MILOSEVIC TRIAL DISCUSSION ARCHIVE

Is Slobodan Milosevic getting a fair trial?
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• discussion archive

• Wednesday January 01, 2003 at 3:56 pm
  It is only a matter of time before the Quisling Djindjic sends former Serbian President, Milan Milutinovic, to The Hague. Rather than sit and wait for this inevitable humiliation, Mr Milutinovic could take steps to protect himself and his country. What would happen if Mr Milutinovic entered the US Embassy in Belgrade and asked for Political Asylum? Perhaps the Americans would drag him off to Belgrade airport and put him on the first flight to The Hague. I don't know what laws the US has governing asylum, but I am certain asylum seekers cannot be treated this way. Even were this to happen, then what would Mr Milutinovic have lost? However things might not be so straightforward for the Americans. If the US asylum process is anything like that in Britain, then the national courts are brought into play to decide if the asylum seeker has a reasonable fear of persecution. Imagine a US court operating under US laws examining the Hague Tribunal. The procedures and conduct of the Tribunal would be examined and the Tribunal itself would be judged. Would the Tribunal stand up to this judicial review? There are many people in the US who would like to extinguish the Tribunal, and Djindjic certainly has no love for the Hague upstarts. I suspect Mr Milutinovic would get a good deal of help in discrediting the Tribunal and thereby, possibly, escape its clutches. Am I naive or is this worth a try? Michael Thomas
  
  Michael Thomas
  London
  UK

• Wednesday January 01, 2003 at 5:21 pm
  Michael, this is an excellent idea. I love it.
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Wednesday January 01, 2003 at 8:19 pm
  
  Achilles’ Heel

  Carla del Ponte accused of incompetence.

  In his letter, Batic accused Del Ponte of failing to indict three ethnic Albanian leaders, something he claimed she in March had promised Serbian leaders to do. He accused Kosovo leaders Hashim Thaci, Ramush Haradinah and Agim Ceku of being responsible for atrocities against Serbs. Thaci and Haradinah are legislators in Kosovo's assembly and each heads a political party. Ceku is the head of the Kosovo Protection Corps, a civilian organization made up of former rebels.

  This is the Achilles heel of this so-called ICTY court of justice. Analysis of the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights’ Report on Kosovo 16 October 2002 Page 15 and the testimony of Bujar Bukoshi shows that at least 2,600 of the minority population of Kosovo and loyal Kosovars were abducted, murdered and hidden by the KLA and its variants. Add to that some 800 openly murdered and massacred since the end of Nato’s bombing campaign then we have a total of 3,400 victims - not to mention the hundreds also murdered in Kosovo by Nato’s bombs.

  There is no justification for not calling these KLA leaders before the ICTY in the Hague to explain these thousands of murders committed during their alliance with Nato: especially when the Serb leadership has been indicted on the basis of only a few hundred such murders in Kosovo! Why should the KLA leaders not also be called to account for the expulsion of some quarter of a million of the minority populations? Someone is responsible for these thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of injuries and hundreds of thousands of exiled minorities. These are massive crimes against humanity. To ignore them amounts to blatant PARTILITY in a court which claims to be a court of justice. The very meaning of the word justice implies IMPARTIALITY. Contradictions do not come any plainer than this.

  We all here know that the KLA leadership will never appear before the Hague court to answer these charges of crimes against humanity in spite of del Ponte’s many false promises that they would. Not because there is no evidence of these crimes: the UN OHCHR report and the testimony of Bukoshi make it clear that there is. Not because the KLA was not responsible: they were in charge on the ground. Not because of Hartmann’s dissembling “games”. BUT because Nato would be implicated thereby.

  Between Scylla and Charybdis

  The subtitle above loosely translated means ‘Between a rock and a hard place’ and that is exactly where del Ponte now finds herself. One more heave and the flawed superstructure of this court will crush the rotten pillars of Lies and Partiality upon which it is founded. Its façade of justice will collapse revealing a heap of nonsense for all to see.

  The ICTY court cannot have it both ways. Either it examines the leadership of BOTH SIDES in the Kosovo conflict for the crimes attributed to them by the UN OHCHR report and is therefore a JUST court. Or it tries ONLY ONE SIDE in the conflict for these crimes and is therefore an UNJUST court. There is no middle way.

  This truth is as plain as the proverbial pikestaff. Nato’s propaganda - shall we call it by its proper name: lies “Rape camps. Deaths camps. Tens of thousands slaughtered” - has a shelf life. This then is the verdict which history must yield on the ICTY in The Hague: Guilty of Injustice. Most people are decent and fair-minded. They will not knowingly tolerate this subversion of their justice systems due to political calculation. This verdict may not be long in coming as more and more prominent citizens wake up to the facts, the truth:

  “The problem in the Balkans is that the war-crimes tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands, for the former Yugoslavia is running roughshod over the basic principles of justice and fair play it was mandated to enforce.” Professor Grace Vuoto, Howard University.

  Source: The Washington Times

  So-called Justice at The Hague: Its all Greek to me and some of it Double Dutch.
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Wednesday January 01, 2003 at 8:30 pm
  
  Achilles' Heel
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Wednesday January 01, 2003 at 8:43 pm
  

  Interesting the many usages and roles of the media since the Washington Times is a moony newspaper owned by the South Korean Rev. Moon and its church. I wish the story would have been in the more close to the government ideology Washington Post a newspaper which if it were outside of Europe or North America would been referred to as semi official
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn. USA

• Wednesday January 01, 2003 at 9:00 pm
  

  Washington dislikes Carla del Ponte, that is for sure, for the simple reason she conceded perhaps NATO should come under investigation. I have US Congress literature to that regard qualifying her from distasteful to incompetent for bitting the hand who feeds her. I think she is both as well as ugly looking.

  Just my opinion, my own personal opinion.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn. USA

• Wednesday January 01, 2003 at 10:19 pm
  The Washington Times goes berserk anytime Croatians or Nato are threatened with indictiments of alleged war criminals. They must either have family members or someone with a lot of clout working on their right wing newspaper who are Croatian.This is not the first article pro Croats printed in the WT. Maybe Stella will give them a good response.

  I doubt that Del Ponte, whose face has broken a thousand mirrors, will follow through. We all know who calls the shots,and she is just a stooge. It gives me great pleasure to read this and visualize the writer‘s blood pressure zooming upward.

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 1:02 am
  Yes, Peter, Prof. Grace Vuoto came to all the right conclusions, as you quoted (source: The Washington Times): 'the tribunal is behaving in a sloppy and high-handed manner', 'Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor, is presiding over an office that is out of control and drunk with power', 'This prosecutor would be laughed out of every courtroom in the Western world', 'The Hague is treating Balkan countries as though they were second-rate fiefdoms', 'It is clear that Mrs Del Ponte must resign'. All this is more than true; but look at the motives for Ms Vuoto's rage against the hapless Carla: the latter has dared to indict two Croatian generals (Gotovina and Bobetko) and has even 'begun to make inquiries into the American role in the Operation Storm'! So, until this modern-day Inquisition steps on your own toes (or on those of your precious 'allies who will be vital in the war on terrorism' - read: Croatia), everything is spick and span. But the moment the 'broad and vague indictments against leading Croatian Generals' are issued, the ICTY is reprimanded for accusing these men not 'of a specific crime, but simply of "command responsibility" for isolated crimes that took place during major military operations' (?!). Ms Vuoto, tell that to General Krstic and to Milosevic, it might help them. My guess is Ms Vuoto has been commissioned by Croatia to write this article. A professor of European history at Harvard, she demonstrates her deep respect of sovereignty, particularly the recent one: 'The Hague is thus failing to respect the national sovereignty of this newly independent nation' ; she calls upon Mr Bush to demonstrate leadership 'by protecting the rights of weaker nations and calling to account this arrogant court'. However, the obvious nature of this article notwithstanding, it simply shows that the ICTY has started to act like all monsters created by mad scientists do (Does it not remind you of Bin Laden, once a useful ally against the USSR?) and if it brings about its own demise by picking on the wrong targets, i.e. protected fiefdoms or even the Protector itself, I won't look a gift horse in the mouth.

  Jari, not only the Prosecution changed its mind re the number of missing people allegedly taken from the Vukovar Hospital, it also liberally changed the nature of its accusations from one version of the indictment to the next. I'm talking about the indictments against the 3 JNA officers (Mrksic, Radic, Sljivancanin), ex-Major of Vukovar Dokmanovic (who conveniently committed suicide using a hinge on his otherwise flush cell door) and Milosevic. All these people were accused of the same alleged atrocity at Ovcara Farm (Milosevic also of many others). It is most instructive to follow the development in the description of the same event in all these indictments. And mind you, this development didn't come about because of any forensic report made in the meantime was attached to the new version of the indictment. No, the Prosecution just continues to be vague, imprecise, never talks about bodies found, just about persons missing and/or not seen anymore; it never mentions any forensic investigation at all. And the development in the story? The first Indictment, against 3 JNA officers, is from Oct. 1995 and it clearly accuses JNA to have perpetrated the torturing and killing: in point 10, it describes how 'JNA and Serb paramilitary soldiers' were beating the captive men, killing at least two, and in points 11, 12 and 13 it describes the killings at Ovcara, where 'JNA and Serb paramilitary troops, under the command and supervision of Colonel Mile MRKSIC, Captain Miroslav RADIC and Major Veselin SLJIVANCANIN were assembled on the north side of the site.' Pretty clear-cut case, wouldn't you say? They were present, commanded the shooting (extremely precise description: 'these soldiers, firing in a southerly direction, shot and killed about 260 men') and that's that. Not so. The Amended Indictment against the same 3 JNA officers, plus Slavko Dokmanovic, from April 1996, has exactly the same description of events as the previous version, only the name of Dokmanovic has been added in points 10 and 13, as being present at the beatings and the killings. But then comes the Initial Indictment against Milosevic, from 2001. Here, in point 49, the perpetrators are 'Serb military forces under the command, control or influence of the JNA, the TO SBWS [Territorial Defence of Srem, Baranja and Western Slavonia] and other participants of the joint criminal enterprise'. And in the Second Amended Indictment against Mile Mrksic, from August 2002, the JNA is no longer involved in beatings and killings at all: the JNA soliders only 'humiliated and threatened' the captive men while still within the JNA barracks (point 24); during that time, a meeting of the local authorities and the JNA was held, where the JNA 'accepted to transfer the captive men to the Ovcara Farm' and to 'leave them to be guarded by the local Serb forces' (point 25); there were no more Mrksic, Radic & Sljivancanin assembled on the north side of the site, as in the first version (Where did they disappear? Were the charges against them dropped?) - now the local Serb forces were 'commanded by Miroljub Vujovic and Stanko Vujanovic' and they did the beatings and the killings (no firing in a southerly direction this time). And two more interesting things: a) while savagely beating these captive men (no mentioning of killing two by beating them, as it was in the first version - Why? These are two human lives in question, not two mosquitoes, but for our Prosecution it was obviously colourful to put that detail the first time around, with no names of course, and to omit this the second time. Who writes this stuff?!), the vile & stupid Serbs actually let approx. seven captive men go, upon the intervention of somebody present - they drove them back to Vukovar (?!), to tell the story urbi et orbi. And b) the Serbs even made up a list containing info on the identity of all the remaining men and 2 women, and then started to organize them in groups of 10-20 for the execution (point 27). The person who wrote this must be of German origin, or someone who has been reading documents from Nazi-organized executions during WW2. The Serbs to compile a list of something, let alone of people they are about to execute!

  Let me tell you about the executions. I have been lucky, as I hope all of you have been as well, to never be involved in an armed battle. These are the words from a Serb guy from Vukovar who was not that lucky. He was an electrician, calm and peaceful as only exceptionally hulky people can be - wouldn't hurt a fly, as the saying goes. He explained to my mother, after the hostilities were over, about the 'no prisoners' rule held by both sides during violent three-month street fights. "What Geneva Conventions? They were civilians, we were civilians. We were watching across the no-man's land how they were killing our men who had been captured: first they would cut his arms, then his legs… We were humane: we would make him dig his own grave, then we would shoot him in the head."

  What do you think made the Prosecution change its mind about the JNA involvement in the Ovcara case?
  
  Vera Martinovic
  Belgrade
  Yugoslavia

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 2:20 am
  This was from September of 2002 Washington Times: Hold the Hague accountable

  Jeffrey T. Kuhner

  Since ancient Greece, one of the central questions in Western political life is: "Who guards the guardians."

  This is especially pertinent regarding the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague.

  The tribunal was created in 1993 by the United Nations Security Council; it was charged with the responsibility of bringing to justice those who committed war crimes during the violent break up of Yugoslavia.

  Sadly, The Hague has been a disappointment: The prosecutor`s office has engaged in abuses of power and issued flawed indictments that pose a threat to U.S. national interests.

  The most obvious example of the tribunal`s incompetence is the current trial of former Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

  This has been a public relations disaster for The Hague, as Mr. Milosevic has put the prosecutor`s office on the defensive, charging that he is the victim of a Western smear campaign.

  Despite the overwhelming evidence that the Butcher of Belgrade masterminded the ethnic-cleansing campaigns in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, the prosecution has so far failed to document Mr. Milosevic`s numerous crimes.

  These include the destruction of Vukovar, the massacre of more than 7,000 civilians at Srebrenica, the savage shelling of Sarajevo, and the murder of countless ethnic Albanians, whose graves are now being discovered all over Serbia.

  The tribunal`s chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte ? like most European leftists ? is uncomfortable with the notion of moral absolutes.

  She refuses to acknowledge that Mr. Milosevic in particular, and the Serbs in general, bear the brunt of responsibility for the war crimes committed in the Balkans. Hence, she is looking for an ethnic scapegoat to offset the complaints from Belgrade that her office is demonstrating "bias" against the Serbs. Mrs. Del Ponte believes she has found it in the Croats.

  In June 2001, the prosecutor`s office issued an indictment for Croatian Gen. Ante Gotovina on charges that he exercised "command responsibility" over a 1995 military operation in which Zagreb recovered territories seized by rebel Serb forces during Croatia`s successful drive for independence in 1991.

  The operation resulted in the mass exodus of 150,000 ethnic Serbs from Croatia. The United States supported the offensive because it rightly concluded that Croatia was pivotal to altering the strategic balance of power in the Balkans.

  The operation not only restored Croatia`s territorial integrity, but also paved the way for the Dayton peace agreement that ended the war in neighboring Bosnia.

  The Gotovina indictment is deeply flawed; it is also revolutionary in its implications for international criminal law. The theory of "command responsibility" violates the basic tenet of the definition of a war crime ? the principle of personal responsibility for one`s actions.

  The Croatian general is not accused of individually committing or ordering atrocities; he is simply guilty of being in "command" when alleged war crimes were committed. The ultimate goal of the indictment is not only to punish the Croats for exercising their legitimate right to self-defense, but to make war itself a crime.

  Rather than dropping the charges against Gen. Gotovina, Mrs. Del Ponte`s office is now examining whether to expand the indictment to include high-ranking U.S. officials ? such as former President Bill Clinton ? on the grounds that they exercised ultimate "command responsibility" for the operation.

  Troubled by the implications of the Gotovina indictment, the State Department has asked the prosecutor`s office to transfer cases involving Croatian military officials back to the domestic courts in Zagreb. But Mrs. Del Ponte continues to thumb her nose at the United States, demanding that Gen. Gotovina be arrested and sent to The Hague to face trial.

  Furthermore, the prosecutor`s office is abusing its powers. ICTY spokesman, Florence Hartmann, has directly lobbied journalists and media outlets in Croatia, demanding that pro-Gotovina coverage be dropped. She has sought to bully and intimidate reporters asking about the ICTY`s basis for the Gotovina indictment. Mrs. Del Ponte is now requesting that her mandate as chief prosecutor be extended past its September 2003 expiration deadline until Mr. Milosevic`s trial is over.

  Instead of renewing her mandate, the Bush administration should demand an independent investigation of Mrs. Del Ponte`s office for its abuses of power, its unethical indictment of Gen. Gotovina and its utter incompetence in prosecuting the greatest mass murderer of the late-20th century. At the very least, the United States should use its veto at the U.N. Security Council next year to block Mrs. Del Ponte`s reappointment. Washington must hold The Hague accountable for its actions. If it doesn`t, who will?

  Jeffrey T. Kuhner is an assistant national editor at The Washington Times.

  Wahington Times has also published articles about Serb atrocities in Vukovar and Ms. Stella Jatras always responds on behalf of the Serbian people.

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 3:25 am
  It seems the Washington Times has difficulty sorting out the prosecution's case against Milosevic. On the other hand, as soon as Gotovina is charged on the basis of "command responsibility", the WT suddenly realizes how flawed this charge is. It even violates even the principle of (fill in the blank space).

  Somehow, that doesn't apply to Milosevic. Doesn't the WT know that the Kosovo charges against him revolve entirely around "command responsibility"? I think that it is the WT that is busy bringing itself into disrepute, not the prosecution.

  I also think the following paragraph speaks for itself:

  "Despite the overwhelming evidence that the Butcher of Belgrade masterminded the ethnic-cleansing campaigns in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, the prosecution has so far failed to document Mr. Milosevic`s numerous crimes."

  Might there not be something self-contradictory in that statement? Is the WT all-knowing just because it is owned by Moon? If Bush indeed acts on the advice of the WT, The Hague will be in an even bigger mess that it is now. By then, the WT will be part of the problem.

  It is indeed conceivable that the US might block Del Ponte's reappointment next year, as Kuhner suggests. If they will, let them, as long as they realize that the reason the prosecution has nothing against Milosevic might be that there is nothing. But it is extremely hard to acknowledge on is wrong, even to a newspaper. Why does the WT accuse the prosecution of not identifying the individual Croat soldiers that killed the Serbs, when the paper is perfectly content to issue such sweeping accusations against Milosevic as the "Butcher of the Balkans"?

  If we are to find a common ground here let it be this: the Croat individual soldiers did kill the Serbs, as the WT admits, and so did the Serb soldiers kill Croats. That was part of the job description, and in as much these killings were carried out in contravention of the international humanitarian law, the responsibility should stop there, unless something is proven to the contrary. In Slobo's case we have Markovic's testimony that he issued instructions not to harm the civilians. If the Gotovina team were to show comparable instructions from the Croat leadership, this discussion with the WT might have some promise of leading somewhere.

  I know I am saying nothing new here, but with a monstrosity like ICTY, one never knows what is actually new.

  Neither is there anything much to say about Colonel Mile MRKSIC, Captain Miroslav RADIC and Major Veselin SLJIVANCANIN. All the criticisms we can level here follow the same trusted pattern which is evident in the earlier cases. It is clear, for instance, that in the Krstic judgment, the Trial Chamber was "satisfied" there were thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys massacred at Srebrenica. This was needed to nail Milosevic, who had just been transferred to The Hague. Never mind that in the earlier Erdemovic judgement the Trial Chamber had been content to put the figure of the Srebrenica massacre at 1,200 (supposing it was the same massacre, which the prosecution should of course sort out first).

  In the Erdemovic via Krstic case, however, the judgments had a cumulative effect. The lower levels of the hierarchy were held responsible for lesser massacres, while the higher echelons were held accountable for the sum total of all the deaths. That would be in line with the "command responsibility".

  However, in the case against Colonel Mile MRKSIC, Captain Miroslav RADIC and Major Veselin SLJIVANCANIN, this pattern is broken. The prosecution is so eager to build a case against Milosevic that it forgets that in order to get him convicted on the basis of "command responsibility", his possible subordinates (in this case M, R & S) should be found guilty first.

  In as much as the Milosevic is accused of Vukovar on the basis of his participation in the joint criminal enterprise pursuant to Art. 7(1) of the Statute (of all things), M, R & S should be included in the joint criminal enterprise first. This doesn't seem to be the case. This is a clear case of the prosecution contradicting itself, and we are instantly reminded of the Latin maxim allegans contraria non est audiendus.

  Of course, the prosecution supposed no-one would be that interested in the case against Colonel Mile MRKSIC, Captain Miroslav RADIC and Major Veselin SLJIVANCANIN, so they thought they could take some liberties here. Ah, but they didn't know us. I certainly would never have looked into the charges against them, but this is exactly what a discussion like this is good for.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 3:42 am
  At the risk of belabouring the point, I think the idea of justice and impartiality (which Peter Taylor dwelt on) are exactly what that intellectual plague called deconstruction will undermine first. I would say: almost by definition. In deconstruction, you take individual words or acts out of context (or what we would call the context) and build a new context around them. Does this somehow remind you of the case against the Serbs (or Milosevic, as it is called)? So don't give us snobs who speak of "underlying matrix". Deconstruction means that such an underlying matrix is the first to go through the window.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 9:26 am
  Mr Trkla I was writing about your comment asking Plavsic if she believed there was honor in Belgrade goverment. I dont think she believe that. But that not an important point to argue in every case.

  I dont know where you get facts for Albanians in Belgrade but 100,000 is realy too much. Maybe 30,000 or 50,000 but I think less. Maybe Vera will know this. It is not clear which time you are talking about conflict (inside Serbia?). It is true that Croats, Albanians and Bosnians were much safer in Belgrade than Serbs in Zagreb who had to ran away or now live there pretend to be Croats which what they increasing have to do but they have no choice. Sometime I read there were 200,000 Croats liveing in Belgrade but who knows who made such statistic and how. But it is also fact that Croat Serbs and Bosnian Serbs were made to fight on the front if they were found in centre of Belgrade (I was in Belgrade in this time). More contraversi thing after this is being taken through court process when some guys were forced in to paramilitary groups and humiliated and threatened, Im not sure if they were allegate they were assaulted as well, by their ‘commanders’. I know that some Croats left Zemun during the time of Seselj - maybe this is good time to admit having Croat cousin in Croatia. Some Croatian friend of his were called on phone threating to beat they were told Serb refugees should take their house. I dont know what happen after that but of course its small when you look at what happened against Serbs in Croatia. Also some Croats left Vojvodina, I suppose thinking the war might come to their door during war but I think most came back again. On other side supose that Serbia was safe place in old Yug, because untill Kosovo there was no war so its logical refugees would come to Belgrade.

  Mr Jaramaz I don’t need lecture on refugees trust me. The statistic you quoted is in fact higher, 44 percent would chase out remaining Serbs from GFK marketting agency in ZG. 15 percent would even throw out the Slovenes! But its not so strange in some way. How many Albanians would answer such a poll for Serbs or Serbs for Albanians. The next one is yes I know about Croats in Serbia, but how many Serbs would feel hospitable if Croat paramilitary or regular forces had been conflict inside Serbia? As well no lecture about Serbs living in Croatia from beginning. I know that.

  As for facts there are still 450,000 refugees in Serbia. Imagine that. It makes me so crazy that nobody outside is helping them, apart from in small way. Serbian government has sold them because it don’t want to hit ‘west’ with this statisitc. Instead Serb government want foreign credits…. In Croatia there are I think now less than 50,000 refugees but still these so called veteran groups have very big influence on politik when ours (refugees) have no influence. There are 250,000 displaced person in serbia including many Gypsies and Serbs. To Mr Bora there are no acurate fact available for Albanians who cant go back to Kosovo. Im interested to know where you found this statistic? I can find statistic for Croatian Serb return but it will be some time. In every case it is mostly old people and district usually in place like Istrija and part of Slavonija. The statistic is sporno (controvers) because many of ours just go back temporary to pick up pension and see whats going on, so the statistic is not for sure. Even worse many go back to see if they can sell their old house. Of course you also have to be careful not to be on the Croats secret list of war criminals. Thanks god Veritas NGO (not foundation, like somebody wrote before, foundation gives out money, Veritas is not rich) is helping them to find that. Strubac, director used to be judge in Zadar and is defending Serb right. So if anybody wants to say something bad about NGO they should think about VERITAS. If after they see what Veritas is doing and still calls NGO people traitors and so on they are sick. Somebody already posted web page. Take a look.

  Sitatuion for return is much better, supose it could not be worse, for Bosnia thanks god or thanks to usually unpopular western authorities in ‘power’. In this case Im talking about Serbs returning to Bosnia Federation and Croat , Bosnijak/muslim to Republika Srpska, which I hope all people will agree is good news. It is good for Serbs to be back in their houses in Sarajevo so equally I want Croats back in Banja Luka. One does not come without other. I have also seen conditions in which Serb refugees live some of them are not even official. They receive pathetic ration. It is terrible thing to see. When you read subject that everybody (especialy media) avoid like this in Serbia and world it breaks your heart. They are silent ones with nobody to talk for them. They have nothing. So Im sorry sometime I get a little angry when I hear some theory about this and that why ‘we’ are right and ‘they’ are wrong. We should put effort into helping refugees not to try to make ourselves feel better about ourself or our nation which is very small, selfish thing to do.

  Then we should ask about gypses who are being returned by Germany in some secret deal with Serbian government many thousand are suposed to return to Kosovo, already planes arrive from Germany. Where do they go? What can Serb state offer them? They have no place so they go to shanti towns under bridges in Belgrade, Obrenovac. You have to look really good to find this information. Who will fight for them? Apart maybe from some Soros foundation NGO maybe if they are lucky? Its not a joke. I know a gypsy leader from Belgrade who says he only got money for social club and classrooms for gypsies from Soros. Nobody else has interest. What should he do? Refuse the money because it comes from capitalist pig? Good theory but it doesn think about real people.

  So that it. Much more important to me thousands of people betrayed by their own side, enemies and west. So when I see Milosevic at Hague excuse me for not feeling sad. Its not him that deserves the pity, its our victims and we have more victims on our own soil to worry about than one man who never went down to Kosovo (part from the famous times) or Krajina, never visited refugee camp. I would love to see something about this man humanitarian work. What did this man do for his own people? I wont even go far to blame for his abandon of Krajina.. What did he do exactly to deserve such defence from many clever people? He was ours! And why we have trouble to admit what a curse he has been to our nation? O of course because he is at Hague..

  So why not make ridiculous comment about how one woman from exreme right, Ms Jatras or one man, Milosevic represents view of all Serbs? That view makes about third of Serbian nation together. Two third of nation is closer to my view but I still do not say my view is ‘Serbian’ view. We Serbs are not some backwater tribe who are represented by only one person who by instinct know what there people think. Our society is not as backward as to only hve one opinion on basis of ethnic nation and thanks god for that.

  So these are questions I always asking. As I say before generaly agree with many of you but think that because of the excess of those real anti Serbs and other ones who accuse us of collectiv guilt can sometime make overreact the other way. Finally how do we oppose tribunal, is it because people are against idea of so called global justice or is it because we are against this kind of global (in)justice? Worse, how many US nationalist Busists are using us and have jumped to defend Milosevic to make sure their crininaly precious Americans or British are never put in the court? Who will answer for civilians killed all over Yugoslavia? Then do we want a fair trial of Milosevic or do we want an unfair one so we can say we were right all the time? If we constantly asking questions of other view we should also prepare to ask ourselvfs same question

  If you only question motiv of others and not your own you are not a man just pawn.
  
  D Markovic
  Yug

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 9:46 am
  The connection is bad here. Sorry for sending two times.

  About Milutinovic do not spare feelings for him. He was puppet of Djindjic who may sell his secrets to Hague very soon. He was also famous for winning Serb President with fantom Kosovo Albanian voters. In that election mysterious 30 percent of albanians decided to vote. They never did that before and never after. Thats something SPS supporters never manage to explain.

  About Mihajlovic that Vera Martinovic talks about. He was one of Milosevic crony when his party New Democracy was in league with SPS. If anything he has intrest in covering up bodies in Serbia because people remember association with Milosevic and him.

  Whole problem of dead bodies found in Serbia is that politican cannot use it against other politican. When Milosevic was here they sudenly found bodies but as soon as he gone the investigation go quiet. Make no mistake bodies are there and chances are most are Albanian. And before anyone say that I should wait. I dont need to wait. I know the way war conducted. As you say Vera prisoners were not taken. I will not try to defend something bad as this. Maybe ones who deny bodies should wait because they will or should feel shame later on. If I am wrong of course then I would be crazy with anger and hit with guilt but I hope I am wrong in this case.

  It is matter of fact that Mesic has done more to help return of Serbs than most Croats. He didnt do enough. He said some disgust things. But lets not be simple. Show me a clean politican in this space and I will show you liar.
  
  D Markovic
  Smbr
  Yug

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 10:11 am
  

  The point is that there is nothing FAIR or JUST about this mascarade of Western justice impossed on a people, a nation whether you like Mr. Milossevic or not!

  And by insisting in keeping it at it the West, NATO and the whole effort behind it is taking the path, the historical path of no return. I, for one refuse to be part of it and I suggest this line of action for all before it is too late.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn. USA

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 11:05 am
  Gogol thank for your comments but you dont answer any of those difficult questions that we all have responsibility to answer. Do you believe there should be global justice or you just dont believe in this kind of global (in)justice? Do you have alternative to global justice? It is very easy to take opinion on something without giving alternative.

  I will continue to take line that I am against this bias tribunal but will not do Milosevic dirty work for him. That is only way not to become as dirty as players in this whole sharade.

  My personal feelings in direction of Milosevic are because of his actions or inactions but in end not important. Ones who are important are victims of his, western, Croat, Bosnian - all sides policy. I beg everyone here not to forget these ones.
  
  D Markovic
  Yug

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 11:13 am
  I have met many people who know Mrs Plavsic very well. They tell me she is a strong, opinionated woman who rubs people up the wrong way (irritates people). For most of the war she was in Belgrade living the good life in the Republika Srpska “embassy” in the plush Dedinje district of Belgrade. I understand that while in Belgrade she also managed to alienate much of the Serbian public by calling Serbs in Serbia cowards and traitors for not going to fight in Bosnia. Plavsic does is not the sort of person to have a change of heart; she has her beliefs and she sticks to them. During her Hague appearance Mrs Plavsic expressed her sorrow for the suffering of innocent people, a sentiment few would disagree with, but significantly she did not condemn the formation of Republika Srpska, and she remains as hostile to the idea of a united Bosnia as she was in 1992. Milan Babic recently testified against President Milosevic because he feared the Tribunal. While Babic is weak and pathetic, Plavsic is clearly strong and determined (if not always wise). Unlike Babic, Plavsic did not testify to save her own neck. Had her case gone to trial, she would certainly have won (although probably be found guilty). As it is she had made her “confession” to the Witch finder General and now awaits her punishment. Why did Plavsic change her plea? I presume Mrs Plavsic has an extended family in Bosnia, some of who will have served in the army of Republika Srpska. How likely is it that the Tribunal, desperate to avoid a Plavsic Trial and yet equally desperate to secure a conviction, blackmailed Mrs Plavsic? She either changed her plea or her favourite grandson would charged with crimes against humanity. Mrs Plavsic is in the hands of truly dreadful people. I think we should reserve our judgement of this old lady until she is free to speak he mind without fear of persecution.
  
  Michael Thomas
  London
  UK

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 11:32 am
  

  The question about international JUSTICE is an old one since relations between nations are optimally conducted under some rule and rules are in many instances disputable. In general a law is made by the highest degree of concensus of a legislative body can achieve provided it is empowered to do so. The present ICTY and its rules is nothing of the sort and it actually works against the establishing of a lasting and acceptable for all international justice. The new International Criminal Court works towards that goal and as you know the United States while supporting, in fact being the creator of the ICTY, pushing for another ad hoctribunal for Cambodia and setting aside a budget about another one in Iraq, categorically rejects the ICC where it could be held account on the principle of one law for all .

  In regard to Mr. Milosevice's crimes, you seem to be saying all politicians are equally responsible and defending Mr. Milosevic only plays in the hands of the tribunal. And that is the position of many in attempting to apply the same principle, one law for all , that includes putting to trial Clinton, Blair, Kohl and their respective henchmen, indeed it could be a far more interesting trial and perhaps more edifying for the future of mankind. At the moment were not there yet.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn. USA

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 12:18 pm
  The following has nothing to do with the Milosevic trial, but I thought it interesting.

  I am reading “The First World War” written by John Keegan. There is quite a bit about the Serbians in this book. Descriptions of a small Serbia who fought bravely and many times won their battles.King Peter unlike any other royalty tht I ever heard of, who fought alongside his people. The English like to throw around the word ...barbarians... re Serbians but they were not any less../. who came to Plymouth Rock but the English, and we know who started the scalping business.

  The author writes that the Serb nation suffered more then any other during this war. Reading his book you find the small Serbian nation fighting for independence from powerful nations from what seems like the beginning of time.

  I always wondered what happened to Gavrilo Princip and the book points out that he died from tuberculosis in a prison in 1918. Was and is he a hero to the Serbian people?

  I am not finished with the book but so far I feel the Serbian people have a lot to be proud of. I hope they remember their past before they again sell any of their own to the Kangaroo court.

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 12:25 pm
  I want to make it clear that I made the comment regarding the English and Plymouth Rock. The author did not do that. The book is by no means intended as a love song to the Serbs.

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 12:37 pm
  

  Kathryn

  I hope you enjoy the book, however John Keegan is, to put it mildly a doubtful historian. He admitted being a plagiarists also.

  I would suggest reading THE SERBS, The Guardians of The Gate by R.G.D. Laffan, written in 1917 and relating to the role of Serbia in the Great War.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn. USA

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 3:36 pm
  So many questions by Mr. Markovic and I find many of your comments about Milosevic anecdotal. At times I find some of the things you say contradictory; nevertheless, I am in total agreement with you that the common man has been forgotten in this discussion. Other than Peter Taylor’s timely comments on Kosovo the focus has been on the ‘big fish eating the little fish’. We are making, I think, moral choices on past and future event that must be made even when we are indignant and helpless to change things for the better.

  Our views has been shaped by anger in some cases, by our view of justice in other cases but I think mostly by the fact that international justice is being trampled on in The Hague. For me I am a Canadian of Serbian heritage raised in a family where individual character was a measure of a person not ones nationality. Combine this with my love history you may say that this colors my view but I expose this view to your scrutiny

  There is no moral reason for what NATO did to Yugoslavia and there is even less morality for how different sides exploited this criminality. It disappoints me that the intelligencia allowed the worst elements of tribalism to roam unimpeded. Now it is easy to blame one man for his reactive policies to save Yugoslavia. Mr. Markovic I challenge you to show me one example where Milosevic was proactively engineering the demise of the country. I am not writing here about events during the civil war but events that led up to it.

  The guardian of international justice is supposed to be the charter of the United Nations. Unfortunately, this guardian of international justice has been subverted, manipulated and blackmailed to carry out the global agenda of the multinational corporation with their headquarters in New York, London Paris and Berlin. Common person that you and I speak of Mr. Markovic is expendable and even the most skeptical on this forum can see that.

  The Western foreign policy America, Britain and so on) is based on the economic principle of law of diminishing returns, opportunity cost and the theory of utility. That means do whatever is necessary to get the biggest ‘bang for your buck’. Where does international justice fit into this picture? It does not fit since treaties, conventions, and the laws do not serve their needs on how they want to restructure the world. What better example of this than what we have been writing about on this forum.

  Mr. Markovic, I agree with Gogol when he writes that “that there is nothing FAIR or JUST about this masquerade of Western justice imposed on a people, a nation whether you like Mr. Milosevic or not!” It seems to me that you waffle on this issue when you say an injustice is being committed at The Hague but it is OK because you don’t like Milosevic. For me I am concerned with this present international immorality since I don’t see an end to it (Iraq is next) and those who are responsible for this immorality are subverting the Charter of the United Nations and trampling on the rights of common people that they swore to protect. In my previous posts I have stated that this is similar to a cop on the beat who breaks the law in order to enforce it.

  Personally, Mr. Markovic, I am interested in justice but the more I see even our courts at work here in Canada the more skeptical I have become about the law. I think more and more the Golden Rule applies in international and domestic jurisprudence. Those that have the gold make the rules.

  Mr. Markovic, choices in war are made in terms of winners and losers and never in terms of what is good for the common person. We must expose the lie that the end justifies the means. Happy New Year to you all and may we see Carla Del Ponte at the Hague continue to “cut off her toe to fit her shoes”.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 4:50 pm
  

  Mr. Markovic, Let me answer first to your direct question. The number that I gave on 30000 displaced Albanians in Serbia comes from my friends from Zemun/Belgrade. Till now their data was right. I have no reason not to trust them now. If it is wrong I apologize to every one on the board that I misled. Take this data with caution please.

  I am glad that you are mentioning Veritas NGO as an example of a good one. Veritas URL: http://www.veritas.org.yu/About_us.html

  Veritas is run buy the Serbs, not by Mr. Soros or any other New World Order sponsors. Veritas exist not because, but despite the "help" of the New World Order Community at large. Nobody here is against a real NGO or the concept. The ones that we are dealing with in this discussion are ones that failed to do their job and are more in a business of manufacturing false evidence, than helping people in the Balkans.

  Mr. Milosevic was accused for spreading hatred in former Yugoslavia by the ICTY. His speech at Kosovo battlefield was used as an example. To make Mr. Milosevic sound bad his whole speech was recklessly miss quoted. You said something like: "Mesic said some disgust things. But let's not be simple." Mr. Mesic even admitted to this in the court. If Mr. Milosevic ever said something close to what Mr. Mesic have said he would be hanged for that and NATO bombs would have flattened Belgrade many years ago. Every one in the ICTY already knows that. If this has happened in any decent court the chamber of judges and prosecution would be dismissed and the case would be moved to another court. You may believe that this is justice but I will never accept it as such.

  By placing Mrs. Jantras to the extreme right tells me how little you know about here and that you have never seriously read anything written by her. By placing Mr. Milosevic to the extreme right tells me that you do not want to know that Mr. Milosevic and his wife were and are devoted communists and that because of that they are enemies of Mr. Soros and the New World Order Masters.

  Mr. Markovic you say: "Then we should ask about gypsies who are being returned by Germany in some secret deal with Serbian government many thousand are supposed to return to Kosovo, already planes arrive from Germany. Where do they go? What can Serb State offer them? They have no place so they go to shantytowns under bridges in Belgrade, Obrenovac. You have to look really good to find this information. Who will fight for them? Apart maybe from some Soros foundation NGO maybe if they are lucky? It's not a joke. I know a gypsy leader from Belgrade who says he only got money for social club and classrooms for gypsies from Soros. Nobody else has interest. What should he do? Refuse the money because it comes from capitalist pig? Good theory but it doesn't think about real people. "

  First of all, if Mr. Milosevic was still in power these poor Gypsies would be still living in their houses in multiethnic half socialist half communist Serbia (Kosovo). These Gypsies were expelled from Kosovo by their Albanian neighbors during NATO capitalist "democratic" rule. Not because they helped Serbs, but because Albanians wanted their property. German troops were there and had orders not to protect them. While Mr. Milosevic's troops were there they had orders to protect them and they were protected. So now rich Germany that helped destruction of Kosovo and Serbia doesn't want even to pay the bill for the misfortunes of the Gypsies that they are directly responsible for. It is not repatriating them to Kosovo where they belong but to Serbia overwhelmed by refugees and hundreds of thousands of people living in poverty and under bridges. Isn't this a special form of ethnic cleansing punishable by the ICTY??? And who is guilty for this? You accuse the new Serbian government bowing under tremendous pressure of the New World Order Master Germany. And who is their savoir? Mr. Soros, who is paying hundreds of thousands of USA $ for Mr. Milosevic to be prosecuted and NATO, Albanian, Croatian and Bosnian criminals not to be prosecuted, and who is agreeing that these poor Gypsies should be ethnically cleansed to Serbia and not repatriated to Kosovo and giving them crumbs from his table to build a cultural center instead of houses and using this to support his claim that Serbia should be cleansed of Nazis??? Give me a brake Mr. Markovic.

  Mr Milosevic can not be guilty at the same time for betraying Serbs in Krajina and bowing to the New World Order Masters and then for carving peace of Croatia into the Greater Serbia. I am for international justice but not for one that you and your fried Mr. Soros are preaching.

  The Real International Justice is not a private enterprise Mr. Markovic subject to private needs and hand outs. It is PERMANENT, PUBLICLY regulated, PUBLICLY monitored and PUBLICLY financed service based on LAW, EQUAL TREATMENT for ALL and TRUTHFUL EVIDENCE PROFESSIONALY COLLECTED and PRESENTED.

  Maxim: "Any justice is better then no justice", is pure DECONSTRUCTION.
  
  Pera Bora
  Canada

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 5:08 pm
  Gogol: I will attempt to find and read your recommendation.

  I am sorry to hear that John Keegan is not much of a historian, but if he committed plagiarism he maybe knows enough to borrow from the right ones. I think when he writes about Serbs in a positive way he might have borrowed from truth tellers. (Just kidding.)
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 5:21 pm
  
  Correction
  
  P B
  Canada

• Thursday January 02, 2003 at 5:31 pm
  Sorry moderator, I messed up my HTML, big time. You can erase this previous post. I will repost it, with my HTML tags right this time.

  ----------------

  D Markovic,

  Here are some of the things we disagree on, contrary to what some neo-Ustashi wannabes might tell you, Zemun never really had much of a Croat population, not even during Austria-Hungary (there were Catholics, mostly Germans), in 1991 it had about 2 % of Croats. As far as Croats leaving it, the incident revolved around one particular family that wasn't even residing in Zemun all of the time but rather had a house there (that they were attributed in 1945 by the communists) and that the issue revolved more around the fact that they were recieving a pension from the Republic of Serbia. If the aim of the Serbs was to belittle their national minorities then they did a lousy job and should take notes from the Croats. I remember the Slovenia-Yugoslavia game in Euro 2000, I was watching it from an appartment in Novi Beograd, for each of the first three Slovene goals somebody in Novi Beograd (settled by the Communists, post-1945 by an assortment of nationalities) fired a shot in the air. In Croatia, you dare not even give your child a Croat name, let alone cheer for your team like that unless if you are keen on having projectiles fired through your window in the dead of night.

  Concerning the fact that the Croats would wish to expell the remaining Serbs from "Croatia". You ask what percentage of Serbs would do the same with the Albanians? Well, you provide no such poll so I will. It is from the Belgrade-based Argument, from 1995. The question was 'In your opinion what to the Serbian people want', 62 % "For Kosovo to be part of Serbia with Albanians subject to the same laws as Albanians", 4.5 % "For Kosovo to be part of Serbia and have special laws for Albanians", 17 % "For Albanians to leave Kosovo for some other place", 9 % some other answer, 7.5 % no answer. As far as Serbs returning to "Croatia" goes, once more, since you do not produce any figures I will.

  http://www.unhcr.ch/prexcom/standocs/english/hiwg0204.pdf

  On page 10, it says that overall, up until this report was published in July 27, 2002, only 22,173 Serb returnees. For the year of 2001, only 97 (in letters NINETY-SEVEN) and for the first half of 2002 (up to July I suppose) only 17 (yes, SEVENTEEN). Terrible, so please spare us about how Mesic is good for the Serb refugee returnees, actually, it seems that more returned during the reign of dictator Tudjman than herr Mesic. And don't go off blaming the lack of return on veteran's groups who are powerful, Mesic and Racan never really supported the right of return for the Serbs, both campaigned against it when they were in opposition and if you wish to know what their respective opinions on Serbs are just take a look at Racan's speech last year during the anniversary of Jasenovac, never even mentionned the Serbs by name, it sounded as if Croats died in that concentration camp which I suppose is the official Croat government li(n)e? Veritas, led by Savo Štrbac is not an NGO in the traditional sense (i.e. without the stigma usually associated with this abbreviation). It was founded in 1993 in Belgrade and Knin and to my knowledge they have never recieved any funds from the likes of Soros and company nor are they in any way affiliated with the West. They were founded in order to inform the world about the suffering of the Serbs (war crimes, expulsions etc.) which the very NGO's under Soros' tutelage were trying to hide under the carpet.

  http://www.veritas.org.yu

  You are right about Serb refugee returnees or refugees in general not getting the spotlight in the media that they deserve. But who do you think is to blame for that if not the Western media which chooses to ingore their fate and would rather take up concocted tales about 250,000 dead in the former Yugoslavia all supposedly killed under the commanding responsibility of one man alone, Slobodan Milosevic? I remember a Canadian news documentary about some Muslim woman wanting to return to her home in the Republika Srpska and showing just how devastated she was to find a Serb family living there. What the documentary 'forgot' to mention was the fact that the Serbs themselves were expelled from their homes and didn't just decide to move into somebody else's home for no apparent reason (or rather worse for preventing Muslims from returning).

  I don't feel pity for Milosevic but pardon me for not agreeing with the cooked-up charges which are laid not so much against him but against the whole people. I am not defending him yet my own people and those very refugees for if Milosevic is found guilty and the stigma of guilty stuck to the name of the Serbs any chances, however small, of the remaining Serbs returning to their homes will become non-existant. For those 72 more Serbs that might return to "Croatia" next year, for those few thousand Serbs to return in the Livno valley, or to Bugojno or Donji Vakuf, that is what we are fighting for, not Milosevic. In what way is Stella Jatras an extreme rightis and when has she tried to project any of her 'extreme right views' onto the Serb people as a whole? As far as Milosevic 'representing' the Serb people, he is not, unfortunately he is defeding them due mostly in part to the efforts of those both in the West and in Serbia who wanted to discredit him (just an objective observation on my part, aside from my own opinion of him). Where did you come up with that one third statistic? I don't know what statistics you read but according to Srdjan Bogosavljevic, Zoran DJindjic's personnal pollster, only 4.5 % of Serbia's residents (without Kosovo, 82 % Serb) have a positive opinion of the Hague, mostly Hungarians and Muslims, according to Bogosavljevic himself. Earlier figures also published by the same source claimed that 60 % of Serbia (without Kosovo) were outright against the extradition of Karadzic and/or Mladic, 7-8 % for, 15 % undecided, 17 % said they had bigger problems to worry about. It is not a question of a third but of two thirds, three quarters, four fifths maybe even nine tenths of Serbs agreeing that the Hague, overall, is more of a bad thing than a good one. And as you said it, we are not some backwater tribe that thinks alike, far from it, we qualm quite easily and love to disagree so will you agree with me on the fact that there must be something really smelly going on in the Hague for the Serbs to almost unanimously agree on this issue?

  I myself am all for global justice, but one in which all parties are equal, the Foreign secretary of the UK is equal to the Chieff of Staff of the US Army is equal to Janko Jankovic from Mali Mokri Lug. Because I know that such a thing will not exist in my lifetime you could call me an anti-global justice partisan for I will not settle for anything less. It is either equality for all or no justice at all. I mean just look at the word justice, you can't have some justice, you either have justice or you don't. Either all are equal before the law or they are not.
  
  Igor Jaramaz
  Canada

• Friday January 03, 2003 at 8:24 am
  I suggested a few days ago that Milan Milutinovic should consider asking the US for political asylum because of his real fear of persecution at the hands of the Hague Inquisition and the Djindjic regime. I have since found the following link that describes a US Immigration court hearing which examined the asylum claim of a Yugoslav of Albanian extraction. This example shows that the US takes political asylum requests seriously. Perhaps Mr Milutinovic has cut a deal with the Hague monsters, but that would not prevent another indictee making an asylum request. http://www.ilw.com/lawyers/immigdaily/cases/2003,0103-Useinovic.pdf
  
  Michael Thomas
  London
  UK

• Friday January 03, 2003 at 8:58 am
  Igor,

  I'm glad that you brought up the Milos Stankovic Story. I just read his book, 'Trusted Mole' and is a good (if somewhat limited) account. The most interesting part was how dissatifaction with General Rose seems to have rapidly increased once he had access to secure communications that neither the US/Bosnian Moslems/Croats/Serbs could intercept and also the 5th Corps attack from Bihac in an attempt to prompt a Serb effort to attack and capture Bihac that would have lead to direct NATO attacks on Republica Srpska.

  I recommend the book (Trusted Mole by Milos Stankovic) to the contributors and lurkers here, if only for insight and information that I had not previously come across in the last decade.

  RE: refugees in Serbia, I looked up the official ICRC figures for 1992, which stand at 100,000. Some master plan....
  
  Alexei Gorbulski
  Brussels
  Soviet Socialist Republic of Belgium ;)

• Friday January 03, 2003 at 11:58 am
  Mr Trkla (but its not New Year yet :) )

  I admit that some things I say are contradiction but it is because I am being honest about myself and my feeling. I dont hide behind position, party or nationality. I think the family you grew up in will make you to understand why I am this way. I had similar family myself - free of politics. Ok not free of politics but free from trust of politicans.

  I am however dissapointed that you want me to make the prosecution case for them. Why you think I would do that? I am not on 'their' side. My contention is that many here whilst oppose tribunal still do Milosevic paperwork /dirtywork at the same time. For me these people need to make their mind. That not consistant for me. I would like you to answer that point. But since I not interested in making case against Milosevic. I will say this and anybody who want to stop me can do it. The moment JNA let Slovenia go - Yugoslavia was dead. Milosevic said in public that the Slovenes could go because Serb minority was small. Funny enough that exactly happened. My apologies to anyone upset by this but object of Yugoslavia was not just to keep all Serbs in one state.It was much more than that. It was a balance act - once Slovenia was gone it was all over mada we still believed in Yugoslavia

  I would have suport strong action in Slovenia. God knows we had one biggest armies in Europe so nobody can say we could not do it. So I dont judge man by his words as Milosevic defenders always saying 'find me something Milosevic said tra la la.....'. I judge man by mans actions. O so the next one is to say Milosevic was not in control of army. Yes that is for benefit of international watchers but we know the truth. Jovic was in control but he was never man on his own - he wasnt big enough. Anybody who read Borislav Jovic book knows truth. Anyone who listening to Bogic Bogicevic knows what happened or Kiro Gligorov. As you will notice these ones are not our enemies and they saw it. I was here I saw it, ok not at once, too even when most our media was poison.

  Now I find myself making case against Milosevic - I dont want to. Im still upset about break up. We are the ones here still living. In the end we dont need to prove anything. I have told you Mr Trkla that I am against the tribunal that is my wafling as you say and I told you that I dont suport Milosevic. It my opinion and consistant.

  There is subject that we must look at where view maybe different and why. If tribunal fails what happens? Do you Mr Trkla have alternative to Hague tribunal or does not matter to you that I live with war criminals around me? Do you think that Serb victims should be hurt again watching Croatian justice like Lora? Are you confident of Serbian system of judges? But something real please not theory. Is there better way than tribunal? I hope so but I still dont know it.

  Its very easy to criticise from far away and even easier to not say alternative. Until now nobody made sugestion how to deal with war criminals.

  Mr Bora - Until you say where your information come from for Albanians in Belgrade it useless. Zemun (where your friends from) as you know was won by Seselj and from reading back on forum I see you support Seselj in the election so you could say I am suspicious.

  You say nobody here is against concept of NGO. I disagree NGO become nasty word even when people dont know what work is done. Its enough to know if money comes from abrod and NGO is dead. During the time of your friend Seselj and Milosevic misinformation was made against all NGO never mind where the money came from. They were called traitors and much more bad things. Case of workers being beaten etc etc. They WERE against concept. And please Mr Bora tell me what is definition of 'real' NGO? And tell me where can this 'real' NGO get money from to avoid critisicm? Which foundation is ok and which traitor? Is Ford foundation ok but US state department for example not ok?

  Your comment as you put is not worth to comment on about justice or me suporting tribunal because everyone know my position by now. You should read my post again if you dont know that.

  I did not place Milosevic on extreme right I place Ms Jatras on extreme right and that is true. But your comment about Milosevic I think is about your own view. You believe its possible to be Communist / Socialist and right wing nationalist / orthodox all same time. Some might call it national socialism I dont go this far but in every case it nonsense. But Mr Bora you do make me laugh when you say that Milosevic was socialist / Communist. What kind of socialism you talking about - kind that sent hundreds to Goli Otok? Maybe kind with agreement of British got killed thousands of Serbs (and Croats) after WW2. Maybe kind that meant unless you were member of SPS / JUL you could not get promotion or even job at all. What kind of Communist would ever join up with criminal like Seselj? What kind of Communist (apart from Animal Farm kind) gives everything to his family including theme park, biggest disco in Europe, radio and TV station so on and on...? Dont forget you are talking to somebody who saw all these thing who will not hide that in so called 'Serb' interest. And there is a lot more. No Milosevic never believed in anything. He was like Tony Blair or Clinton manipulator, pragmatism.

  Maybe if you were real Communist / Socialist you would feel much more sad about death of Stambolic. Im sorry to attack you in this way but you leave yourself open to this when you support something so dirty. Thanks god I dont support any of these idiots (but I wont call Stambolic idiot apart from he trusted Milosevic who betrayed him) so I dont have to defend anybody.

  Yes I do attack Serbian government as say for letting Germans 'export' gypsies back to Serbia when conditions for return to Kosovo not there. We agree on this I think. It is cowardly move. Much better to say those guys are your problem (Germany problem) until you (International community) make gypsy (and Serb) return to Kosovo possible. But something you do not understand (maybe because you were not here for so long) is there is thousands of gypsies in Belgrade living under bridges anyway. My point on Soros and gypsies has nothing to do with Kosovo gypsies. What would you tell your people if you were gypsy, Mr Bora 'no on principle I told New World Order guy no we dont want new school or social club'. You give ME a break Mr Bora. You live in dogma dreamworld. Real people more important than that. But then Mr Bora as imperialistic supporter of Vietnam (which for me same as saying you suport bombardment of Yugoslavia) I suppose you never thought about real people.

  You say Mr Milosevic can not be guilty at the same time for betraying Serbs in Krajina and bowing to the New World Order Masters and then for carving peace of Croatia into the Greater Serbia. I dont understand last bit but yes Milosevic can be guilty of betraying Serbs in Krajina and bowing to what you and other right wing US farmers with shotgun call the NWO. He signed Dayton then betrayed Krajina. If you dont see that you are blind. And no I dont feel pity when at Dayton he prepared to give up other suspect war criminals like Plavsic and ended up going himself. Ironic. No?

  At end you use nice words but wheres beef? Where for this global justice does money come from if not from devil himself? Nation state US? Germany maybe? Big words but no form.
  
  D Markovic
  Smbr
  Yug

• Friday January 03, 2003 at 12:00 pm
  It is true, as Davor suggested, that Soros contributes astronomical sums to Gypsies. According to statistics (somewhere), Gypsies are the largest beneficiary group of Soros money right after Russia! So, should the Gypsies refuse the help because it comes from Soros?

  Whatever answer you give to that question, I am not sure what that has to do with the Milosevic trial. I am sorry, I really don't.

  But does Soros contributions to the Gypsies prove that Soros is right to finance the tribunal? That is certainly what Soros would have us think, and that is why he does it.

  Overall, I don't know how the plight of the refugees would implicate Milosevic. On the contrary, if the present government doesn't do anything to help the refugees, doesn't the present government implicate itself? Which in turn suggests, if your main concern is the refugees and you think it is Milosevic's fault, that there was no point in sending Milosevic to The Hague. I think that the refugees is another excuse to make Milosevic look bad and the Milosevic trial look good! That's called smear.

  So Milosevic wasn't in Krajina. Let me repeat: Milosevic wasn't in Krajina. He wasn't there to help the refugees, and he wasn't there for any other reason! Tell that to the bloody prosecution bunch! Fact number one: Milosevic was not in Krajina. Fact number two: Milosevic was in Kosovo. Twice.

  So I think we all agree that the Milosevic trial is biased, but somehow I get the impression that some of us think the trial should go on all the same. That is why the refugee crisis is paraded out of the blue. I really don't see the point in that. Justice won't come about by being biased and then miraculously reaching the point where the blame can be shared more evenly. If that were so, the US would have welcomed the ICC. And Davor, who thinks we don't know all these things or at least haven't let them sink in, is angry just because there are people like us who defend Milosevic, as if it were our plan to divert the attention from the culpability of the Nato culprits! OK, Davor, you may live in Serbia, but that doesn't mean that he really have a hang of things.

  Maybe we should trace our steps concerning Stella Jatras, too. I find her articles very good. Oh no, don't tell me she doesn't live in Serbia, so she doesn't know what she is talking about. The "extreme right" accusation is not a very wise thing to resort to, because it is so patently slander. I thought it was obvious that the "white supremacist" tag was downright smear, which was why I used it once. Sorry.

  As to Milutinovic. Yes, there are rules, but then again, there are rules. I think the US officials would be glad to receive Milutinovic, so they won't have to come and get them. Israel caught Eichmann in the Argentine and broke the Argeninian law in the process. I think the US would be prepared to do something similar. Otherwise Milosevic would still be in Serbia.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday January 03, 2003 at 12:40 pm
  You don't have to live in Serbia to understand that things are not black and white. Don't be so stupid that the prosecution case is how people think outside Serbia: black and white. Just acting as a counterpoise to the prosecution's black-and-white case doesn't mean that an opponent of the tribunal is really that opinionated in favour of Milosevic.

  There are very good reasons to oppose the tribunal, and Milosevic made it the cornerstone of his defence strategy. Maybe he is a bad man, but the ICTY is supposed to be a court of law, and its business is not to solve all the world's problems (including refugees) but to see if the accused broke the law, and I must say it is not here that the opponents of Milosevic are at their very best. They would be content to let him be convicted of whatever trumped-up charges because there are so many bad things in Serbia.

  Luckily this saga involves some more enigmatic characters beside Milosevic. Soros is an enigmatic character. So is Osama bin Laden. Both are benefactors in the eyes of their supporters. Both are just as big scoundrels as Milosevic in the eyes of their enemies.

  Both Soros and Osama wreck economies. Soros wrecked it in the Far East and Osama wrecked it in Wall Street. The havoc in the Far East was not entirely contradictory to the US interests (to put it diplomatically), because it sucked Japan in its vortex. It is surprisingly hard to remember things that are not more than five years old, but do you recall that the Americans were actually afraid that the Japs would take over the US economy until the economic meltdown? So if you are into the collusion theory, there would certainly be a lot of stuff to support it.

  I think Osama thinks that Soros was part of the US plot. He decided to get even with the US economy (and maybe Soros too), and hit the Wall Street. Soros, on the other hand, may not like Islam, but he needs a plural society, and hence Islam in it, to promote his idea of international institutions as a remedy to the instability of a plural world. I am not sure what he thinks of al-Qaeda.

  What I am saying is this. The ICTY prosecutors are professionals. They are doing their job, and they don't need snots like us to mess with them. If you can't trust the professionals, who can you trust? And whatever the professionals do, it is not they that do it, but some enigmatic characters behind the scenes, and there is no stopping them. So let us all shut up. International justice would work a lot better if everybody would just shut up.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Friday January 03, 2003 at 1:42 pm
  

  Soros is the essential agent, the NGO in person!

  He will contribute to the breakup of Czsekoslovakia and then when the plight of the Gypsies under the new mono nationalist regime deteriorates he becomes their saviour!

  First break then put it together but in a form a shape which pleases the masters, that is his job, like in the past, serving the king or the emperor . . .the whole think makes me think of Feuchtwanger's novel Jew Süss , except Soros will not be the escape goat this time since he is truly the villain.

  Soros, also gave many monies for education at the UNO after making sure no materialist dialectics (so contrary to his life view) will be taught under with penny.

  I don't like NGOs. They are insulting to any self respecting nation. The create exactly what they claim to all winds to fight against: inequality and favoritism. But they are so convenient, they have CEO's, they hire top and reliable individuals mindful of their feeding hands. Recently in South Africa the United Nations under heavy US pressure has delegated all AIDS fighting medical help to a private corporation under the management of Richard Holbrooke (on of the worst enemies of Yugoslavia) he makes sure the treatment is well used: it goes not the population at large but to the workers, the miners of the multinationals operating there. Modern slavery it is all what it is, and the NGOs are the agents, the empresarios and compradores make no mistake about it.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn. USA

• Friday January 03, 2003 at 3:46 pm
  Davor if we agree to disagree there is some agreement there. I am not sure why the chauvinistic comment about the New Year since I did not single you out for that greeting. On the other hand Davor, I do wish you a happy Julian calendar New Year. I hope the New Year comment was a ‘tongue in cheek’ not a medieval belief. When I speak of medieval belief I am referring to the chauvinism in the comment.

  Davor, you tell us that you “don’t hide behind position, party or nationality”. To me it is very clear that others need not think the way you or I do. Beyond party, nationality and position there is common ground and that common ground is to expose this Tribunal for what it is; a lynching. If you believe that Milosevic should be lynched we have nothing in common on that issue but on other issues we may find common goals.

  There is no point going over the injustice of the Tribunal since all on this post see it as a farce. Sorry not all, I forgot about our friend Frank T.

  If I may be presumptuous I would like to suggest our common ground? Not necessarily in this order 1. Seek a community view for International Justice and world peace. 2. Expose the injustice imposed by NATO on the Yugoslav people. 3. Expose the Tribunal as an arm of NWO. 4. A fair trial for Mr. Milosevic. 5. A trial for the NATO leaders under the same rules as those for Milosevic. 6. A United Nations of equals.

  As you point out Davor, most of us who post here are not there in Yugoslavia but I don’t need to be there to know that people in your region of Banat and Vojvodina are struggling to get clean water because old wells and reservoirs are polluted by heavy metals and depleted uranium.. In Belgrade, Dragise Lapcevica Street, just one of thousand examples, old women and men can’t walk at night or sit in front of their homes but must barricade themselves behind steel gates in a city that at one time was the safest in Europe. This kind of pollution and lawlessness was not the case when Milosevic was president of Serbia and please don’t tell me that this was his doing because he refused to cooperate with NATO.

  One of the generals (a Slovene) wanted to send the JNA into Slovenia just as you supported but this was vetoed not because there was a small Serb minority but because they did not want for Slovenia what NATO brought to Yugoslavia.

  Davor states that “defenders always saying 'find me something Milosevic said tra la la”. I must be missing something here since I am not defending Milosevic nor am I praising him even when I say that clean water was available in Novi Sad and crime was low in Belgrade. I don’t know much about Jovic but is Gligorov better off today? Is Macedonia better off today? Is any part of former Yugoslavia better off today? I don’t think so because the former republics or their leaders continue to harp on the differences between them not on their similarities. They continue to pick quarrels, beating their chest, building walls and not really caring what the common person wants. Every person here, I agree with you Davor, wants food for his family, wants to be left in peace, wants justice, and a community of friends no one wants to be subservient and live on his knees so why not work towards that objective.

  Davor you don’t have to support Milosevic to defend him. When you defend Milosevic you are supporting a more just society. The fact that you are surrounded by war criminals as you claim and the fact that the court system is imperfect in Yugoslavia as you claim that is something for the Yugoslav people to deal with not for me from Canada to impose upon you. In paragraph four I have mentioned what I would like to see replace tribunals and if this is ‘pie in the sky’ or theory it is achievable by seeking unity. I better shut up so we can all go back to the days of the inquisition and international justice through indulgences a la Djindjic and company.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Friday January 03, 2003 at 5:05 pm
  

  Mr. Markovic you say: "Zemun as you know was won by Seselj and from reading back on forum I see you support Seselj in the election so you could say I am suspicious." The bold text is an outright lie. Please be so kind and point me to the post in which I have supported Mr. Seselj in the elections in Serbia. Yes I am very vulnerable to be called any names when the person giving me names is associating me with the positions that I have never taken, like: you support bombing of Belgrade, you support killing of Stambolic, you support Seselj, you are not compassionate towards people, you are imperialist, and so on....

  Please tell other people in the forum how old Mr. Milosevic was when Goli Otok crime happened, and how old he was when Tito made the deal with the Brits so that thousands of innocent Serbs were killed. Communism in Yugoslavia evolved from something very close to Stalinism to something very close to Socialism. Mr. Milosevic's rule was closer to Socialism then to Communism. As far as I know Mr. Milosevic is not accused for committing crimes at Goli Otok or making bad deals with Brits at the end of the WWII. I am reading very carefully what the Americans are saying about Mr. Milosevic rule and they are classifying him as being the last communist ruler in the Balkans and they justify the bombing of Serbia and destruction of Yugoslavia on this assumption.

  Was Mr. Milosevic abusing his power for the benefit of his family? Yes he was. But in The Hague he is not accused of these crimes. Was Belgrade bombed because of this??? This forum is about the ICTY and accusations that are broth against Mr. Milosevic not about general guilt or honesty of Mr. Milosevic. I am not defending or supporting Mr. Milosevic in this discussion. I am against the Hague ICTY because it is tool, in the hands of the people that bombed Belgrade, truth which they are justifying their crimes by finding an excuse that Mr. Milosevic is a Nazi criminal. None of the charges that you are bringing up against Mr. Milosevic or Mr. Milutinovic are on the list of the Hague Prosecution? Tell me why? Where is the beef???

  Thanks for the admission that you haven't read any article written by Stela Jantras. You have just restated that she is right wing. Where is the beef Mr. Markovic???

  p> I have never blamed Gypsies for accepting help from any body? I do not blame them for loving Mr. Soros. I have never said anything bad about the Gypsies in this forum. I have said that Mr. Soros is very rich person who is financing the ICTY and has an influence on it. So big influence that if he wants he can make them bring charges against the Albanians that have thrown the poor Gypsies out of their homes? The ICTY could have punished the Albanians and returned the poor Gypsies to their homes. By giving to the Gypsies crumbs from his table and paying the ICTY not to prosecute Albanians makes him what he is.

  You say that you are against the ICTY. And you are right. You are repeating this mantra all the time. But then you turn around and you say: " What is an alternative? Where is the beef??? "And then you go something like: "I do not like Mr. Milosevic, he committed crimes against the Serbs let him be sentenced based on the wrong charges in the Hague. Who cares, he is a bad man." Yes, you support the ICTY. You never said that Mr. Milosevic should be released because his is held in jail on the false charges. The only charge that you have against Mr. Milutinovic is that he has stolen an election. And yes, you have agreed that he should be sent to The Hague tribunal, since the courts in Serbia are bad. The Hague tribunal is about crimes against humanity, not the crimes against democracy.? Do you want the ICTY to become one day the Supreme Court of Serbia?

  Yes, I have a dream about the Real Honest International Justice. Yes I know that I am naive. You are not supporting the ICTY, but then you are not asking for it to be abolished, and this type of the court and its quasi supporters are my worst nightmares.

  
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Friday January 03, 2003 at 6:30 pm
  Mr. Markovic I neglected to respond to your comment bout Stela Jantras. You criticize her, you accuse her and yet you know nothing about her. I don’t know anything about her either but I know this that those who see her as you do are loved by www.albania.net. and that is enough for me to love her.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Friday January 03, 2003 at 9:52 pm
  

  Yugoslav Government War Crimes in Racak

  An interesting early account of the Battle of Racak by Human Rights Watch can be found at the following URL: http://www.hrw.org/press/1999/jan/yugo0129.htm
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada