MILOSEVIC TRIAL DISCUSSION ARCHIVE

Is Slobodan Milosevic getting a fair trial?
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• discussion archive

• Saturday June 01, 2002 at 9:43 am
  "I believe they [Milosevic and former Montenegrin presidential challenger Momir Bulatovic, who is now Yugoslav prime minister] now intend to use the war situation to manipulate and use the army which, under the pretext of a state of war, will engage in confrontation with the civilian authorities and impose martial law. This would create the conditions which, after the war, would allow Milosevic finally to achieve his goal of reinstating the obedient Bulatovic to power in Montenegro. … This would be a confrontation between the citizens of Montenegro, one against the other, with all the passions and emotions of which people in this area are capable.'' - Montenegro's President Milo Djukanovic, in an interview with Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper (Monday) "The statehood, dignity and freedom of Montenegro are not achievements to be defended by professional policemen. These have always been causes that throughout Montenegro's history have been defended by its citizens. That is what would happen in such a situation. That is why I am optimistic that the stability of Montenegro is in good hands." - - Montenegro's President Milo Djukanovic (April 16. 1998) -West was quiet about Djukanovic's criminal activity, this was the way how they paid him for his service to West - for the press releases that are quoted above(among other things). All the people from Montenegro from the beginning new that he was involved in mafia activities - but West made an aliance with the evil, used him and now they abandon him. - Now one can see the planning and staged press releases - these press releases are from April (during the fourth week of war) - By that time the orcherstrated Western media already reported 800,000 thousand refugees - mass graves who were discovered just because they continue bombing on the Orthodox easter, they already reported mass execution of ethnics albanians, and then they use Milo Djukanovic to raise conecerns that Milosevic is going to use armed forces against his own people.
  
  Klaus Clive
  Germany

• Monday June 03, 2002 at 1:17 am
  RE: Racak again. Just to reiterate the basics: On January 20, Le Figaro presented an account of the attack on Racak, which contradicted the OSCE’s and Albanian versions of the story, effectively confirming that Racak was known as a KLA stronghold. According to Le Figaro, the Serbian police, in the early morning of January 15, circled the village and attacked it. It seems that the police had nothing to hide, because at 8:30 am it had called a TV crew (two AP TV journalists) to tape the operation. OSCE was also informed and it sent two vehicles with American diplomatic plates. OSCE observers remained the whole day on a hill, from where they could observe the village, reports Le Figaro’s correspondent. On the day in question, January 15, 1999, the police at 3 p.m. informed the OSCE that in Racak 15 KLA terrorists had been killed in fighting, and that a big warehouse full of armament was found. According to Le Figaro, the police left the village at 3.30 p.m., accompanied by the AP TV crew. When an hour later a French journalist passed through Racak, he saw OSCE international observers talking calmly to three ethnic Albanian elderly civilians. They were searching for possible wounded civilians. Around 6 p.m. an unnamed journalist saw the OSCE observers take with them two women and two old men, who were slightly wounded. The observers, who did not seem worried, did not warn the journalist of anything in particular. They did not want to give the final number of the dead after the fighting. The bodies of ethnic Albanians in civilian clothes, that were piled in a ditch, were brought to the attention of journalists only the next morning around 9 a.m. Just after them came the OSCE observers. At that moment the village had already been occupied by the armed soldiers of KLA, who immediately took the foreign visitors to the place of the alleged massacre. The Chief of the OESC Mission for Verification in Kosovo, William Walker, immediately charged “the Yugoslav Police forces” for the massacre of 45 civilians in the village of Racak. He had also sent an ultimate request for the arrival of the prosecutor of the Tribunal in Hague in Kosovo within the next 24 hours. During his press conference he said that inhabitants of Racak led him to the hill where he saw bodies of twenty killed civilians who “obviously lay in the place where they had been killed” and that “none of the killed persons wore uniforms, that all of them were in civilian clothes as modest inhabitants of an Albanian village”. He stated that Verification Mission members counted 36 killed persons while American Mission members found out that 45 persons were killed. William Walker proclaimed that this event was a conflict with civilians neglecting the fact that they were armed with weapons. He also neglected the indisputable fact that the police was attacked, provoked and forced to defend with arms from armed terrorist attacks. His statement - given to the representatives of the authorities in Kosovo and Metohija who later on informed him about the real facts - “that the world will believe to him” but not to arguments and facts found out in the legal procedure conducted by the competent authorities of our country, is really astonishing. William Walker, without informing the Yugoslav authorities, visited the village of Racak accompanied by journalists he personally chose. Thus he demonstrated his obvious intention to have the monopoly in interpreting the event and prejudiced finding out of the real facts that the Yugoslav authorities are sovereign in each part of their state territory and the only body authorized to find out the facts in a legal procedure. By his behavior Walker violated hiss mandate of a verificator and the Agreement with OESC. All statements of ethnic Albanian witnesses give the same version: on January 15, around noon, the police came into the village, combed house by house, separated men from women and took them on a nearby hill, where they shot them without a trial. The annoying fact persisted: those versions mostly contradicted statements by the AP TV crew. According to them, the policemen, hiding behind the walls came at dawn to the empty village. There was exchange of fire, when the KLA members, shooting from the trenches on the hill, attacked the police. The fight became more intense. AP’s journalists, that were located beside the mosque, noticed that the surrounded KLA rebels tried to force their way out. Even the police later admitted that more than 20 of them succeeded in breaking the breech. The most likely scenario, considering all facts on the ground was, that the KLA during the night collected the bodies of those who had really been killed by the Serb bullets in order to fabricate a cold-blooded massacre. The journalists indeed on Saturday morning found some shells at the place of the alleged massacre. The KLA apparently attempted to present a military defeat as a public relations victory. Le Monde doubted the cold-blooded massacre that seemed way too perfect. The story with facts in it left some questions unanswered. “How could the Serbian police gather so many people and calmly take them to the execution place while constantly under KLA’s fire? How did the street ditch in the village escaped the attention of villagers who very well know the area and who, when the night fell, returned to their village? Or for that matter to OSCE observers who stayed in the village for over two hours? Why were there no shells around the bodies and little blood in the ditch, where bullets in a head from a close range allegedly killed 23 people?” They trusted the assumptions from the place and on what the OSCE verifiers’ team pointed out. An Italian observer, Gianni Fantini, who first saw the dead in Racak had said that per information by the KLA, in a ditch in the village 23 dead were found. They had all been shot in the head. Their documents were put on one side, which made us assume they had been identified before they were killed. The other twenty of them, said Fantini, were found in the gardens and alleys. Contrary to those in the ditch, they had bullet wounds in different parts of the bodies, which should mean they were killed in fight. Tom Walker, who in The Times (January 21, 1999) cited one OSCE verifier admitting that some bodies after the death had been moved on another location and then shot at. And the decapitation, that had been terribly described in the world, could have been done “post mortem”. The facts, however pointed not to the Serbs, but to the opposite direction. The interested parties had known about the massacre in Racak before anyone else. The U.S. State Secretary Madeleine Albright, on Friday, January 15, gathered a group of the most influential people in the State Department and told them that the agreement reached in October between Richard Holbrooke and Milosevic about resolving the situation in Kosovo could be broken any moment. According one anonymous government official, Albright had the information about the alleged events in Racak, one day before the news was trumpeted around the world. A week before the clashes in Racak, government officials in Washington spread the information that the administration was expecting the decisive moment, a key event, in order to decide on the further steps regarding Kosovo. The skillful timing of the “massacre” that occurred one day after Ms. Albright indicated that the U.S. is ready to put a new round of pressure on Serbia attests to professional intelligence coordination on the part of the KLA, involving the valuable public relations component that served NATO so well in imposing ultimatums on, and bombing of Serbia after the notorious “marketplace shelling” in Sarajevo in February 1994 and August 1995, respectively. The role of the Izetbegovic government in masterminding and carrying out the massacre of its own people in coordination with Western military intelligence for political and public relations benefit is an open secret in diplomatic, U.N. and NATO circles. As for Racak, apart from the expected “coverage” by the representatives of pack-journalism, the French Le Figaro, whose reporting was perhaps the only one based on the AP videotape recording the Racak operation in its entirety, was one of very few papers that had serious reservations about the official version, pointing out the virtual technical impossibility of executing civilians by the Serbian police during the offensive. The bodies were “discovered” next morning by the KLA who returned to the village after the Serbian police had departed, that is after having a whole night at KLA’s disposal. Le Figaro’s assumptions that the massacre brought to the attention of the OSCE mission chief William Walker by the KLA on January 16, was staged to provoke a NATO intervention - something that is desired by the KLA above all - are proving to be true. Referring to the official version, on January 20, 1999 Le Figaro wrote that "the most disturbing fact is that the pictures filmed by the AP TV journalists -- which Le Figaro was shown yesterday -- radically contradict that version…. Watching from below, next to the mosque, the AP journalists understood that the KLA guerrillas, encircled, were trying desperately to break out. A score of them in fact succeeded, as the police themselves admitted. What really happened? During the night, could the KLA have gathered the bodies, in fact killed by Serb bullets, to set up a scene of cold-blooded massacre? A disturbing fact: Saturday morning the journalists found only very few cartridges around the ditch where the massacre supposedly took place." Le Monde echoed the suspicion on January 21: "And yet questions remain. How could the Serb police have gathered a group of men and led them calmly toward the execution site while they were constantly under fire from KLA fighters? … Why so few cartridges around the corpses, so little blood in the hollow road where 23 people are supposed to have been shot at close range with several bullets in the head? Rather, weren't the bodies of the Albanians killed in combat by the Serb police gathered into the ditch to create a horror scene which was sure to have an appalling effect on public opinion?" Provocations as pretext for validating scheduled offensives are part of European military history, as the cases of Gleiwitz, Freiburg, and Kosice (Kassa) attest during World War II. Yet, apart from the troubling question of why would the U.S. support an organization whose field operatives mutilate the bodies of their own dead to achieve political ends, a more revolting question arises: did the U.S. have any part in it? The role of William Walker, - a seasoned State Department operative and CIA liaison - in the Racak affair begs further scrutiny. Walker’s expulsion from Serbia in January 1999 was received with universal outrage in the U.S., notwithstanding the fact that any diplomat would have been expelled from any other country for publicly blaming the government of the host country for a crime before any investigation was launched. But then again, therein was the precious public relations factor in the war against Yugoslavia. The bodies of the victims haven’t made it to the morgue yet, when the ever-vigilant Ms. Arbour of the Hague International War Crimes Tribunal made a botched attempt to enter the country without a visa to “investigate” the matter with predictable outcome. What was the connection, if any? Walker spent most of his long career in the foreign service in Central and South America, including a highly controversial posting as Deputy Chief of Mission in Honduras in the early 1980s, in the hotbed of the Contra rebel force formation. In 1985, Walker was promoted to the post of deputy assistant secretary of state for Central America. This promotion made him a special assistant to Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams. Walker was in charge of arranging a front “humanitarian operation” at an airbase in Ilopango, El Salvador. The “humanitarian” organization was used to deliver guns, ammunition and supplies to the Contra rebels. Walker avoided indictment in the Iran-Contra controversy, and his diplomatic career proceeded smoothly. In 1988, he was named ambassador to El Salvador, notorious for U.S. backed state terror campaign against local guerillas and civilians. Walker’s grandstanding in Racak and his denunciation of Serbian “ethnic cleansing” could not have been in a starker contrast with his attempts to whitewash similar, and worse atrocities in Salvador. In 1989, when Salvadoran soldiers executed six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her 15-year-old daughter, blowing their heads off with shotguns, Walker was rather unmoved, to say the least When asked at a press conference about evidence linking the killings to the Salvadoran High Command, he made extraordinary efforts to excuse chief of staff Rene Emilio Ponce, dismissing the murders as “management control problem”: “Management control problems can exist in these kinds of situations,” he said. On the matter of state-sponsored killings in El Salvador in general, Walker was remarkably diplomatic: “I’m not condoning it, but in times like this of great emotion and great anger, things like this happen.” Dismissing reports of eyewitness accounts that the Jesuit murders had been committed by men in Salvadoran armed uniforms, Walker told Massachusetts congressman Joseph Moakley, who traced the case, that “anyone can get uniforms. The fact that they were dressed in military uniforms was not proof that they were military.” Walker even recommended to Secretary of State James Baker that the United States “not jeopardize” its cordial relationship with El Salvador by scrutinizing “past deaths, however heinous.” In Racak Walker played a different tune, in fact, recommending that the United States go to war over “heinous deaths.” In 1996, Walker hosted a ceremony in Washington in honor of 5,000 CIA mercenaries who fought secretly in El Salvador. While Walker was ambassador to El Salvador, the U.S. government’s official story was that there were only 50 military advisors in the country. Considering Walker’s resume and past experience, he was put in charge of assisting the KLA in fabricating a massacre that was ultimately used to manufacture an excuse for creating a public relations outcry on the eve of Rambouillet talks, and ultimately produce a pretext for U.S. military involvement. Judging from the professionalism and efficiency with which the action had been carried out, it is safe to assume that if was a joint operation between the KLA and the CIA. One month after the Racak “massacre” on January 16, 1999, that was blamed roundly on the Serbian forces, the February 15, 1999 issue of Newsweek reported that among the private firms subcontracted by the U.S. government to provide mercenaries in Kosovo is DynCorp., a Reston, VA firm. Newsweek, noted tongue-in-cheek, that its calls to the firm were not returned. In May 2000 Sunday Times revealed that the OSCE Verification Mission in Kosovo was, from the very beginning, a covert operation unit that functioned as a liaison between the CIA and the KLA, and that CIA agents had trained the KLA long before NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia: “Central Intelligence Agency officers were cease-fire monitors in Kosovo in 1998 and1999, developing ties with the KLA and giving American stilitary training manuals and field advice on fighting the Yugoslav army and Serbian police. When the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which coordinated the monitoring, left Kosovo a week before airstrikes began a year ago, many of its satellite telephones and global positioning systems were secretly handed to the KLA, ensuring that guerrilla commanders could stay in touch with NATO and Washington. Several KLA leaders had the mobile phone number~ of General Wesley Clark, the NATO commander.”
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Monday June 03, 2002 at 2:35 am
  If you want discrepencies, here is one. After Ball's testimony (or evidence, as it is called) we are supposed to think that there are over 10.000 Albanian corpses. Ball used his high-tech gadgetry to convince us of this. What they have found thus far in Kosovo is 2000 - 3000 corpses. The prosecution has an apparent shortage of 7000 - 8000 bodies. Whatever Ball's testimony was, it was not evidence. The bodies that have been found are evidence. And not evidence as such, because they still have to be identified. And identification proceeds by using "softer" methods like the victims' medical records (I would imagine). So you have to know if you're running to the Serbian or Kosovo Albanian files. But the discrepancy is this. It seems the prosecution doesn't believe its own witnesses. If there were 10.000 dead, why didn't they call it a genocide. Instead, to fulfil the West's expecations of genocide charges, the prosecution had to issue an indictment on Bosnia and Croatia. What we have in Bosnia, is 4000 corpses, of which 70 have been identified. I have understood that those 4000 have been found in Srebrenica, so it would be logical then that the prosecution pins its hopes of genocide charges entirely on Srebrenica. But why go to Srebrenica for genocide charges? They have found 4000 bodies in Bosnia, whereas by using Ball's methods they have "found" more than 10.000 in Kosovo. Now which would you qualify "genocide" in purely numerical terms? And going to Srebrenica would make any sense at all, if all those 4000 are indeed Muslims. Well, if they were, they would have been identified by now. This is the same kind of fake projection as Ball's method, if there are too few Muslim bodies, you have to create them, if not otherwise, then at least using a computer simulation. Here is a reverse problem. Whereas the computer simulations are no evidence (depends on the viewpoint, doesn't it) the 3930 unidentified bodies in Srebrenica are! If the familiar rhetoric has been used consistently, I would expect that the 4000 bodies haven't been searched for Serb victims for fear that the Serbs might tamper with the evidence. This line of argumentation was heard at some point in Racak investigations. Yet the prosecution can be magnanimous too, albeit at the most inopportune time. At last it has heards the pleas from the Serbs to search the thousands of missing Serbs. Where would you go to? I would head for the bodies. The problem is that the prosecution gets generous now that the bodies are putrefying to the point of being unidentifiable. So we'll never know. I guess the Serb anguish is no less than the Bosnian, of which we have heard so many tearful accounts. Then there are more "technical" problems. If indeed, there are "only" 4000 bodies, where are the missing ones which Carla has enumerated in her indictement? She still hangs on to the old version that they were about 6000 casualties (civilians I presume) in Srebrenica alone. These are pinpointed with some accuracy in Schedule A of the indictment. The other occasions would hardly qualify as genocide, like the killing of "at least" 2 Bosnian Muslim men in Bosanski Petrovac. What the indictment leaves unmentioned are the killings of the ARMED Bosnian Muslim men. Maybe one shouldn't even expect the mention of all the killed Serb civilians in an indictment of Milosevic (although the demonization would be entirely consistent with his killing fellow Serbs). As long as Naser Oric is free, there can hardly be any question that this tribunal is biased against Serbs.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Monday June 03, 2002 at 5:01 am
  This may not be the time to come back to the theme of pipelines, so I have to apologize in advance, but the Russian "Pravda" has this interesting article on the pipeline from Turkmenistan to the Indian Ocean. Yes, Afghanistan is involved. http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/05/31/29572.html
  
  J N
  Finland

• Monday June 03, 2002 at 11:36 pm
  The source I cite above suggest that Racak involved not one but two separate clashes.. The major military clash on Friday 15 January, and a second Police clash on Saturday 16th. Given that the incidents in Racak sprung from the killing of a policeman a week earlier, I find this interesting. Comments? ijdavis@softbase.uwaterloo.ca
  
  Ian Davis
  waterloo
  Ontario

• Tuesday June 04, 2002 at 2:49 am
  Ian, I have no direct comment on that, but I said earlier that the trial sucks, but now I would go as far as to say that it stinks. If you haven't seen the indictment on Bosnia at http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/mil-ii011122e.htm , please do so. The "schedules" at the end are most interesting. See point 17 in schedule A, where it says that at Prnjavor "(in Kremnja) 8 Bosnian Muslim civilians from Derventa were killed" and "(in Lisnja) 4 Bosnian Muslim men were executed". It may not be intentional, but illustrates the point made: why do you have to emphasize in Kremnja 8 "civilians" were killed and in Lisnja 4 "men" were executed? The gender of most of the victims bears out that they were militants. The word "execution" bears out that they were not killed in combat, which is a crime against humanity. It is also interesting why the dead are sometimes called "non-Serbs" and sometimes "Bosnian Muslims". First, it is evident that the indictment is not only against Milosevic but against Serbs, because the victims have to be designated as "non-Serbs". Second, could these "non-Serbs be the famous American colleagues that have come all the way from Saudi Arabia? Anyway, the numbers killed outside Srebrenica are way too small to qualify as genocide. All indications are, if you are allowed to make a case on the numbers alone, that they were killed in combat. Point 7 (Bratunac) of schedule A says that "approximately 65 Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat civilians killed by members of the JNA, acting together with Serb paramilitary forces". This is wonderful. The indictment is against Milosevic. On few occasions we get any indication who actually carried out the killings. Point 9 (Celinac): "Rifet MUJKANOVIc, shot to death by Serb soldier". How is this death to be connected with Milosevic, I am just curious. And the fact remains that the prosecution has the burden of proof, and a heavy one at that, because if JNA (Yugoslav National Army) acted on one occasion with Serb paramilitary forces, I should be remembered that Milosevic was in charge of neither. As to JNA, he became Yugoslav president in 1997. And on and on it goes, in Visegrad (point 22) Serb paramilitaries carried out some more killings. The name Milan Lukic is probably somehow supposed to connect the killings to Milosevic. Then we come to Srebrenica (21) where over 6000 Bosnian Muslim "men" were killed (thus by presumption militants). Where is the evidence? Yes, we have 4000 bodies, and we are somehow induced to think that these are the bodies of those Bosnian Muslim men killed in Srebrenica. However, nobody has made a point of this. Did the international staff take control of all the bodies found in Bosnia? This happened in Kosovo. So the Serbs have to come to the international staff to beg for the identification of the Serb victims (because the Serbs might otherwise tamper with the evidence). It was pointed out earlier in Rade's mailing: "The Bosnian Serb weekly Javnost reported on 23 December 1995, that in the entire Podrinje - the area on Bosnia’s side of the Drina River between Zvornik in the north and Visegrad in the south - 192 villages were burned, 2800 Serbs were killed and six thousand injured. According to Ivanisevic, more than a hundred towns, villages and hamlets in the area of Milici-Srebrenica-Bratunac-Skelani alone were affected. These crimes [against Serbian civilians] are still waiting for independent investigation, although they have been confirmed by returning Dutch-UN military personnel." I don't know what to make of this. Is it possible that these Serb victims could have been pooled with those in Srebrenica? How can we be sure if only 70 of the 4000 bodies, which were presumed to have been found in Srebrenica, have been identified. Another question, the reverse of the former, is if the Serbs have investigated the bodies of the Serb victims themselvs, in which case they couldn't have been "pooled" with the bodies of the Muslims. As we all know, the alleged 6000 missing Bosnian Muslims have reportedly been found alive somewhere else (and I say "reportedly", because I wouldn't swear on it). And last but not least, Carla del Ponte has admitted that she hands the information on Islamic terrorists which she comes across during her investigations to the U.S. This is significant in more ways than one, but the most relevant point is that she doesn't prosecute the Muslim terrorist for war crimes but transfers them for political evaluation in the U.S. If anyone doubted the independence of the ICTY, now you know it has none.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Tuesday June 04, 2002 at 5:38 am
  The link to the Washington Post article "U.N. Prosecutors Giving Terrorism Evidence to U.S." is http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23781-2002May28.html . To show how the world works, Fred Abrahams, a former researcher of Human Rights Watch, "gave evidence" that HRW had sent emails to Milosevic of the human rights abuses. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/
  2002/05/31/world/main510771.shtml . Does this convince anyone who has an email account? Besides, even if Milosevic knew, should he have proceeded to punishing the perpetrators before the first indictment was issued in May 1999? However, this is nitpicking. I would like to refer to Jared Israel's verdict on HWR in his recent interview with Slobodan's brother at http://emperors-clothes.com/news/borislav.htm .
  
  J N
  Finland

• Tuesday June 04, 2002 at 1:10 pm
  I understand that 70 bodies connected with Srebrenica have been identified. Does anyone have an independent URL or other source for this statement?
  
  Nikole J
  Canada

• Tuesday June 04, 2002 at 1:34 pm
  Nikole check www.emperors-clothes.com or I also found http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/news/
  student_experience_human_rights_bosnia.htm
  
  Neil Craig
  UK

• Tuesday June 04, 2002 at 3:02 pm
  Major developments in the Hague: Milosevic Witness Held in Contempt Tue Jun 4, 9:43 AM ET By LAUREN COMITEAU, Associated Press Writer THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - A Serb witness for prosecutors in the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites) was held in contempt of court Tuesday after he refused to answer their questions. The witness, an ex-military serviceman and driver identified only as K-12, had been expected to reveal information about the exhumation of mass graves in Kosovo to cover up war crimes. He was summoned back to the courtroom Tuesday after the three-judge panel excused him on Monday when he accused the court of unrelenting psychological pressure. "I've had enough of this psychological processing for two days. I can't say anything more. I can't testify on anyone's behalf. I'll go crazy this way," he said, speaking in Serbian. His image was blurred on courtroom monitors to shield his identity. It was the first time in the Milosevic trial, which began Feb. 12, that a witness was held in contempt. He could face a maximum seven years in prison and a fine of $93,000. Prosecutors had billed him as an "insider," in a position to have firsthand knowledge of the way Milosevic and his chain of command operated. In a pretrial brief, prosecutors referred to K-12's anticipated testimony in connection with the exhumation of Kosovo Albanian victims of mass killings by the Serb army and police units, and their removal to Serbia "to hide evidence of these crimes." Milosevic's troops were forced to withdraw from Kosovo in mid-1999 under the pressure of an 11-week bombing campaign by NATO (news - web sites) warplanes intended to end alleged Serb repression of the ethnic Albanian minority in Kosovo, a province of the Serb republic. The prosecution said it would make the case that the order for the cover-up must have come from the senior level, for which Milosevic bore responsibility. The former president is accused of five counts of war crimes in Kosovo, and also faces indictments for alleged atrocities in Croatia and Bosnia during the first half of the 1990s. Prosecution spokeswoman Florence Hartmann said K-12's refusal to testify took everyone by surprise, and that he had been a voluntary witness. Presiding judge Richard May of Britain cautioned the man several times that he could be jailed. "If they think I'm guilty, they can put me in prison," he replied. "I have more problems now than if I was in prison. So put me in prison." May directed the prosecutors to file a case against the man. May said the witness could apply for a court-appointed lawyer, and that he would remain on the witness list in case he changes his mind. But the judge ordered the witness to return to court within 28 days if he agrees to answer questions.
  
  Peter Varavejke
  Belgium

• Tuesday June 04, 2002 at 3:07 pm
  Interesting site. Some of you people should check out freerepublic.com which has an excellent coverage of the trial and has done since the Kosovo dbacle.Some very well informed people on it
  
  Julian rochell
  stavanger
  norway

• Tuesday June 04, 2002 at 6:07 pm
  On Thursday 5.23.2002 http://hague.bard.edu/video/icty_env.200205231114.ram 45:00.0 Milosevic raised the issue of the appropriateness of Fred Abrahams presenting himself as an investigator of the OTP and taking the statements of witnesses (Mr. Haxu) when he himself was also a witness. Can any comment on the appropriateness of the prosecution sanctioning this arrangement, and the legal implications of a court where witnesses are allowed to participate in taking the statements of other witnesses. ijdavis@softbase.uwaterloo.ca
  
  Ian Davis
  Waterloo
  Ontario Canada

• Tuesday June 04, 2002 at 6:56 pm
  Ian, The trial is a surreal monstrosity by any legal standard, and by introducing such twisted investigator-cum-witness configurations that would be thrown out of a U.S. court, the prosecution is simply testing the limits of dumbness among the docile thumbsuckers, awestruck by the "international" and "supranational" dimension of this pseudo-legal tinkering. Frankly, the prosecution is taking advantege of the untested "international" realm of the case where there are no precedents and thus no holds are barred. Nonetheless, the prosecution's case is running on leftover public relations fumes, and already scraping the bottom of the barrel, as the K-12 affair attested. Hopefully after a few more such setbacks those who think of themselves as legal professionals will awake from their bovine placidity and help to put an end to this disgrace.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Tuesday June 04, 2002 at 7:23 pm
  To learn more about 'witness' K12 read: The Confessions of a Freezer Truck Driver at http://www.worldpress.org/Europe/216.cfm
  
  Peter Varavejke
  Belgium

• Tuesday June 04, 2002 at 7:50 pm
  Several things are strange about the dramatic driver story in http://www.worldpress.org/Europe/216.cfm. If the case was so super-sensitive, why did the police hire an outsider? Don't Serbian police drive themselves? Given the volume of the alleged corpses that warranted multiple trips by one freezer truck driven by the same K-12, wouldn't it have made more sense to line up several trucks for an expedited operation? Unless one believes that there only one freezer truck in the whole of Serbia and Serbian police can't drive. I smell more than one rat here.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Tuesday June 04, 2002 at 10:00 pm
  For those interested, the best FreeRepublic.com URL to find Balkans articles is: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/
  news/finduser?user=%2Abalkans Warning! The discussions on the posted articles can get quite heated. Many of the participants have been squaring off on FreeRepublic.com for years. Decontructing the announcements of General Clark, Madiline Albright, William Cohen and of course Clinton and Blair was performed in real-time during the bombing of Yugoslavia. Those skilled as using google.com or hotbot.com can find some of those discussion threads from the time. That said, this jurist site is a welcome source of insight as well.
  
  Holden Caufield
  New Hampshire, USA

• Wednesday June 05, 2002 at 1:52 am
  I have been on the other websites and this is the best. No name calling.. just input on what happened in the former Yugoslavia and the so called trial of Milosevic. Keep it up. Interesting reading. Thanks.
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Wednesday June 05, 2002 at 3:00 am
  Neil, thanks for the "Harvard" link on the exhumation in Bosnia at http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/news/
  student_experience_human_rights_bosnia.htm . It is old, written in 2000, and done by an intern, but it is illuminating. This is a direct quotation from the article: "Finding the bodies is often the easier part of the process. Identification proves to more difficult, as we found out after leaving the exhumation site for a visit to the Podorinje Project in Tuzla, where the bodies found in Srebrenica are kept. The Project, funded by the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP), holds 4,700 "sets of remains"-the term used by investigators to describe the mix of bones and flesh found in a grave. In Srebrenica, victims were buried so quickly and so densely that bones often commingled, making it difficult to determine whether the remains belong to one person or many. Of these 4,700 sets, only 70 have been identified-an astonishing 1.4%." The article's "Podorinje Project" should be "Podrinje Project". Here I would like to remind that this same Podrinje was the region where the 2.800 Serbs were killed. I would like to quote Rade's posting for the third time: "The Bosnian Serb weekly Javnost reported on 23 December 1995, that in the entire Podrinje - the area on Bosnia’s side of the Drina River between Zvornik in the north and Visegrad in the south - 192 villages were burned, 2800 Serbs were killed and six thousand injured. According to Ivanisevic, more than a hundred towns, villages and hamlets in the area of Milici-Srebrenica-Bratunac-Skelani alone were affected. These crimes [against Serbian civilians] are still waiting for independent investigation, although they have been confirmed by returning Dutch-UN military personnel." So: the Srebrenica bodies must indeed have been "pooled" with those Serb bodies found in the Podrinje region and around Srebrenica! Some 70 bodies were identified in 2000 according to this article. This would suggest that the death toll of the Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica has been inflated by Serb death toll, and this is used as a propaganda tool against the Serbs! Searching the web by using the search term "Podrinje Project" I also found this quite recent article at http://srebrenica.balkanika.org/index.en.php?link=phr . It says that "only" 2000 bodies (or sets of remains) have been found in Srebrenica! Strangely enough, the identification rate is put even lower, at 60: "As of August 1999, over 60 victims from the 1995 fall of Srebrenica have been identified." This is put in such a roundabout way that one wonders: "...the 1995 fall of Srebrenica"? A little later it says even more modestly of the numbers identified: "While more than 2,000 Srebrenica bodies have been recovered, only a few have been discovered with promising leads." You figure it out, because I can't.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Wednesday June 05, 2002 at 9:55 am
  Re: Racak 'masacre". Re: Racak 'massacre". Recently. I came across the information that Walker called Holbrook and General Clark on the mobile from Racak upon discovering the 'massacre'. This appeared in Allan Little’s film; Yugoslavia, Death of a Nation. Walker would not comment on this, but both Holbrook and Clark have confirmed it on camera. Sorry I do not have the link at the moment, but will look for it.
  
  Neka Mira
  UK

• Wednesday June 05, 2002 at 11:44 am
  Found it! LITTLE In other words, he blamed the Serbian police and the Yugoslav army. Walker was supposed to be an independent international official. But did he seek direct instruction now from the Americans? WILLIAM WALKER Without calling any of my capitals I told what I thought I had seen, which was the end result of a massacre. RICHARD HOLBROOKE William Walker, the head of the Kosovo Verification Mission, called me on a cell phone from Racak. WILLIAM WALKER Q. But you don't remember calling Washington at all? GENERAL WESLEY CLARK SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER EUROPE I got a call from Bill Walker. He said there's a massacre. I'm standing here. I can see the bodies. WILLIAM WALKER (No reply to question) Q: And you didn't speak to Gen Clark or anybody like that? http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/
  panorama/transcripts/transcript_12_03_00.txt
  
  Neka Mira
  UK

• Wednesday June 05, 2002 at 1:33 pm
  Neka, this entire document is extraordinary. Now I know why my father insisted on watching parorama when I was a child. Thank you for finding it.
  
  Ian Davis
  Waterloo
  Ontario

• Thursday June 06, 2002 at 2:09 am
  I read a super arrogant statement made by Haartmann, a spokeswoman of the ICTY, the other day. She said that everything looks OK, the case is big and Milosevic isn't rebutting the evidence. Sounds like she knows the prosecution is going to win (ICTY spokeswoman is unashamedly for the prosecution). OK, maybe they have a deal, but what she means is that it's going to look good too. Milosevic isn't rebutting the evidence, how so? Let me guess. Here is Milosevic's Achilles' heel. Everybody knows he is trying to score points with the Serbs. He was indicted as he was their president. The first indictment was issued in May 1999, remember. The catch is this. Milosevic should have punished the perpetrators of war crimes to avoid the charges and now the conviction. When? Well, if not by May 1999, which would have been impossible, then at least after that. But how is he going to punish his own citizens? Never mind that he has technically no power over the judiciary. That would have made an exceedingly bad impression: Milosevic punishing his own citizens to avert the charges by the ICTY. So he had to choose between too evils, to take the heat from the ICTY all by himself, or make a half-hearted attempt to avoid the charges by punishing his "subjects". I think he made the responsible choice. At least, this explains why Carla is so eager to get Mladic and Karadzic to testify against Milosevic, but nobody has suggested that he would testify against them. Milosevic is a reliable partner of the prosecution against himself.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Thursday June 06, 2002 at 5:37 am
  "It's very difficult to present such a huge case in 14 months, knowing half the time is used by the defendant in cross-examination," said Florence Hartmann, spokeswoman for the prosecutor.// Hartmann, the tribunal's spokeswoman, said the prosecutors remain confident that despite the courtroom maneuvers, Milosevic is doing little to effectively combat the case unfolding against him. "We are happy, because at the moment, with his political speeches during cross-examination, he doesn't challenge the evidence," Hartmann said. from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49219-2002Jun2.html From this article it is thus not clear from whom she is the spokesperson. Nerverheless I think Milosevic is doing a good job challenging the evidence, which is weak as are the witnesses. Mind you that they have to resort to some spin and blaming Milosevics (read the article) as the prosecutions case on Kosovo is clearly disintegrating.
  
  Peter Varavejke
  Belgium

• Thursday June 06, 2002 at 6:48 am
  Interestingly, the above article refers to Florence Hartmann sometimes as "the tribunal's spokeswoman" and sometimes as "spokeswoman for the prosecutor". Her official title is according to the ICTY website "Spokeswoman for the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP)". But is there a difference? In a way, I feel sorry for the mainstream press (under which category the Washington Post article falls), because by hanging on to the old "Milosevic is Hitler" myth they are missing on the really big story behind the trial. I would have thought it was every journalist's dream to go after the big stories, not the old trite ones. Maybe too many sensitivities are involved, so that if the prosecution's Kosovo case were shown to be disintegrating, the whole Western social fabric would start to disintegrate. Consider the mix-up in the morgues in Tuzla (the Podrinje Identification Project). One would like to put in a good word for the medical personnel and say that it is not up to them who gets identified and who doesn't, unless one knew better. The Nobel Prize winning Médecins sans Frontières sacked its Greek contingent for going to help the Serbs in 1999. This bit of information can be found at http://www.anglia.ac.uk/geography/d&scrn/
  newsletter/newsletter1/nl1_humanitarianaid.htm . The same article also puts the blame on governments: "According to the testimony of Malcolm Fraser from Australian CARE, both United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies were, and still are, under pressure, particularly from the US and Britain, to reduce the programs in Serbia." And what is the mix-up in the morgues in Tuzla in particular? One has to proceed with caution, but maybe the story goes like this. The 2,800 Serbs that were killed in the Podrinje region got transferred to the Podrinje Identification Project in Tuzla. This is the same place where they transferred the bodies found in Srebrenica. The body count in or around Srebrenica is according to one account 2000. This would make in all 4,800 bodies in Tuzla, where the Serb and the Muslim victims are "pooled". Indeed, the official figure of the bodies in Tuzla is 4,700, close enough. Of the bodies found in Srebrenica, only a few have had any promising leads. Of the total of 4,700 (or 4,000) only 60-70 have been identified. It is more than convenient that this figure (that in practice the number of the unidentified bodies) is pretty close to the alleged 6,000 Muslims men that were allededly killed in Srebrenica, which Carla mentions in her indictment. Well, if at least half (and it could be in fact almost all) of the bodies in Tuzla are Serbs, what happened to the 6,000 Muslim men that were allegedly killed in Srebrenica? Stories abound. The most extreme version says that the figure was based on a misunderstanding to begin with and most of the men that really were meant had left the town for safer parts of Bosnia. This would make most of the 2,000 bodies that have been found in or around Srebrenica Serbs! Indeed, one Naser Oric has admitted and even shown video films that he killed Serbs, but he hasn't been indicted. Yes, everything is possible. This is a numbers game, but genocide charges always are. I just wonder why the International Red Cross reportedly has a list of missing persons of as many as 17,000 persons.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Thursday June 06, 2002 at 4:55 pm
  Hi all, I just found this very interesting interview where the interviewer mentions his experience in The Hague. The interview with Mr. Slobodan Milosevic brother is very interesting. You can find it at http://www.icdsm.org/ Also details on the "living conditions" in his cell... here is about IMPARTIALITY of "the court" and also interesting details about so called "judge" May. whoever is interested in International law will find this website quite telling....
  
  val gor
  daytona beach
  usa, fl

• Thursday June 06, 2002 at 7:40 pm
  The U.S. media coverage of Slobo's trial is non existant. BBC started out well but as Carla's case started to fall apart, they to pretended to forget about it. I am starting to wonder about state censoring of what the general public hears and sees. Perhaps the new world order is not just an unfounded fear. Yugoslavia was the most succesfull country in the south of Europe before CIA backed ethnic war tore it apart.
  
  Pertti Lindroos
  Quesnel
  B.C. Canada

• Friday June 07, 2002 at 3:05 am
  Indeed, and the little coverage were getting is very biased and is trying to blame and ridicule Milosevics for everything that is going wrong for the prosecution. Read the Guardian article of today for example http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/
  story/0,3604,728665,00.html. But hey, they pulled this brainwashing stunt in 1999, why not repeat it in 2002!
  
  Peter Varavejke
  Belgium

• Friday June 07, 2002 at 3:21 am
  Here is an alternative account of the "massacres" in Srebrenica and Zepa at http://srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/Pumphrey.html . It is an article by George Pumphrey. It doesn't let the Red Cross get away so easily.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday June 07, 2002 at 8:39 am
  Confused? It gets better. Summary of the 16th edition of the bulletin "Srebrenica" praises Naser Oric in these words: "A hero and symbol of resistance and survival of Bosniaks in Podrinje". See http://srebrenica.balkanika.org/bulletins/16/summary.jpg . It also speaks of "genocide" of Bosniaks in Podrinje. This is the site where the article on the Podrinje Identification Project is found. So is the killing of 2,800 Serbs in Podrinje all non-sense? Is Naser Oric a hero? Here is some more Oric stuff on black and white: http://sane-boston.org/articles/srebrenicaqa.html . The site also rehearses the genesis of the myth "5,000 - 6,000 dead muslims. But to view the problem from all sides, the Srebrenica website also has an International Crisis Group document on War Criminals in Bosnia's Republika Srpska at http://srebrenica.balkanika.org/indexa.en.php?link=clanci&p=1 . The document is basically a manual on how to get Serbs indicted. For instance, it reminds us: "It is important to stress that the Office of the Prosecutor's procedure for approving requests by local authorities to initiate local legal proceedings against suspects, and the issuing of indictments, public or sealed, by the ICTY itself are separate and concurrent processes." The document uses the term "non-Serbs" no fewer than 30 times. It goes through the different locations in Republika Srpska, and each of the sections begins with "Reported War Crimes in ...". "Reported..." Promising! Then it basically argues that all Serb leaders are guilty by association. What one might ask at this point is: if the Milosevic case is so flimsy, what about all the other cases where the ICTY has handed down a verdict? And more to the point, Milosevic isn't implicated in any way in the ICG document. However, he has to be connected to these guys somehow, otherwise why did the ICTY issue the indictment on Bosnia? Sure enough, the answer must be that he was the Serb to sign the Dayton Agreement. And the implication is of course, using the prosecutor's distorted logic, that if Milosevic's signature could end the hostilities, his not signing it before contibuted to the hostilities, hence, Milosevic is guilty.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday June 07, 2002 at 9:39 am
  Jari, you wrote: "using the prosecutor's distorted logic, that if Milosevic's signature could end the hostilities, his not signing it before contibuted to the hostilities, hence, Milosevic is guilty." How very true. In fact, the careful reading of the last 10 years suggests that the trial will be Milosevic's final act, designed, timed and scripted by higher powers to neatly wrap up the cautionary tale of the "butcher of the Balkans." Conspiracy? You bet. The term was not invented for nothing: Former Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck wrote in a 2001 article in the Boston Globe that, if the 1995 Dayton agreement "prolonged Milosevic's rule ... it also sealed his fate." In it, Milosevic agreed to the tribunal that is now putting him on trial. When he was arrested in 2001, "the trap that had been set in 1995 at last slammed shut," wrote Shattuck. The U.S. manipulated Milosevic and world opinion all along. Were allegations of Milosevic's "war crimes" in Bosnia and Croatia true, he would have been indicted in 1995, instead of rubbing elbows with U.S. politicos at the Dayton peace talks, where he vas instrumental in ENDING the war (in fact selling RS down the river). Were Washington serious about toppling him, it could have done so in 1996 by supporting the Serb opposition movement, Zajedno. Yet the U.S. seems to have been more interested in keeping Milosevic in power until the last part of the Pax Americana scenario in the Balkans played out with the NATO occupation of Kosovo. As the Balkans boogeyman on whom anything could be blamed, Milosevic was an invaluable public relations asset to NATO politicians who have been conveniently advancing their own geopolitical agenda in the region in tandem with Albanian secessionists. Only in late May 1999, when Yugoslavia's capitulation was all but certain, the U.S. and NATO gave The Hague the green light to issue the indictment against him. By then they had no use for him any longer, save a political show trial a'la Moscow 1937. To the U.S. he has always been a lemon.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Friday June 07, 2002 at 1:54 pm
  So. Jari? Peter(s)?
  Are you going to do anything ... like formally approach the new International Criminal Court for an idictment of Clinton, Albright, et al?
  You seem to have the legal arguments in hand. What are you waiting for?
  Is someone else putting the case together?
  
  Lou Coatney
  Macomb
  Illinois USA

• Friday June 07, 2002 at 6:39 pm
  Pertrii, notice also the BBC has blocked a similar chat line like this on the trial of Milosevic. It is frozen and you will notice the comments follow a similar vein. George Orwell said that their was a 'gentleman's agreement'in the press not to print things that went against the grain. George should have known as he worked at the BBC just prior to writing 1984. So you can see where he got a lot of his ideas from. Interesting--1984 is still a brilliant read--better than Shakspeare or the Bible for events such as these
  
  J rochell
  Norway

• Friday June 07, 2002 at 7:50 pm
  Just posted some articles on the events of the 16th, the day after Racak and they were immidiately deleted. Very Orwell indeed. Oh well you can check them out at http://www.nwc.navy.mil/balkans/ and download away. Balkans chronology 1999 11-17 page 150-end contains about every press release concerning Racak.
  
  Peter Veravejke
  Belgium

• Friday June 07, 2002 at 7:59 pm
  Press cancel when asked for password
  
  Peter Varavejke
  Belgium

• Saturday June 08, 2002 at 4:44 pm
  The question should be different. We all heard miss (if she is a real woman)Del Ponte saying that "with this jury we show to the world that noone can make a crime without punishment" Ok... but what about the crimes of israelis. Can you imagine hundrets of tanks attacking against children and women???? The kamikaze bombers was the final solution. they don't have any other way to fight their enemy (Sharon said that it is a war).An what about the crimes of the UCK? Many of the pictures that we all seen in Cnn or Bcc or wherever were not murdered Albanians but Serbs.
  
  George Kakas
  Thessaloniki
  Greece

• Saturday June 08, 2002 at 10:31 pm
  New York times has nothing about Hague.There is very little on the internet, Reuters.AP .and the other news org. I am watching the trial every night and i see that the news org. are biased and do not report any part of the witnesses testimony that are not getting points for the prosecutor.At the end of wednesday trial,Judge May said something that cought my attention.He asked the amici to reduce their number from 2 to 1 per day,because is about money.Is my understanding that the tribunal is running out of money ?How about the prosecutors to be reduced from 3 to 2 . On wednesdayThe KLA commander Buja said in his testimony that he killed serbs ( police,military,and maybe others ?) I do not understand how can he go to Hague and testify with impunity.Here in US if we have a KLA style separatist org.whose members kill policemans ,the authorities will hunt them all the way to the deepest cave.( I am talking of a scenario where mexicans living in a region where they are a majority want to unite with mexico ,and form a terorist org .) Is Hague willing to turn over Buja to serb authorities if serbian Gov. requests his extradition .Is serbian gov. brave enough to request his extradition. I need your opinion. Is Buja a terorist and a crimminal,and should he face the music too.??
  
  Vasile Ianos
  NJ USA

• Sunday June 09, 2002 at 11:47 am
  As is obvious to anyone seriously following the trial, Milosevic has skillfully demonstrated that many prosecution witnesses are fabricating their testimonies to various degrees. Even the more believable testimonies have failed to show that the defendant did anything more than commanding his country's armed forces against a ruthless terrorist organization (KLA) rooted in a chauvinistic, impenetrable to outsiders clan-based structure, funded largely by heroin trafficking and backed by foreign powers that demonstrably included both many NATO countries and islamist terrorists. The prosecution has simply no case. Most of the mainstream press refuse to recognize the truth, not only because they do not want to upset their powerful political handlers,but also because they cannot admit that they themselves had been fooled into believing in and propagating the racist anti-Serbian propaganda for a decade.
  
  Pythagoras Crotoniatis
  Athens
  Greece

• Sunday June 09, 2002 at 4:53 pm
  Posted on the Radio Netherlands forum: We, the U.S., have opposed the creation of the International Criminal Court. Although this further propels us into "an alliance of one," I believe the Bush government was justified, at this point, considering the one-sided nature of "war crimes" prosecutions so far. As many of you know, we/NATO forced the Kosovo "War" on the Serbs with Appendix B of the Rambouillet Treaty -- an unconditional occupation/SURRENDER ultimatum even the many Serbs who hated Milosevic could not accept -- and the war ended after Senator Don Nickles exposed App. B during the 3May99 "war powers" Senate floor debate, after our military and intelligence officers bombed the Chinese and created such a world outcry, and after Henry Kissinger publicly condemned the war in the 31May99 NEWSWEEK. (I myself had cited App. B on H-Diplo -- see the discussion logs starting on 14May99.) (The war seems to have been an attempt by the Clinton regime to grab war/dictatorial powers -- not just a diversion from a sex scandal ... as the "Wag the Dog" movie was to lead us to believe. Members of our domestic and national security communities quietly and bravely opposed the Clinton regime, in many ways and areas.) WE are responsible for ALL the unnecessary deaths and suffering in Kosovo -- not Slobodan Milosevic -- and yet only he is on trial in your Haag ICTY courtroom. ?! THIS is the West's "justice?!" So will this new International Criminal Court indict Clinton, Albright, and the rest of the NATO leaders and statesmen responsible for the Kosovo War? (See the archived and current discussions on the Univ. of Pittsburgh international law department's JURIST webpage ... at: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/issue_milosevic.htm OR is this ICC -- as we Americans suspect -- only another anti-military/security device which will instead begin by trying to prosecute our military and intelligence officers who attempted to END the war with the Chinese Embassy bombing? (If the Chinese were allowing their embassy to be used for Serb Army communications, they themselves were violating its neutrality and immunity, incidentally.) Judging by the way Holland's queen giddily gushed over Clinton, Europe is indeed easily seduced by leftist charismatics -- or just a whore for whomever it thinks is "good for business" -- so, again, we are probably right in opposing the ICC until it proves itself ... say, by indicting Clinton et al for Kosovo? We shall see. Of course, we have also spurned the Kyoto Treaty, even while the polar icecaps continue to melt and global surface temperatures continue to escalate. Even if the treaty is unacceptable -- excusing major polluters because they're "developing nations," while not demanding any basic commitment to the population control which is the root of all this to begin with -- Bush shouldn't have just blown it off ... arrogantly ... like he did, incidentally betraying an Election 2000 campaign promise. And then there is our Enron/FBI-scandal -pressured support of Israel ... and the "Axis of Evil" foolishness which only created a coalition of enemies and alienated allies and friends. ... and we thus continue to turn our world against us with the Athens-like arrogance Henry Kissinger warned us about (long before Osama bin Laden). Nevertheless, each issue must be judged objectively, and I and many other Americans are not about to trust Europe or the rest of the world with "war crimes" authority, after the propaganda and injustice we have seen from you so far.
  
  Lou Coatney
  Macomb
  Illinois USA

• Monday June 10, 2002 at 4:08 am
  I am still wondering about the Podrinje Identification Project. How do I know that the 2,800 bodies that were taken from Podrinje to Tuzla are Serbs and not Bosnians, no matter how the latter speak of genocide in Podrinje and Naser Oric being a hero? Simple. Whenever Carla can explain something to be a Bosnian Muslim or a Croat body, she does. That is how the grossly inflated figures of Bosnian Muslims that were allegedly killed in Srebrenica have come about. What does she say about the rest of Podrinje in her indictment? Very little. There are only three notable towns in the region: Bratunac (65 killed according to indictment), Srebrenica, Zvornik (70) and Visegrad (141). When Srebrenica is left out, we have then 276 killed in the entire region. According to the "Srebrenica" website, 2,000 bodies have been found in Srebrenica alone. That makes 2,276 bodies in all. Yet in Podrinje Identification Project they have 4,700 bodies. How do I know these come from Podrinje? Well, the project is called Podrinje Identification Project, so it is only naturaly to assume that the bodies don't come anywhere else. It is just as natural to assume that the rest of the bodies are Serbs. According to the figures above, that would make 4,700 - 2,276 = 2,424. Of course, the daring assumption of the prosecution is that these are still Bosnian Muslim or Croat bodies that have been buried or disposed of in a different place than they were reportedly killed. Another explanation, and one to be preferred is that 2,800 Serbs were killed in Podrinje. Naser Oric is allowed to run a disco in the US-controlled zone in Tuzla and is called a "hero", and what happened to the Bosniaks in Podrinje is called a genocide. According to the estimate above, more Serbs were killed than any other group ("non-Serbs"). And that leaves the identity of the 2,000 bodies in Srebrenica basically open, but it is safe to assume that most of the sets of remains are actually Serbs! Let me refer to the International Crisis Group document again at http://srebrenica.balkanika.org/indexa.en.php?link=clanci&p=1 . It says why it goes after the Serbs: "This report does not purport to be a comprehensive list of those who allegedly committed war crimes in RS; nor is there any suggestion that war crimes were committed only in RS, or only by Serbs and not Croats and Bosniaks (i.e. Muslims). But it is a particular matter of concern that Bosnian Serb authorities-in contrast to those of other ethnic groups-have yet to arrest a single Serb war crimes suspect, and have extended only minimal co-operation to the ICTY." This is a chicken-and-egg problem. Does the Republika Srpska play hard to get because the ICTY has issued indictments against Serbs in disproportionate numbers, or is it, just as the report suggest, that ICTY is hard on Serbs because they are not willing to cooperate? Not that Croats or Bosnians have been any more cooperative. The Serbs had more reason to be uncooperative, because their leaders had already been indicted and the Republika Srpska was basically inoperative. A stylish (and quotable) research into the Srebrenica "massacre" is at the good old Peace for the Balkans website at http://www.balkanpeace.org/cib/bos/boss/boss13.shtml . And why were the Serb leaders indicted well in advance? Could the motivation be exactly this: to render the Republika Srspka inoperative? The Dayton Accord had embed the Republika Srpska to the rest of the new state, and the only way to do this was to get rid of the Serb leaders. But how does Milosevic fit into the picture? Let us just look at his Bosnian connection. Is there any? He was President of Serbia during the war until 1997 and after that President of Yugoslavia? Was it thus his responsibility to prevent Serb atrocities or punish them afterwards? He was in no position to do this. But maybe Carla thinks that he is so evil that he signed the Dayton Accord just to be able to say that he is in no way responsible for the atrocities, hence, Milosevic is guilty. Maybe ICTY wanted to soothe Serb fears and make Milosevic the great scapegoat for everything. If so, this has failed appallingly. The only connection that Milosevic has to Bosnia is that he is a Serb. And even if he was de facto in a position to do something, weren't the Croat and Bosnian leaders likewise in a position to guard their own turf? Why pick Milosevic? Because he is a Serb! Or maybe Carla wanted a red herring: she really doesn't believe that Milosevic is guilty of Bosnia, but she wants herself to lose part of the charges so that the verdict seems equitable. Does this fit her personal profile? Why would one of the prosecutors, Geoffrey Nice, make a fool of himself by giving a tearful account of the Serbian atrocities in Bosnia in the opening statements? Besides, if the tribunal wanted to give a partial victory to Milosevic, it shouldn't have approved the indictment in the first place. If you want to believe in Milosevic's Bosnian connection, you have to swallow quite a lot. According to Schedule A of the indictment the Yugoslav National Army and the paramilitary forces killed together 65 Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat civilians in Bratunac. Milosevic must have been the most devilishly clever military leader in history to head the National Army and the paramilitary forces at the same time, and what is more, outside the official command structure. Imagine! The soldiers are supposed to take orders outside their own hierarchical structure to the extent that Milosevic was the head of the military! So what should we do? I have taken my share of verbal abuse at the university for questioning the official version. And what is the use of raising the lawyers' consciousness? According to one professor, law is style, not truth. This is how a myth is defined: the power of the myth is in its beauty, not in its truth. The "truth" of the myth is only in its beauty. Lawyers are myth-mongers by the admission of one of them (and a prominent one at that). So they will only laugh you out of the court if you dare to present the truth.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Monday June 10, 2002 at 8:54 am
  The 'best' piece of NATO propaganda ever written

  http://europe.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/
  06/28/milosevic.decade/index.html
  
  Peter Varavejke
  Belgium

• Monday June 10, 2002 at 9:45 am
  Jari, Yours is the best deduction of the Srebrenica number game I've ever read. Two thumbs up!
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Monday June 10, 2002 at 12:01 pm
  We all get our news on the net. Most people know only the mass media. Those of us who take the time to be informed must demand that CNN CBC ABC BBC tell the rest of the world what is going on in the Hague. Join me and email the networks and demand some news. I want Ms. Amanpour to cover the trial as advertised.
  
  Pertti Lindroos
  Quesnel
  B.C. Canada

• Monday June 10, 2002 at 1:35 pm
  Helmut Kohl's appearance on the witness stand is highly desirable as well. As reported by the Lord Byron Foundation for the Balkan Studies in December 1998, the founding of the armed wing of the KLA coincided with the appointment of Hansjörg Geiger as the new head of the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) in 1996. According to the report, one of the largest regional stations of the BND had been set up in Tirana, and the BND agents, in close cooperation with Shik, the Albanian secret service, were in charge of selecting recruits for the KLA command structure from among tens of thousands of Kosovo Albanians living in Albania. The report names the BND Rome bureau as providing intelligence back-up, including recruitment work in Trieste and Bari, two of the main entry points to Italy for Albanian refugees. The German Militärabschirmdienst (MAD), the military intelligence arm, and special commando units were involved in training and the provision of uniforms and communications equipment. KLA fighters were donning Bundeswehr jackets with identifiable German insignia. Training had been subsidized through an Albanian foundation known as "The Homeland's Call," with branches in Dusseldorf, Bonn, Stockholm, Bern and other European capitals. As reported by the Lord Byron Foundation, the above findings were corroborated in a German television documentary program, Monitor (19:00 GMT, September 24, 1998, carried by ARD in Munich). According to the report, the network's team of investigators, Jo Angerer and Volker Happe, have unearthed a wealth of data proving the link between the KLA and German intelligence services. Their report opened with news of a shipment of arms seized while being smuggled into Kosovo from Albania. It included hi-tech Armburst anti-tank grenade launchers developed by the German company MBB for the Bundeswehr, built in Singapore under German license. The report, as quoted by the Lord Byron Foundation, added that the Albanian rebels were also using radio communications and military monitoring equipment of German origin. The ARD television report confirmed that immediately after the Communist regime in Tirana collapsed, the BND resident in Tirana was involved in “several illegal arms supplies” arranged by the MAD headquarters in Cologne. A former MAD official said that the arms supplies were ordered “by the very top” and that the operation is still being treated as strictly confidential. Contrary to the expected Federal Defense Ministry denials, BND and MAD sources confirmed that members of both MAD and the Bundeswehr's school for communications in Bad Ems visited Tirana on several occasions to arrange deliveries and training. Apart from violating both German and international law, it clearly touched a raw nerve in Serbs, for the last time Albanians were equipped and trained by Germany was when they served in the bestial Waffen SS Skanderbeg Division, one of several Muslim SS forces in the Balkans set up by Hitler, including the Waffen SS Handjar Division, recruited from Bosnian Muslims. Kohl’s possible endorsement of the BND-KLA link is strongly suspected. On June 29, 2000 former Chancellor Kohl appeared before a parliamentary committee investigating financial improprieties under his reign. His defiant stance had continued since December 1999 when he had to admit that he had taken over $1 million in illicit payments from donors used to advance his Christian Democratic Party in the eastern part of the country. Kohl, who accepted the money between 1993 and 1998, has adamantly refused to identify the donors. He was questioned a day following the testimony of Burkhard Hirsch, a former vice president of the Bundestag, who told the committee that immediately following Kohl’s defeat in September 1998, most of the files in the Chancellery were shredded. “This massive erasure of data had no legal basis” he said in his testimony. While some of his donors, among them Elf Aquitaine of France, pushing for the privatization of the former East German Leuna oil refinery were partially identified, the source of the $1 million in question remains as a mystery, dramatized only by unusually adamant refusal on Kohl’s part to identify the donors of the missing piece of the illegal funding scandal, only fueling the widespread rumors in political circles about accepting money from the representatives of then illegal KLA in Germany, thus easing the flow of the German military equipment to Kosovo. On February 8, 2001 German prosecutors announced that they were prepared to drop a fraud case against Kohl on condition that he pays a fine. The recommendation in fact meant Kohl would not face criminal charges over admissions that he took $1 million in undeclared cash donations while in office. In turn it means that the source of the money will never be known. Hope to see Kohl on the witness stand soon.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Monday June 10, 2002 at 2:02 pm
  Miss Amanpour is a disgrace for journalism. She has been parotting untruths and anti Serb propaganda for too long by now (read article from my previous post). Her husband is James Rubin, close adviser and spokesman to Clintons U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright . You see, it all fits together. It would indeed be very exiting to see her cover the trial in which it is proven that everything she reported on Yougoslavia over the last decade were lies and filth. But i doubt that will ever happen. We will probably see her again on a flashy CNN special when Milosevics is convicted.
  
  Peter Varavejke
  Belgium

• Monday June 10, 2002 at 2:39 pm
  Pertti, In order for an Email campaign to be affective, numbers are needed and information of trial proceedings must be circulated. That is not going to happen on this ICTY limited forum. The only high profile,no holds barred forum I know, is Freerepublic.com. Check it out.
  
  Joe P
  Wis,USA

• Monday June 10, 2002 at 6:25 pm
  Dirty tricks, media bias and ‘what to do about them’ - with apologies to those not soccer fanatics. When England played Argentina in the 1998 world cup soccer competition England’s current captain, Beckham, was sent off for a petulant kick. Being largely responsible for the subsequent defeat the Daily Telegraph (UK) described him thus: “Gaultier-sarronged, Posh spiced, Cooled Britannia, look-at-me, what-a-lad, loadsamoney, sex-and-shopping, fame-schooled, daytime-TV, over-coiffed twerp.”. In Friday’s match Beckham was lucky not to be sent off again when he jabbed his elbow into an opponents face causing Gonzalez to leave the field for several minutes while the blood flow was staunched and his nose was plugged: one of Argentina’s star players, his injury eventually caused him to be substituted. Later England striker, Owen, surrounded by three defenders in the penalty area simulated a foul. While passing a defenders outstretched leg he fell down with a scream although it is doubtful whether there was any contact let alone sufficient impedance to cause him to fall - in ‘agony’. Thus Beckham scored the wining goal from the penalty spot. Being largely responsible for England’s victory the Telegraph updated its description: “The Daily Telegraph now accepts that he is an elegantly dressed, charmingly espoused, Golden Jubileed, sef-effacing, paternally perfect, deservedly rich, superbly tasteful, uniquely televisual, gloriously maned hero.”. In 1995 Milosevic was a party to the Dayton peace agreement putting an end to the savagery wrought by all sides in Bosnia. At least some in the media praised him for his contribution. In 1999 and onwards, fighting to protect his country from a terrorist incursion in Kosovo, he has been reviled in the media as the new Hitler. In each case the turning point in this newly revealed persona was an act of cheating. In the case of Beckham the simulation of a foul by Owen. In the case of Milosevic the simulation of a massacre at Racak by the Nato/KLA alliance. How do we combat cheating and the media’s false interpretation of events and personalities? It is difficult: in the last analysis all knowledge is belief and people believe what they want to believe or what others want them to believe where propaganda is concerned. The most useful knowledge from the politician’s point of view is that which they want and can get the general populace to believe. The most useful knowledge from the point of view of true Justice is that where the belief corresponds to the facts. Watch a video recording of the match. Peruse ALL the evidence of the Racak affair. In each case you will find reasonable doubt that a foul was committed or a massacre took place. According to English criminal law ‘reasonable doubt’ implies a ‘not guilty’ verdict. Recently I had an interesting exchange with one of the many acquaintances with whom I have shared many altercations over the Kosovo situation. Most of them refuse to discuss the possibility that the Serbs have been victimised. I showed him the Red Cross figures for the murdered and missing minorities in Kosovo under Nato control. He became angry and was clearly inclined not to believe them. I asked him why this was so and he replied that he had information from military sources that this was not true. He is intelligent, honourable and as an ex-serviceman has a distinguished service record. He showed me two recent copies of an army publication but the only Kosovo information they contained was a report of a rugby match in Mitrovica. He had discarded older copies. However I noticed a comment in the heading stating that the publication was official and not for general distribution. Is it possible that the source of his bias is that the contents of these publications are censored? A second thought occurred to me. Personnel who have served in the region will have first hand knowledge of events. Clearly military personnel are constrained in what they may disclose but surely there is something they may tell? Is there any way we can get those who have served in Kosovo to disclose on this board what they have experienced?
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Tuesday June 11, 2002 at 3:49 am
  The International Crisis Report that I have quoted was published on November 2, 2000. The former ICTY chief prosecutor Louise Arbour became a member of the Board of Trustees of the ICG in that same year? So are the ICG reports as objective as they claim to be? Of course not. But there is a complicating factor. Take a look at Louise Arbour's biography at http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/aboutcourt/judges/arbour/index_e.html . Yes, she is in the Supreme Court of Canada, in case you didn't know. And at the bottom it says: "Member, International Crisis Group, Board of Trustees, 2000". But the most remarkable thing about her resume is that she's got the honorary doctorate from a number of universities in Canada. So who are the people going to believe? Her or us? And that charisma will be shed on her successor as well, Carla del Ponte, at least as long as Louise Arbour is on the ICG Board of Trustees. But the trouble is that Carla is waffling. She got Ball's testimony on 10,000 dead Albanians in Kosovo, so why go to the 6,000 alleged killings in Bosnia for genocide charges? Why bring Bosnia into the picture at all? I can understand why Milosevic was indicted (from the tactical point of view, that is): first the leaders of Republika Srpska had to be "indicted away" to be compliant enough for the new Bosnia. And since the only reason Republika Srpska was willing to resist the new Bosnia was the moral support it got from Serbia, the old Serbian regime had to be broken as well. And what would be a handier instrument than an indictment against Milosevic, even if it meant that a new war had to begun, so that alleged war crimes could be committed? How do we know Republika Srpska got moral support from Serbia? Easy: Milosevic brought his moral authority to bear on the Dayton Accord so we should anyone trust him not to use his moral authority to enflame the emotions in Republika Srpska at some later time? And why did the new Bosnia need Republika Srpska? The answer is very technical. The independence of the former Yugoslav republics could only be controlled, if the borders of the newly independent states were the same as those of the former Yugoslav republics. This would set a good example for the independence movements in the former Soviet Union, according to Zimmerman. This is called "uti possidetis" rule, and it was mentioned expressely in the opinion of the Badinter Commission on Bosnia. (If you want a dissenting opinion on Bosnia from another high-profile Canadian, go to the articles by James Bisset, former Canadian Ambassador in Belgrade, at http://www.deltax.net/bissett/western/bosnia.htm .) So now we know why Milosevic had to be disposed of. The strategy was partly self-contradictory, because the war in Kosovo was according to the Kosovars a war for independence, which was in accordance with the "uti possidetis" rule only by a considerable stretch, because Kosovo was not a former republic, but a province of Serbia. So it was better to leave the ultimate fate of Kosovo unaddressed, the main thing was to get rid of Milosevic, so Serbia and Republika Srpska would never rise again to confound the neat western plans on partition of territory. So, yes, I understand. But why indict Milosevic on Bosnia? You could argue that in her Kosovo indictment she is only doing her job, but in the Bosnia indictment you really have to question her professonalism. Maybe she knows something about Milosevic's connection to Bosnia than we do (and we don't know everything), but judging by her handling of the Kosovo case and by the drafting of the Bosnia indictment, you have to doubt that. The only reason that I can think of is this. Whether Milosevic is acquitted or not, a revolt will break out, either in Kosovo or in Serbia proper. No-one really cares which. So bring on Bosnia and Croatia, which are closer to the hearts of many outsiders. Now you can't acquit Milosevic. What would the Bosnians say? And not only that, but what would the whole Muslim world say? Wouldn't they be "angry"? The Saudi involvement in Bosnia is an open secret. Just to show how much the Arab opinion has influenced the Balkan imbroglio, let's take a look at the Kosovo war in particular. After the Racak massacre, the first public outburst in the UN came from the Group of Arab Countries. They were berserk about this kind of atrocity taking place in the holy month of Ramadan and they demanded that the world would react. And the world did react. That is what is happening in The Hague. And that explains why the trial is conducted in the most honourable Saudi style: sentence first, verdict afterwards. Acquitting Milosevic would bring on us terrible repercussions, and it matters little if he's really guilty or not.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Tuesday June 11, 2002 at 10:48 am
  You right Jari,terrible repercussions if Milosevic is acquitted - but the sole way to regain morality ,justice and hope in today's world.
  
  Serjoe B
  Italy

• Tuesday June 11, 2002 at 3:33 pm
  While FRY was presenting its case against NATO in an attempt to stop the bombing, our Prime Minister Mr. Chretian responded to the issue of Canada being on trial, by publically stating that Louise Arbour was a very good judge, he was "considering" offering her a position on Canada's supreme court, and that he was sure she would "do the right thing". The outcome of the trial was in Canada's favour, and she was immediately afterwards appointed to Canada's supreme court. I leave it to the reader to draw their own conclusions. OTTAWA (CP) -- Justice Louise Arbour, the top war crimes prosecutor for the United Nations, is leaving her job to take a seat on the Supreme Court of Canada. The announcement came just a few hours after the UN Security Council approved a peace plan for Kosovo and two weeks after Arbour issued an indictment against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for alleged atrocities. Justice Minister Anne McLellan ended months of speculation that Arbour would replace Peter Cory before her mandate at the UN ends in 2000. She starts the job Sept. 15.
  
  Ian Davis
  Waterloo
  Ontario Canada

• Tuesday June 11, 2002 at 4:43 pm
  Jari & Serjoe: Milosevic's acquittal or conviction will have no bearing on future hostilities in the Balkans which are to erupt regardless. It will the logical consequence of the Western handiwork of the last decade, rooted in dishonesty, backed up by lies and propelled forward by unholy alliances with the most untoward criminal forces in the region. Dividing the former Yugoslavia into obedient and mutually distrustful protectorates that can be played against each other may have served NATO's tactical in securing a Balkan bridgehead for its military, but in a long run the simmering tension and hatred will spill out into something more disastrous than the past ten years. Churchill said once that "the Balkans produce more history than they can consume." The geopolitical status of Bosnia is not resolved. Neither is that of Kosovo. Macedonia ditto. And Montenegro. When Pax Americana comes apart at seams, the West will have no one left to blame for the fiasco, having squeezed the last drop out of Serbs in the blame department. The blame barrel will be empty and things will have to be called by their own names. Smelling the coffee may coincide in time with Carla's failure to prove the prosecution's case for Sloba, but conwitct him still on some transparently bogus charges, as the trial is a political one. They think they have the warring all wrapped up. Whoa! By the Balkan standards it has not even started.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Tuesday June 11, 2002 at 7:12 pm
  Recent trial testimony: Contrary to the impression he gave during his own testimony Rugova did fear assassination by the KLA and with good reason according to ICTY witness K6 yesterday. Having observed a string of witnesses denying even knowledge of the KLA it is refreshing to find that K6 admits the presence of these forces, including foreign fighters, and their operations. View this report by Reuters at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/decani/message/67231 Why has Judge May not now halted this trial? Here is a prosecution witness admitting KLA operations in Kosovo that included murder of Kosovo and Kosovar civilians along with their security forces and plans to murder Rugova, the senior Kosovar political leader. According to witness K6 the KLA included Islamic terrorists from Bosnia, Iran and Turkey. No country would tolerate the incursion of such illegitimate Islamic terrorist forces without a military response designed to crush them. I don’t understand the prosecution case. Is a sovereign state not now allowed to protect itself against armed incursion? Damn it: in Waco, Texas in 1993 Federal Agents attacked the Branch Davidian sect compound with overwhelming force causing the deaths of more than 80 including 22 children: simply for the alleged illegal possession of firearms?
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Tuesday June 11, 2002 at 10:39 pm
  K6 struck me as truthful, honest, and candid, even though he contradicted his own statement on many points. Somewhat astonishly, given the length of this trial, he is the first witness I would say this of. He also frequently appeared terrified of the consequence of his own words. In his shoes I would be equally terrified. He has my sympathy.
  
  Ian Davis
  Waterloo, Ontario
  Canada

• Wednesday June 12, 2002 at 12:45 am
  K6, as a Federal officer in the anti-terrorist units of the Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs served in a highly trusted position, despite being an ethnic Albanian. He swore allegiance to the Yugoslav Constitution and pledged to defend the sovereignity and territorial integrity of the Yugoslav Federation. The only thing expected of him was to be a loyal Yugoslav citizen. How many graves did the KLA fill with the bodies of kidnapped and executed loyal Albanians in Kosovo? That he "frequently appeared terrified of the consequence of his own words?" Well, he certainly made a mistake by confirming the KLA assassination plans against Rugova. Being in the middle of the ongoing political turf war in today's Kosovo jungle is not enviable. If he disappears, don't blame Milosevic for it.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Wednesday June 12, 2002 at 5:16 am
  Andre, I agree with you that violence will break out anyway. At least in Kosovo, as long as the Kosovars haven't achieved independence (they have threatened with violence if this doesn't happen). So because of that, Kosovars are not a good enough reason NOT to acquit Milosevic. They will revolt anyway, even if Milosevic were not acquitted. But there must be a more technical reason for the extension of the Milosevic case to Bosnia. Remember that Milosevic was indicted in May 1999, when he couldn't possibly have punished the perpetrators of alleged war crimes. I think the prosecution case depends on this failure to punish. But wouldn't it have been equally unreasonable to expect him to punish his citizens after the indictment? Politically it would. And he was the acting head of state. After Milosevic transferral some case law has already developed which is not in favour of indicting acting heads of state. The reason that has been cited is that criminal procedure cannot imperil the political system. In most cases, the "international community" doesn't want to imperil the political system. In Yugoslavia it did. But isn't that unfair? Why go after Yugoslavia, if you cannot go after other states? This was the weak point in the original indictment. Bring on Bosnia and Croatia again. In these cases Milosevic would have had enough time to punish the perpetrators of alleged war crimes. Many leading Bosnian Serbs allegedly got refuge in Serbia under Milosevic. Yes, they were refugees, but then again, the charge was genocide, so refugees or not, they had to be punished. Milosevic didn't. I am referring to individuals like Mladic, Karadzic and Arkan. And best of all, the indictment on Bosnia was issued in November 2001, when Milosevic wasn't proesident. So the Bosnia indictment would make sense after all, if it is limited to Milosevic's failure to punish the alleged war criminals afterwards. Little does it matter that Milosevic brought about the peace. The weak point in the Bosnia indictment is that there were thousands of refugees in Serbia, and not all of them were war criminals, or even Serbs (like the movie director Emir Kosturica, a "Muslim"). So if Serbia had a refugee problem, didn't that show that these refugees had been justified in defending themselves, because they were the victims? An even bigger problem is the uncomfortable fact that Srebrenica massacre, the trump card of the prosecution, probably didn't take place as has been alleged. On the contrary, the Serbs were the main victims. So the genocide charges can be turned against the prosecution, and if the proof is really so simple as has been suggested, the judges would have a hard time wriggling around the argument. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that the Bosnian indictment was issued. I said that the lawyers would laugh you out of the court for presenting the truth, but I think nobody would consider a genocide a laughing matter, even when the victims were Serbs. This takes us to the Jewish opinion. The Jewish opinion, the great arbiter of genocide cases, is divided, as always. In my humble opinion, the "revisionism" applied to the Serbian history will only harm the Jews. This has also been conceded by the Jewish-Serbian Friendship Association. If the Serbs are pictured as Nazis, the Jews themselves will be pictured as Nazis before you know it, as has already happened. But as long as the Jews are divided on Israel, it is not surprising that they are divided on Serbia. I just hope that taking a close look at Srebrenica will not be labeled as holocaust-scepticism. What happened to the Serbs and Jews in Croatia and Bosnia in the World War II WAS holocaust, not a "detail of history". And history is known to repeat itself, as it now seems to be doing in the case of Muslim attitudes to the holocaust, especially in the resurgence of Islamic "fundamentalism".
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Wednesday June 12, 2002 at 8:47 am
  It may be a useful pastime to think of ways to get Milosevic acquitted. I think it could be done in principle. Yes, we are laboring under a tremendous handicap. NATO and some of the main culprits on the Bosnian and Croatian side haven't been indicted. But that is what makes this case so challenging. Besides, even if the prosecution is openly biased, that doesn't have to mean that Milosevic isn't getting a fair trial. The tribunal could be less biased than the prosecutor. However, that is an academic point. The interplay between the judges and the prosecution is what makes this trial less than fair. Milosevic was transferred to The Hague on Kosovo charges. As soon as he is in The Hague, he gets as a bonus an "indictment" (belatedly) on Bosnia and Croatia. Is that something that the tribunal wants to leave to the future generations? Transfer first, indict afterwards. Or is this something that applies only to the Yugoslav presidents (well, we won't have problem now that Yugoslavia doesn't exist)? The tribunal made a faux-pas. But that is not all. The Kosovo indictment had six charges, which was manageable (let that point be given to Madam Arbour). After the belated indictments we have 66 charges. It is only due to its own malpractice that the tribunal now complains of lack of time! Is 66 charges manageable? The witnesses have to be rushed. And the blame falls on, guess who, Milosevic! That's how wily he is. Is this a trial in the first place. In a trial we don't charge somebody because he is a wicked "criminal", we charge him because he has done a criminal ACT. Where is the act in this trial? This "trial" is after Milosevic as a person, nothing else. We have seen witnesses come and go, but where is the criminal ACT? What we have now is some "evidence" of what they call in America "mens rea" - a criminal mind. Even that is a circular reasoning. He was supposed to be a wicked person to start with, and what the alleged atrocities are supposed to show is how wicked he is. If you didn't know the premise, you would never guess the conclusion. There is no "act". So the prosecution postulates the neglect to punish the alleged perpetrators. How do you prove he didn't punish somebody? How can you prove a negative? He didn't have power over the judiciary. He was put in a politically impossible position by the indictment in May 1999. Should he as an acting head of state have punished his citizens to make himself look good to the ICTY (and bad to the people)? Should he have punished the hundreds of thousands of refugees that poured from Croatia and Bosnia to Serbia by singling some of them out as war criminals? And in addition to the fact that you can't prove that Milosevic didn't punish when he should have, you can't presume that he ordered any war crimes. Who would order such things. "Hello, I am Milosevic, and by the way, please commit war crimes"? If he is seen as so wily as to outdo the prosecution in the procedural game, wouldn't he have been so wily as not to give orders to that extent? So you only have the negative to prove. Sure, Milosevic gave orders, but just the fact that there were civilians killed in armed conflict doesn't mean that he wasn't justified in defending his country and rooting out the terrorists. And as to not punishing guys like Arkan, a paramilitary leader, these things go both ways. If Arkan did some bad things in Bosnia, Milosevic (or Yugoslavia) should have punished him or extradited him. Reciprocity means that Bosnia should have "extradited" Naser Oric, who was indicted by Republika Srpska. This hasn't happened, and the US, in whose zone Oric is, does nothing. So much for reciprocity. So much for punishing alleged Serbian war criminals. And so much for fair trial.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Wednesday June 12, 2002 at 9:31 am
  Jari: Ah, the Jewish opinion. I have a curious item for you. I'm sure the seasoned Balkan-watchers here are familiar with it. Enjoy. By the time the “concentration camp” frenzy has hit the western TV screens, the propaganda machine of the Bosnian Government had everything else in place to make the story bigger. They contracted a leading Washington, DC-based public relation firm, Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs to further the image of Serbs as bloody aggressors, and the Bosnian Muslims as innocent victims. The Serbs have become to be viewed as fascists in this developing conflict. This characterization has now become an accepted fact, an issue beyond the debate. It made the U.S. motives seem unimpeachable and on the side of good agains evil. An April 1993 interview by Jacques Merlino, associate director of French TV 2, with James Harff, director of Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs, a Washington, D.C.-based public relation firm, explained the role of the corporate media in shaping a political issue. Harff bragged of his services to his clients, the Republic of Croatia, the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the parliamentary (Albanian) opposition in Kosovo. Merlino described how Harff used a file of several hundred journalists, politicians, representatives of humanitarian associations, and academics to create public opinion. Harff explained: "Speed is vital... it is the first assertion that really counts. All denials are entirely ineffective." In the interview, Merlino asked Harff what his proudest public relations endeavor was. Harff responded: "To have put Jewish opinion on our side. This was a sensitive matter, as the dossier was dangerous looked at from this angle. President Tudjman was very careless in his book, “Wastelands of Historical Reality.” Reading his writings one could accuse him of anti-Semitism. In Bosnia the situation was no better: President Izegbetovic strongly supported the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic state in his book, “The Islamic Declaration”. Besides, the Croatian and the Bosnian past was marked by real and cruel antisemitism. Tens of thousands of Jews perished in Croatian camps, so there was every reason for intellectuals and Jewish organizations to be hostile toward the Croats and the Bosnians. Our challenge was to reverse this attitude and we succeeded masterfully. At the beginning of July 1992, New York Newsday came out with the article on Serb camps. We jumped at the opportunity immediately. We outwitted three Jewish organizations, the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress. In August, we suggested that they publish an advertisement in the New York Times and organize demonstrations outside the United Nations.That was a tremendous coup. When the Jewish organizations entered the game on the side of [Muslim] Bosnian we could promptly equate the Serbs with the Nazis in the public mind. Nobody understood what was happening in Yugoslavia. The great majority of Americans were probably asking themselves in which African country Bosnia was situated. By a single move, we were able to present a simple story of good guys and bad guys that would hereafter play itself. We won by targeting Jewish audience. Almost immediately there was a clear change of language in the press, with use of words with height emotional content such as ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, etc. which evoke images of Nazi Germany and the gas chambers of Auschwitz. No one could go against it without being accused of revisionism. We really battled a thousand in full." Merlino: "But between 2 and 5 Aug. 1992 when you did this you had no proof that what you said was true. All you had were two Newsday articles." Harff: "Our work is not to verify information. We are not equipped for that. Our work is to accelerate the circulation of information favorable to us, to aim at judiciously chosen targets. We did not confirm the existence of death camps in Bosnia, we just made it widely known that Newsday affirmed it... We are professionals. We had a job to do and we did it. We are not paid to moralize." James Harff, Director of Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs April 1993 interview by Jacques Merlino, Associate Director of French TV2 "Les Verites Yougoslaves ne sont pas toutes bonnes e dire”, Albin Michel, 1994 P.S. The book proved to be unavailable in either bookstores, rare book dealerships, or via related websites. Every attempt to obtain a copy was met with the similar lines: “It’s too old.” “Out of print,” etc. The last effort in February 1999 resulted in a curious comment from a rare books website customer service representative: “It is unavailable. 'They' say it has to do with the situation in Kosovo.” Thomas Deichmann noted that when he touched the subject in his phone interview with Jacques Merlino a few years ago, Merlino said that he “couldn’t talk about it.” Apparently there has been some kind of a gag order pertaining to the already published book, followed by a massive undertaking to make the book universally unavailable.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Wednesday June 12, 2002 at 12:22 pm
  As William Walker and Milosevic square off in The Hague, it is timely to review the controversy and political manipulation surrounding the forensic examination of the Racak "massacre" in January-March 1999 in the context of by then already scheduled NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia. The examining magistrate of Pristina District Court Danica Marinkovic reported on February 4, 1999, that the bodies of ethnic Albanian terrorists had been placed in the chapel of the Pristina Institute of Forensic Medicine and would remain there until their families come to take them. “The bodies of 28 identified ethnic Albanian terrorists were transported to Stimlje on Wednesday, in agreement with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Verification Mission but had to be returned to Pristina after their families refused to take them..…We have agreed one day in advance with OSCE verifiers, Muslim priests in Racak and Stimlje and representatives of the Democratic League of Kosovo for them to notify the families of the identified terrorists, which they promised to do. The bodies were to be claimed Wednesday in front of the mosque in Stimlje. There was a large crowd there when we arrived. But as it was already too dark, we agreed to deposit the bodies in the Stimlje Health Center premises where the relatives were to come and take them over,” Marinkovic said. “After no one came, I decided around 6 p.m. to return to the mosque and speak to the gathered people as a representative of the state. But by then they had all left and the bodies had to be transported back to Pristina”, Marinkovic said. However, the same “relatives” of the dead ethnic Albanian terrorists staged a scene Wednesday morning in front of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Pristina. They fainted and rolled in the snow before cameras and journalists of Western television stations, because they had allegedly been prevented from taking the bodies of their dead. After weeks of controversy, on March 14, 1999 the authorized team of the Finnish pathologists confirmed in their official report that in the Kosmet village of Racak, on January 15, 1999, no massacre had been committed and, therefore, there is no possibility to use this incident as an excuse for the military threat to Yugoslavia. The report of the Finnish forensic specialists contained details pointing at the Albanian side. In addition to other methods, the Finish pathologists by a special “paraffin glove” analysis determined that all the killed had been previously shot from firearms. They also found out that their corpses were brought from some other place later. Once more the accusations of William Walker, Chief of the OESC Mission for Verification in Kosovo, that the Serbian police committed the massacre of gathered helpless civilians was rejected as untrue. Perhaps that is why the report of the Finish pathologists had been kept secret even when it was completed. Obviously, it was in someone’s interest not to hurry with the report which did not mesh with the charges of the chief of the OESC Mission for Verification, William Walker, and to keep the Serbian side “under pressure” as long as possible, and politically manipulate the event to the fullest extent. According to the information available, the responsibility could be ascribed primarily to Germany, which as the presiding country of the European Union received the report of the Finnish pathologists but kept it in secret. Although the expert analysis had been completed by early March, the EU was slow in publishing the results, and challenging the procedural matters for several times. In late February Helena Ranta confirmed “the work on the report has essentially been completed” and that only few technical details should be finished. She also had stated that the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs had taken over the decision making process as to whether the report would be published or not. As the date for submitting the report to German representatives in the EU Council, according to Ranta was to be March 8, although March 5, 1999 had already been announced as the previous deadline. A spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bonn had stipulated that only upon the submission of the report the further procedure will be thought up as well as the date of the report publishing. The submission of the report had been announced for March 8, 1999. After that date the German body which presides the EU Council should have undertaken further consideration of that matter. However the term had been postponed to great surprise, and contrary to the statements of Helena Ranta, who, one week earlier, considered that only three days were required for additional work on the report, Taria Halonen, from the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the expertise on Racak, due to few still unclear “technical details” must stay with pathologists for one week more. After this statement Helena Ranta had shied away from promising any future date. She had only meekly directed all inquiries to those who passed decisions in Bonn. Only after additional investigation in Helsinki and Bonn, and under the OESC pressure, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bonn announced that the report on Racak would be made public on March 17, 1999. In a curious coincidence, two days before the deadline, the second round of negotiations about Kosovo started in Paris. The result of the forensic tests was already known to Joschka Fischer, President of the EU Security Council, also present at the Rambouillet talks, and had a great impact on continuation of negotiations on Kosovo.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Wednesday June 12, 2002 at 1:03 pm
  The Jewish Question: Media asks the question after the terrorists acts against the USA...Why do they hate us? The media then responds, “Look what we did for the Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia.” What I saw on the news and am still seeing in the Israelite offensive against the Palestinians, was something the Yugoslav army never did in Kosovo and Bosnia. The Jewish population in the US have supported the actions of the Israel army l00%. I might add that in the case of Bosnia, the Serbs were fighting a civil war, and they were Bosnians longer than any of the other civilizations in Bosnia. In Kosovo, this was Yugoslavia also and the Serbs were fighting a civil war for their own land against terrorists who infiltrated from every Muslim country to fight the Serbs. Why is it that the Jews are so sympathetic with the Muslims in Bosnia and in Kosovo and not in Palestine? Read first paragraph for my answer.
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Wednesday June 12, 2002 at 1:41 pm
  Significant article in the Financial Times today: US demands jeopardise Milosevic's war trial in which is states that the US demands a secret testimony if Holbrook comes to then Hague. The Bush administration is wary of setting any precedent of senior US officials testifying before international courts ahead of the creation of the International Criminal Court, which the US adamantly opposes. The establishment of the ICC in July this year can indeed have great effects on the Milosovic case, and vice versa. Countries could cite the court proceedings in the Milosovic case, which can be seen as a test case, to be reluctant to cooperate with this the ICC when secret witnesses, written statements and sealed indictments are the order of the day. Not one, or only countries as Serbia who are forced to do it by the 'International' community will ever do this. http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/
  StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=
  1023676035253&p=1012571727088
  
  Peter Varavejke
  Belgium

• Wednesday June 12, 2002 at 2:51 pm
  I might be mistaken, but my understanding of why the Bosnia and Croatia charges of genocide were added to the indictment are quite simple. A head of state has diplomatic immunity from most crimes, genocide being I believe one of the established exceptions to this rule. The UN supreme court in Pristina has ruled that the Serbs did not commit genocide in Kosovo.. therefore somewhere else had to be found where Milosevic could be charged with this crime, thus legitimising his subsequent trial. The problem is that while Milosevic clearly had command authority if not necessarily control over events in Kosovo, he had no similar authority over events occurring in Bosnia and Croatia.
  
  Ian Davis
  Waterloo, Ontario
  Canada

• Wednesday June 12, 2002 at 3:25 pm
  check it out at http://emperors-clothes.com/letters/philpot.htm
  
  zachem oboydetes
  usa

• Wednesday June 12, 2002 at 6:12 pm
  http://emperors-clothes.com/letters/philpot.htm
  
  nato hater
  usa

• Thursday June 13, 2002 at 12:28 am
  This is just in. It is ironic how edgy the media reps can get when it comes to scrutinizing their past allegations. UN war crimes panel says ex-reporter must testify By Howard Kurtz, Washington Post, 6/12/2002 UN war crimes tribunal has ruled that a former Washington Post reporter must testify in a case involving allegations of genocide during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia. Rejecting arguments that such testimony would put future war correspondents in jeopardy, the tribunal in The Hague decided Friday that Jonathan Randal, now retired from The Post, must submit to questioning about an article on ''ethnic cleansing'' in Bosnia, formerly part of Yugoslavia. At issue is Randal's 1993 interview with Radoslav Brdjanin, which quoted the Serb nationalist as saying that there should be an ''exodus'' of non-Serbs from parts of Bosnia held by the country's Serbs, to ''create an ethnically clean space.'' Attorneys for the Post had sought to block a subpoena of Randal, 69, by the prosecution. ''This trial chamber fails to see how the objectivity and independence of journalists can be hampered or endangered by their being called upon to testify when this is necessary,'' the ruling says, ''especially in those cases where they have already published their findings. ... No journalist can expect or claim that once she or he has decided to publish, no one has a right to question their report or question them on it. This is an inescapable truth and a consequence of making public one's findings.'' Still, the ruling from the body, formally known as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said that such subpoenas should be subjected to a ''delicate balancing act.'' But Post managing editor Steve Coll said Monday that ''the last couple of years have made clearer than ever how hard is the work of independent correspondents in combat zones where many combatants are not formally aligned with any government and suspicious of the motives of the media.'' Coll said he is concerned that such combatants will instead come to regard journalists ''as instruments of some faraway court or power, and deal with them as such.'' Post attorney Eric Lieberman said the paper was weighing an appeal. The tribunal allows for appeals to a panel of judges that is convened jointly by the tribunal and a UN war crimes court for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. There is no issue involving confidential sources. Randal argued instead, according to the ruling, that ''journalists' independence would be undermined and journalists would have fewer opportunities to conduct interviews with officials with superior authority,'' and that ''journalists would as a collective profession be put at risk of greater harm and danger.'' This story ran on page A4 of the Boston Globe on 6/12/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. BTW, "ethnic cleansing".The history of the term "ethnic cleansing" is particularly curious. Allegedly, it is a term that was coined by Milosevic to describe his nationalist policy of erasing Croats and Bosnian Muslims from the imagined “Greater Serbia.” As Jared Israel’s Lexis-Nexis research proved, it was first used in Kosovo in the early 1980s, and covered by the NYT in 1982. They interviewed a Yugoslav official in Kosovo, (an ethnic Albanian), who said: "'The [Albanian] nationalists have a two-point platform...first to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the merger with Albania to form a greater Albania." ("N.Y. Times', July 12, 1982) The wholesale use of the term “ethnic cleansing” was a byproduct of the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign. It was first introduced in the summer of 1992 by the public relations team under the auspices of James Baker III, then in charge of Bush’s reelection. Apparently, it intended to portray the novice Clinton as one who did not know how to respond to the war in Bosnia, by giving the conflict a dramatic edge. The term took off, becoming a buzzword of the U.S. Balkan policy throughout the 90’s and now it has a life of its own. The English phrase neatly rolls off the tongue, while its Serbo-Croatian rendition is awkward, compounded by the fact that Serbs always saw the Bosnian Muslims as Serbs converted to Islam, i.e. not a separate ethnicity.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Thursday June 13, 2002 at 12:41 am
  Peter, That Holbrooke is nervous about apperaing in The Hague, and is opposed to ICC is fully understandable. Holbrooke left no stone unturned in Bosnia and Kosovo trumpeting and overblowing the evil deeds of the Serbs, whom he once called "murderous a****les" in a live broadcast of Ted Koppel's "Nightline".Yet as far as war crimes are concerned, there appear to be some hefty skeletons in his own closet. On December 7, 1975, Indonesia, having received approval from then President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger, invaded East Timor. The Carter administration, its rhetoric of human rights notwithstanding, provided Indonesia with napalm, “Huey” helicopter gunships, “Skyhawk II”, and “Bronco” attack aircraft, Lockheed transport aircraft, and Commando armored cars that enabled the Indonesian army to break the resistance, set up detention camps, and wipe out 200,000 people. The official in the Carter administration who lobbied on behalf of Indonesia for weapons sales while downplaying the atrocities by the Indonesian army was no else than the Assistant Secretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs - Richard Holbrooke. A war crimes tribunal on East Timor, anyone?
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Thursday June 13, 2002 at 3:28 am
  I think it is a pity Milosevic doesn't have access to the Internet (or does he?), because there are so many good points raised here. Judging by the move to subpoena Jonathan Randal of Washington Post one might get paranoid and say that somebody at the Prosecutor's Office is keeping up with the latest postings. However, what Randal can say of Radoslav Brdjanin and Serb nationalists would probably have no bearing on Milosevic. If that is good enough as evidence against Milosevic, surely Andre's lost book can be found somewhere to be quoted in the trial. Which book is that exactly? I think many of us have seen excerpts from it because the interview has been referred to even in this discussion. The to the legal nitty-gritty. Ian, your summary is quite an appealing one. On the other hand, it has been understood from the start that the ICTY meant a radical break with former immunity rules. Louise Arbour herself said that there seemed to be no reason why an acting head of state couldn't be indicted. Even at that point she wasn't thinking of genocide, because one of the charges in May 1999 isn't genocide. Therefore, the subsequent case law is important, because it means that the old immunity rules could be applied to the ICTY. I must admit that I don't know the cases in detail, but Sharon has been mentioned, as well as some politician at the Rwanda tribunal. Besides, it is my understanding that the immunity rules apply in the ICC, and as Peter pointed out, there will be an interplay between ICTY and ICC. In the most succint terms this would mean that Milosevic would be acquitted of the Kosovo charges due to a procedural error! The reason the tribunal might even want to consider such a possibility is that everybody knows this case to set a precedent, and eventually it is the Nato leaders that want to save their own skins. But you're right. The Bosnia case is easier to beat than the Kosovo case, especially if the crux of the charges, genocide, cannot be proven. Then it would be mindless to construct any command relations to prove Milosevic's role in it. But again, the Bosnia case doesn't necessarily depend on the genocide, because at THAT time Milosevic wasn't a head of state, so the genocide isn't needed to break his immunity any more than the working of the ICTY necassarily does. It is rather Milosevic's duty as the Serbian and then as the Yugoslav president to punish the perpetrators of whatever war crimes that will decide the issue. The greatest worry with the Bosnia and Croatia cases would again appear to be procedural. The indictments were issued after the transfer. However, this time the tribunal wouldn't repeal its own decision, except perhaps in the appeals procedure. As it is, Milosevic's greatest headache in the Bosnia case would appear to be his NOT punishing Arkan et al. Yes, one can cite reasons like the lacking authority over the judiciary, the humanitarian plight of the refugees etc. but how little this will avail is shown by the following scenario. When Arkan was shot dead, the reporters speculated that Milosevic had ordered him killed. Suppose he had. Suppose too that he had ordered it because of something he had done in Bosnia. That would be a punishment in the Balkan-style, because if Milosevic was supposed to take over the punishment process from the judiciary, things would go like that. Suppose Milosevic would declare in the trial that he had ordered Arkan killed because of Arkan's war crimes. Would that satisfy anyone? I doubt it. The reporters have speculated that Milosevic had ordered the killing of Arkan because he feared Arkan might testify against him in the trial (One has to wonder, if that was the case, why he hasn't done the same to Karadzic and Mladic). So it would be too easy for Milosevic to make up his motivation and get someone of his political associates to testify for him. So it would be impossible for Milosevic to prove why he allegedly had Arkan killed. Moreover, he would be guilty of murder. The tribunal might not be too happy about that, even if it was Arkan himself who said that the tribunal itself was guilty of the deaths of many Serbs in custody. So here you have that political dilemma in a more legal garb again. In order to please the tribunal you would have to be willing to break the domestic law in its entirety. It is the corner stone of any legal code that the provisions are possible to keep. Do the prosecutors of the ICTY have any idea what they are actually asking for? Or are they so keen to get Milosevic nailed that they not only expect him to break the domestic law (and in some cases international law) and take incalculable political risks at home but also are willing to break the time-honoured procedural rules themselves?
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Thursday June 13, 2002 at 4:18 am
  The US may be playing the Muslim card in the Balkans, but the Muslims are not necessarily happy. See the following tirade from an al-Qaeda "theoretician" and search the words Macedonia and Bosnia! http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD38802 . I really mean that this is bad business for the Jews. The Muslim connection has been evident from the start. Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law at the University of Illinois, is now busy with propagating the Palestinians to get Sharon indicted. He was the one who handled the Bosnian case for some time. He has openly admitted that it was his dream to get Milosevic indicted. How flimsy his case was is demonstrated by a document he drafted: Statement of intention by the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to institute legal proceedings against the UK before the International Court of Justice. It can be viewed at http://www.amber.ucsf.edu/~ross/bosnia_/brit2.txt . The main point was that "the United Kingdom has illegally imposed and maintained an arms embargo upon the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in violation of U.N. Charter Article 51 while acting in its capacity as a Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council". With all due respect, a case can hardly get any flimsier than that, unless one compares it with ICTY.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday June 14, 2002 at 12:54 am
  So now that the Klaus Naumann, the German general who led Nato's bombing of Yugoslavia impressed the Tribunal by "testifying" that Milosevic "talked of solving the Kosovo problem by executing ethnic Albanians," perhaps it's time for other members of the German General Staff to take the witness stand. Heinz Loquai, a retired Bundeswehr brigadier general is the case in point, and the charge of the "largest ethnic cleansing" operation appears to be at stake. FYI: On March 21 2000, the German daily Frankfurter Rundschau revealed that Bulgarian and German secret services had forged a “secret Serb plan” that was used as justification for NATO air strikes. The plan, code-named ‘Horseshoe’, purported to prove that the Serbs had planned ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians well before the NATO bombing campaign. The German paper quoted Heinz Loquai, a retired Bundeswehr brigadier general, who says that the ‘plan’ was no more than an intelligence assessment written in Sofia and embellished in Bonn: “But during the NATO war ‘Horseshoe’ was given top billing. It was first revealed by Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, on April 6 1999 … it was mentioned again at a press conference by the Bundeswehr Inspector-General Hans-Peter von Kierbach. The general claimed that this document provided evidence that Belgrade wanted to liquidate the KLA ‘even if that would mean extermination of the Albanians in Kosovo.’ “On April 24, 1999 Bulgarian Prime Minister Kostov quoted ‘Horseshoe’ to justify the pending Bulgarian collaboration with NATO. It was used again by the State Department’s James Rubin at the end of February 2000. ‘The truth about ‘Horseshoe’ remains unfit to print in America; but in Europe, it is now common knowledge that this was yet another Kosovo lie. On April 2, 2000 the Sunday Times of London printed a story of its own about General Loquai’s findings: ‘Loquai has accused Rudolf Scharping, the German defence minister, of obscuring the origins of Operation Horseshoe… ‘no such operation ever existed. The criticism of the war, which had grown into a fire that was almost out of control, was completely extinguished by Operation Horseshoe.’ ‘Loquai says that the German defense ministry even coined the name ‘Horseshoe’. But the eagerness to embellish the forgery gave the name away: The Germans named the bogus operation ‘potkova’, which is the Croatian word for horseshoe. The Serbian word for horseshoe is ‘potkovica’. Apart from this obvious blunder, the choice of the word for the sham plan is perhaps the most telling: it was borrowed from a joint German-Austro-Hungarian-Bulgarian effort of military encirclement of Serbia during World War I. That operation indeed existed, only proving the maxim about history repeating itself as a farce.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Friday June 14, 2002 at 3:24 am
  A couple of days ago I would have said that Milosevic is a goner, now I wouldn't. The article of the statute that has caused so many grey hairs is actually going to get Milosevic out. That article is Art. 7(3): "The fact that any of the acts referred to in articles 2 to 5 of the present Statute was committed by a subordinate does not relieve his superior of criminal responsibility if he knew or had reason to know that the subordinate was about to commit such acts or had done so and the superior failed to take the necessary and reasonable measures to prevent such acts or to punish the perpetrators thereof". It would seem no-one who read the news or watched TV at the time could be ignorant of what was going on in Kosovo or Bosnia or Croatia. Well, the prosecution has led us to believe that that is what the article says. No it doesn't. It says: "...he knew or had reason to know that the subordinate was about to commit such acts..." The subordinate! Further it says: "...prevent such acts or to punish the perpetrators thereof." The perpetrators! Let us take an example. In schedule A of the indictment on Bosnia it says: "Celinac Rifet MUJKANOVIc, shot to death by Serb soldier...Killing of 2 non-Serb civilians by Serb soldiers." Who were the perpetrators of the alleged crimes? Serb soldiers. Does that mean that Milosevic had to punish Serb soldiers? Did he even know who the "subordinate" or the "perpetrators" were? The prosecution doesn't. The prosecutor would have said so. They think it was Milosevic. No it wasn't. It was "Serb soldiers", it reads in the indictment. And Milosevic had to know that THE subordinate (singular) was about to commit such acts. He had to punish THE perpetrators. Did he have any contact with the perpetrators or even know who they were (and you have to take into account that they may have died in the battle themselves)? Surely the prosecution would have printed their names. Now it only mentions paramilitaries led by Milan Lukic. Sometimes the schedule doesn't even say the victims were killed by somebody but only that they were killed. Sometimes the schedule says the JNA (Yugoslav National Army) and the paramilitaries did this and that. This is even worse. If the prosecution wants to argue that Milosevic is guilty by appealing to "command responsibility", it is a well-known fact that Milosevic had no command responsibility in either case (in Bosnia and Croatia). So, the prosection is expected know WHO the perpetrator was and whether Milosevic knew who it was, and if he did, whether he punished him or not. Or to make it stick even better, the prosecution has to show that Milosevic ordered the crimes (of which he wouldn't have left any trace by any hypothesis). The generals and diplomats can come to testify that Milosevic planned an offensive. In addition to Andre's observation that the testimony is far from reliable, the point is that the prosecution has to show that he ordered SOMEBODY to carry out the crimes or that he knew the PERPETRATOR otherwise (while the prosecutor doesn't). Then comes the "punishing" part. That is what it says: "punish". That can range from saying "naughty naughty" to an execution, neither of which will not be enough to impress the tribunal. He might have had the perpetrators punished after a court hearing, but what would be the point? Milosevic himself is in The Hague, because the Yugoslav court system was and still is unable to guarantee a fair trial, by the tribunal's own admission! So the only option to clear himself of the "not punishing" charges would have been for Milosevic to transfer the alleged perpetrators to The Hague. There are two problems. First, as we remember, the transfer of Milosevic himself was against the Yugoslav constitution, so Milosevic would have broken the constitution. Second, the nature of the tribunal would become too evident. It is not a place to clear one's name but to get punished. So much for the fair trial again (this observation seems to apply at multiple levels). But the converse of this argument is equally interesting. Unless and until the subordinates are delivered to The Hague, there should be no reason to believe that the alleged perpetrators were the actual perpetrators who had to be punished. So the tribunal itself has to decide who the perpetrator was, what acts took place and whether the alleged "acts" qualify as crimes. So in order to get Milosevic convicted on the basis of Art. 7(3), the subordinates would have to be sentenced in The Hague FIRST! Now we understood why Carla is in such a frenzy to get Mladic and Karadzic (alleged "subordinates") to The Hague. These guys have to be punished in The Hague first before the tribunal can sentence Milosevic for NOT punishing them. That explains why Carla is so unhappy about the deadlines. Even if these big fish, who were actually Milosevic's subordinates, were transferred to The Hague now, time would run out. They wouldn't be convicted before Milosevic. And that explains why Carla (or actually Geoffrey Nice) has filled the witness stand with such non-entities: to buy time! Well, I would feel pretty confident in saying that she lost. Only now is she getting in the men that were mentioned in the same Kosovo indictment: Milan Milutinovic, Nikola Sainovic, Dragoljub Ojdanic and Vlajko Stojiljkovic (i.e. those who are alive). So the backdoor would be to argue, as we have seen in the recent testimonies, that Milosevic ordered an offensive and did not PREVENT the atrocities (or actually "failed to take the necessary and REASONABLE measures to prevent").
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday June 14, 2002 at 7:06 am
  Jari, justo to be accurate: JNA does mean Yugoslav POPULAR Army,and not NATIONAL. I guess that the definition is of some importance in the view of hostilities which errupted between the various nationalities in ex YU.
  
  Serjoe B
  Italy

• Friday June 14, 2002 at 8:25 am
  JNA is an abbreviation of Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija. This has been translated as Yugoslav National Army or Yugoslav People's Army or, as you say, Yugoslav Popular Army. The point is that it was the federal army, not paramilitary troops or MUP agents (Ministartsvo unutarnjih poslova = Ministry of the Interior), i.e. police. Therefore, the commander-in-chief of JNA was the Yugoslav president, which Milosevic wasn't at the time of the Croatian or Bosnian wars. For the rest, I am happy with taking a hard line on Art. 7(3). You may say, as a quite voice at the back of my head does, that I can't expect the prosecutor to identify the perpetrators and failed to punish that particular individual. Yes, I can. It may not be fair to the prosecutor, but when we speak of a fair trial, we don't mean it should be fair to the prosecutor but fair to the accused. The prosecutor had all the liberty to choose only those incidents which she could prove, not to use poetic licence. The problem with the Bosnian indictment was of course that the charges had to be tailored according to those that were in the indictments against Mladic and Karadzic. So the unprovable figure of 6,000+ Bosnian Muslims killed in Srebrenica has become part of ICTY folklore. Caution. Even if Milosevic gets acquitted, that doesn't mean that he is going to walk free, because the prosecutor still has the power to demand that he be kept behind bars in accordance with the Statute. But that doesn't change the case, really, unless you are interested in easy victories.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday June 14, 2002 at 1:37 pm
  Nousiainen notes >It would seem no-one who read the news or watched TV at the time could be ignorant of what was going on in Kosovo or Bosnia or Croatia. But in examining schedule A of the Bosnian indictment in consideration of Slobo’s liability under Art.7(3) relating to command responsibility, he notes acts detailed in the indictment refer to conduct by others, often of unspecified identity. Then this question: >Does that mean that Milosevic had to punish Serb soldiers? Did he even know who the "subordinate" or the "perpetrators" were? Of course Slobo would be expected to punish soldiers under his command! If everyone knew of events in Yugoslavia as described in the media, it would be expected Slobo would have called in his generals and asked them for some sort of accounting. If the headlines scream about civilian deaths, I would imagine Slobo would have some evidence he demanded an explanation from the officer in charge. He doesn’t have to know the guy’s name, he has a chain of command that can follow down to the individual perpetrators. Once it is known some officer or a subordinate acted wrongfully, I would expect the JNA would bring about a court martial. Presumably, acting swiftly in this regard after NATO’s intervention could have taken a lot of wind from ICTY’s sails. It would also make more legal sense inasmuch as we can presume soldiers in an armed force would expect to be subject to their own military code rather than to something novel fashioned after the fact and for the purpose.
  
  Raul Nuñez Sheriff
  Mexico City

• Friday June 14, 2002 at 5:51 pm
  Several members of the Yugoslav armed forces were charged with violating the military code and overstepping their authority with regard to the civian population of Kosovo ("war crimes" if you will)in April-May 1999, even amidst the unrelenting bombardment of Yugoslavia. Instead giving Milosevic credit, the Hague crowd simply ignored the due efforts by Yugoslav judiciary in this regard. Milosevic definitely had no control, and could not have had any by definition, over the local Kosovo ad hoc paramilitary formations.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Friday June 14, 2002 at 7:55 pm
  Concerning headlines of civilian deaths screamed in the media. Why would Milosevic ask his Generals about the one hundred thousand civilian deaths ‘screamed’ in the media when anyone with any sense and knowledge of the situation would know that this was Nato propaganda? The media also ‘screamed’ that the Serbs had shelled two refugee convoys killing and injuring hundreds of Kosovars. In fact Nato later admitted that its bombs had caused these deaths and injuries. Why would Milosevic ask his Generals about civilian deaths ‘screamed’ in the media after this? Will anyone ever again believe anything Jamie Shea of Nato announces or Mark Laity, then of the BBC, reports? If so then more fool you. If you peruse the indictment you will see that ninety percent of the ethnic Albanian victims allegedly murdered by Milosevic’s forces in Kosovo are males of fighting age. Were these not KLA combatants? If so how would the Serbs even know about them if they were killed in battle and confined to enemy territory? Does anyone really know how they died? There is evidence that the KLA killed many ethnic Albanians. On the matter of accounting let’s consider the thousands of deaths and injuries NOT ‘screamed’ in the media. Who in Nato is to account for the casualties caused by dropping bombs from three miles high onto civilian areas including hospitals, schools and housing estates? Who in the KLA/KPC is to account for the thousands of dead, abducted (presumed dead) and injured Kosovo civilians attacked while under Nato protection?
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Friday June 14, 2002 at 8:04 pm
  “What manner of man is it who tries to rush out in front of the head of state and her grieving family so that the nation can see how much he, too, feels their pain?” asks the Daily Telegraph (UK) of Prime Minister Blair in its editorial today. Reports of these attempted arrangements in various newspapers and magazines has been branded a lie by Alastair Campbell, Blair’s chief spin-doctor, in a public denunciation of the press. A threat was made to initiate an enquiry if the reports were not withdrawn. These reports have not been withdrawn but the threat to ask the Press Complaints Commission to deal with these so-called “lies” has been withdrawn. The Telegraph goes on regarding the denial of these reports “… we now know that 10 Downing Street deliberately lied.” It accuses Blair of trying to use the funeral of the Queen Mother “… as an occasion to gain greater prominence for himself.”. I do not often agree with Telegraph editorials but I believe they hit the nail bang on the head with this last comment. In his outspoken moralistic statements before Nato’s war on the reduced Yugoslavia do we not see the same pattern? ‘Google’ “Blair Kosovo Milosevic” to read these statements. Can you find any statement acknowledging his covert support for the armed incursion by Islamic terrorists who were murdering Kosovars and Kosovo civilians and their security forces? Did Blair seize the Kosovo problem as an opportunity to present himself on the world stage as a leading statesman? Clinton was morally incapacitated by the impeachment and other Nato leaders were hesitant. Was it Blair’s self serving demagogy that drove them all into the folly of Madeleine Albright’s superpower ‘arms’? His loud and oft proclaimed concern for the rapid return of Albanian refugees in Kosovo has not been extended to the two hundred thousand or so non-Albanians expelled by the KLA/KPC under Nato control. His Foreign Office Minister Keith Vaz, given special responsibility for Kosovo, never visited Kosovo during his tenure: eventually terminated, after much delay, following allegations of sleaze - in Blair’s “whiter than white” government”. Last week Father of the House, Tam Dalyell, described Blair as Britain’s worst Prime Minister. “What manner of man is it …” that claimed to be a pacifist and a CND supporter and now drops cluster bombs on defenceless civilians: that flies bombs into public buildings in Belgrade then denounces such action as a heinous crime in New York: that supports Islamic terrorism in the Balkans and attacks it in Afghanistan: that attends a Christian church and ostensibly carries a copy of the Koran: that demands sovereignty for the province of Northern Ireland but denies it for the province of Kosovo: that promised to improve education, health and transport but wastes billions instead on foreign adventures and other image enhancing gimmicks like the Dome: that when criticised for his failures on these matters allows the state apparatus to dish the dirt on those damaged by these failures to combat their complaints? Why a man without principles, one who promotes image over substance, a cynical sinning spinner. He and his like are qualified to judge Milosevic? I don’t think so.
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Saturday June 15, 2002 at 7:35 am
  - Is the use of paragraphs not permitted in this discussion board? ;-) - Posts are excellent, but sure would be easier to parse if split up a bit. - Guess I'll find out what happens to paragraphs when I 'press' the Post button. Here goes.
  
  Dennis Revell
  USA

• Saturday June 15, 2002 at 7:49 am
  [NEW PARA] - b OKey, Dokey, so that's the way it is is it. [NEW PARA] - I can take a hint.
  
  Dennis Revell
  USA

• Saturday June 15, 2002 at 8:10 am
  More on Willy Walker:- ___________________________________ Stana Antic’s 13-year old son was kidnapped by the KLA in September 1998. During the period of the OSCE verification mission, she went to ask the head of the mission, William Walker, for help. William Walker contacted the KLA, and when Antic and her family returned to meet with him, this is what happened. "In Pristina, when we went to William Walker’s office to kindly ask him to intervene with the KLA, he said, ‘Okay, he will be liberated, but you must go instead of him, to replace him as a hostage.’ When Antic did not agree to this, William Walker refused to do anything more for her. Shortly thereafter, she received the dead body of her 13-year old son. ___________________________________ From:- http://www.iacenter.org/warcrime/gelich.htm
  
  Dennis Revell
  US

• Monday June 17, 2002 at 3:06 am
  Art. 7(3) begins with these words: "The fact that any of the acts referred to in articles 2 to 5 of the present Statute was committed by a subordinate..." So one has to establish first that the subordinate has committed a crime referred to Art. 2 - 5. Only then can you pile up charges up the hierarchic ladder. Those who have seen "A Few Good Men" starring Cruise, Moore and Nicholson know exactly how this works. You have to know the whole chain of command regarding every single incident and only then can you allocate guilt. What would have been the point in establishing a military tribunal, when the ICTY doesn't even recognize the regular Yugoslav court system? (Not to mention that at the time of the war Yugoslavia itself wasn't recognized according to some pundits.) And who says this wasn't actually done? Yugoslavia did punish perpetrators of war crimes at its own pace. If I remember correctly, the first publicized sentences were handed down in July 2000 by Yugoslav courts. But the comparison with Yugoslav military court is a good one. In the national military court one could establish the exact chain of command. In the ICTY that is impossible. So which guarantees a fair trial? ICTY still maintains that Serbian courts don't, while it does. Not so. And to illustrate further. Once an individual crime has been established in the military court and they start looking for culprits, do they start with the President of the Republic? I have never heard any country that would tolerate such a thing. In the movie I mentioned it was hazardous even to make a colonel take the witness stand, because a failure to make him say what you expected would have meant the end of your career. So you may answer and say but yes, that was exactly why Milosevic had to be brought to The Hague. Why? Because no country would want to charge its own leaders? Why would ICTY be a suitable place, especially when you can't establish the incidents, the perpetrators and the chain of command? Yes, the prosecutor can fill the indictments with figures, but it has to prove them. No-one will ever want to admit that the figures in the "schedules" can be verified. Yes, you can say that the prosecution knows what it's doing. If so, why have this trial in the first place? The prosecution hasn't won this trial yet, and an indictment doesn't establish case law. The prosecution has the burden of proof, and when they want to prove imaginary victims, be my guest. Why is it so important to establish the identity of the victim and the perpetrator? Because otherwise the prosecution could attribute to the Serbs casualties resulting from Muslim internal fighting. In other words, the prosecution could make the Serbs look like the killers of all the casualties of war, including other Serbs killed by "non-Serbs". It would have been a much more honest gesture to leave the indictment blank with only the name Milosevic at the top, because the imaginary figures don't to amount to anything more. The prosecution can say that the crime was so heinous that it can't be proved only at its own peri. And further: you can say that Milosevic has in fact incriminated himself in his cross-examination because he has shown himself very well-informed of the events in every single incident. This is the first time I hear that a cross-examiner can incriminate himself. And since this is done by the defendent, the fact that Milosevic is willing to defend himself shows that he is guilty! Being well-informed is what the cross-examination is about. And it is a scandal in itself that the cross-examiner is better informed than the prosecution witnesses, many of whom haven't supposedly even heard of the KLA. So who do you think is guilty? Might the prosecution have overdone the coaching just a bit? If Milosevic can incriminate himself during the cross-examination, surely the prosecutors can do so, too. Being knowledgeable at the time of the cross-examination only shows that you are well-prepared. The reason that guilt is automatically assumed is that the ICTY has virtually blocked the flow of information from outside to Milosevic, so whatever he knows he must have known since the acts were perpetrated. But even if he were, so what? Art. 7(3) mentions only too kinds of persons: a subordinate and a superior. What is a subordinate? Someone "inferior in rank". A superior is "superior in rank". What is a rank? Hasn't that something to do with the military? If so, a rank and superior-subordinate relations would be officially established. It is shocking to see the prosecution design all kinds of alternative chain structures. This is not what Art. 7(3) is about. It deals exclusively with recognized command structures. Every army has a recognized command structure. You can't resort to arguing a black-magic influence just to get Milosevic nailed. So Art. 7(3) doesn't apply to politicians. Yes, but you may say, if that article provides the individual guilt of military superiors, wouldn't it be a good idea to apply it to more general command structures, like politicians? Absolutely not! This is what they teach you even before they admit you to the law school: prohibition of analogy! You can't apply the terms of a provision analogically to similar situations. You have to stick to the letter. And besides, the statute is exceedingly generous to the prosecution, so is it too much to ask that they stick to what little it provides? Any black-magic influence exerted by Milosevic over Karadzic and Mladic is absolutely out of the question. I still think the last straw for the prosecution is that part of Art. 7(3) where it says: "the necessary and reasonable measures to prevent such acts". Again, this seems to give too much credence to the commander-in-chief, which Milosevic was at the time of the Kosovo war. What is "reasonable" for the commander-in-chief? When he gives an order, how far should he go to "prevent such acts"? I would say he could trust his generals to take care of it. The only way, no matter how pitifully remote, is to postulate that the order that Milosevic gave was in itself a war crime. You must postulate that he ordered Kosovo ethnically cleansed. This is nonsense. All that you need to rebut it is to show that the offensive or any other operation made good sense from the strategic point of view, and to do that, you have to show where the KLA and the foreign special forces were and what they were doing. I am sure that the Yugoslav files contain much detailed information on this, and if the tribunal considers it unreliable, that is their problem. Let them believe William Walker, the truth-teller. The only kind of order that might have constituted a "war crime" in itself would have been a war of aggression. This is what the prosecutors were after at Nuremberg after WW II. I would like to see who could dare to maintain that Yugoslavia waged a war of aggression. We all know who did. It was a certain defensive alliance. Luckily, a war of aggression doesn't fall under the jurisdiction of the ICTY. So finally, Louise Arbour may have said that the Statute doesn't forbid the indictment of an acting head of state. She is right. Neither does it permit it either, and that is what counts. Individual responsibility can only be incurred in a military hierarchy, and then you have to establish the guilt of the subordinate first. You can't apply this to politicians by analogy. Refusal to cooperate with the ICTY isn't punishable according to the Statute. And the recent developments show that it wasn't Milosevic's guilt that ICTY failed to catch Kardzic and Mladic.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Monday June 17, 2002 at 4:12 pm
  At the gate to my home I encounterted three US boys; aged 19 to 23. Lost,going to Alaska. Talking to them , confirmed that the population of the US is not at fault, but current events and world history do not reach the people. The US brodcast media is much more controlled than in Cuba.
  
  Pertti Lindroos
  Quesnel
  B.C. Canada

• Monday June 17, 2002 at 5:10 pm
  Geography is not the strong point of some Americans, either. On a trip to Mt. St. Helens I meet a woman who said she was from Vancouver. "So you are a Canadian too" I asked. I will always remember her reply. "No, I'm from Vancouver, Oregon. Is there a Vancouver in Canada?". I think the problem is that the US media shows Canada as ocean. If American's are unfamiliar with Canada, how can they be expected to know where some place half way round the world is, or anything about its culture?
  
  Ian Davis
  Waterloo
  Ontario

• Monday June 17, 2002 at 5:51 pm
  Medical Examination on Mortal Remains. Racak, Stimlje, Kosovo, FRY. Date of examination: Saturday January 16, 1999. International Medical corps, International Red Cross, CIA. Search for the truth its out there. A small team of individuals made up from the three above mentioned organizations arrived in the village of Racak in the early morning hours of Saturday January 16, 1999. Interesting how the team got together for this early morning drive in the country on January 16, 1999. Another interesting item to note there where no Kosovar Albanians not even a driver amongest the group. Of course all of this was done before William Walker showed up with the press. Upon arrival to the seen big John from the CIA took over with his select team from different organizations and preformed Medical examinations on the Mortal Remains. This is the evidence that was presented to Louise Arbour. Louise you should have done a back ground check on some of these individuals that presented evidence to you. But I guess being on the Supreme court of Canada was clouding your judgement. There is no doubt that all on the team were KLA supporters and they received all of there information from the KLA. The search for the truth about what really happened in Racak must be told. Key words of interest: FARC,Colombia, Doctor
  
  ANDY FAIRCHILD
  calgary
  alberta, canada

• Tuesday June 18, 2002 at 3:44 am
  I find it difficult to understand why judge May refuses to allow Milosevic to draw comparisons between how United States reacts to terrorism to how Yugoslavia reacted to terrorism in Kosovo. America was first among equals in the alliance that attacked Yugoslavia so the comparison is logical. Am I missing something here? Witness Neumann seemed to dance around the question concerning why over 100,000 Serbs fled Kosovo as NATO bombing started. One does not need to be a rocket scientist to understand that civilians don’t stay around where there is military activity, particularly when cluster bombs are being used in civilian areas. Neumann’s continues referral to disproportionate action by Serb forces in Kosovo. What about 16 NATO nations against Yugoslavia? The overwhelming and disproportionate air attack on economic infrastructure and civilian targets all over Yugoslavia seems to be lost on General Neumann. Why does judge May not permit Milosevic to ask Neumann about evidence not brought forward by the prosecution if Milosevic feels it will help his case since he will not have a chance to question this witness again? It is obvious that Milosevic and May don’t respect each other but to me May seems like a stuffed shirt full of himself. If judge May pulled the kind of nonsense in a British courtroom that he is pulling at The Hague he would not be a judge for long. When he suspender further questioning of Neumann by Milosevic, he quickly returned and resumed the hearing. It seems to me that judge Robinson is placing a ‘human face’ on his approach in the trial. By the way Peter English soccer and Beckham are looking good????
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Tuesday June 18, 2002 at 4:17 am
  Anyway, too much has been made of who "knows" of the atrocities. As if "knowledge" suggests culpability. This argument can have devastating results for the prosecution witnesses, if turned around. Fred Abrahams testified that Milosevic knew of the atrocities, because the Human Rights Watch sent him reports by e-mail. But doesn't that mean that the Human Rights Watch knew of the atrocities as well? Didn't they know even more, because they were on the "field" while Milosevic allegedly only got the reports? Why isn't HRW guilty of the atrocities? If you think that this problem is contrived, isn't it one of the ethical problems of journalists whether they should keep photographing the events they see or do something about them? HRW is honest in one respect, in its name. It is a human rights WATCH. It just watches but does nothing to help anybody. In other words, it uses the human rights violations to incriminate foreign governments. Its even-handedness is specious. Yes, it accused the Nato bombings of killing 500 Serb civilians. However, the Serb figure is over 2000. Which do you believe? Even the Serb figure may be too low: who is to estimate how many lives are lost due to the long-term effects of the bombing? OK, the bombing is not the issue. The meaning of the word "knowledge" is. How do you determine what it means to "know" something when the most notorious spin doctors are allowed to take the witness stand? And on the other hand, you may present to the tribunal evidence from Serb sources, but this is supposedly not reliable, unless it has been "recycled" through the US intelligence first for any bits of information the prosecution may need. What the defence can do is keep cross-examining until the presiding judge cuts the cross-examination short. What the defence can also do is point out the inconsistencies in the prosecution's legal argument. You may argue endlessly about the evidence of the Racak massacre, but the point is that if the victims were unarmed, why are the Serb forces accused of "crimes against humanity" on the basis of Art. 5 which is applicable only to "armed conflict"? Yes, it says that these crimes are "directed against any civilian population", but how can there be an armed conflict, even "internal in character," if all the Serb forces did was kill civilians? However, Art. 2 - 5 are so formulated that it is impossible to make a case for the defence only on the basis of them. Art. 7(3) demands that the charges are "piled" upwards from the actual perpetrators. Unfortunately, Art. 7(2) does state: "The official position of any accused person, whether as Head of State or Government or as a responsible Government official, shall not relieve such person of criminal responsibility nor mitigate punishment". So yes, the Statute does allow heads of state and politicians to be accused. That still doesn't lessen the "piling" effect of Art. 7(3). However, if Art. 7(2) is so clear about the heads of state, what was Louise Arbour's problem? Her problem was that Art. 7(2) doesn't say that she could indict an acting head of state for crimes he had committed as acting head of state. Art. 7(2) says: "The official position of any accused person..." Milosevic is an accused person: he is the "accused". What kind of "official position" does this accused have? None whatsoever. So clearly this article only refers to the position of the accused at the time of the trial. Again, you might be tempted to interpret this liberally for the prosecution. But there is the prohibition of analogy: a criminal code cannot be applied by analogy to situations that only resemble those mentioned explicitly in the code. Art. 7(2) doesn't state that a person is responsible for the war crimes BECAUSE he was Head of State or a responsible Government official. Just the fact that the politicians or officials may have been politically responsible doesn't imply criminal responsibility. However, if we look back at the first indictment in May 1999, the reason was clearly political. How could the prosecution know the chain of command in the Racak "massacre" if it wasn't even allowed to enter the site? And as we all know, the fact that Louise Arbour wasn't allowed to enter the site WAS the reason that the indictment was issued. Hence the charges were political: Yugoslavia exercised its right not let a "persona non grata" enter the country. (William Walker was also declared persona non grata, even if he worked for OSCE.) Then let us see what the burden of proof does. It is true that Milosevic didn't have to know the perpetrator personally. But the prosecution does! Otherwise it can't prove the guilt of those higher up in the hierarchy. But it goes further. Milosevic doesn't have to even imply in the trial that somebody else was responsible for the atrocities. If the prosecution cannot reconstruct the chain of command and show that Milosevic was guilty, it has failed to demonstrate its case, because Milosevic is (in principle) presumed innocent. The prosecution doesn't even try to reconstruct the chain of command in every single instance. The prosecution can take the short-cut and say that Milosevic unequivocally gave orders to commit war crimes. However, let the prosecution prove it! Where is the unequivocal order? William Walker can "testify" and say that Milosevic was undoubtedly in charge. What a surprise! He was commander-in-chief! Didn't we already know that? A Nato general can come and testify that Nato generals were of the opinion that Milosevic had threatened the Albanians with ethnic cleansing. That was the reason used to justify the bombing (after the bombing had caused the refugee flows), so didn't we already know what the Nato generals thought Milosevic was thinking? Where is the order? And as to the "ethnic cleansing", remember this. Before the Americans had dropped even a single bomb on Afghanistan, there was a massive flow of refugees. I can't remember the exact figure, let's say it was a million. Anyway, this took place BEFORE the bombing. See the connection? Yes, the Albanians were supposedly happy that Nato kept bombing them. Now the Americans are afraid of suicide bombings in America. There are supposedly people in America that are happy to die of a bomb provided the bomb does enough harm to their enemies. World events are doing nothing to justify this trial.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Tuesday June 18, 2002 at 9:35 am
  Re-posting some observations on the first phase of the trial, courtesy of journalist Greg Elich. Comments on ICTY trial of Slobodan Milosevic for period February 27 to March 8: During this period, it is apparent that the extremely tough schedule is beginning to wear on Milosevic. His cross-examination during this period is generally unfocused. Too often he uses up most of his alloted time on repetitive questions on an issue where a witness is being completely obstructive, and not leaving sufficent time to address the most important points raised by a witness. To some extent, the quality of the cross-examination was adversely affected by the loss of telephone service for Milosevic. The day after service for Milosevic was restored, at the other end, telephones were disconnected at the Freedom Association in Belgrade - the organization doing research on witnesses. So Milosevic was left without crucial information during a few days. Eventually phone service was reconnected, although I do know that on at least one occasion subsequent to this time period, phone service was again eliminated for Milosevic. The amici curiae are becoming more involved. Mr. Tapuskovic in particular has been very good at raising discrepancies in the witnesses' testimonies. Judge May is still taking an interventionist approach, curtailing Milosevic's cross-examination and time allotments. However, it appears someone may have pointed out to him that he was prompting witnesses to an excessive degree, as there has been a very sharp drop off in such incidents. Despite that, it is obvious that Judge May harbors a strong antipathy for Mr. Milosevic, which is manifested repeatedly. The other two judges, Judge Robinson and Kwon, give the appearance of being much more fair-minded, but it is Judge May who is running the trial. It appears that the Prosecution Team has learned from the fiasco of their first witnesses, and the witnesses during this period appear to have been much better coached. During examination, they tend to appear more or less reasonable and thoughtful. However, in every case during this period, that illusion completely vanishes during cross-examination. It very soon becomes apparant that most of the witnesses have ties to the KLA, are rabidly and vicously racist, and are extremists. One wonders how the NATO and KLA-supporting Western left can complain about supposed Serbian nationalism while favoring or ignoring such racist extremist viewpoints as these witnesses (and the KLA) reveal. It is also quite clear during cross-examination that the witnesses are lying and distorting events. One women talked of an attack by Yugoslav troops against a column of refugees (despite the presence in the column of Yugoslav troops protecting them). Only during Milosevic's cross-examination did it come out that the KLA was shelling the refugees with mortars and Yugoslav tanks were in a position to fire not at the refugees but at the KLA positions firing mortars at the refugees. In other words, the Yugoslav forces were protecting the refugees. Another witness claimed to view directly a murder. During cross-examination it was revealed that the site of the supposed murder could not have been viewed from his own home, as he claimed, because there was a large building in between that blocked the view. It is very striking how often witnesses give seemingly detailed evidence of murders, and only during cross-examination does it come out that they did not personally witness the events they described. They merely heard about them. Some witnesses. If these are the kind of witnesses the Prosecution comes up with, then no real court would convict a person based on such evidence. But in this kangaroo court with its preordained verdict, that matters not. Fireworks went off during the cross-examination of Sabit Kadriu, whose story kept changing throughout. Both Mr. Milosevic and Kadriu were evidently emotional, and Kadriu continually refused to answer questions, instead delivering mini-speeches, insults and delivering comments unrelated to the questions. Mr. Tapuskovic's brief cross-examination revealed the witness' ties to the KLA and his advocacy for the expansion of Albania to include Kosovo, part of Macedonia and Greece. Mr. Milosevic's cross-examination of Kadriu showed that Kadriu continually denied knowledge of murders of Serbs and Albanians by the KLA - even in his own village. This is a pattern seen with all the witnesses so far. They claim to have detailed knowledge of murders and intimidation, even dozens and dozens of miles away, but when it comes to murders and intimidation by the KLA - even in their own neighborhood, and even in one case just a block away from a witness' home - they claim to have no knowledge. One witness produced a supposed Serbian government list of Albanians to be executed, including himself. Milosevic pointed out various spelling errors that would be impossible for a Slav to make, given the spelling structure of words, and concluded quite accurately that the document could only have been a fabrication. The schedule is so grueling for Milosevic, that one wonders if he can sustain this level of performance for the one year this trial will take at a minimum. He is forced to awake at 7:00 AM, even though the trial does not begin until 9:00. There is no opportunity for exercise on trial days. Trial sessions generally last until 4:30 or 5:00. By the time he returns to his cell, there is barely time to eat and then do research and phone calls for the next day. Arrayed against him is the 545-member Prosecution Team, funded by hundreds of millions of dollars. Given the indications that he is already tiring considerably so early in the trial, it would probably be advisable for him to rely more on the amici curae to take up more of the effort, even though the primary effort would be his. He will have to pace himself to make it through the trial. It is also apparent that the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses are riddled with so many lies and contradictions, that Milosevic cannot possibly keep records of them all, and organize them in preparation for the presentation of his case. He is simply too busy with his limited evening time preparing for the cross-examination of the next day's witness.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Tuesday June 18, 2002 at 9:41 am
  Re-posting Greg Elich's observations on the current phase of the trial. Courtesy of journalist Greg Elich. Comments on reading of transcripts of ICTY trial of Slobodan Milosevic, period through May 7: Slobodan Milosevic's cross-examination in this latest period is much sharper than in the immediately preceding period, where he was evidently exhausted. However, Judge Richard Mays is more openly displaying his hostility towards Milosevic. Judge May has also resumed prompting the witnesses again, and quite frequently answers for the witnesses. For example, a witness might provide an answer, and Milosevic asks a question related to that answer, trying to get at a particular aspect of the subject, and Judge May will interrupt, and say something like: "The witness has already answered that. He said...." and then repeats the answer to the first question, even though the second question is slightly different. Or sometimes Judge May will drop the comment about it being answered and just blurt out an answer for the witness. More and more frequently, Judge May makes snotty comments towards Milosevic, and more and more frequently he cuts short Milosevic's cross-examination. The time allotted to Milosevic is limited, and even that is cut short frequently. The Prosecutor has complained at having "only" 14 months to present its case, and so suggested that it will present as testimony the written statements of witnesses. The Prosecutor suggested that these written statements would just be entered as evidence and be considered at the same level as oral evidence by witnesses actually appearing in court. Naturally, Milosevic objected to this. There would be no possibility of cross-examination. Judge May ruled that the Prosecutor would be allowed to submit these written statements as evidence, but that the witnesses would have to appear in court for cross examination. This would be done under what is termed "Rule 92 bis." During this latest period, the majority of witnesses are Rule 92 bis witnesses. When such a witness appears the Prosecutor provides a verbal summary of the statement, the document is entered as evidence, and then Milosevic is allowed to cross-examine the witness. Unfortunately, this procedure is a disaster for the defense. For one thing, Judge May limits Milosevic to one hour cross-examination of such witnesses. The more important problem is that it is much harder to get at the truth with such witnesses. Earlier witnesses provided verbal testimony, which quite often differ sharply from early statements. So Milosevic was quite often able to point out the discrepancies between their verbal testimony and earlier statements as found in the documents, and usually questioning about the discrepancies revealed important information that the witness had not provided, or revealed intentional distortion of events by the witness. With the Rule 92 bis witnesses, it is not possible to find discrepancies, because the only thing is the written document. It is also obvious that the Prosecution is coaching its witnesses very well. For example, frequently, when a witness is faced with a tough question, he will refuse to answer and just say, "I should not have to answer such a question because it is not relevant to my testimony." 99 percent of the time the question is indeed relevant, and 90 percent of the time Judge May will leap in and tell the witness he does not have to answer the question. It is also obvious that the Prosecution has coached well its witnesses on how to use up the one hour of cross-examination time. About 3/4 of the witnesses during this period will refuse to answer a significant proportion of questions, and will just give unrelated comments, or provide an answer that has nothing to do with the question. Milosevic will repeatedly ask in various ways to try and get an answer to one question, and the witness will continue to respond with answers completely unrelated to the question, and virtually the entire hour will be gone before Milosevic has to give up and move on to another question. Usually Judge May allows the witnesses to do this although a couple of times he also asked the witness the same question, and when the witness gave an unrelated answer to him also, Judge May said nothing. Many times also a witness has refused to answer, again with no comment from Judge May. Particularly obnoxious was Ibrahim Rugova. Judge May was fawning over him, and Ibrahim Rugova came across a complete asshole. There is not a more polite way to put it. Rugova often gave speeches instead of answers. Judge May has often accused Milosevic of giving "speeches" when he points out to the judges the connection between certain answers and what that connection signifies. So when Milosevic asked the judge how come he allows Rugova to make speeches when he complains about that in relation to him, and added that he just wants Rugova to answer his questions, Judge May responded something like: "I haven't heard him give any speeches yet. He's providing important testimony." In fact, there was virtually no content to Rugova's testimony. It was all political posturing and lies. Rugova, like several other witnesses, made the claim that Albanian children were not allowed to go to school and so had to set up parallel schools for the children to learn. Several of the witnesses were finally forced under cross-examination to briefly and grudgingly admit that no one prevented Albanian children from going to school. They just wanted their own (in fact, right-wing racist xenophobic) curriculum for Albanian students, and they could not get that curriculum in state schools. Rugova behaved childishly throughout his testimony, and for a very long stretch refused to answer simple questions, giving speeches instead of an answer. Finally Milosevic had to give up and move on to other questions. It is clear that many, many, many of the witnesses intentionally distort events. For instance, a witness on May 7 who repeatedly insisted that the Yugoslav Army (situated 4 kilometers from his village) would not allow anyone to leave or come to the village. Finally it came out that the Yugoslav Army did not prevent anyone from movement, and there was no contact. The villagers just felt "afraid" to leave. It also came out that one Albanian was bringing groceries to the village (so how come he could come and go, if Albanians were "prevented"). And on and on. The educational issue is almost always distorted, and any event is intentionally distorted to make the situation appear the worst. For instance, several times a witness will insist that the Yugoslav Army wantonly attacked an innocent village, and then it comes out later that there were KLA troops there. But then the witnees would always insist that the Yugoslav Army ignored the KLA soldiers and just attacked the villagers (meanwhile the KLA soldiers did nothing...) It is also obvious that many of these witnesses have a connection to the KLA which they downplay or do not admit, and it is also clearly obvious that a great many of these witnesses are racist. Judge Kwon of South Korea continues to appear honest and decent. Judge Robinson appears to just follow Judge May. And Judge May makes no attempt to hide his loathing for Milosevic. It is amazing how weak most of these witnesses are, how many lies they've been caught in. Open perjury appears not to be a problem for Judge May. The Prosecution hasn't even come close to presenting a case, and not a shred of evidence that Milosevic was responsible for crimes. But just as surely, given Judge May's open display of hostility, it is obvious that Milosevic will be given a life sentence.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Tuesday June 18, 2002 at 12:01 pm
  To ANDY: were did you get this information from. Can you please give source or link? Thanks!
  
  Peter Varavejke
  Belgium

• Tuesday June 18, 2002 at 8:33 pm
  BOMBAST. A few hours after a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up a bus killing 19 and injuring dozens more Israelis Mrs Cherie Blair, a human rights lawyer and wife of the UK Prime Minister, made this comment today “I agree. As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up, you are never going to make progress.” She was agreeing with Queen Rania of Palestine’s comments that “anger and frustration” at the situation in Palestine was the cause of such atrocities. The cat is out of the bag. This then is the sloppy thinking that pervades the Blair household and promoted the war over Kosovo: If you’re not happy with your lot terrorism is justified. Have a look at the handiwork wrought of Blair’s bellicosity in support of the KLA: http://www.decani.yunet.com/hrabuses.html Surely it is a principle that terrorism is NEVER justified. And they called Milosevic and his wife evil. --- World Cup soccer: Walter as long as referees continue to red card players for being tripped in the penalty area and linesmen (as they used to be called) disallow goals because they don’t understand the offside rule even the US may lift the cup.
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Tuesday June 18, 2002 at 9:41 pm
  I’ve been reading this discussion group for several weeks now. I printed and read discussion from the end of April through now before chiming in. Unfortunately I have limited time to read and research all of the references and web links provided here or issues and events discussed. I’ll start of with the caveat that my knowledge of Bosnian events, in even the most general sense, is limited. My knowledge of Kosovo is a bit more intimate. Hopefully the more I proceed I’ll become a bit more informed. As to the basic question of is Milosevic getting a fair trial? Yes, I think he is getting a fair shake. I am not a student of law or a lawyer, so I cannot debate the legal viability of the court. However, without having been able to read all the transcripts or watch all the video archives, I think that he is being afforded the opportunity to make his arguments. He certainly is fighting an uphill fight, but his hands have not been completely tied preventing him from presenting his views or defense. I clearly think he is making some points on evidence and the course of the trial. As noted in links to news articles from this site, Milosevic is proving formidable at making the prosecution prove every point and make every argument. He is doing this by not stipulating to ANYTHING during the proceedings. That clearly is in his best interest as the prosecution has a formidable burden in presenting evidence establishing that these events occurred as they alleged in the past decade, etc etc. That being said, I must point out some things that have been posted here that don’t completely make sense to me, again most of this will strictly regard Kosovo. It is alleged that Milosevic, while the President of Yugoslavia, failed to stop or make reasonable effort to prevent government forces from persecuting Albanians to the extent of allegations of murder, rape and being forced from their villages. The forces alleged to have committed these acts are the Yugoslav army (JNA) and Ministry of the Interior (MUP) Police, as well as organized Serbian militia forces which were allegedly acting on their behalf or with their consent. Jani in particular seems to keep mentioning that Milosevic is indicted for these acts because he did not take action to punish anyone for these alleged offenses. Clearly, Milosevic should have been aware of these alleged acts, if from no other means than the western media which first brought these allegations to the view of the majority of the western world. At that point would he not have an obligation to Albanian citizens of Kosovo, province of Serbia, republic of Yugoslavia, to at least investigate these allegations if they were not state sanctioned? That did not happen as far as I can find. No fact-finding mission, no search for information from NGO’s (non-government organizations) or any other action to determine the truth to these allegations. Certainly he did not have any opportunity to prosecute offenders, but he didn’t take any action to stop them or investigate the allegations of their existence either. Having spent the latter half of 1999 in Kosovo and visiting many village and town there, I don’t think there is much question that the Albanians civilians were the victims of persecutions as alleged. I think it is, quite unfortunately, equally true that the Albanians are guilty of similar acts against the remaining Serbian population since they returned. But the fact that Albanians are not free of guilt should not mean that what is alleged against the Serbian leadership is any less criminal. I don’t want to sound like a mother’s cliché, but two wrongs don’t make a right. Slobodan Milosevic is not absolved of responsibility because someone else committed and alleged crime as well. The second question I will raise is that of Racak. Now I feel quite remiss about not having more knowledge of this incident, as the alleged massacre is what spurned the involvement of NATO forces. As I have read here, there are allegations that the UCK (KLA) in some way staged Albanian civilians killed during the police action against UCK forces there. MUP forces reported to media or NGO representatives that they assaulted the town and killed about 15 UCK members. It was stated several times in this discussion that the 40 or so civilians who were alleged to have been massacred were actually civilian victims caught in the mix. Doesn’t it seem an awfully high number for 40 civilians to be collateral damage in a fight which only took 15 UCK lives and few casualties to the assaulting forces? Granted math may be fuzzy regarding how many remains were discovered where in Bosnia, but this math is no less fuzzy! The one point I do have regarding primarily Bosnia is the identification process. What isn’t always clear from the western perspective, but is abundantly clear when you enter this region, is that the normal methodology for identification of remains is not typically available in this environment. There are no nice orderly dentists offices with archived dental X-rays. Many of the tools of law enforcement and forensics which are common place in the western world are largely absent in this region. This alone drastically hinders conclusive identification of remains. What is left, which is to some extent described in a few of the articles referred to here, is only clothing is what is left to identify remains. Perhaps there are less conspiracies than some would like to think…
  
  Andrew B
  Virginia
  USA

• Tuesday June 18, 2002 at 11:42 pm
  Andrew B. I must admit that I never went to Kosovo but for most Serbians and even the older generation of Catholics in Bosnia, Kosovo has a mythological significance. Serbians, in all parts of former Yugoslavia know the epics about the Serbian Knights and the Battle of Kosovo in the fourteenth century. These epic poems parallel and in some cases surpass ‘Beowulf’ one of the great epics in the English language. The myth of Kosovo to Serbs and Bosnian Slavs (Catholic and Orthodox) was born out of five centuries of oppression by the Ottoman Turks. The beautiful bridge in Mostar to many Bosnians represented five centuries of oppression. When the Croats knocked it into the Neretva River, to the nationalists they just eliminated one more symbol of Ottoman rule. If you want to know more about myth and reality of the Balkans read “Bridge on the River Drina” by Nobel recipient Ivo Andric. As to oppression of Albanians in Kosovo I know that they had all the political rights of every other Yugoslav. Like all other minorities they had the right to use their own language, practice their religion, they had their own radio and TV stations schools and universities in the Albanian language and so on. My understanding is that they had more rights than the Quebecers in Canada. Like the people of Quebec, Albanians in Kosovo do not have the right to separate. As far back as 1973 I was aware that Serbs in Kosovo were persecuted. I visited Yugoslavia in 1973 and my cousin who was attending the school of mines in Kosovo had to complete his studies in Belgrade because of fear for his safety in Pristina. Another family that is related to my aunt lived in Kosovo after WWII and they had to leave because their daughter was attacked by Albanians. This is not anecdotal evidence, these are facts that I know of first hand. Andrew, there are many Rcaks in history. Korean airline -Western Europe accepts American cruise missiles. Gulf of Tonkin -US bombs North Vietnam. Breadline massacre in Sarajevo -NATO bombs the Bosnian Serbs. Sarajevo market bombing -NATO sends troops to Bosnia. Racak -NATO bombs Yugoslavia. September 11th -Afghanistan????? . Or have I fallen under the conspiracy umbrella? You state in your post that you “think that he is being afforded the opportunity to make his arguments”. I totally disagree as do most who post on the web site. Read Andre Huzsvai’s post above yours. If what Mr. Huzsvai writes is accurate (and I have no reason to doubt it) how can this be an opportunity to defend oneself? I think Judge May is like Peter’s linesman in soccer, he sees what he wants to see, allows what is not detrimental to the end result. . In the case of the linesman a Korean victory which will be good for ticket sales. In case of Louis Arbour a seat on the Supreme Court of Canada. In case of judge May a NATO victory will mean a Peerage or he will be Lord May. History will see both of them for what they are “Uncle Toms” who sold out for self interest.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Wednesday June 19, 2002 at 12:16 am
  Peter (Varavejke): I'm on several mailing lists and receive massive amounts of info. I'll do my best to trace down Greg Elich as a source. His intimate knowledge of the proceedings suggests that he monitors the trial daily from the premises.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Wednesday June 19, 2002 at 1:10 am
  Genocide Revisited. The genocide charges regarding Kosovo resurfaced in the U.S. press, but I’m sure Carla won’t welcome them. The July 2002 Vanity Fair issue features an extensive documentary item, “Slaves of the Brothel” by Sebastian Junger, detailing the prostitution industry and sex slavery in today’s Kosovo. Excerpts follow, pages 112-117 and 162-166: “A virulent Mafia business is thriving in postwar Kosovo: the $7 to $12 billion traffic in Eastern European women… forced into prostitution. Despite international efforts, sex slave traders have been nearly impossible to prosecute, thanks to corruption, local laws, and the victims’ fear of testifying.” “..something amounting to slavery has been allowed to thrive in the middle of Europe. Not only is the Albanian mafia notoriously violent - Kosovo has one of the highest murder rates in Europe - but it has attempted to infiltrate and buy off both the local police force and the government.. The Mafia is deeply intertwined with the KLA.. and it has plenty of weapons… War has been good for the Albanian Mafia… already in a position of power because they helped fund and arm the KLA, the Mafia bought off local officials, infiltrated the police force, and killed anyone they couldn’t intimidate. “Worldwide, the effect has been disastrous. The Balkan drug trade, which moves more than 70 percent of the heroin destined for Europe, is valued at an estimated $400 billion a year.. The OSCE .. estimates that around 200,000 women each year are trafficked from Eastern Europe and central Asia, most of them as prostitutes. The value of their services has been estimated at between $7 and $12 billion. “Prostitution became a mainstay of the criminal economy within months of NATO intervention in Kosovo. With 43,000 men stationed on military bases, and spending by international reconstruction groups making up 5 to 10 percent of Kosovo’s economy, the problem was bound to arise. There are now as many as 100 brothels in Kosovo, each employing up to 20 women… Deprived of their passports, gang-rapes, often forced to take drugs, and disoriented by lack of food and sleep, there women find themselves virtual prisoners.. “According to [Lilia] Gorceag an American-trained psychologist, who treats women at the IOM safe house in Chisinau [Moldova, where the most sought-after victims are from], . ‘women who are trafficked to Turkey, Greece, and Italy generally survive their experiences psychologically intact, but the ones who wind up in the Balkans are utterly destroyed as people. They exhibit classic symptoms of severe post traumatic stress disorder: they can’t focus; they can’t follow schedules; they are apathetic to the point of appearing somnambulistic; they fly into violent rages or plunge into hopeless depression; some even live in terror that someone will come and take them away… These are people with completely destroyed psyches. It’s a form of genocide.’” A great piece of writing - highly recommended. An otherwise superb article, it lacks the subtitle: “Made Possible by NATO.” A memo to Milosevic: call Carla as a defense witness. Carla, prior to being appointed to her current position, spent the late 1990s prosecuting Mafia cases in Switzerland with extensions to Italy and Western Europe. Her thorough knowledge of the Swiss-based criminal networks, and the especially important Swiss route of Albanian drug trafficking that generated most of the financing for the KLA arms purchases in 1997-1998 would make her a perfect witness to attest to the intimate link between the Albanian drug money and the armed insurrection by the KLA that triggered the Yugoslav response and culminated with the NATO war - something she’s now trying to pin on Milosevic.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Wednesday June 19, 2002 at 6:11 am
  Thanks Andrew for the dissenting opinion. Let us take a look once again at Art. 7 of the Statute. I have pointed out time and again that it wasn't Milosevic's personal responsibility to punish the perpetrators. Yugoslavia had a court system to do that, and it did it so (to some extent at least). If Milosevic had taken over the punishment business over from the judiciary, he would have broken more laws than one, beside paying an enormous political price. The issue of "knowing" of the incidents is what makes this so fuzzy. Or actually it is what the prosecution seems to think the relevance of "knowledge" is that makes it so fuzzy. The issue of "knowing" appears ONLY in Art. 7(3). This is the passage: "...if [the superior] knew or had reason to know that the subordinate was about to commit such acts or had done so..." No matter how you slice it, this article must be interpreted restrictively. What that means is that it pertains only to the relationship between the subordinate and the superior. Normally, the immediate superior would be expected to take care of the punishing or preventing. You wouldn't go immediately to the President of the Republic to find fault. No domestic military court would do that. So no matter how much the prosecution tries to show that Milosevic was bombarded with information of the atrocities, this is outside the scope of Art. 7(3). It would be all too easy to incriminate Milosevic by sending him reports by e-mail, which it seems to have been HRW's intention. The "knowledge" is a prosecution smoke screen, which in most cases has no relevance to the case. As far as I can tell, the indictment of Milosevic et al. doesn't even appeal to Art. 7(3). It is one of those prosecution bonuses, which aren't necessarily allowed. Then comes the tricky part, Art. 7(2): "The official position of any accused person, whether as Head of State or Government or as a responsible Government official, shall not relieve such person of criminal responsibility nor mitigate punishment." Let's take this passage in its "natural" meaning first. It would mean that you have to establish the individual criminal responsibility FIRST and worry about his official position afterwards: The official position doesn't relieve a person of criminal responsibility. But you can't argue that the official position somehow implies criminal responsibility. The title of the article is "INDIVIDUAL criminal responsibility". This is not what happened in the Kosovo indictment. Four men were indicted on the basis of their official position. And how is the criminal responsibility determined? Can one resort to Art. 7(3) with "knowing", "preventing" and "punishing"? Only if the responsibility is incurred in a military hierarchy, and the brunt of the blame would rest on the immediate superior of the perpetrator. You could make a case that commander-in-chief makes a part of military hierarchy, but it would still be far-fetched to begin with the head of state. What does Art. 7(2), which mentions the Heads of State of Government, then primarily refer to? The answer: to Art. 7(1), which immediately precedes it. This is the "active" responsibility: "A person who planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of a crime referred to in articles 2 to 5 of the present Statute, shall be individually responsible for the crime." So the prosecution has to find the evidence to support the active part taken by the accused. It is to be doubted if the circumstantial evidence points unequivocally into one direction, as is required for circumstantial evidence to be taken into account. Only if it has established individual responsibility, can the prosecution go to Art. 7(2), not before. This is extremely important. The initial indictment is based on the official position of the four men. Besides, the chief prosecutor made no secret that her motivation was a personal vendetta against Milosevic. Can the prosecution make a case based on Art.7(1)? That is the question. Or that should be the question. Take the charge of mass expulsions from Kosovo. Whatever the Serb leadership did, it was always wrong. If it had closed the borders and hemmed the would-be refugees inside the borders to be bombed, and it would thus have been guilty of genocide. If it had opened the borders, it would have been guilty of expulsion (or ethnic cleansing). What is the prosecution "missing" here? The role of the bombing of course. So you can say that there are fewer conspiracies here than would like to think. I don't think so. As long as the prosecution doesn't even open a file against Nato, there is no doubt there is a "conspiracy". That is where an unnaturally restictive interpretation of Art. 7(2) jumps in. You can get cute and start arguing about the effect of Art. 7(2). However, if you open it too much, that would make the Nato leaders vulnerable to prosecution. Sure, the prosecution has some discretion, but even discretion can be misused. So to save Nato, you would have to restrict the interpretation the way the case law seems to have been doing after Milosevic was transferred to The Hague: You can't indict an acting Head of State. How come? I guess the argument would run like this. Art. 7(2) speaks of the "accused". The "accused" is "a person who appears in court on a criminal charge". Hence, no-one is an "accused" based on the criminal charge alone, he must first appear in court. So, the argument would go, it speaks of the official position of the accused, just as it says. But why would a Head of State be accused? Well, when talking of some western politicians, we use the term "uncontrollable". It isn't impossible that the article could be taken to mean that a Head of State who has been indicted would be similarly "uncontrollable". Nothing would prevent him from giving himself in voluntarily, even if he were not compelled to do so. If he does, his official position would not relieve him of punishment. The problem is that this interpretation may be well-meaning but it is terribly contrived. How about the "criminal responsibility (mentioned in Art. 7(2)) that would be incurred by the "accused"? This interpretation would imply that the responsibility would be incurred after he appeared in court. Well, nothing is impossible if it is the western leaders who are to be talked out. You could argue that this kind of criminal responsibility might refer to things like "contempt of court". It might even refer to crimes committed by an accused if he were released after the hearing. Terribly contrived, but this would be the argument to save the western leaders from indictment, so why not Milosevic? Next, let's look at the role of the prosecution in the context of Art. 7. If the prosecution supports the broad interpretation of Art. 7(3) it would seem to be in trouble. Surely it knew of the role of the bombings in the alleged expulsions from Kosovo. It knew about it but did nothing to punish the perpetrators. So a broad interpretation could be turned against the prosecution. In that case the prosecution would be guilty of war crimes. If it also stuck to the broad interpretation of Art. 7(2), there was no reason why the western leaders shouldn't have been charged. So you can say two wrongs don't make one right, but that is not the issue. An act that would be illegal in itself can be justified if it is taken in REPRISAL to a crime committed by another. It is true that war of aggression doesn't fall under the jurisdiction of the ICTY, unfortunately. However, as most international lawyers would admit, the bombings were illegal but justified (or whatever the nitpicking choice of words is). If so, the prosecutor should have at least charged the perpetrators before concluding that the acts were justified. Only if you get the whole picture would you be able to establish Milosevic's individual guilt. But first you need evidence of the active part he played in the alleged atrocities.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Wednesday June 19, 2002 at 6:12 am
  What about of responsibility of the NATO for the situation in Kosovo? I'mean, hole intervention idea (and massive destruction going with it), was sold to the public on the promise that Nato will guarantee existence of multicultural society, human rights, safety, equality, etc. of all citizens there. Absolutely none of the promises is realised. Isn't NATO now responsible for the ethnical cleansing of the Serb population? Are there possibilities for the juridical steps against NATO (by UN or Serb government for example) for failed mission?
  
  Rade Plecas
  Amsterdam
  The Netherlands

• Wednesday June 19, 2002 at 9:48 am
  A must read: THE JUDGE AS PROSECUTOR: TWO DAYS AT THE "TRIAL" OF SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC By Ian Johnson Leigh, Lancashire, UK http://www.icdsm.org/more/days-i.htm
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Wednesday June 19, 2002 at 1:16 pm
  Bravo Andre Huzsvai for revealing the illuminating trial report by Ian Johnson: available at the address given in his post of June 19 at 9:48 am (Presumably the accuracy of the report will be verified in the transcripts of the trial.). Verifiable first hand reports of events are exactly what are needed to get a true picture of Nato’s unfolding catastrophe in the reduced Yugoslavia and of those responsible for it. Anyone with first hand or verifiable knowledge please report it here. --- Is there anyone, for example, who can shed light on the discrepancies concerning body counts? Trial testimony by Ball, using flawed mathematical theory and suspect data, claimed that 10,356 Kosovars were murdered by the Serbs during Nato’s air war. One Red Cross report claims that there are approximately 1,100 missing persons of the ethnic minorities in Kosovo. The missing persons representatives’ claim that approximately 1,600 persons are missing. One source claims that between 2,000 and 3,000 bodies have been found. Does anyone know how many Kosovars (ethnic Albanians) were abducted/murdered by the KLA? --- Tonight the BBC’s Panorama program will reveal details of death squads organised by the British Army and Police to murder Republicans in Northern Ireland. I am jumping the gun here but I believe the trailers for tonight’s program stated that no one in government, past or present, will be held responsible for these murders: An interesting comparison with the antics of the ICTY.
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Wednesday June 19, 2002 at 1:29 pm
  Hi all: I just wanted to give you website: http://www.icdsm.org The Iam Johnson's article and many more are available there. I am very glad that at least some people cannot be fooled... all the best, Val Gor
  
  val gor
  daytona Beach
  fl/usa

• Wednesday June 19, 2002 at 6:23 pm
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/decani/message/67418 Abduction and murder of Kosovars by Kosovo Albanians. Does del Ponte know how many of the dead and missing Kosovars Milosevic is charged with murdering were actually murdered by Kosovo Albanians? Why has it taken three years to make these arrests? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/decani/message/67420 Persistent, for three years and ongoing, attacks on Serbian Orthodox Christian sites under Nato control. WHEN will PC Blair, usually so outspoken on matters of racial and religious intolerance, DO SOMETHING to stop these outrages which his ‘moral’ intervention has imposed on the Kosovo Serbs? The answer is never because spin is cheap.
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Wednesday June 19, 2002 at 11:15 pm
  Read Salon.com March 15-02 Article. Shareholders in the bank of terror (page 2) There are some facts about Carla del Ponte. Please explain.
  
  Vasile Ianos
  New Jersey

• Thursday June 20, 2002 at 4:52 am
  Vasile, an interesting article, which sounds frighteningly familiar. A quote from the above article ( http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/
  03/15/al_taqwa/index1.html ): "Mrs. Del Ponte said it's not necessary to make an inquiry; there's no evidence against Mr. Nada." I think she used a similar line when asked why she hadn't opened an inquiry against Nato. By the same token, in his interview one of the Milosevic "supporters", the controversial French attorney Jacques Vergès (defended Klaus Barbi), mentions that the tribunal gets considerable sums of money from Malaysia and Saudi Arabia and links these contributions to the partiality of the tribunal. His interview can be read in French at http://www.diplomatiejudiciaire.com/Tpy/Milosevic17.htm . Still wondering about the Saudi-style procedure at the tribunal? As to Judge May, if he is harboring such an intense hatred against Milosevic, he should step down. He is getting emotionally involved, beside being (or at least becoming) a known enemy of the defendent. Then there is the more political aspect. Being a "Nato judge", he would scarcely remain impartial in face of Milosevic's tirades against Nato, no matter how hard he tries to root them out. One could also doubt if it was appropriate to appoint a citizen of a Nato country in a case where an inquiry into the Nato bombing campaign was conspicuously not opened. As to Milosevic's capabilities as a cross-examiner, he may be doing fine, considering the circumstances. He may be getting tired and the prosecution and the witnesses may be getting more savvy, but where would you find so much detailed information and a capacity to retain so much new information in one person, not to mention the simple showmanship? I think he is going to have a field day when they get to the charges on Bosnia and Croatia. The extension of the charges to Bosnia and Croatia still remains a mystery. Del Ponte is known for biting off more than she can chew, and that may be what has happened here. She thought that since the Kosovo indictment didn't fail to make waves, it must have been correct in indicting people on account of their official position. In other words, she mistook the indictment that was drafted my her predecessor for case law! (The precedessor Louise Arbour may have been more prescient in seeking a nomination in the Supreme Court of Canada, before the case fell apart.) From the legal point of view, even if political responsibility could imply criminal responsibility, which it doesn't - according to Art. 7(2), where is Milosevic's political responsibility in Bosnia and Croatia? In Bosnia we can still get the idea what the indictment is driving at: Milosevic was somehow too close to Karadzic and Mladic even before entering the stage as a peace broker. But how about Croatia? Has this something to do with the withdrawal from Eastern Slavonia (which must have been a good thing)? At this time Milosevic was President of Serbia, not of Yugoslavia, and thus not head of JNA. I guess the prosecution will try to link Milosevic's Serbian presidency to the actions of the MUP. As far as I know, the MUP's were the responsibility of the individual republics, in this case Serbia, so Milosevic could be portrayed as the great bogeyman behind the MUP (despite the lack of any hierarchical relation). Secondly, the prosecution might want to argue that Milosevic did nothing to punish the alleged war criminals that entered Serbia as refugees. However, I believe that Milosevic's detailed knowledge and skills as a cross-examiner will not save him. But I think the legal case against the indictments seems rock-solid. The prosecution supposes article 7 on the individual criminal responsibility says things which it doesn't. Once it is shown what the restrictive interpretation (and thus undoubtedly the correct one) of that article is, the prosecution's case falls apart. As Milosevic said, "You have nothing!" Only evidence of a direct involvement in a war crime in the form of an order or a plan (like the notorious "Horseshoe") would save the prosecution. However, he would need a lawyer to present the arguments, which may be his plan too. His abilities notwithstanding, he is getting too close to his own case and the trial is taking too long. Let him not make the same mistake as Del Ponte, which is biting off more than one can chew.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Thursday June 20, 2002 at 6:07 am
  Just to demonstrate how Carla Del Ponte seems to be rewriting the Statute of ICTY, could someone explain to me why she is investigating Milosevic's foreign bank accounts in her capacity of the chief ICTY prosecutor? What have the bank accounts to do with alleged war crimes?
  
  J N
  Finland

• Thursday June 20, 2002 at 9:35 am
  I can’t believe the twisted presentation of Walker’s and Naumann’s performance in http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/tri/tri_270_1_eng.txt “Naumann said Milosevic then announced that he would "try to find a solution for the problem" the following spring. When the two foreign generals asked what he had in mind, the president allegedly answered, "We do the same [that] we did in Drenica in 1945-46 ... We lined them up and we shot them." This was a reference to the action of the Partisan army, which employed brutal means in Kosovo to crush rural resistance to the province's re-incorporation into Serbia at the end of the Second World War, after years as part of an enlarged Albania under Italian rule.” Just to clarify the Drenica episode lest there is misunderstanding as to what happened: Before directly intervening to resolve the Albanian issue in Serbia and Yugoslavia, the U. S., sympathized with and occasionally lent visible support to Albanian nationalists from the 1960s on. According to Nikola Milovanovic of the State Security Service, various emigrant organizations originating from Albanian and Yugoslav refugees and deserters had been working from abroad against Yugoslavia for many years, that were in part remnants of factions created by wartime occupiers - among others, Balli Kombetar - the Albanian fascist paramilitary organization, which had many adherents in Kosovo during World War II, and provided a generational link between nationalist and secessionist aspirations among Albanians in Yugoslavia. The Drenica executions involved the liquidation of Albanian Nazi collaborators, and the remnants of the Albanian Waffen SS units. During the Second World War, there were many terrorist organizations that cooperated with Italy and Germany, such as Balli Kombetar, Albanian Fascist Party, and especially the 21st Waffen-Gebirgs Division der SS Skanderbeg: Himmler saw the Albanian Muslims a potential source of manpower for the war against Yugoslav partisans, most of whom were Serbs, and sought to use the traditional enmity of these two groups for his own ends. “In April 1944 Himmler established a new Albanian volunteer division named after the Albanian Muslim hero Iskander Beg. The division also drew a good number of recruits from the former Yugoslav area of Kosovo which had been annexed by the Italian-controlled Albania in 1941. In August 1944 the division had been formed. The bulk of the Muslim personnel seemed only interested in settling accounts with their Serb enemies, which resulted in a number of atrocities. Over 3,500 deserters were recorded in just 2 months. Himmler ordered the disbandment in early 1945. A full range of insignia was introduced for members of the division. A cuffband was made and widely worn, showing the title Skanderbeg and an Albanian arm shielding the black Albanian double-headed eagle on a red field.” (The SS. Hitler’s Instrument of Terror. Gordon Wiliamson, Motor Books Incorporated, 1994, p. 128.) The laments about the Drenica episode coming from Naumann as a German military commander are especially revolting .
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Thursday June 20, 2002 at 8:02 pm
  The Witchfinder General. In 1645, during the English Civil War, one of those bizarre episodes which punctuate history began. Mathew Hopkins toured the villages of rural England to seek out witches. Locals would accuse those with whom they had a score to settle or otherwise disliked: usually the old, the odd and the vulnerable. The accused were then subjected to Hopkin’s tests. One test was a strip search for ‘teats’ upon which ‘Satan’s imps suckled’. These teats, of course, were simply warts. Another of his tests was ‘swimming the witch’. Here the tethered ‘witch’ was tossed into a stream. If the ‘witch’ sank s/he was hauled to safety and acquitted of witchcraft. If the witch floated it was proof of witchcraft. Upon conviction s/he was hanged. --- At some far off future date will history look back at the ICTY as another of these bizarre episodes. Carla del Ponte, Witchfinder General: Walker and Naumann accusers with scores to settle and crimes of their own to hide: Milosevic the wicked witch. A man is on trial for his life (of freedom) and one of the tests is what he is alleged to have said in a private conversation over a glass of pear brandy? These men accuse Milosevic of having a warped mind: “My impression was that I was dealing with a person who felt that when he said something, that it made it true.” said Walker. Naumann or one of his colleagues blamed the Serbs for shelling a refugee convoy which he knew Nato had bombed. Naumann’s mob invented ‘Operation Horseshit’. Walker was implicated in the supply of arms to the Contra rebels in El Salvador where he later became Ambassador. Excusing the High Command in El Salvador for the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter he had this to say: “Management control problems can exist in these kinds of situations.”. Later he recommended no investigation by the USA in case it jeopardised relations with El Salvador. What on earth do Naumann and Walker believe when they say something? And these guys accuse Milosevic of having a warped mind! “Justice may be given in the next world. In this world we have only the law.”.
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Thursday June 20, 2002 at 9:23 pm
  Now to defend my dissenting opinion... actually, on many points I do not dissent with what is being discussed. Jari, I understand your analysis of the articles, and from your viewpoint your explanation seems valid. However, I disagree that individual culpability has to be established for responsibility to ascend the chain of command. Nor does the chain of command have to be identified step by step... I think it would be enough to show that a pattern of criminal acts was committed by forces of the JNA, MUP or paramilitaries under their influence. Allegations of these acts or atrocities were widely reported, which should have spurned some sort of action by the political and military machine. It is not enough to say that Milosevic told his generals to take care of the matter and thus he is absolved of any culpability. Responsibility for actions of the military does not rest solely in the military rank structure, but can be assessed by political policy as well. I think there is information to show that Milosevic built a political platform on the superiority of ethinic Serbs. The JNA and MUP were not acting independently in Kosovo but in accordance with the goals of the government. By this view I think that political responsibility can clearly become criminal resposibility. Also, you have discussed the question of armed conflict versus acts on civilians, discussing article 5 I believe. Most of this discussion had to do with the allegations of a massacre at Racak. My understanding is that the Geneva convention definition of an armed international conflict includes a civil war such as the Serbians were engaged in with the UCK, in which the rebelling forces were organized, uniformed and occupied control over some region or territory. I think in these later stages the UCK were more appropriately defined as a military body opposing Serbian rule, not a terrorist organization and certainly fit the criteria of the Geneva convention. Thus the entire action would be considered a military conflict and a civilian massacre in Kosovo would be no less a part of this armed conflict, despite the presence or absence of a specific battle. Does this make sense? It seemed clearer in my mind before writing it out... Regarding events ongoing in Kosovo after the NATO control, while I have seen no statistics on crime rates or refugee status of Serbian since KFOR arrived. I don't know much about the current state of affairs there, but I know that there were many retribution type crimes in the months immediately following NATO occupation. These type incidents caused me to leave the region much less idealistic than I had arrived. However, I don't know that NATO has been remiss in trying to prevent it, and certainly I do not believe that they have adopted a policy allowing it to continue. In conversations in this region with both Serbians and Albanians, it seemed both felt the others had much to pay for... Incidents as Walter describes involving his cousin were certainly widespread. However, similar incidents against Albanians in predominantly Serbian areas.
  
  Andrew B
  Virginia, USA

• Thursday June 20, 2002 at 11:19 pm
  Re Andre Huzsvai Thurdsday post I find your post very informing, but there is one small mistake which might actually shad some light on where the NATO propaganda roots from. During the II WW there was indeed SS Waffen brigade named SKENDERBEG formd by Germans with the main task of terorising the remaining Serbian population of Kosovo. What is interesting is the usage of the name of Skenderbeg who is an Albanian national hero bu the real name of DJURADJ KASTRIOTI well known for his fierce resistance to Ottoman ocupation and islamization of the population. He was an ortodox cristian burried under the cross(his tomb still exist). Skenderbeg was Turkish nickname for him. You see the irony!?! The same principle is still beeing apllied. Etnic clensing of Serbs from Croatia(less than 5% of population in Croatia by 2001 census compared to 20% in 1991 and roughly 45% in 1941), Bosnia( 75% in 1941, 42% in 1991 and ? in 2002), Kosovo(estimated 40% before WWII, 20% in 1961 to less than 5% in 2001), along with the destruction of Serbian herritage and world known churches and monasteries(Djuradj Kastrioti is turning in his grave) is beeing portraiting as Serbian genocide of innocent bystanders. One of the so called witnesses stated that SERBS killed 8 of Serbian youth in Pec caffe bombing and so called Judge may accepted that as an explanation?! Croatian goverment is oficially claiming that Serbs left Croatia becose Serbian Goverment invited them to do so?! Where does it end? And to Andrew B; Bujanovac, Medvedja And Presevo area in Serbia have large Serbian population, yet only incidents(atrocitties when talking about serbian actions) are the one commited by UCBMP(Albanian paramillitary organisation), Serbia without Kosovo have 58% of Serbs and 42% of minorities, yet during last 12 years of hell in Balkan there was only ONE ethnicly motivated incident in Serbia. Get yor facts together man, or at least show a benefit of a dought and do some more research. Thank you all for this outstanding tribunal.
  
  Miroslav Radulovic
  NYC
  US of A

• Friday June 21, 2002 at 12:28 am
  Peter (Varavejke):Just realized that by identifying with ANDY FAIRCHILD I took your question upon myself. Andy is my nickname in civilian life and I must have sent the message before my quadruple espresso.Mea culpa. Miroslav: "Skanderbeg's" pedigree was unknown to me until now - I'm mostly into modern history. Otherwise I fully concur. Peter Taylor: the Witchfinder General parallel was impeccabe. It also made me wonder how near is the day when some "witness" claims to having seen Milosevic riding a broom at full moon. I'm serious.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Friday June 21, 2002 at 2:27 pm
  This is just in: "BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- The former head of Serbian TV has been jailed for failing to protect staff who were killed when NATO bombed the station's headquarters. Dragoljub Milanovic was sentenced to nine-and-a-half years after the court ruled he had not ensured the safety of his workers even though he knew the building could be a NATO target during the 1999 air campaign. Sixteen TV workers died in the airstrike on the TV station in central Belgrade and their relatives have accused then-President Slobodan Milosevic's regime of deliberately putting the employees in danger. Milanovic was convicted of "provoking general danger" by failing to evacuate the building, which was hit by NATO on April 23, 1999. Presiding judge Radmila Dragicevic-Dicic said. "He failed to act according to regulations governing the safety of RTS even though he was aware this could provoke danger for the lives of the people because NATO aggression had already started," Reuters reported. Dragicevic-Dicic said there had been an official order from the federal defence ministry to move the broadcast operations to another location. "It was not up to you to assess the danger, there was an order and you should have acted upon it," she said. When she finished reading the sentence, Milanovic stood up and said he had known in advance what the verdict would be. He repeated he was innocent and alleged documentary evidence against him had been forged." Bottomline: the bombing targets were the ones responsible, because they did not move from the bombs fast enough. Before anyone would succumb to this insanity, here is some BACKGROUND: There is compelling evidence that western media has been a willing accomplice to the NATO air war, and in one particular occasion - the bombing or Serb Television the CNN was directly involved in a NATO effort to assassinate the Serbian information minister. On July 2, 1999 the Independent newspaper in Britain published a piece by its Belgrade correspondent Robert Fisk “Taken in by the NATO line”. Fisk demonstrated how, with few exceptions, reporters, turned into pack-journalists, abandoned any objectivity and uncritically embraced NATO’s official rationale for the war. Riding the wave of anti-Serb hysteria of the U.S. and NATO, they with no qualms justified the bombing by parroting NATO propaganda as fact and accepting statements of NATO spokesman Jamie Shea (BTW,Jamie Shea’s pick for a spokesman by NATO was not a coincidence. As a university professor he was the author of a doctoral thesis on the role of European intellectuals in generating public opinion in favor of WWI.), Javier Solana, Clinton and Blair without second-guessing. He brought up the case of a CNN reporter in Belgrade who “astounded one of his English colleagues after NATO had bombed a narrow road bridge in the Yugoslav village of Varvarin, killing dozens of civilians, many of whom fell to their death in the River Morava. ‘That’ll teach them not to stand on bridges,’ he roared.” Fisk had to add that “This was not the kind of language he used on air, of course, where CNN’s report on the bridge killings was accompanied by the remark that there had been civilian casualties ‘according to the Serb authorities’-all this when CNN's own crew had been there and filmed the decapitated corpse of the local priest.” The Independent correspondent suggested that the collaboration of major media outlets with the NATO bombing reached way beyond dishonesty and unethical journalistic conduct. He hinted that CNN and its Larry King Live show may have been complicit in NATO’s attempt to assassinate Aleksander Vucic, the Serbian Information Minister. For weeks prior to the attack NATO had been demanding that RTS would have to broadcast six hours of Western TV coverage a day to be left alone. This was not to happen. The day before the attack, CNN’s senior managers called from Atlanta to order the satellite crews in Belgrade to abandon the RTS building. Overruling other NATO members, General Wesley Clark had decided to bomb the Serbian Television building. CNN withdrew from the building in Takovska Street just in time. The murder of the TV technicians came after specific assurances from NATO spokesman Jamie Shea that the station was not a target. NATO’s spin in the aftermath of the bombing was that the people inside were “legitimate targets” since the station had refused NATO’s demand to broascast six hours of “Western programs”. “A day later, Serbian Information Minister Aleksander Vucic received a faxed invitation from the Larry King Live show in the US to appear on CNN. They wanted him on air at 2:30 in the morning of April 23, and asked him to arrive at Serb Television half an hour early for make-up. “Vucic was late-which was just as well for him since NATO missiles slammed into the building at six minutes past two. The first one exploded in the make-up room where the young Serb assistant was burned to death. CNN calls this all a coincidence, saying that the Larry King show, put out by the entertainment division, did not know of the news department’s instruction to its men to leave the Belgrade building.” Independent sources sought to obtain a response from the Larry King Live program in Washington and CNN headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia to the presentation of events provided by Fisk. The publicist for Larry King Live and the press spokesperson for CNN News have failed to return repeated calls. Following the publication of his piece Fisk has found himself under attack from the British media. On July 4, 1999 Henry Porter of the Observer, one of the papers that came out in full support of the NATO war, published a reply to Fisk’s article, virtually accusing him of being a mouthpiece of Milosevic. Porter claimed that Fisk “was undeniably aided by the Serb authorities” and filed reports on the war “refracted through the lens of Serbian interest.” Porter was outraged that Fisk appears to believe “NATO is motivated by congenital imperialist tendencies,” but even more intolerable is Fisk’s decision to bring a touchy internal matter of the media to the full view of the public. The attack on Fisk was in proof that his exposure of the questionable practice on the part of Western media had hit where it hurt most.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Friday June 21, 2002 at 8:31 pm
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/decani/message/67433 Macedonians driven from their homes by Islamic terrorists. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/decani/message/67458 Ethnic cleansing continues unchecked in Kosovo. Here goes the 168th business to be appropriated or destroyed by fire under Nato control. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/decani/message/67473 Islamic terror attacks continue in Macedonia in spite of the concessions granted them by the Peace Agreement forced on the government by Nato. --- When will del Ponte issue indictments - this reign of terror has been going on for over three years?
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Sunday June 23, 2002 at 8:11 pm
  This is not a joke but you’ll laugh anyway otherwise you’d have to weep: “Later this summer, Albanian officials are to unveil a full-size statue of British Prime Minister Tony Blair in downtown Pristina.”. Extract from an article entitled “The most dangerous place on Earth” by Scott Taylor of The Ottawa Citizen, June 22, 2002. According to the report no other Nato leader is to receive so high an honour, which reveals the dominant role played by Blair in transferring the Serbian Province of Kosovo to a bunch of gangsters now and Albania eventually. If this report is true the cost of this megalomaniac’s statue is thousands of dead Yugoslav’s, many of them killed by Blair’s cluster bombs dropped cowardly from three miles high: tens of thousands of injured: hundreds of thousands of ethnically cleansed Kosovo minorities and millions of impoverished and otherwise traumatised people. And that is just in Yugoslavia. In Britain patients are denied life saving medicines, schools are deprived of teachers and our transport system is kaput for want of the billions wasted on a foreign adventure to the greater glory of Tony Blair. Who will not protest against this disgusting idol.
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Monday June 24, 2002 at 12:25 am
  Another must read: http://emperors-clothes.com/letters/schmitz.htm
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Monday June 24, 2002 at 4:02 am
  Of course JNA and MUP acted in accordance with the government goals. What else is new? And of course there was a civil war. Try telling that to the prosecution. Racak is the case in point. The reason the conflict wasn't called a civil war and thus an armed conflict (at least not at first) but a humanitarian catastrophe was to prevent the impression that NATO had become a party in an armed conflict and thus violating all its noble principles, like the prohibition of the use of force in the UN Charter. The rest of the dissenting opinion only confirms my view that my reading of Art. 7 is the correct one. In criminal law what counts is what the article says, not what would seem practical to get someone nailed. But that is my point exactly. This trial isn't even remotely related to criminal law. How else would you explain Del Ponte's investigation of Milosevic's bank accounts? They are not evidence in the war crimes trial. Del Ponte is only lending the Serbian authorities a helping hand in getting him convicted of corruption in Serbia (perhaps in absentia). And even the dissenting opinion can't explain the charges related to Bosnia and Croatia, because there was no political responsibility. But of course these do-gooders want only to explain that what NATO did was right! Nato KNEW of the atrocities and it PREVENTED them and PUNISHED the perpetrators. So it isn't culpable on account of Art. 7(3)! The trouble is that it is culpable on every other count! Take a look at the trial at the International Court of Justice against the Nato countries that has to do with the prohibition of the use of force, for starters. Then take a look at how well the bombing really prevented anything! And as to punishing the perpetrators, we all know that this is a highly selective process. And as to the Nato policy, we all know that it has a policy, but if you really want to argue that it wasn't a Nato policy to cause a humanitarian catastrophe, they should have stopped the campaign when it became evident what its effect was. There was a political decision to go on with the bombing campaign despite the humanitarian catastrophe. But of course, the ICJ argued that there wasn't - it was all part of one unstoppable process - to throw out the Yugoslav plea for provisional measures (to get the bombing stopped). So in this world of legal fiction and myths the dissenting opinion is in fact the dominant and "correct" one. And this is a phenomenon that feeds on itself. This is what explains the conviction of Gen. Radislav Krstic ( http://www.un.org/icty/krstic/TrialC1/judgement/index.htm ). In point 4 the trial chamber says: "The Trial Chamber draws upon a mosaic of evidence that combines to paint a picture of what happened during those few days in July 1995." Consequently, in point 426 it confirms: "The total number of victims is likely to be within the range of 7,000 -8,000 men". It may be relevant that one of the judges was Fouad Riad, an Egyptian (like in the Brcko trial and Erdemovic trial). Anyway, the sentence was declared on August 2, 2001. Remember, the indictment against Milosevic on Croatia was issued shortly afterwards, on 8 October 2001, and on Bosnia, on 22 November 2001. I owe this observation actually to Nebojsa Malic, who suggested a connection in his article "Balkan leaders chose servitude" in Antiwar ( http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m-col.html ). In other words, once the mythical figure of about 8,000 Bosnian Muslims killed in Srebrenica was confirmed in the case against Kristic, it could be built upon in the case against Milosevic et al. Let it be mentioned again that indicting someone after he has been "transferred" (i.e. extradited) is a highly irregular process. Once Milosevic had been transferred, Carla remembered that Karadzic and Mladic should be caught too. It is interesting that the indictment against them (there is only one) doesn't mention the Srebrenica massacre, even if it charges them with genocide. However, Carla is known to fix this sort of minor problems. The indictment is already called promisingly an "initial indictment" at http://www.un.org/icty/ind-e.htm . The indictment itself, drafted by Richard J. Goldstone, doesn't call it "initial". ( http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/kar-ii950724e.htm ). Maybe one can forgive James Harff of the PR company Ruder Finn for saying that they are not paid to be moral, but Carla Del Ponte cannot use the same excuse. I just wonder if these "amendments" go both ways. Would the judgment in the case against Radislav Krstic be "amended" if most of the Srebrenica victims were shown to be Serbs?
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Tuesday June 25, 2002 at 2:45 am
  Actually the recent elaboration of the "dissenting opinion" reminded me of one lost opportunity for the defence. I have assumed that there was indeed an armed conflict. This would only mean that the Nato claim of a "humanitarian intervention" would be self-contradictory. But what if there wasn't an armed conflict? The case wouldn't fall under the jurisdiction of the ICTY at all! There would be no violations of the Geneva Conventions, no war crimes (because there was no war) and no crimes against humanity (because there was no armed conflict). All it would take would be to deny the KLA the status of "belligerents". And that was actually what the Yugoslav government did at the time. It was careful to call the KLA "the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army", in order to avoid any impression that they were dealing with a belligerent. That would mean that the "so-called KLA" was simply involved in an insurrection and thus the whole KLA business was an internal matter of Yugoslavia. The KLA would then be treated as common criminals and the laws of war wouldn't apply. Actually, Nato appears to have been led by this reasoning when it called its own "intervention" a "humanitarian" one. After the indictment, Nato's problem was to explain how Racak could have been a crime against humanity, if there was no armed conflict but only a humanitarian catastrophe. Maybe this is one of those "details of history" that Carla at least is known to fix. Ónly, there is a touch of anachronism here: she is palming the KLA off as belligerents while the world is fighting terrorism. But the again, it is called a "war" on terror. As to the nationality of the judges, maybe the donor countries - which reputedly include Malaysia and Saudi Arabia - do have a say in the selection of judges. Fouad Riad from Egypt is the case in point. There are others. It is conspicuous that there are no judges from countries that are viewed as more sympathetic to the Serbian cause, like Russia. The reason I once heard cited was that Russia is not known for the integrity of its legal system. Oh really? Without mentioning names, I would be willing to argue that some of the countries where the judges come from fare no better in that respect. On the other hand, it seems to matter where the finances of the tribunal come from. As a bonus, these more exotic nominations give the tribunal a more international and thus a more acceptable flavour. As far as I know, those countries that are more sympathetic to the Serbs haven't paid the tribunal anything. But if they did so, maybe they wouldn't be so sympathetic to the Serbs after all.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Tuesday June 25, 2002 at 6:32 am
  I think I have a hunch why Carla Del Ponte is going through Milosevic's and his associates' bank accounts. They may indeed be used as evidence in the war crimes trial. I refer to the Financial Times article "Israel Arms Makers 'Evaded UN Embargo'" at http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory
  &c=StoryFT&cid=1024484360271&p=1012571727102 . What the article refers to is the UN embargo in 1998. However, could it be that what Carla is actually looking for are transactions at the time of the Bosnian and Croatian war? She is trying to prove that Milosevic and his associates were circumventing the arms embargo through their own accounts. She might hope to prove this way that Milosevic is indeed guilty of the Croatian and the Bosnian war. Why would she search for transactions that have to do with the Kosovo war, when the Kosovo part of the trial is almost over? Carla's energy is in striking contrast with her reported refusal to look into alleged Swiss-based terrorist accounts because "there wasn't enough evidence". The question arises whether she had any evidence at all at the time she indicted Milosevic for Bosnia and Croatia.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Tuesday June 25, 2002 at 2:11 pm
  Search in vane for justice in this 'ad hoc' tribunal and you will forget it is designed, this whole moquery of justice, to exhonerate NATO for its criminal aggression against a UNO member nation, in violation of the UNO charter (both ICTY and aggression) and to show the World the impunity of the "only super power" in which she operates. NATO expansion East continues. The Balkans is a mess and unstable. Albanians are now associated with a disgraceful criminal movement, and Europe is debating how much longer before enough of this "pax americana" is enough. Expect the worst.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Connecticut, USA

• Tuesday June 25, 2002 at 4:54 pm
  RE: Milosevic’s accounts. On the eve of the commencement of the Milosevic “trial”, on January 20, 2002 The New York Times Magazine ran a rather unprofessionally produced item under the title “The Unrepentant”, by Blaine Harden, who descended to the level of repeating tabloid-like hearsay, innuendo, and unsubstantiated allegations against Milosevic and his family, such as overpaying a beautician, fixing an apartment for a babysitter, and amassing a mysterious “gangster fortune”, in support to what appears to be an internal Yugoslav political vendetta against the Milosevics, thus giving high-profile legitimacy to the Belgrade rumor mill. True, years of similar broad-brush assaults became a norm in the media, but as the public relations fabric of the accusations against Milosevic wears thinner and grows more bizarre instead of crystallizing into a solid case, his adversaries both in Belgrade and in The Hague visibly cringe and squirm under the self-imposed burden of proving their case. Case in point: NYTM brought forth the special investigator in charge of chasing the mysterious “gangster fortune”, Alexander Radovic, who, after a YEAR [emphasis mine - AH] of investigation of the Milosevic family’s finances is quoted as saying that “they PROBABLY [emphasis mine - AH] stole more than $10 billion.”, although “no account has been traced directly to any member of the Milosevic family.” I mean THAT’S ALL? But most importantly, according to Blaine Harden Milosevic’s “intent of the witness call… is to make the trial seem illegitimate.” That the trial is illegitimate in Milosevic’s view is one thing. A Freudian slip by the NYTM writer is a different matter altogether.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Wednesday June 26, 2002 at 3:20 am
  Another way of putting the same thing: the Financial Times article speaks of the "allies" of Milosevic. Doesn't that mean that Milosevic wasn't personally involved? But it would be a shame to waste so much time just to find out that Milosevic wasn't involved, so let's call those who were, his "allies". I guess these must be Serbs, because wasn't Richard Hoolbrooke and others also his "allies" at one point? Maybe Carla noticed that she couldn't use Milosevic's bank accounts as evidence against him. So she couldn't lend a helping hand to the Serbian authorities to get him convicted of corruption. So she gets angry again and calls the US to put some more pressure on the Serbian authorities while Colin Powell himself had vouched that the Serb authorities were cooperating with the ICTY. This time the Serbian authorities are blamed for not catching Karadzic and Mladic. Just to illustrate how desperate the game is getting, let it be reminded that last time the scapegoat was France. The case is getting "curiouser and curiouser". To use Karadzic and Mladic as building blocks in the case against Milosevic, the indictment has to be "amended" so that it is in line with the Milosevic's Bosnia indictment. Carla may have issued the Bosnia indictment against Milosevic in the hope that Karadzic and Mladic would indeed be caught in time so the indictment against them could be "amended" to correspond to that against Milosevic. If she has no evidence, at least she can align the indictments with each other so they are convergent. This happened with the judgement against Gen. Krstic. I can't help reminding of one of Milosevic's outbursts according to which the indictment was written by a retarded 7-year-old. What should really cause consternation is that this is the level the judges are functioning. How could the three judges in the Krstic case be "satisfied" that 7,000-8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed in Srebrenica? At most 70 bodies have been identified in the whole Podrinje region, and no-one has claimed that none of those 70 bodies are not Serbs. How many "sets of remains" do we have from Srebrenica? According to Bosnian Muslim sources 2,000. How many bodies are there in the Podrinje Identification Project in Tuzla? At most 4,700. So how could the judges be "satisfied" what that the figures which were initially based on a mix-up in the reporting are the actual figures? This should have been the crux in the Krstic case, but the Trial Chamber accepted that patently inflated figure at face value! Not only is the ICTY rewriting its own Statute and the rules of criminal law in general, but also the simple rules of arithmetic, which even a 7-year-old could master. In the Krstic case the Trial Chamber also admits that the "safe havens" were not demilitarized, but then it slips to presenting this as the way the Serbs perceived the safe havens. I think the whole judgement in the Krstic case can be summarized in the opening lines of the Trial Chamber. The crime is pictured in the opening in most negative terms, so it seems it is already proven. So the whole judgment is based on a circular reasoning. And the acceptance of the Srebrenica myth demonstrates that this isn't only a rhetorical device but the way the Trial Chamber actually reasoned. I am afraid we can expect the judgment in the Milosevic case to look very similar.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Wednesday June 26, 2002 at 10:24 am
  Jari the safe havens Srebrenica and Zepa served two purposes for NATO. First, the enclaves created problems for the NATO’s plan for the division of Bosnia. NATO did not want enclaves surrounded by Serbian territory. More importantly, the purpose of allowing Serbian forces to take the enclaves in the first place was to divert attention from the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Krajina. I remember thinking at the time of the fall of the enclaves, “Why is NATO given the Serbs a green light to take the two enclaves?” I felt at that time that a deal was made between the Serbs and NATO. The media coordinated its focus on the enclaves and ignored what was taking place in Krajina. The tragedy of the Krajina people was justified by the media with “The Serbs deserve it look what they are doing in Srebrenica”.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Thursday June 27, 2002 at 3:01 am
  Yes, that would be in line with what Andre said earlier: the Srebrenica massacre was supposed to divert the attention from the Krajina offensive. I think someone mentioned in his posting that the man responsible for the offensive, Gen. Gotovina, has been transferred to The Hague and released. He was the guy who threatened to reveal the US plan behind the offensive. And the handing Zepa and Srebrenica over to the Serbs by Nato voluntarily is actually what the Dutch report is all about, isn't it? (I haven't read it.) If you want to flesh out this "conspiracy", just take a look at the inflated figures of the Bosnian Muslims allegedly killed in Srebrenica. I think even a friend of the tribunal must admit that this can't be happening. Even if you don't accept that a single Serb was killed, the number of the "sets of remains" doesn't tally with the Trial Chamber's conclusion. Whatever one's opinion of Milosevic, this kind of hanky-panky will have disastrous effects for the whole criminal system. Even a triumph for the prosecution will be a Pyrrhic victory for the whole legal culture. And what if the prosecution could actually come up with some hard evidence that Milosevic gave orders to do what he is alleged of ordering? I think the prosecution would admit (at least privately) that what has been happening in the courtroom until now was just a smoke screen. However, wouldn't that diminish the value of the evidence? I'm afraid not by these standards. Why does Carla Del Ponte wait until the indictees have been transferred to The Hague to "amend" the existing indictment or to issue a new one? Doesn't that indicate that once you are transferred to The Hague, you are presumed guilty, but while you're still at large, some of the charges - if made known - would seem too far-fetched for anybody to take seriously, and this would hamper the catching process. After the transfer, you can remake history. Just see the allegations concerning the bank accounts and Milosevic's alleged involvement in sanction-busting. What Carla Del Ponte has now told is that some "allies" of Milosevic were involved in circumventing the arms embargo through their offshore accounts. Somehow she seems to know how this system works. And now wonder. Sanction-busting wasn't even a secret at the time it took place. Only, everyone knew the culprits to be those who delivered arms to the Albanians. The Security Council resolution we are talking is 1160(1998). This imposed an arms embargo on the whole of Yugoslavia, including Kosovo. In a follow-up resolution 1199(1998), the ninth consideration states explicitly that the arms embargo was leaking and the beneficiaries were the Kosovars: "Condemning all acts of violence by any party, as well as terrorism in pursuit of political goals by any group or individual, and all external support for such activities in Kosovo, including the supply of arms and training for terrorist activities in Kosovo and expressing concern at the reports of continuing violations of the prohibitions imposed by resolution 1160 (1998)." Note by the way that the Kosovar activities were called "terrorism". The original resolution 1160(1998) even pinpoints the organization: "Condemning...all acts of terrorims by the Kosovo Liberation Army" (third consideration). The Secretary-General prepared "reports on the status of the implementation of the prohibitions imposed by the Security Council resolution 1160(1998)". One of these is S/1998/712. Kofi Annan is very indirect in his reports. He just mentions the "surrounding states". What does he mean? The Yugoslav Survey (an official publication) of that time put the blame squarely on Albania. Yugoslav Survey No.4, 1998 details the violations of the Arms Embargo. It mentions "infiltration from the territory of the Republic of Albania of armed groups and illegal shipments of arms, ammunition and other military equipment" (p. 25). All the items confiscated by the border units of the Yugoslav Army are listed (page 26): for instance, 359 "portable launcher grenades". Then comes the interesting part (page 29): Financing of Terrorism of the so Called KLA. One of the paragraphs starts like this: "Bank accounts for contributions to terrorism in Kosmet exist in Switzerland..." and the list of the countries goes on. The Yugoslav authorities were also fully aware of the presence of the mujaheddin in the province and Albania. Yugoslav Survey, No. 3, 1998 states: "Albanian terrorist were trained in the centers of northern Albania, Switzerland, Germany, Turkey, Denmark and other countries, and among many foreign mercenaries there were mujjahedins - religious Muslim fanatics" (p. 6). There is that Switzerland again. A peace-loving country, home of Carla Del Ponte. Read that Salon article again (http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/03/15/al_taqwa/index1.html?x ). What does it say of the Al Taqwa, inquiry into which Carla Del Ponte shelved? Is it somehow connected to the mujaheddin? See this quote: "According to Facts, a 1996 DIGOS report said Al Taqwa handled financing for a number of Arab and Islamic political and militant groups, including the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hamas, the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and the Egyptian Gama'a al-Islamiya, as well as former Afghan mujahedin in bin Laden's camps. It said the network aided terrorist groups in Kuwait, Yemen, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon and Sudan. The weekly Facts also reported that in 1997 DIGOS asked for Swiss help. Del Ponte (who is now leading the U.N.'s prosecution of former Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes) started questioning Al Taqwa officials." Well, now we have some idea how Carla got her present job. Her selectivity can be trusted. The trouble is that she is a UN official, and the UN has been quite clear where the arms embargo was actually leaking.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Thursday June 27, 2002 at 4:46 am
  Good article on Zmag: http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/april02herman.htm
  
  D S
  Netherlands

• Friday June 28, 2002 at 3:43 am
  Here we hear it first-hand. The man who wrote the Tribunal’s Statute for Albright, Michael Scharf, spoke frankly about its political purpose: The Tribunal was “widely perceived within the government as little more than a public relations device and ...useful policy tool.... Indictments...would serve to isolate offending leaders diplomatically...and fortify the international political will to employ economic sanctions or use force”. The article points out that Kardzic and Mladic, for instance, were indeed eliminated from the negotiations by indictments. The former president of the ICTY Antonio Cassese "was not bothered by this abuse of indictments as a political instrument". As to NATO culpability, the article reminds us that "NATO had conveniently excluded from the war crimes subject to Tribunal jurisdiction what Robert Jackson at the Nuremberg trials declared to be the worst crime: waging a war of aggression." But even that wasn't enough. As we all remember, NATO claimed at the time of the bombing of Nish that there was no international norm against the use of cluster bombs. Well, there is no treaty prohibition. Only, Serb leader Milan Martic had been indicted in 1996 for launching a rocket cluster-bomb attack on military targets in Zagreb in May 1995, on the ground that the rocket was “not designed to hit military targets but to terrorize the civilians of Zagreb.” As to indicting Nato for civilian deaths caused by the bombing, Arbour said "there is simply no evidence of the necessary crime base for charges of genocide or crimes against humanity". She used the same argument of "no evidence" as Carla Del Ponte had used in stopping the Al Taqwa investigation two years before. (By the way, Michael Mandel, mentioned in the article, who handed the war crimes complaint to Arbour, is a former colleague of Arbour at the Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. If that doesn't help, what will?) Everybody knew even at that time that Nato had killed more people than were attributed in the initial indictment to Milosevic. The article mentions that everybody knew even at that time that the 500 killed in the bombing campaign was too low. It is interesting that this figure was produced by the Human Rights Watch, which is the political wing of the tribunal (if one can put it that way). To cite the recent figures killed by more conventional means in Kosovo, 400 Serbs and 300 Albanians have been identified. In all, there are no more than about 2,000 bodies, depending on which source you use. Compare this with the casualty rate caused by Nato "surgical strikes" and "collateral damage". Besides, what does this ratio tell as of the need for the bombing in the first place? As to what must be the most serious violation of legal principles, "sentence first, verdict afterwards" cited in Alice in Wonderland, we can refer to General Djordje Djukic, mentioned in the article, who "had been seized by Sarajevo authorities, in violation of the Dayton accord [and] was illegally detained and interrogated by the Tribunal while dying of cancer". Any death in detention means a premature life sentence before the sentence has been handed down. Milosevic's ill-health should be a matter of grave concern even from the legal point of view. But to the tribunal, is it? What is this mess going to mean for the rest of us? One of the most obvious results is the politicization of indictments and "non-indictment". It has been interesting to watch the destinies of the Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic's as against the Italian police. He is a cigarette-smuggler, for one thing. When it wasn't desirable for Montenegro to separate from Serbia, the Italian police hinted that they had an arrest warrant against him. When Djukanovic shut up and the Montenegrin independence movement subsided, the Italian police denied such rumours. Now that Montenegro is heading for independence, the Italian police has begun to make more noise again. This may seem funny, but the disastrous consequence is this: the nearer you get to becoming a foreign head of state, the more likely you going to get indicted abroad. According to the "oldschool", it should be other way around. Immunity rules are worthless, and the political system can be manipulated from outside. Because all this is done in the name of "rule of law", nobody dares challenge it. Even Colin Powell fakes powerless in face of the chief prosecutor's whims. And the Srebrenica "massacre" as well as the Racak "massacre" in the holy month of Ramadan, as well as the alleged ethnic cleansing, have taken on a life of their own in the Muslim thinking. Al-Qaeda now refers to Bosnia and Macedonia in the same breath as Kashmir and Palestine. ( http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD38802 ). These people believe the holocaust of the Jews was a hoax, but they see how the Jews have cashed on it, so they follow suit. The pinnacle of this hoax was the creation of the Jewish state, so if only they can suffer as much, there will be Muslim states all around the world. As it is Vidovdan today (according to the Julian calendar, if I am not mistaken), one cannot help seeing some historical parallels in all this. The Battle of Kosovo in 1387 was a result of the messy Bysantine diplomacy. Byzantium wanted to eliminate the Serb threat in the north by letting in the Turks. The undesired side-effect was that Constantinople fell to the Turks less than a hundred years later. Likewise, todays's "Empire" eliminated the Serb threat. Last September the "Empire" began to crumble. OK, maybe I am delirious, but the parallels are smashing.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday June 28, 2002 at 5:35 am
  Here is the latest new on the indictability of foreign political leaders. This applies naturally only if you are not a Serb. http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2002/06/27/f151.raw.html .
  
  J N
  Finland

• Friday June 28, 2002 at 1:29 pm
  The New York times wrap up article of today hits the lowest standards in modern Journalism. Selective, biased and with a clear agenda. Why not write what really happened in court, Milo is in the doc, Serbs are beaten and the US wont join the ICC. The only aim is to rewrite history and pardon NATO. Proof again of the media campaign that played such a big role in the Balkans wars. The demonizing and brainwashing continues at:
  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/28/international/europe/
  28MILO.html?ex=1025928000&en=
  f4daf44b20aa532d&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVER
  
  Peter Varavejke
  Belgium

• Friday June 28, 2002 at 4:09 pm
  Been reading the trial transcripts, june 14, with Milosevic interrogating Klaus Naumann. This was an interesting passage; Naumann describes a hypothetical situation in answer to Milosevic accusing NATO of war crimes: "If someone used camouflage tactics to hide tanks, let's say, in a hospital surrounding, then the question is: Who violated international law first, those who took advantage of coverage protected by the International Red Cross in bringing military targets into the area of those protected areas or those who then attacked these military targets?" Who violated international law first?!? You'd expect someone in Naumann's position to have at least a minimal knowledge of the Geneva Convention. It's not as if the document has provisions that say that if the others commit war crimes then it's okay to do the same... And this lack of knowledge of the Convention led to what seems like a telling, and even somewhat amusing revelation. Milosevic asked "Who approved the bombing of the central television station, central studios of Radio Television Serbia? Because, as you know, it was a completely civilian target; there was no military in the building at all." Naumann: "Well, with regard to your last point, Mr. Milosevic, there are some doubts whether it was a completely civilian target, as you intimated. Some people believe that it was also used for communication purposes. The bombing of the TV tower was eventually approved by the Secretary-General of NATO." I never heard of any evidence that Naumann's claim is correct, but let's assume it is. What then, does the Geneva Convention say? Additional, 1977. art. 52: "Civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals. (...) In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used." Given the civilian death toll of that attack, and bearing in mind that it served only for communication purposes (if that): 51.5 "Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate: (...) an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated." So effectively Naumann used his chance on the witness stand to confess one of his own war crimes. And why not? He knows it's just a show trial.
  
  D S
  Netherlands

• Friday June 28, 2002 at 5:28 pm
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/decani/message/67644 “Because barbarians are barbarians --- Not a solution.”
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Friday June 28, 2002 at 7:12 pm
  RE: Camp Bondsteel Gratis by Marko Lopusina of Njedelni Telegraf, whose book, "Spies, Lies, and Videotapes. The CIA Against Yugoslavia 1947-2000", will be published in e-format by yugobooks.com in July. The article also appeared in the November 2000 issue of Chronicles, The Magazine of American Culture, the only consistently pro-Serbian and anti-interventionist venue in the U.S. Note that the size and the number of personnel given apply to December 1999 - a year and a half later it is larger still, having on its resume the arming and coordinating the Albanian insurgents in Macedonia in 2001. CAMP BONDSTEEL: THE GATE TO QUAGMIRE. by Marko Lopusina In December 1999 a team of Yugoslav journalists of Njedelni Telegraf visited Camp Bondsteel in a special arrangement by KFOR, invited as guests to what a year ago used to be their country. Bondsteel is the biggest U.S. military base in the Balkans, and in a way of what may well to prove to be a bad omen, the biggest that the U.S. military constructed after its Vietnam experience. It is being erected in the heart of Kosovo, on the crossroads with Metohija, and allows the military control of the borders with both Serbia proper and Macedonia. The location was selected by a special team of Pentagon’s military strategists and planners. The construction of the base started within weeks of NATO’s takeover of Kosovo in June 1999. Given the logistics and the size of the effort, the plans must have been in place well before NATO started it’s air war, allegedly for refusal of Yugoslavia to sign the infamous Rambouillet agreement. The base was named after infantry Sergeant James Leroy Bondsteel, who was killed in Vietnam in 1969 - another omen, perhaps? “All you can see here is built to last five years,” explained to us Captain Russel Berg, the media liaison officer at the Main Headquarters. However, Camp Bondsteel is being built with such grandiosity and ambition that it does not concur with the explanation that great amounts of money and so much effort is invested in the base that would last only five years. Camp Bondsteel near Urosevac is built on 700 acres of the land that in 1998 was known as Sojevo, a Serbian agricultural farm. It’s still not redeemed, and the rent for it is not being paid by KFOR. The camp is surrounded with 14 kilometers of barbed wire. Every inch inside the encampment is separately fenced and illuminated at night with dozens of reflectors: the base is shining from afar in the Kosovo night. The few remaining Serbs who used to farm the land call it “Las Vegas in the mud”. Vegas or not, the camp is being mightily built around the clock. Camp Bonsteel is being built for 5,000 military personnel, with 3,300 already in place. It is being constructed in three phases and to date it is 80 percent done. There is 160 barracks housing 24 U.S. units and seven KFOR formations. The barracks are fenced with tall two-line sandbags strengthened with steel wire. “Security effort,” Captain Berg explains. “Our experience from Lebanon, where terrorists attacked us, taught us something, and everything in base is done by our rules to provide maximum security and defense from possible terrorists.” One can’t help but wonder what terrorists the Americans envision. While the official line of blaming the tension in Mitrovica on Milosevic is well taken and adhered to, the subject of what is to be expected from Albanians in the future is generally avoided by Americans. Heads turn away and questions go unanswered. The air is thick with tension. Talking about terrorism, Fatos Klosi, the head of the Albanian intelligence service confirmed in 1998 that a network run by Saudi exile and America’s Most Wanted, Osama Bin Laden had sent units to support KLA’s efforts in Kosovo. The U.S. antiterrorist effort reportedly had taken place to clean up the Mujahedeens, simultaneously with the takeover of Kosovo. The results of the effort remain unknown. KLA has never been on the State Department’s terrorist list, allowing Americans of Albanian descent, both U.S. citizens and resident aliens to enlist in the KLA during the NATO air war. What is even more ironic, the U.S. interfered on the side of Bin Laden’s protégés while proclaiming Yugoslavia a “terrorist state” and setting a bounty on Milosevic’s head. It was a bizarre year indeed. But then again, the Balkans is a bizarre place. Nothing is what it seems to be, ever. At Camp Bondsteel, security rules for the soldiers are to guard them from would-be terrorists. The GIs can exit the base only on official business that is when they go in squads outside to “keep the peace.” The camp was preparing for NATO maneuvers in March 2000, as well as fighting protesters. We witnessed the exercise of a special military police unit that a few months later conducted the infamous weapon search in Kosovska Mitrovica in late February 2000. They practiced the tactics of holding and attacking protesters. Who will the protesters be? Who is the next enemy? Captain Art Horton from North Carolina, who commands the exercise is ready with the answer: “We are ready to intercede everywhere, at any time, and against anyone.” Captain Mark Cheetwood, head of military police, is quick to add: “Our standpoint is that no American soldiers should go to Mitrovica again since the situation in that city is way too difficult and if we go there, we’ll only make it worse.” In the meantime, Bondsteel grows not by the day, but by the hour. It is so enormous that there is a “city transport” organized for its inhabitants. Three white buses with about 30 passengers each depart from the main square of the camp every 15 minutes. The roads are strewed with white gravel - the foundation of the future asphalt pavement with the cost estimate of $ 80.000 per day. The true expenditures of Bondsteel are not available - to all our inquiries about the price tag, Captain Berg would reply: “a few of millions of dollars”. According to various estimates in the U.S. media so far [by December 1999 - A.H.]$300 million were spent on the camp and rising. Before departing we had a snack at the enormous restaurant serving 25 kinds of meals in 10,000 portions a day. It was opened by Bill Clinton on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 1999. As to make the presence of the ever expanding global economy felt, there is already a supermarket and a Burger King. 5 years? What is becoming the biggest American town in Europe was certainly designed to last far longer. The ghost of Sergeant James Leroy Bondsteel, killed in Vietnam in 1969 lingers on the camp grounds, and his fate should serve as a warning to those who think that America’s mission in Kosovo has been accomplished: By Balkan standards the war has not even begun. End of Marko Lopusina's piece.
  
  Andre Huzsvai
  Boston
  U.S.

• Saturday June 29, 2002 at 6:35 am
  Since the Security Council created the ICTY, I wonder what body of international law, or legislation can dissolve it? If the General Assembly has created the ICC making the ICTY redundant, can the GA dissolve the ICTY? At the moment US Ambassador at large for ( . . .) Mr. Prosper is on reccord saying the presetn US administration wants the ICTY to finish by 2006-2008 at the latest: after that no more $$. So, is that it? "dollars-justice or bust" , can anything else stop this farcical tibunal stuffed wit third rate jurists? Gogol Charlemagne Connecticut
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Connecticut, USA

• Saturday June 29, 2002 at 10:21 am
  The readers of this forum may find these web pages of interest. http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/tri/tri_271_3_eng.txt http://www.serbianna.com/
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops
  BC Canada

• Sunday June 30, 2002 at 9:16 am
  Also read article by Paul Stuart at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jun2002/trep-j28.shtml
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops
  BC Canada

• Sunday June 30, 2002 at 10:37 am
  ICTY was created by UN/SC acting under Chapter VII. However, is debatable if the CS could delegate powers that does not have. Therefore legality of creation of the ICTY. Its legality to this day could be justified on "moral" but not legal grounds. As for International Criminal Court, the Security Council does not have any jurisdiction, as it does not have over ICJ. International Criminal Court is created by the UN member states, and ratified by National Governments. ICTY was created without ratification of the Yugoslav Government. On the other side, ICTR was created on request of the government. It appears that the SC created ICTY by means of procedural abuse. Reference to Chapter VII does not provide legitimacy for creation of ICTY. See Commentary by Bruno Simma)
  
  Carla Berg
  Austria

• Sunday June 30, 2002 at 11:26 am
  Carla Berg writes: "Its legality to this day could be justified on "moral" but not legal grounds" Tthis is the equivalent of taking "justice in one own hands" without been distracted by the niceties of the LAW or due process. My question is: what legal intenational body can dennounce the illegality of the ICTY, what legal body can end its activities. What recourse does anyone have agaisnt the tribunal?
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Connecticut, USA

• Sunday June 30, 2002 at 3:57 pm
  NEW JIHADIST ARMY FORMS IN THE BALKANS: On Friday 21 June DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources reported that close to 20,000 fighters, battle-hardened veterans and eager young recruits are already under arms, with more joining up all the time. It goes on “Saudi, Iranian and Iraqi intelligence services and al Qaeda operations officers in Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Albania are tasked with recruitment, training and organisation.” … “Our sources have failed to turn up any hand obstructing the emergence of (this) Balkan Muslim terrorist force, although fundamentalist governments of the Middle East and al Qaeda have fathered it for the aim of injecting young blood into the Islamic terror movement and to invigorate the movement dedicated to violent assault against the West, primarily the United States.” Now this is from an Israeli publication and I understand that they have their own axes to grind but they have not hitherto distinguished themselves with support for the Serbs. Also there is ample other evidence for significant Mujahedeen operations in the Balkans which the Western media, by and large, has chosen to ignore. --- Entering its fourth year of occupation in Kosovo the Nato alliance shows every sign of tiring of the mess it has created there. General Secretary Robertson announced last week a cut of 4,800 in KFOR. Viceroy Steiner complains of cuts in aid of hundreds of millions of dollars. While Nato withdraws, the Islamic forces to whom it has delivered Kosovo continue to consolidate. Embarrassed by their incompetence and criminality in this matter Nato’s leaders dare not admit the folly of their monstrous creation. Bush threatens to pull out of Bosnia and Blair’s aides slag off Bush over his tactics in the war on terror. Now falling out with one another over inconsistencies and how to handle this war on terror Nato leaders begin to sidle away; with the excuse for their criminal acts in Kosovo firmly in place: Milosevic, safely behind bars “sentence first verdict afterwards”. While the terrorists they armed trained and otherwise supported to take over are planning further September 11 type attacks upon Nato’s civilians in London, Paris, Berlin and cities in the USA. CITIZENS OF THE WESTERN POWERS WAKE UP. FOR GOD’S SAKE WAKE UP. Creating new Islamic states in the Balkans is not a wise thing to be doing. Demand of Blair and his cronies that they stay and clean up this appalling and costly mess. Drop this farcical self-delusion that the Serbs are solely responsible for the problems in the Balkans and face the facts: to do otherwise is to store up immense problems for future detonation. Jihad is vengeful and its proponents believe they have much to avenge. --- Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/decani/message/67679
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Sunday June 30, 2002 at 5:01 pm
  As it stands, the International Court of Justice should be in position to provide advisory opinion. However, that was not requested.As it stands, the SC would have to disolve the ICTY and ICTR. The fact that the United States provides financing, as well as time line for the ICTY to wrap up its acivity speacks volumes on who is in charge of the ICTY.
  
  Carla Berg
  Austria