any more but tries to distance himself from them. It is Nice's credibility that is being destroyed. Paradoxically, Nice only aggravates his own predicament by trying to distance himself from something the prosecution did (or the "other side," as it now called).
  
  J N
  Finland

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 9:49 am
  How in the world can you call for men who went off to fight for their country, and probably did not care to go, to go to the Hague. That is a comment made by somebody who hasnt had anybody killed in war but what about the victims? Are you saying that they should not have justice? As for having faith in men in uniform that is very sweet but wholly unrealistic, men in uniform tend to act barbarically especially in a war situation. Serbs are no worse or better than anybody else. Show me a war where there hasnt been war crimes. But I suppose you think its better for Bobetko, Norac, Sljivicanin, Radic, Ademi etc to be tried by their own people! How many years will Albanians get by Albanian judge or Croatian or Serbian for that matter? No?

  If not then be brave and suggest an alternative.
  
  Daniel King
  Yugoslavia

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 10:35 am
  

  One really has to start feeling sorry for the prosecution. Witness, after witness, after witness, the Accused is demolishing the case.

  Captain Dragan categorically denied that his paramilitary unit had any ties to Serbia’s State Security, stating, “the only connection between the 'Knindzas' and Serbia's State Security was that some members of this unit later on became members of the Serbian Interior Ministry's Special Operations Unit.” There you have it that is supposed to be proof. Well, not good enough in any credible court of law, especially in an international court of law.

  He also made it very clear that he believes that Special Operations Unit committed no war crimes. Then he was asked if knew of people who "hid behind Milosevic's name" in Krajina, the witness said yes, but he the clarified and said "every third guy was Milosevic’s godfather, friend, son's friend".

  The prosecution then tried to discredit their own witness, after they realized that he had decided to walk the floor and tell the truth. But let’s move on.

  The SECRET VIDEO TAPE was no so secret after all. Dragan confirmed that the ceremony had been set up to “impress the president” (He said that Simatovic told him that.)

  Dragan also confirmed that he last night he had talked to Simatovic, but not about the video tape.

  To be continued
  
  Dan B
  Canada

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 10:57 am
  Thank you Jari.

  The prosecutors so far proved that there were committed crimes, and not only committed by the Serbian side, but by the other sides too.
  When they tried to prove that Milosevic ordered them they failed.
  When they tried to prove that Milosevic knew about them and did not do anything to prevent them or to prosecute perpetrators, so far they proved just the opposite.
  

  Now they make sensation about “insiders” (who discredited their previous witnesses and where more for the case of defense - Why did they bring them?) and they are trying to prove something where there is no crime at all. Why?

  I doubt that prosecutor does not know that membership is not necessarily a crime.
  I doubt that prosecutor does not know that existing of the state security, how it is organized and who reports to whom, is not a crime.
  I doubt that prosecutor does not know that existence of the undercover group is not a crime.
  I would rather say that at this point the prosecutors do not believe in the indictment themselves, and that makes them to look so unprofessional. If they do not believe why they are doing it?

  Jari, I love your statement: “If the international community thought it could use this tribunal as a setting to rewrite history to suit its own needs, it provided the people with an equal opportunity to learn more about the real history - as well as the politically correct lies about it.”

  The trial is such a fiasco.
  On the Kosovo part Milosevic asked every witness, about crimes that were committed by KLA - and NATO, every single witness denied it. May warned Milosevic of such irrelevant questions, and Milosevic look so amateur in proceeding. . - Now it become obvious that crimes committed by KLA were in such a large scale that one cannot believe that every single witness did not know for any crime. - Milosevic got a point Did all of the witnesses were telling the truth, and who did not?
  Did he reveal a setup? And as you said Jari, Carla’s job in investigating KLA crimes will bring her close to NATO.

  In Croatia indictment so far it was revealed that Croatia attacked first. I had not have doubt about it
  What I did not know and trial revealed over the dates of guns shipment and open attacks on JNA that Croatia was involved in these activities a way before Tudjman took power.
  It was revealed that many countries were involved in supporting separatists and war preparation activities before war started.
  
  Now I understand why Milosevic wrote in his book in 1989 (I did not read it, I heard) that it is not the time yet to reveal many details about problems, which SFRJ was facing.
  It was revealed that Croatia used Dubrovnik, attacked JNA, used historical sites for military activities, burned tires, filmed it and broadcasted it in order to “wake-up” international community = PR business - the point which makes absolutely clear who wanted so eagerly accused and destroy Yugoslavia.
  The similar scenario was revealed for Sarajevo, and the tactics KLA used in Kosovo - especially Racak case -, which connects Walker - That could bring to a conclusion that it was planned in the same center, especially if one brings to the context shipment of military radio equipment from UK to Slovenia which connects the other ally to the ex YU business.
  It was revealed that Babic not Milosevic was against Vens-Oven plan. (But Babic was a prosecutor’s witness? - I remember his speeches at the time - it seemed that somebody else wrote these, since they were clumsy and inappropriate for the Serbian population in Krajina, and they did not have much in common with the spirits in Krajina.
  I used to hear stories that relations between JNA and Krajina authorities and forces were not good at all - I had had doubt about it before trial, now its becoming clear.
  After General Vasiljevic testimony it makes clear why new Serbian government had a problem to extradite “Vukovar troika” to Hague.
  etc, etc…
  
  Pero Peric
  Canada

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 11:11 am
  7 Daniel King that is not a Serbian name. So I suppose you would not feel any need for the Serbian people to protect their own.

  Where I live in the United States, not one American Military person was or ever will be tried by a foreign court for war crimes. I am in complete agreement with this. He/she can be judged by his/her own country.

  In World War II only the Germans and the Japanese were charged for war crimes.

  A comment you made on my not having anyone killed in the war? How do you know that???? You do not know me. What about WWII ....Croats, Albanians and Muslims were never tried for war crimes committed against Serbs. These crimes happened and those who committed them should have been brought to justice by their own countries and a lot of bitterness would have been resolved then and there. Artukovic was in the US and lived in a very good neighborhood in a very nice home. After years of trying to extradite him, the Jews joined in the fight and were successful in extraditing him. Life was pretty good for him in the US. It was pretty hard for the people who lived within blocks of him and knew what he had done to their people.However, they did not beat on American Croats, they befriended them.

  In Kosovo, after the bombing ceased and supposedly there was a peace accord, many Albanians robbed, and murdered Serbian women, children and men, and plundered Kosovo Serb property.Not only Serbians but many non Albanians were victims of people out of control. Not one Albanian has been charged.The reason... they were not exactly crimes.... they were retribution. My God! Anyone with a penny sized brain can see that Nato is not only behind the propaganda against Serbs but support the brutality toward them as well.

  It is a very sick justice system that allows some crimes to go unpunished while one country becomes a scape goat to be tried by men whose countries were members of Nato who dropped bombs from 15,000 feet onto Serbian soil. What is fair about that? To allow your very own to be tried by another country, when these people served in the military is contemptible.

  If you are an Albanian or one of the other ethnic groups, face the fact that none of you were exactly “Snow White.”

  I disagree with much of American policy but when it comes to our military men being only the responsibility of the United States I stand by that.

  If I were in Serbia I would not allow one Serb let alone a military person to be tried by a foreign court, and God forbid that I would ever kidnap and turn over one Serb to an outside Court. I am not a Bush supporter, in fact, I do not like him, I do not like his politics, but he is our American president and right or wrong he is ours only to be judged by the American people.

  There were so many lies about the Serbs. So much propaganda spread by the Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Albanians. You all accomplished what you wanted against the Serbs, give it a rest.Clean your own house.

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 11:54 am
  I guess the point is that the Serbs were tried in their own courts for their war crimes. This exonerates their superiors on the basis of "command responsibility".

  And the other point is that if a country doesn't convict its own war criminals, they should be tried somewhere else. This would be true of any other party to the war.

  The preposterous part is this: the Serbs are the only ones (generally speaking) who convicted their own war criminals, yet they are also the only ones (generally speaking) who are being shipped to The Hague. I think this gives the international justice a pretty bad name.

  I still wait to see some confirmation of the 200 or so war crimes convictions in Serbia. Rade Markovic mentioned them. So did Vasiljevic. Some individual war crimes conviction have also been mentioned.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 11:55 am
  By the way, that is also why the latest KLA indictments are so ground-breaking.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 11:57 am
  Wait a minute "I accomplished what I wanted". Hey I didnt want people kicked out of their houses, people butchered like animals, women raped etc. What I want is for those that did that to be brought to justice.

  OK so lets clear this up - you support the right of the Croats to try their own right? So let me ask you what do you think about the Lora case? Do you think that is justice? Do you think Serbs persecuted in Kosovo want your kind of justice that lets Albanian judges let off their own?

  Why is it you think NATO wont try Albanians in Kosovo like they should. Not some conspiracy against the Serbs but because they are afraid of losing control. The Albanians could turn angry and kick them out. But what would happen after would mean another war or not a single Serb left in Kosovo and no Albanian ever jailed by an Kosovan Albanian court. That is why I know you didnt have somebody killed in the recent war. If you did you would want justice and you would scream and shout if your husband or son (God forbid) had been killed in the war by the Croats and the Croatian judge set the murderer free.

  I disagree about Americans being somehow above international law and the rest of us having to abide by it. That is an important point. I dont trust the American courts either. Just look how many blacks on death row - US justice? Look at it the other way when a black man is actually guilty (OJ), he goes free. Some justice - and what about Vietnam or Korea how many US soldiers were brought to account for the attrocities committed in the name of the US people?

  That is a touching faith you have Katherine in national justice but nation states have agendas just as the 'court' in the Hague does.

  I disagree with your last statement about Bush - he is yours to be judged on your territory but when he's bringing wars around the world like in Iraq it is international justice he should face.

  Actually I do have some Serbian in me - well at least my children will have and its future generations that are my prime concern.
  
  Daniel King
  Yugoslavia

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 12:46 pm
  Could anyone translate this article, or convey the main message of it?

  http://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuwslink/teksten/nws.milosevic.aanklagers.html

  Thanks
  
  Dan B
  Canada

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 1:08 pm
  Dita Metiu:

  Welcome to the forum. I would like to cite and address your question
  Please, can anyone explain to me if you really believe that Milosevic will be a "secure future" for your country.”
  We did not decide that yet. We found out that he is a very intelligent and knowledgeable. We found out that he is not welcome by World Powers and mainstream media - in that sense he will not be a “secure future” and I guess that’s why they extradited them to Hague.
  We did not see yet that he committed crimes. If he did - he would not be a secure future “for our” country.
  But we are worried if he did not commit crimes, what “secure future” is going to be offered by the other side.
  I gues we on this site do not believe in the World without competition and multiculturalism.
  We do not believe in “one” and only “one” opinion and yet dictated.
  We are on this site against any crime committed by anyone including Milosevic. Because we believe that crimes committed in ex Yugoslavia including Kosovo, have much deeper roots and have a huge consequences on the secure future in World. We believe that mainstream media took monopoly on the truth. At the end we might prove different, but we are not afraid of the outcome of our investigation, and one should not be, We are not prone to etiquette someone, or find someone’s guilt before jury finishes it’s part, and we are suspicious in justice where someone in media is proclaimed guilty before court make its decision. We are looking for facts, and I guess most of the posts here point to the existing documents, very often compromising mainstream media .

  I guess we silently agreed on this forum that we are looking for documented arguments and sources of information

  If you want to join you are more than welcome, point to some documents argue about witnesses, happenings and we will scrutinize it to the end.

  Daniel King your judgment is not very good:” If you did you would want justice and you would scream and shout if your husband or son (God forbid) had been killed in the war by the Croats and the Croatian judge set the murderer free.

  You really don’t know that many on this forum had just what you said to happen to them.
  They just don’t talk about it. Rather be careful, and as a matter of fact it would be very hard to find any Serbian family that did not have some of the human losses in previous wars, never mind property

  You really did not read Kathrin’s post or you just ignored the fact that even Artukovic went unpunished, and many crimes committed in Kosovo went unpunished. And as you said Lora case went biased too, - but still we are not screaming for the international court. It is very hard to make international court in contemporary balance of powers, unbiased. And as one can see, it could be used as the extended hand by a stronger power. So that means that if stronger power commits crimes it is going to use International court as an instrument to cover it’s own crimes, and it’ll go unpunished, and if stronger power commits aggression you will have an aggressor to judge you.

  If your children have a Serbian blood - explain to them what it means: “Kadija te tuzi - Kadija ti sudi”, every Serbian family knows that. Is it the kind of justice that you are looking for?

  
  
  Pero Peric
  Canada

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 1:09 pm
  
  
  Pero Peric
  Canada

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 1:11 pm
  Questions:

  A correspondent remarked on the problems the OTP had with waivers for witness in the Milosevic trial, referring to the former Yugoslav President Lilic who mentioned this problem himself in the Courtroom, asked whether Joris could tell the media who the other potential witnesses in the Trial were?

  Joris replied that he could not and added that he had omitted to mention one point regarding the general themes of non-cooperation. He stated that Minister Mihailovic last week publicly said that Serbia and Montenegro would not accept any new Indictments and would not transfer any citizens to The Hague.

  Asked whether the Tribunal could confirm that Seselj would come to the Tribunal on 24 February as he had reported himself in the media, both Joris and Chartier said that they could not confirm this but that Seselj was welcome since he had been indicted last Friday. His arrival at the Detention Unit should already have taken place and could take place any time.

  Correspondents questions don't reach the media. What is their function then?
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 1:21 pm
  Daniel King,

  Serb policemen and soldiers have been prosecuted by the Serbian courts for committing atrocities against civilians.

  The Hague Tribunal isn't putting people on trial who physically committed crimes. Nobody alleges that Slobodan Milosevic personally came to their house and killed somebody there.

  As far as Slobodan Milosevic is concerned the only thing that matters is what orders he gave.

  If Slobodan Milosevic gave orders that civilians should be killed and raped and that their property should be looted, then I would be the first to say that he should hang, even if the orders were never acted upon. The giving of that sort of order would be the crime.

  On the other hand, if Slobodan Milosevic ordered that civilians should be protected and some renegade soldiers and policemen ignored his orders and attacked civilians, then Milosevic isn't guilty of anything. The individual who violated his orders and purpetrated the crime should be punished in this case.

  As far as the trial of Slobodan Milosevic is concerned it is irrelevant if crimes were committed by some Serbs or not, indeed they were nobody denies that. The only thing Milosevic could do was give orders, if those orders were violated that isn't his fault.

  I haven't seen any proof at all that Milosevic gave any order that any crimes should be committed against anybody. In fact the only evidence I've seen suggests the opposite was true. That he in fact ordered that civlians should be protected and that anybody committing crimes against them should be punished. Two of the prosecution's own witnesses so far have even testified to that.
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 1:28 pm
  

  The prosecution has a new policy: if their witness profits Mr. Milosevic's case the witness credibility is destroyed during re-examination. That was the case today. Three days plus a witness wasted. Mr. May (NATO) should have reprimanded prosecutor Groome (NATO) for this practice. I expect more to come. Little bunch of Nazi.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 2:34 pm
  It is announced that Mrs. Ranta will testify against Mr. Milosevic on the 12th of March 2003.
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 2:37 pm
  

  People that understand Serbian can used the following URL to access an article describing in more detail a scandal that happened today at the court.

  http://www.novosti.co.yu/vest.asp?vest=11711&rubrika=Dosije
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottava
  Canada

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 2:51 pm
  

  Just recently I had the chance, after Vera gave us the link, to visit the ‘highly subjective’ website of the Coalition for International Justice.

  Just like Vera mentioned, they have written a series of articles, and I have to admit it has a better sound than IWPR, which ignores any point Milosevic makes.

  In the latest article by CIJ (Attempts to Undermine Milosevic Trial Fail) the organization suggests that someone, this person being either Milosevic or maybe even SDB, is trying to sabotage the court. One has to admit that it is hard to sabotage something that was broken in the first place, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. So, how did anyone manage to sabotage the court?

  The author asks “The dramatic turn of events on Friday leaves a number of questions unanswered. Was there witness tampering? Should Vasiljkovic have been held in contempt of court for violating the Court's prohibition against discussing his testimony with anyone once he begins to give it?” I wonder why they never asked if there was witness tempering on behalf the prosecution. There are so many cases of that that one does not even need to go into that. The author throws out accusations such as “Attempts to Undermine” the trial, but where is the proof? On many occasions we have talked about Mr. Soros and the CIJ is an organization that received money from this ‘clean-handed’ man.

  “These are very serious matters. They have the potential to undermine the integrity of the process.” Yes, these are very serious matters. Once again, a prosecution witness turned the tables and sided with the Accused. It is funny that CIJ talks about “the potential to undermine”, excuse me, but where has this organization been? First, Captain Dragan never wanted to be a protected witness and anyone who has paid close attention to this trial will be able to say that it is the trial, the court, especially Mr. May, and the prosecution who have brought on the destruction to a ruin.

  I would like to invite all of you to visit the site www.cij.org and to carefully dissect the articles of this organization.
  
  Dan B
  Canada

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 3:06 pm
  

  What is happening to the prosecution in The Hague can be precisely described by the following verses taken from the very popular song in Serbia:

  "Tko to biva ka'd se previse sniva a premalo zna."

  "So it happens when one dreams a lot and knows so little."
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 3:40 pm
  

  It was one of the biggest days for the tribunal. It was the day when it had to violate one of its own rules, but the media did not care at all. It was the day when another prosecution witness had to be discredited for telling the truth, and no, not by the Accused, but rather by the prosecution themselves. It was the day when the trial was shown for what it really is.

  A real scandal in the court on Friday: The prosecutor Grum managed to “convince” the “objective” Judge May to break the tribunal’s rules and allow the prosecution to cross-examine its own witness and to question their credibility. One should not be surprised. This difficult day for the prosecution, which has already been badly beaten by the Accused and other witnesses, began when Dermot Groome accused the witness to be a ‘hostile witness’ for changing and eventually clarifying its testimony.

  The CIJ website reports that “had it (the cross-examination) not been allowed or not conducted so brilliantly, those who seek to manipulate and discredit the Tribunal would have furthered their cause. That they could not demonstrates the strength of the Tribunal in its pursuit of justice.”

  One must clearly believe this organization. They are not biased, but wait! One must only do some research to find “The Tribunal also receives support from the Coalition For International Justice, another PR organization. The CIJ was founded and is funded by George Soros' Open Society Institute and an organization called CEELI, the Central and East European Law Institute, which was created by the American Bar Association and lawyers close to the US government in order to promote the replacement of socialist legal systems with "free-market" systems. The above groups also have supplied many of the legal staff of the Tribunal. In her speech to the Supreme Court, Judge McDonald said, "The Tribunal has been well served by the tremendous work of a number of lawyers who have come to the Tribunal through the CIJ and CEELI..." It should also be noted that the occasion of Judge McDonalds speech was her acceptance of an award from the American Bar Association and CEELI. In the same speech she also said," We are now seeking funding from states and foundations to carry out this critical effort." (Peter Cohen, IS THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL A COURT OF JUSTICE?)

  Let’s move on and focus on something more positive. The prosecutor decided to once again introduce his bullet-type-questioning, shooting one question after another. Let us not forget that when the Accused does the same, Mr. May yells, “LET THE WITNESS ANSWE, NO, LET THE WITNESS ANSWER!” As we know from previous witnesses, the prosecution and the Defendant (I wonder why ‘judge May’ refers to him as the accused, when in other democratic courts, one is called the defendant?”)

  Vasiljkovic once again confirmed that Milosevic-Serbia had no control over his forces. On March 12, we will have the opportunity to see Helena Ranta.

  to be continued…
  
  Dan B
  Canada

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 3:58 pm
  One has to say that if a court can be manipulated so easily (accoring to CIJ), then it must be a bad court!
  
  Dan B
  Canada

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 4:45 pm
  The more history changes the more it is the same. Some people on this forum suggest that we should forget the past. I think one needs to be a “sophist” about historical events and at the same time skeptical about these same events. How else can we know what is right and what is wrong?

  The questions about the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Soros are very relevant to the breakup of Yugoslavia. For example the “Rambuet” ultimatum was a modern version of the 1914 Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia. In both cases the results for the Serbs were the same. Between the two Great Wars Yugoslavia, Romania and Czechoslovakia formed an alliance “The Little Entente” as a safeguard against the reemergence of Austro-Hungarian nationalism. The centre of this nationalism today is Hungary. Over a million and a half Hungarians live in Transylvania Romania, some half million in Vojvodina (Yugoslavia) and about the same number in Slovakia. The fact that Hungary gave weapons to Croatia was not that they loved Croats more than the Serbs but because their agenda is to unite these regions with the fatherland.

  Dan, Mr. May’s refusal to deal with history I think can be found in English Common Law and I can be corrected on this. For example if one drives with undue care and attention and gets into a car accident what becomes relevant in this case is the immediate event which caused the accident. The fact that the person was driving carelessly for an hour before the accident becomes relevant only if the witness who saw the accident and the driving up to the accident testifies to what they saw. When Mr. May tells Milosevic he will have a chance to deal with this when he presents his evidence I think that is what he means and at that time Mr. Neice will be able to bring in his expert historian to rebut. It will be interesting who this historian will be but I am not sure if both sides need to agree on the expertise of the chosen historian or not. It is not in the interest of the persecution to deal with issues of history as they just give Mr. Milosevic more ammunition.

  Dita, welcome to the forum. Like Anna stated almost every person on this forum is questioning what is justice? There are a lot of people on this forum who are not of Serbian ethnicity and I feel fortunate to read their material. Peter Taylor, for example, has provided reams of evidence about Kosovo and atrocities committed by the KLA while NATO continues to tell the world of their success story. Jari has provided the legal opinion on the trial as well as some historical background on the Balkans and I personally find his questions as those of a wise and informed person who provides evidence every step of the way. As to Gogol he has provided all of us on this forum with social criticism to help us as Jari said some time ago “to help us see ourselves as others see us”. Ian Davis, I think is a professor at Waterloo University, and I never got the sense that he was lecturing, he was discussing and for that reason I always looked forward to his posts. As to Vera Martinovich, I love her analysis just as I like your questions. A good question is always better than a good answer. What you want for yourself you must offer to others otherwise the vendetta never ends. Ms. Morningstar Jenny??? Jennifer??? or whatever her name is tells you that you have “ventured into the never-never land of historical revision” because she does not like the answers. As a result she calls the contributors to this forum nationalists and revisionists. She reminds me of the people in the child’s story the emperor’s new clothes where the emperor was naked but all the citizens raved about his beautiful clothes except one child who said “but he is naked”. Maybe Morningstar will shine some light “reason” on this discussion rather than opinions without any evidence. Dita, English criminal law states that “it is better that ninety nine percent of those who are guilty go free rather than one innocent person gets convicted”. That is one of many reasons for contributing to this forum.

  Daniel, I think that only some people on this forum believe “its better for Bobetko, Norac, Sljivicanin, Radic, Ademi etc to be tried by their own people!’ I think the issue here is not where the trial takes place; the issue is “justice”. If you see the Hague Tribunal as justice, tell me how it is just when many prominent international lawyers see it as a lynching. How is it justice when only Serbs are the accused and in most cases the only ones in jail? United Nations Criminal Justice Act should not differentiate because NATO happens to be ones patron. If America wants to establish international justice by tribunals for others, Americans should not be exempt from them. Daniel, I agree with you those national tribunals where extraterritoriality is involved and where national interests are involved are a farce. Lieutenant Calley and the Mi Lai Massacre trial was a farce. A young Muslim Canadian (16 years old) captured in Afghanistan is in jail in Guantanamo and has not seen a lawyer after almost a year in custody, while at the same time, an under age American captured at the same time had a lawyer and an immediate trial. When you mix justice with nationalism we all lose.

  Vera I have a friend who will be visiting Beograd second week in March I am going to give him your name to say hello. He is a retired teacher volunteering with a NGO and he will be visiting a school in Beograd. Is it OK for him to call (he only speaks English) and say hello????
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 4:56 pm
  

  That CIJ article failed to say, to quote captain Dragan denouncing the document he had in his hand waiving it to the court, an inaccurate transcript of the tape recorded declaration he gave to the prosecutors which he had refused to allow the prosecutors to use in any way or form. "That is the trouble--he said in his Australian accent--this document, I never agreed to it . . ."

  Mr. Groome (NATO) was not skillful, he was clumsy and angry and even judge May (NATO) warned him to reconsider his position before he went for the kill and destroyed Dragan's credibility. I wonder what kind of effect this new scorched earth tactic is going to have on futures undecided witnesses. For the sake of justice if there is any at the ICTY, it drops the veil behind which the prosecutors have so far being operating.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 5:11 pm
  

  Further the CIJ has the temerity to remind its readers that:

  Under ICTY rules, a witness can be indicted and prosecuted for giving false testimony, with a potential sentence of 100,000 Euros and seven years in prison (Rule 91). The same is true for anyone who "threatens, intimidates, . . . or otherwise interferes with, a witness" (Rule 77).

  Well, I can at least think of one good case when on Friday July 26 2002 Radimir Markovic made it clear how he had been black mailed and tortured after his arrest in Belgrade to force him to testify against Mr. Milosevic
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

  Friday February 21, 2003 at 5:12 pm
  

  
  
  G C
  USA

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 8:05 pm
  
  Blair to attend audience with Pope tomorrow, Saturday

  (-: There is no truth in the rumour that he is going to the Vatican to convince John Paul ll that he is God :-)

  However it is clear that Bloody Blair intends to try to advise the Pope that he is morally superior: that slaughtering a few hundred thousand Iraqi’s - to add to those thousands he and his cronies slaughtered in Serbia - will be an act of humanity: that those like the Pope who seek peaceful means, in the absence of a second UN Resolution, will ‘have blood on their hands’. Never underestimate the megalomania of this ‘conviction’ armchair warrior - as long as he manages to hang on to the coat tails of US Presidents.

  No doubt it is the spinner’s belief that any excuse is better than none which explains the string of excuses for war on Iraq fed to a not-as-gullible-as-in-Kosovo British public. First there were Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction: not found by the inspectors. Second was Saddam Hussein’s link with al-Qaeda: not established. Third was Iraq’s non-compliance with the weapons inspectors: not true at the time of the last report.

  Belated ‘Moral conviction’ is now Blair’s fourth attempt to justify his Bush war on Iraq. Succouring tyrants is out of fashion - this year. No quarter is to be given to innocent Iraqi’s in removing a tyrant cemented in power by British and US administrations. Forgotten is Blair’s pusillanimous handling of General Pinochet. Forgotten is Blair’s cowardly treatment of Peter Tatchell who was arrested by British police while attempting a citizen’s arrest in London on 30 October 1999.

  If moral behaviour has any meaning it must surely be based upon truth and consistency. Both of these concepts are foreign to Blair:

  I am sure it is not my fault if none are aware of Blair’s massive lies about Serb security forces in Kosovo not to mention other evidence of mendacity such as the so called Cheriegate affair and the fraudulent dossier on Iraq. Those who are not aware of Blair’s divorce from truth I recommend to read through posts above on this matter. So we’ll take the absence of truth as read and deal with his moral consistency.

  Warmonger extraordinaire, Great Enabler of Anglo/US aggression in Kosovo and now Iraq, bloody slaughterer with banned fragmentation bombs of Serbia’s Christians in support of Islamic terror including al-Qaeda. Now intended slaughterer of innocent Muslims in Iraq in his opposition to Islamic terror especially al-Qaeda. Consistency?

  One of the principle charges against Milosevic, as conveyed by Blair’s Balkan Viceroy Ashdown, was the disproportionate use of force, especially in the use of tanks, against Islamic terrorists who were randomly murdering Serb security forces, Serb civilians and loyal Kosovars. For those here who deny Islamic terror in Kosovo note that the ICTY has arrested four KLA minions on charges of crimes against humanity including torture and murder and has promised many more indictments.

  Now with just a hint of Islamic terror in London Blair surrounded Heathrow airport with tanks and two thousand of troops and armed police. This is something Ashdown’s evidence to the ICTY stated Britain had never done and would never do. I trust Judge May has noted this false evidence?

  What is the moral principle our conviction politician demonstrates here: Its OK for British forces to deploy tanks against Islamic terrorists, even only the threat of terror BUT it is not OK for the Serbs to deploy tanks against Islamic terrorists actually attacking them. This is moral nonsense.

  Disproportionate use of force. The inconsistency becomes even more absurd:

  Referring to "states of concern", and Saddam Hussein in particular, Mr Hoon told the committee: "They can be absolutely confident that in the right conditions we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons."

  On suspicion only that Iraq may provide al-Qaeda with weapons of mass destruction - supposing they exist - Blair is prepared to attack Iraq with the most lethal weapons know to man, including nuclear bombs “in the right conditions” as his Defence Minister Hoon has stated. Would you believe Blair was once a pacifist and a CND marcher? He now sprays radioactive ammunition about like confetti and threatens a non nuclear power with nuclear bombs. This is moral nonsense. One cannot cherry pick moral principles. ‘Moral is not moral which alters when it alteration finds’.

  Blair impatiently insists on Iraq’s compliance with UN Resolution 1441 on pain of war. But Blair the ‘Moral’ leader of Nato’s criminal attack upon Serbia does not demand compliance with UN Resolution 1244 even after almost four years. See for example the “material breaches” of Items 1, 4 and 6 of Annex 2: Being an immediate end to violence and repression, safe return to their homes of all displaced persons and return of Serbian personnel to protect key border crossings and patrimonial sites. God knows Kosovo’s minorities and their religious sites need to be protected by forces they can rely upon.

  In so far as leaked reports may be relied upon here is another embarrassing fact about Blair’s reluctance to explain the ring of steel around London’s International Airport Heathrow: Leaked British Intelligence reports suggest that air-to-air missiles have been smuggled in by Islamic terroristsin the Balkans. No wonder Phoney Tony is shy about revealing his sources.

  The common denominator in all this moral nonsense over Kosovo and now Iraq is Prime Minister Blair. As he calls for trust from the 90% of UK citizens who demand no war on Iraq without a specific UN Mandate why should anyone trust “Trust-me” Tony the Messianic warmonger who just two years ago was a friend and ally of Islamic terror in the Balkans: Blair a man who is not capable of comprehending the extreme absurdity of his position. A man who still tolerates Islamic terror in the Balkans - in the sense that he does not recognise it, say anything about it or do anything about it - while attacking it, where it does not exist, in Iraq.

  We do not hear any talk from ‘Moral’ Blair of the need for regime change in Kosovo because of the massive ethnic cleansing and continued violence against Kosovo’s minority populations. As Blair hams up his act of ‘moral outrage’ aided by his stock in trade portrayal of sincerity he continues to boast of the success of his ‘humanitarian’ intervention in Kosovo in order to bolster flagging support for his intended regime change in Iraq. Let us contemplate some awful truths about his last criminal enterprise:

  In Kosovo, the activities of the KLA and its various spin-off organisations are threatening the stability of the entire region. Besides its ongoing offensive actions against Serbia and terrorist campaigns in neighbouring Macedonia, the KLA is seeking to establish its undisputed control over the huge network of smuggling, racketeering and money laundering operations that now proliferate in the Balkans.

  “Kosovo remains essentially a lawless society, completely intolerant of ethnic minorities and one of the most dangerous places on earth.” For a population of two million inhabitants there are “40,000 troops, 5,000 international police and 5,000 local police yet the UN and NATO have proven totally unable to prevent murder, assassination, rape, robbery and intimidation on a daily basis” according to James Bissett, former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia, in the June 22, 2002 edition of Ottawa Citizen.

  On ‘Moral’ Blair’s weapon of choice in Serbia:
  ‘A lesson in war from Titian and the Medici’ by Simon Jenkins in today’s Times

  The violence unleashed by Saddam in the past, and possibly threatened in the future, is awful. The violence proposed against him is made no less awful by being well intentioned. There is no moral equivalence between Saddam and the West. But there is a moral equivalence in the means of slaughter. Fifteenth-century Florence would instantly recognise napalm’s flaying of bodies and the cluster-bomb’s dismembering of limbs. The bombing of the market in the Serbian town of Nis in 1999 was a grim reprise of Florence in 1478, except that the scattered heads and limbs were not guilty Pazzi but innocent civilians.

  
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 9:24 pm
  Jenny Morningstar How sad that you feel some are being persecuted on this forum. I wonder how you would feel if you were in Milosevic's shoes? It was impossible to conclude what your thoughts on the Trial are, since you were too busy trying to destroy the messenger(s) Just for instance, do you consider this a fair trial???? Does it bother you even a little that all of the witnesses have either been proven to be lieing or have openly sided with the Defense against the Prosecution's allegations. Maybe if you would try to make some intelligent observations, you wouldn't be "ignored" or "ripped to pieces". Might also help if you would be a bit less dramatic. I Haven't seen any pieces of flesh on here?????
  
  Rebecka Justice
  Portland, OR
  USA

• Friday February 21, 2003 at 10:27 pm
  Transcripts of testimony of General ALEKSANDAR VASILJEVIC are out. As Vera suggested they are excellent read, especially cross-examination on February 17 and 18, 2003.
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Saturday February 22, 2003 at 4:26 am
  After reading Peter Taylor's post I have this to say. It is a really bad thing that Nato has not been criminally charged for Yugoslavia. How can the US and the UK now threaten Iraq with nuclear weapons, and brag about it? It is getting more obvious that the problem is not the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction - if they exist in the first place - but the American and the British weapons of mass destruction, which are sure to exist: the American and British governments don't even have the prudence to keep quiet about them.

  I think none of this would be now happening if the British government had been punished for its use of cluster bombs in Serbia. What goes for the cluster bombs, goes for the nukes, only on a much larger scale: it is even pointless to speak about "collateral damage" in the event of a nuclear attack. And the moral posturing that goes with the possible use of the nuclear weapons is an echo of the humanitarian intervention in Kosovo.

  In case you thought it would stop at Iraq, think again. Some Americans are now demanding that the US should nuke France, because it is the real threat! http://www.lewrockwell.com/higgs/higgs15.html . I must say I have been anticipating this, but it is hard to believe the writer is not speaking tongue in cheek. Only a couple of days ago, a Townhall columnist called Chirac a thug! You see, it would have been in everybody's interests to punish Nato in time. Now the Americans are becoming a real threat. Any threat of a criminal investigation is going to get us all in a mushroom cloud. A few years ago, nobody would have believed the US would bomb Yugoslavia. I can't remember if I have said it aloud, but once that happened, the bombing of Western Europe became only a matter of time.

  Peter Taylor is also right: Tony Blair is out of control. It may indeed be thanks to Tony Blair that the Clinton administration adopted a Muslim-friendly policy in Europe and in the Middle East. Blair's large Muslim constituency in Britain should be no secret. Maybe Blair made Clinton and Albright see espousing the Muslim interests as a sign of European refinement, which may have appealed especially to Albright, and as another example of British diplomacy being far ahead of its time. It is also probable that the success of the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland made Bill and Tony overestimate Tony's diplomatic talents.

  I am just a little more pessimistic about the UN. Remember that it was the UN that authorized the anti-Iraq sanctions, which killed allegedly a million people. So to me, it seems pointless to wonder whether the US and the UK will get the Security Council authorization. The US will go ahead even without it - again an echo of the Kosovo bombing. Damn it, Carla, do something!
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland