 MILOSEVIC TRIAL DISCUSSION ARCHIVE |
| JURIST >> LEGAL NEWS - WORLD LAW >> Discussion >> Milosevic Trial Discussion Archive |
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Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is on trial for war crimes in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague. This marks the first time a head of state has been personally prosecuted before an international criminal court.
Is Slobodan Milosevic getting a fair trial?
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- discussion archive
- Wednesday May 01, 2002 at 6:08 am
Pero, The NATO's new role was discussed in the past,when the Warsaw pact collapsed. The question was,what part Nato would play in the "new world" now, when the main enemy is defeated. It leads to logical answer: to be instrument of enforcing the globalisation. The ICTY seems to serve the same proposal. Depends on the judges, if the trial will be fair or not.
Serjoe B
Italy - Wednesday May 01, 2002 at 8:42 am
Hugo Young in the Guardian (UK) refers to Blair as the USA’s “Useful idiot”. But is he? Beneath that posture of moral integrity - righting the world’s wrongs - does there lie (no pun intended) another agenda? Please read the report by Paul Stuart ‘Camp Bondsteel & Plan to Control Caspian Oil’ available at URL http://news.serbianunity.net/forums/
read.php?f=3&i=27336&t=27336&Forum_Session=
d0d85a1dbb7aae4d53bb4c795525152d Check out the claims by asking ‘Google’ to search for items such as ‘Corridor 8 Balkans’ and read such things as “The Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Company (AMBO). The project for a trans-Balkan oil pipe-line is of primal importance for the region. It will transport Caspian oil through the Black Sea and the Balkans for the West European market, evading the Straits. The oil pipe-line starts from Bourgas oil port, passes through the territories of Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania and ends at Vlore oil terminal in Albania. The line runs parallel to Corridor N8 thus turning the above-mentioned route into an infrastructure corridor, too. The estimated investment” (mainly US) “amounts to $1130 bln., capacity 750,000 bpd.”. Now we know what General Jackson was talking about when, after the invasion, he said ‘we are here to stay and stabilise Macedonia’. An alternative to del Ponte’s charges begins to appear. Is it possible that Nato used Serb “repression” as an excuse for an incursion by the KLA it had trained and armed? Having stirred things up by Mujahedeen atrocities did Nato invent a reason (Racak) for its Rambouillet claims to control all of Yugoslavia. And when Milosevic resisted bomb him into submission? Is it possible that this was not an attempt at Genocide by the Serbs but a careful pre-planned operation by Nato to seize the province of a sovereign state? There is sufficient evidence in the aforementioned documents for Judge May to consider. If Judge May has an ounce of the integrity some here credit him with he would suspend this trial now until these matters are resolved. What is the truth? Politicians lie and cheat that is the truth.
Peter Taylor
Herts/UK - Wednesday May 01, 2002 at 9:47 am
I have a problem with the Caspian Sea Oil route via Bulgaria, Kosovo Albania as a reason for the demise of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia would have co-operated with a project of this nature it would have been a benefit to their economy. Milosevic has not mentioned this issue in any of his speeches. It seems to me that NATO needed a reason to expand eastwards as it is doing at present. With the demise of the Warsaw Pact the NATO bureaucracy, like the religious bureaucracy of Galileo’s day needed to rationalize its existence. The Popes needed to continue the “lie” in order to protect their dominance over the Western World, similarly the G 7 needed a doomsday scenario “world terrorism and abuse of human rights” in order to expand their dominance of the World. We all know about the New Imperialism and globalization. The Popes used the inquisition and the rack while the NATO generals are using “Racak and September 11th” and the Hague Tribunal. Like the ‘inquisition’ the Tribunal will be exposed as a lie if there is any decency in the world. The more I examine world governments this decency is in short supply.
Walter Trkla
Kamloops BC
Canada - Wednesday May 01, 2002 at 10:03 am
Walter Trkla and Peter Taylor are both right. There is no reason BOTH issues could not have operated at the same time. Milosevic's refusal to join NATO and conduct privatisation of YU resources a la rest of Eastern Europe was yet another factor. Simply put, he was rebellious enough to resist the New World Order masters and as most intelligent people know by now... Might is Right! If you don't believe it, witness Israel's refusal to "allow" UN investigation OUTSIDE Israel's national territory! Hello... anyone smell the coffee yet? But can someone perhaps clarify something for me? If the witnesses statements in Milosevic's trial all seem to have been made AFTER the bombing of Kosovo and YU took place, on what basis was the original indictment made and on whose evidence? What evidence was presented for the original indictment DURING the bombing or was he indicted on the basis of media and political statements by NATO leaders and officials? Furthermore, why is it that so many witness statements were made after Milosevic's arrival in the Hague? Is it a case of manufacturing evidence? Where are all the 100s of thousands missing, the mass graves, the mass rapes et, etc, etc... which Blair, Clinton, Cook and the media machinery spouted at us?
David Dury
Australia - Wednesday May 01, 2002 at 11:27 am
On a more careful reading of my sources I understand that General Jackson made these statements to the Italian press in April during the bombing not after his invasion: even stronger evidence of premeditaton. Also I urge participants to read the sources above. Corridor 8 is not a figment of imagination; it is under construction. Also it does not go through the Serbian province of Kosovo but Macedonia (a separate country)close to the border with Kosovo. The perceptive will have noticed that events similar to those in Kosovo are being repeated in Macedonia.
Peter Taylor
Herts/UK - Wednesday May 01, 2002 at 1:32 pm
I believe that corridor 8 is just a result of Nato strategy, not a cause of war against Yugoslavia. The enlargement of Nato is a part of it. What would be any plausible reason for it , than to control politicaly the new members and through it, to exert economic influence by the multinational companies ? They knew that Yugoslavia will be hard to tame, as it demonstrates during the WWII against Nazi,and after it in confrontation with Soviet Union and USA. It was not by chance that Yugoslavia became the leader of not alligned countries. The serbs were the "backbone" of this determination to remain free between the opposite blocks in cold war. The managers of the New Order knew it very well. It was necessary first of all to break the tenacious resistence of the Serbs.They incited nationalism and separatism in all populations of Yugoslavia and the civil wars broke out resulting in huge tragedies for all ethnic groups. But the job in 1999 was not yet finished - For Kosovo was the turn. The tactic applied there is well known ( Racak etc.) A large new territory is now free for business and free market: never mind if it is related to drug trafficking,prostitution or other stuff like this. After Nato enters Kosovo ,these "activities" are flourishing, for good sake of our democracy. As time passes will more and more difficult for judges to take a decision.
Serjoe B
Italy - Thursday May 02, 2002 at 12:18 am
http://www.osce.org/odihr/features/
trafficking_kosovo_2/
milo a
vienna
A - Thursday May 02, 2002 at 12:27 am
To all US readers. Please add your voice to mine and write CNN and ask them to cover the trail. They billed it the trail of the century with Ms. Amanpour as the hostess. As Slobo began eating delPonte's case for breakfast we are instead subjected to coverage of a tawdry celebrity trail in California. Are they censored or just stupid?
Pertti Lindroos
Quesnel
B.C. Canada - Thursday May 02, 2002 at 2:54 am
Related to corridor, it is interesting to look at this http://www.peacelink.it/webgate/balcani/msg01209.html
Serjoe B
Italy - Thursday May 02, 2002 at 3:13 am
Appendix B of the Rambouillet Accords has been mentioned a few times above. It may be much more useful for our understanding of the ICTY than we may have realised. We have been speculating on the immunity of Nato. Well, the immunity of Nato and its personnel is explicitly stipulated in par. 6 and 7 of Appendix B. But wasn't this the "agreement" that Yugoslavia refused to sign? It does not matter, because par. 11 of Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999), which is sort of quasi-constitution of Kosovo, stipulates that "the main responsibilities of the international civil presence will include promoting the establishment ... of substantial autonomy and self-government in Kosovo, taking full account of ... of the Rambouillet accords". By the way, the Serbian government and the various national communities of Kosovo did reach an agreement on Chapter I of the Rambouillet Accords in Paris. The European Union commended the agreement, though it did not mention any parties to it except the Albanians (which were not members of the KLA by the way). This agreement was reached too late, because the OSCE personnel was already being evacuated from Kosovo in anticipation of the bombings. Then the geopolitical dimension: Corridor 8 makes sense. Milosevic has mentioned in the trial that Nato used Kosovo as a springboard for the conquest of Russia. That sounds a bit strange, but in the Kreml it is a truism that Nato consolidates its presence in the former Soviet republics from Kazahstan (in the cards at this stage) to Georgia to be able to tap into the massive oil resources around the Caspian Sea. All that one needs is a pipeline from Central Asia to the Black Sea and from there to Burgas in Bulgaria. An alternative route would go through Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean. And finally, I would like to issue a corrigendum: the Bosnian Muslims cannot take the Dutch to the International Criminal Court, because Art. 11 (1) stipulates: "The Court has jurisdiction only with respect to crimes committed after the entry into force of this Statute" (i.e. a couple of weeks ago). I just have to wonder if that is a problem if Carla del Ponte is sent to business. You know, she is busy negotiating with the Chechen rebels of the war crimes committed by the Russians, and your guess is just as good as mine in what court those war crimes could be tried. Maybe somebody has to start a conflict somewhere now that the ICC has jurisdiction "ratione temporis", so that the political leadership of a given state can be "transferred" to the ICC, where they are not in the way.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Thursday May 02, 2002 at 5:59 am
From another point of view http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/web/news_page.asp?nid=1839
Peter Taylor
Herts/UK - Thursday May 02, 2002 at 6:08 am
See also http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/
web/news_page.asp?nid=1837
Peter Taylor
Herts/UK - Thursday May 02, 2002 at 6:15 am
And http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/
web/news_page.asp?nid=1838 Don't forget to check the references with 'Google' searches.
Peter Taylor
Herts/UK - Thursday May 02, 2002 at 1:56 pm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4136440,00.htm
Peter Taylor
Herts/UK - Friday May 03, 2002 at 3:08 am
Let me mention some of the most salient points in the three Reality Macedonia articles. What is the most important for our discussion is that "European politicians now believe that the US used the bombing of Yugoslavia specifically in order to establish Camp Bondsteel." In the same paragraph the project is linked to Caspian oil. As if to confirm this, the previous paragraph had ended with the sentence: "The Bondsteel template is now being applied in Afghanistan and the new bases in the former Soviet Republics." Why go into all this trouble when the Bosporus Straits are open to tankers? The answer is that the Bosporus Straits tankers are restricted to 150,000 tons, whereas it makes more sense to use "huge 300,000 ton tankers" to take the oil to Europe and the US. The article also mentions that "the building of AMBO risks antagonising Turkey, the US’s main ally in the region." Here I would like to add that one of the reasons that has been given for the increasing Nato presence in the Balkans is to keep Turkey happy. Remember, the Balkans were part of the Ottoman Empire, so there are historical motivations. It was even planned that the Nato troops in Bosnia could be placed under Turkish command with a much larger Turkish contingent. Also, I have seen geopolitical maps of the Balkans where an "oriental" axis goes from Bulgaria through Macedonia to Albania, and a "orthodox" axis from Greece to Serbia. What I did not understand then was why Macedonia and Bulgaria should belong to the oriental rather than orthodox axis. Now I do. What a coincidence that a huge pipeline is being planned in the oriental axis. But there is more. Turkey has considerable interests in the former Soviet republics, most of which are more or less Turkish. (I read this material in an academically respectable publication, and the writer was a Turk, so this is as real as it gets.) A pipeline is being built in the former Soviet republics too. The US cannot afford losing Turkish support, because it is also an invaluable stabilizing factor in the Muslim world, as we have seen in the attacks in Iraq. And this is where things get really big. You can talk and talk about the Caspian oil, but the fact is that what you need in the Caspian Sea first of all is borders. When the republics belonged to the Soviet Union there was no need for delineating the Sea. A summit of the Caspian states was held in Ashabad, Turkmenistan a couple of weeks ago to address the delineation in the Caspian Sea, but not much progress was made. However, two days later the Iranian President Khatami criticized the US presence in the Cental Asian republics: http://www.russiajournal.com/news/index.shtml?nd=12937#n12937 . What really irritates some countries (and not wholly without reason) is the forced marriage between the war on terror and building of pipelines, which has even merited the somewhat amusing title in Russia Journal: "Countries pledge cooperation on terrorism, pipelines". http://www.russiajournal.com/news/index.shtml?nd=13026#n13026 . So if you want to extract a purely legal problem in all this, it is the allocation of the oil resources in the Caspian Sea. We have come a long way from the question if Milosevic gets a fair trial.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Friday May 03, 2002 at 3:28 am
No milosevic is not getting a fair trial. No serb in the Hague is getting a fair trial. The hague is nothing but a concentration camp set up against serbs. Drug smuggling, islamic fundamentalist, albanian al qaueda TERRORISTS go around Kosovo killing and blowing up serbs, young and old, male and female, and then when Milosevic goes in to fight TERRORISM he is labeled a war criminal and serbia is bombed day and night for noearly three months. Yet nobody went to the hague for Krajina, nobody went to the hague for all the dead and ethnically cleansed serbs from Bosnia. This court is a big joke, and the world should be ashamed that it allows it to stand. Serbs were always people that fought for the freedom of christianity, and freedom for all people, Serbia was always with the allie, and now this is the payback it gets. nearly 1.5 million serbian refugees from the former yugoslavia packed into Serbia, nearly 200,000 Serbs killed, 50% of its land taken away, three months of bombing, and now this so called "court". Why would you people choose to support islamic terrorists, who have been responsibel for the deaths of thousands and thousands of americans and europeans??? Yet the Serbs who have never even harmed an american or a european ally are being bombarded and exterminated as a race!! Serbs are good civilized Christian people, and this court charges them with "genocide"?!? God sees all, and in the end TRUTH and JUSTICE will prevail.
Milos Obilic
Los Angeles
California, USA - Friday May 03, 2002 at 12:17 pm
It doesn't seem that anybody interested in Slobo's trial is for it. I think this is an example of the 80/20 rule by the Western media. The western media know that 80% of the population are not interested in it and are prepared to accept any rubbish they put out. On the other hand the media don't care what the 20 % think who do take an interest in it. Truth in a democracy is what they can get 51% of the public to believe!
julian rochell
norway - Friday May 03, 2002 at 1:53 pm
I agree with You Julian that journalism today is just a business where the market share is more important than correct information. Nonetheless I think that "trial of the century" would have gained more attention if the defendant at the bar, had confirmed what was told for many years about him. Milosevic was "tyrant","dictator" "butcher of the Balkans","vetero comunist","hypernationalist" etc.. affected with depression which could lead to commit suicide, as has been the case with his mother or father and with his wife Mirjana also psycologically troubled because of her parent beeing killed from Nazi during the WWII etc etc.... Milosevic,sorry for the media did not met their expectations.(A beast in the cage). I think the embarasement also has a some role in their disinterest. For sure the coverage would have been more extensive, if Milosevic would have played the allready given role of bad guy who si deserving to get a just punishment from democratic community.
Serjoe B
Italy - Friday May 03, 2002 at 3:57 pm
Shamefully, the USA et all initiated the third world war. The mockery in the Hague will be viewed objectively several years from now. Milosevich is NOT getting a fair trial. He was not supposed to be there, to begin with. I hope we will live long enough to see REAL KILLERS of Yougoslavia, uncluding Clinton and co. on real and LEGITIMATE Trial.
helen johnson
freemont
CA/USA - Friday May 03, 2002 at 4:10 pm
I completely agree with Helen Johnson. Our problem is that we only read what mainstrem media write and they all are sold out to the biggest corporations. We should know better than this and seek TRUTH. Only then, we would have a very different discussion board here. Just take a look at the KOSOVO speech that Milosevich gave, just pay attention to the fact of KRAJINA Serbs in Croatia and you will understand where the truth is. Serbian troops were fighting TERRORISTS !!! When now the USA is killing inocent civilians in Afghanistan, it is war with terrorism, and it is outside the USA, the Serbs were defending their civilians on THEIR territory and the USA was bombing Serbian cities. We will pay dearly for our indifference, ignorance and arrogance !
ina odes
Nersey City
NJ/USA - Friday May 03, 2002 at 10:16 pm
Mr. Obilic, as I live in The Hague I do not like the way you express your anger about the location of the ICTY, apparently using a 'totum pro parte' by calling this city a "concentration camp"!!! I truly understand your anger, don't misunderstand me, and I agree with what I think you mean by the one-sided points of view and actions of the western opinions and media, but I feel personally offensed when you call my city "nothing but a concentration camp set up against serbs." Please whatch your words, and try to write more sophisticated, as we all do here!!! I happen to have a Serbian friend, so do not think "we, in The Hague, we don't like Serbs", because then you are totally wrong! You really made me very angry with those bad words!!!
Anna Maria van Klinken-Poharnok
The Hague
The Netherlands - Friday May 03, 2002 at 10:57 pm
Being your person "on the scene" in The Hague (Lou ;-), I was present this afternoon at the cross-examination of Mr. Rugova, and believe me, I felt so sorry for Mr. Milosevic, because he didn't get the answers he reasonably expected. And, worse of all, Mr. May really treated him as a child, by telling him that he would get only one and a half hour next Monday to continue his cross-examination, which, off course, is really unfair!! I think he didn't do well this afternoon, and other visitors agreed with me, and it was a shame to see Mr. Milosevic being "hit back" several times by Mr. May. Maybe it was not such a good idea of Mr. Milosevic to do his own defense, and actually I wonder why he does. Is it because he wants to show his political abilities - God knows, maybe for the last time - ? It can be for that reason, but then again: he doesn't consider the tribunal as legal! Then why does he do his own defense, risking to ridiculize himself by attacking his witnesses on political issues which leads to humiliating interruptions by Mr. May? It's really getting to look like an arena, where Mr. Milosevic is fighting a kind of political battle in front of the world, a battle of which we, safely sitting behind our computers, can nicely give our opinions... I think he'd better choosen the safe way by letting defend himself by some clever lawyers (but that would mean recognition of the tribunal...), OR, he could consequently persist in his rejection of the ICTY and remain SILENT all the time. What do you think?
Anna Maria van Klinken-Poharnok
The Hague
The Netherlands - Saturday May 04, 2002 at 1:36 am
Anna, I must disagree. I watched Friday's morning session on the Video Achives. Milosevic is doing great, you couldn't hire such talent. It's is however sad to see how power and political purpose has corrupted Judge May. He appears as constantly trying to stiffle the 'truth' and arrange an outcome. With what is appearing more and more as being a 'kangaroo' court at the highest level, in a 'kangaroo' world, no one stands a chance. Milosevic however in my opinion has already won. It's only a question of the final judgement, if it's a conviction, Judge May and the Netherlands will be a joke for years to come. Just like the UN with its lopsided anti votes. Joe
Joe Palof
Wisconsin/USA - Saturday May 04, 2002 at 4:12 am
I don't know how Slobo is doing, but let us take a look at the Rugova's testimony. Obviously, I don't know exactly what was said, but judging from the press reports what Rugova said was this. "We all know what happened in 1998 and 1999." So what is Rugova doing there in the first place? Apparently he meant that we should have formed an opinion based on the media reports. However, when asked by Milosevic if the KLA was a terrorist organization, Rugova answered "That's newspaper stuff". Couldn't he at least help us judge whether we should believe the newspaper stuff or not? That is the point in his giving evidence. The most interesting thing was what he said about the KLA: "It was not a terrorist organisation." Isn't this a bit thick? If he can hijack his testimony to promote the KLA cause, why do we have this trial in the first place? Let the judges decide whether the KLA was a terrorist movement. Then at least the presiding judge would have other things to rule than the length of Milosevic's cross examination. Of course, if all that the Albanians did was commendable, then what the Serbs did had to be bad. It may be that Milosevic's defence style is political, but does he have any alternative, when the witnesses can get away with their political testimonies? Rugova speaks as if it was a crime to try to snuff out the Kosovo independence movement. Every government has the right to snuff out independence movements, so denying this right can only be a political argument. Besides, Rugova bears out unequivocally that he is for Kosovo independence, which does not square with the present status of Kosovo. Shouldn't the international community be in the dock for keeping the Kosovo independence movement in check? The international community even had the nerve to disband the KLA. Or if the international community is right, shouldn't Rugova be in the dock? Rugova said he told Milosevic in a televised meeting what was happening in Kosovo, but what does it matter what he told, if we all know what happened in 1998 and 1999? Or should we be selective in believing the newspaper stuff? I think the trial has become the world's most expensive talk show, where it does not matter what is said but to see the faces of some celebrities. It is a pity they don't televise it any more.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Saturday May 04, 2002 at 4:40 am
But what is most incredible is what happened in Rambouie according to Rugova testimony: During two weeks the two delegations never talked to each other.At the end Mad Albright lost her patience and burst out: If You Albanians do not sign the "agreement" You will be isolated politacally and we will be disinterested in Your fate, If You Serbs do not sign, You will be BOMBED !!! The Albanian signed,the Serbs did not. Good "diplomacy" isn't it???
Serjoe B
Italy - Saturday May 04, 2002 at 5:55 am
The ICTY now has such a heavy workload with all the indictees coming to The Hague that it has decided to send some cases back home. However, ICTY must make sure they get a fair trial: "'The tribunal judges decided cases may be referred to courts in Bosnia, Croatia and Yugoslavia once the tribunal is assured they would get a fair trial,' Landale said." The criterion is simple: the prominent persons will be tried in The Hague and the less prominent at home. Who is to ensure that even the more prominent persons get a fair trial?
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Saturday May 04, 2002 at 5:58 am
Is this what Rugova meant when he denied Milosevic's allegations about KLA terror by saying "That's newspaper stuff"? 'Rome, (presumably 2001?)September 6 (MIA) - In Thursday's edition of the Italian newspaper La Padania, Ibrahim Rugova, Leader of the Democratic Union to Kosovo, blames the Albanian terrorists in Macedonia and Kosovo that "the only thing they want is war" and "they allow to be disarmed only within the 'scenario', which makes a terrific propaganda," MIA finds out. "I am familiar with their reasoning and acting. It is a reasoning of mercenaries, with no values beneath, except for their preparedness to keep on with the war," says Rugova. He expressed his beliefs that some new necessary and radical measures ought to be undertaken against the terrorists in the frameworks of the disarmament operation. "The only reason their commanders have agreed to disarm is that they would look less evil that way, but the truth is, the disarmament operation is 'international scenario' for an excellent propaganda," adds Rugova. He assesses the disarmament as a "real farce," since the actual arsenals of the Albanian terrorists could never be ceased in or destroyed. The terrorists have many arms supply channels, according to Rugova. Turkey, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Montenegro, Albania, Croatia, Italy and Germany were among the resource countries he mentioned in his statement for La Padania Italian daily. ap/td/12:16'. What is the truth? Politicians lie and cheat that is the truth. Is this a fair trial? Did Judge May accept Rugova's apparent denial of KLA terror or did he not? In a fair court this would be absolutely crystal clear.
Peter Taylor
Herts/UK - Saturday May 04, 2002 at 11:00 am
Hi all: Just wanted to share with you couple of very interesting websites I always use: tenc.net and truth in media Check them out, they are doing a wonderful job, using NEXIS/LEXIS and extracting articles that never are on first pages of the mainstream media. Thank you, Lyudka P.
Lyudka Podrujka
Los Angeles
CA/USA - Saturday May 04, 2002 at 11:03 am
Hi, This is for Milos Obilic. Please check out the websites: tenc.net and truth in media I hope you will find them very different from usual "brainwashing" All the best, LP
Lyudka Podrujka
los angeles
ca/usa - Saturday May 04, 2002 at 1:32 pm
I think Milosevic right to defend himself. He is doing a capable job in this capacity. It is not clear that his lawyers would be half as well informed as he clearly is, or as capable of investigating the testimony of the witnesses against him. I am disappointed with both sides. I find that the witnesses lack the courage to speak honestly about the KLA, and that Milosevic lacks the courage to confront head on the central issue of whether the witnesses testimony has any relevance to the crimes with which he is charged. I was particularly disappointed in Rugova's unwillness to find fault with the KLA. I have to wonder to what extent all of the witnesses live in fear of offending the KLA as they once claimed to lived in fear of offending Serbs.
Ian Davis
waterloo
canada - Saturday May 04, 2002 at 2:42 pm
I agree with today's message from Joe Palof. It IS THE GREATEST MOCKERY OF OUR DAYS.
valentina gor
daytona beach
fl/usa - Saturday May 04, 2002 at 7:58 pm
Ms. Anna Maria van Klinken-Poharnok you live in Hague and you don't like the way how Mr. Obilic expressed his feelings about Hague. Well we cannot take away Serbian's feelings. Hague is for them synonim of injustice. Then since you all care for freedam and justice, and you don't hate serbs, you just love them, but still you don't understand. Serbs didn't bomb Hague. If they don't like Hague that's their problem but if you feel offended with it you will need to live with it (we all contributed to events in ex Yougoslavia) People from Vietnam contributed less from Hague more. There was one book written about II World War(Medakovic) - Two friends from Zagreb (Croatia) lived together before the war. One of them Serbian lost a house, family and friends and ended up in Jasenovac(concentration camp), but he survived. After the war he met his old friend who told him story how his life was terrible during the war, the appartments in Zagreb were cold his window broke, and he couldn't find the glass for replacement for a long time - His life was just terrible -Obviously he didn't understand - and you Ms. Anna Maria van Klinken-Poharnok don't undersand either.
Pero Peric
Canada - Saturday May 04, 2002 at 9:22 pm
Thank you for your court reporting, Anna. And it is important that your fellow citizens of The Hague understand about Appendix B and why the Serbs, Slavs generally, and many other people in the world are so upset about the injustice of Kosovo and now, even more, this trial.
Meanwhile, (Bill) Clinton is talking up doing his own talk show on TV, over here! I do doubt the networks will allow real call-ins about the Milosevic Trial or Rambouillet. Victor's justice indeed.
And there is a new dimension: I believe the Bush administration is not going to make waves about the trial of the Serbs, because of its new political alliance with the Israel Lobby and mainstream media, over here. (Our mainstream media is fully complicit in the coverup of App. B and the Kosovo War tragedy, and they dare not admit they helped bring about one of the worst and most shameless war crimes in our history. Moreover, if you remember, the war was publicly supported by the American Jewish Committee, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, and Survivor Elie Wiesel ... out of a misguided/and-or ethnocentric loyalty to Clinton, I believe.
That is, the memory of the Holocaust was used as propaganda to support a war crime war.) Well, we have already suffered for such one-sidedness, and the Republicans are, at best, naive ... much like the frog for the scorpion. Is Bush succumbing into another Clinton? "If you can't beat them, join them."?
And, apparently, Judge May has no honor.
Is anyone approaching the new International Criminal Court about Clinton, Albright, et al?? Justice won't come from anywhere else, for sure.
Lou Coatney
Macomb
Illinois USA - Sunday May 05, 2002 at 2:57 am
I am most dissatisfied with the performance of Judge May on Friday May 4th. He appeared to be more interested in protecting Dr. Rogova from a host of potentially embarrassing but highly relevant questions, than in allowing Mr. Milosevic's cross examination to take its proper course. I was shocked that Judge May should rule irrelevant the question of whether Dr. Rogova considered himself personally responsible for violence against Kosovo Serbs and others following his appointment as president of Kosovo. Far from being irrelevant this question is the most relevant Mr. Milosevic has asked of any witness to date. Following Judge May's ruling to its logical conclusion would lead one to believe that Judge May considers the charges against Milosevic irrelevant to his trial. I find this conclusion disturbing. I also found it disturbing that Judge May should insist that Dr. Rugova had answered a direct question about the constitutional status of Kosovo within Serbia and need be badgered no further regarding this question, when the witness was quite clearly being deliberately evasive and doing all in his power to avoid answering precisely this question in any meaningful way. Mr. Milosevic had no difficulty in subsequently making it clear to one and all that if the witness had answered his question as Judge May asserted, then Judge May remained unable to state what Dr. Rugova's answer had been. Mr. Rogova is the most significant witness to appear to date, and I consider it a travesty that Mr. May seems intent on drastically limiting the amount of time allowed for Mr. Milosevic to cross examine this pivotal witness. I have to wonder how the time so saved could be better spent. It would appear that this is yet one more attempt by Judge May to protect Dr. Rugova by limiting Mr. Milosevic's opportunity to fully cross examine this most important witness.
Ian Davis
waterloo
ontario canada - Sunday May 05, 2002 at 9:06 am
It is also interesting what the word "irrelevant" means. As we all know and as Milosevic has pointed out himself, Richard May uses that word a lot when Milosevic puts questions that he doesn't like. However, it is Milosevic that is accused so why cannot he put the sort of questions that he deems relevant? Why should Mr May judge what is relevant to Milosevic's own defence? At least he should show some reserve. When was the last time May interrupted a witness because the testimony was irrelevant? As Ian pointed out, it is important to get a clear picture to what extent the Kosovo Albanians have used unacceptable methods to further aims, insofar as these aims were acceptable, so that one can decide if the Serb forces were justified in countering them. Now even Rugova answers selectively the questions that Milosevic puts to him and he has even told Milosevic that some of his questions are irrelevant. Conversely, some of the things Rugova tells do not seem relevant. He complains of the poor functioning of the Serb political machinery. Note the timeframe. His complaints range from the time that Kosovo autonomy was allegedly revoked in 1989 through the alleged Serb oppression in Kosovo from 1992 onwards to the "well-known" events in 1998 and 1999. If the charge is the alleged genocide in Kosovo in 1999 and possibly as early as 1998, how relevant are the events that took place 10 years earlier? Events that are that old go back to the time when ICTY did not even exist so that the tribunal does not have even theoretical jurisdiction. Rugova himself said that the events that are pertinent to the charges (1998 and 1999) are common knowledge, so we have to ask once more: what is he doing there?
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Sunday May 05, 2002 at 10:39 am
No one so far recognized Kosovo as part of Serbia (including Rugova). That means that they didn't recognized any International law nor UN. I think Milosevic and SRJ tried to follow International law (still valid), he did not follow arbitrary rullings from a certain group. (Oldbright, Kook, Rubin etc) Is it why he is in Hague? I think under valid International law there was no reason for any contact between any foreign officials and KLA. They should've recognized Kosovo as an independent state then they could contact whomever they want in Kosovo, without the approval from Yugoslavia. The root of the problem is there Rugova does not recognized (then nor now) Kosovo as a part of Serbia. The war started there. - Who's fault is that?
John Smith
Canada - Sunday May 05, 2002 at 10:21 pm
The Major Powers, like their predecessors, are using and have used, ultimatums and brinkmanship to achieve their ends in Southern Europe. To dominate Serbia and in the process stop the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Austria blamed the Belgrade government for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. To absorb Serbia into her empire Austria sent her ultimatum to Belgrade, which the Belgrade government refused. Austria of course had the “blank check” from the Kaiser and was confident that little Serbia would be absorbed into Austria and continue to provide ham for Austria. The Rambouillet ultimatum in many ways is a parallel to those events early in the last century. The NATO powers at Rambouillet wanted to occupy Serbia and it did not matter what the Serbs answered. If they agreed with Rambouillet they would have lost their sovereignty and if they said no they would be bombed. There is an old Serbian saying and I think every nation has this saying “it is better to live one day on your feet than a lifetime on your knees”. The Serbs chose to live on their feet and the bombing was the result. As for the KLA they had America as a patron and they were given a blank check by America to do as hey pleased in Kosovo. As for Serbia, America warned them not to use force no matter what the KLA did. In order to give NATO the green light to intervene the KLA increased its level of violence against the police and civilians, to which the Yugoslav government had to respond. Rugova criticized this violence and as a result many of his supporters were killed by the KLA. America, at the same time was only concerned with the Yugoslav response even though any nation in the same situation would have responded the same way that Yugoslavia responded. Rugova, in his testimony, instead of being an honest broker, has chosen to join the side of the liars because this is what his patrons want him to say. Because, Yugoslavia refused the Rambouillet ultimatum they were bombed into the Stone Age. Miscalculating that after a day or so of bombing the Yugoslavs would ‘cry uncle’ the NATO nations asked Russia to intervene. The bombing was stopped when Yugoslavia agreed to sign what all along they had proposed at Rambouillet. One clause of the agreement to stop the bombing was that Kosovo remain part of Yugoslavia and Serbia. NATO agreed to this, and this is part of UN Security Council resolution, that Kosovo will remain part of Serbia and Yugoslavia. Since there is no more Yugoslavia, I am sure America will now say that the agreement is no longer valid and they will simply impose an ultimatum of their choice on Serbia. This of curse will be dangerous because they (America) and NATO will remain as occupiers of the Balkans well into this century unless of course Russia gets off its knees and unless the Serbs get rid of the quislings in Belgrade and make the Balkans again the ‘powder keg of Europe’. When Yugoslavia demands that her rights over Kosovo is respected what will America do?? Will America live by the agreement that presently exists in the United Nations or will they break this agreement like they have broken every agreement with respect to former Yugoslavia that America and other NATO nations were a party to over the past hundred years. As for Mr. May, he single-handedly, every day as he sits on the bench brings shame on the British legal system. Where is the Law Society of Great Britain? Why is the Law Society of Great Britain silent on this trial? American and Canadian Law Societies are also silent and shame on them also. The issue here is not the guilt or innocence of Milosevic, the issue here is Justice. Western justice in this case parallels the Stalinist and the Nazi show trials. Western Justice is on trial here.
Walter Trkla
Kamloops BC
Canada - Sunday May 05, 2002 at 11:27 pm
It is impossible to believe that Rugova is not aware that Kosovo is legally a part of Serbia. This would be like suggesting that those in favour of Quebec becoming an independent republic do not grasp that Quebec is an integral part of Canada. I think that like separatists in Quebec, Rugova is willing to ignore current factual realities, if this serves his own political objectives. Neither Canada nor the US were wise to champion the rights of federal republics within Yugoslavia to unilaterally separate from this federation, and the rights of the Kosovo Albanian majority to likewise unilaterally separate from Serbia. After its own civil war the US made it an act of treason for any state to attempt to separate from the union, and would almost certainly respond with force if Hispanics in some part of Texas attempted to forcefully reunite with Mexico. Canada's support for unilateral separation is even more bizarre. Canada faces the prospect of future referendums on the separation of Quebec from Canada, and would never accept the right of Quebec to unilaterally separate from Canada. Through its support for the unilateral separation of other peoples, the Canadian government has undermined its own interests and its own Supreme court, which has only recently ruled (when asked for a ruling by this same federal government) that unilateral separation constitutes an illegal act under international law. http://canada.justice.gc.ca/en/news/nr/1998/dion.htm
Ian Davis
waterloo
ontario canada - Monday May 06, 2002 at 3:48 am
This case is getting more and more interesting. For the first time I actually read the indictments against Milosevic at http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/mil-ii990524e.htm (this is the original indictment). In paragraph 90 under "charges" the time span of the charges is spelled out: "Beginning in January 1999 and continuing to the date of this indictment...". Carla del Ponte later (in October 2001) made the cosmetic change into "Following the commencement of the joint criminal enterprise, beginning on or about 1 January 1999 and continuing until 20 June 1999...". If that is the time span, is it really relevant to point out that "throughout late 1990 and 1991 thousands of Kosovo Albanian doctors...were dismissed from their positions"? It MUST be relevant, because Rugova was allowed to dwell on these developments in his testimony, and Judge may did not interrupt him to say that this was irrelevant. The original indictment also mentions in paragraph 6: "In April 1987... MILOSEVIC ... travelled to Kosovo ... and in a speech before a crowd of Serbs ... endorsed a Serbian nationalist agenda." We all know what happened to the piece of evidence supposed to substantiate this claim: the passage was yanked out of context. My point is that we are dealing with what the indictment calls "background". This "background" precedes the charges by 12 years. The temporal jurisdiction is provided in Art. 1 of the Statute: "... since 1991 ..." It must be the prosecution's intention to sketch the great scheme behind the events after January 1999. But when Milosevic tries to sketch the great scheme behind his own indictment, Richard May closes his microphone. Milosevic may or may not be a great trial lawyer, but Milosevic isn't there to test his skills as a lawyer, but to establish his innocence. There is a difference. Paradoxically, what his failures as a cross examiner really bring out is his innocence. The tribunal has to establish his criminal state of mind, and the questions he puts to the witnesses are a good indication of his state of mind. When his questions are seemingly beside the point or "irrelevant", he shows that his state of mind diverges from what was supposed in the indictment. What is really paradoxical is that the witnesses do not pass the test so well. If what was said in an earlier posting is true, namely that Rugova explained in his testimony the circumstances behind the Rambouillet accords (was he there?), he contradicts his own testimony where he said: "We were not used. The international community came out in our defence." Are the developments behind the Rambouillet Accords relevant? At least they square with the timespan of the indictment, unlike many other things that have been said so far. From Milosevic's point of view, the birth of the Rambouillet Accords is everything: it would explain first, why he is in The Hague, and second, why there were so many Kosovo Albanian casualties. It is interesting to note that the charges have nothing to do with genocide but with "CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY and VIOLATIONS OF THE LAWS OR CUSTOMS OF WAR", the corresponding provisions being Articles 3 and 5 of the ICTY Statute. Again notice the temporal setting. It is obvious that violations of the laws of customs of war (Art. 3) can only occur in wartime, but even the crimes against humanity must occur "in armed conflict" (Art. 5). The first schedule of the indictment lists the persons killed at Racak. Was this an armed conflict? The indictment also has schedules of some subsequent occurrences, many of them preceding the bombing campaign. How do they know these were "armed conflicts"? Could it be some indication that people were dead? Rather than amounting to a crime against humanity, the dead people are rather a constitutive element of an armed conflict. Besides, isn't an armed conflict something where both sides carry arms? If so, why should the casualties amount to "crimes against humanity"? The fact that both sides were armed is borne out by the fact that in most instances almost all casualties were males, the sole exceptions being primarily the casualties that took place during the bombing. One could go on and on, and one probably will, but the main point is that Milosevic can win this case, and as somebody already said, maybe he already has.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Monday May 06, 2002 at 11:35 am
"Judge" May, Carla, et al are puppets of the USA. We live in times when innocent people are put on "trial" by killers of Yougoslavia. Think about the bombing of 1999, think about cluster bombs NATO used on innocent civilians to "protect" KLA. This trial will become very "irrelevant" like May, Carla, et al. Hopefully -- soon.
lena layaok
Norfolk
NC - Monday May 06, 2002 at 1:19 pm
It is inappropriate for the Dutch to be suggesting that they alone are collectively guilty for what happened at Srebenica. In "Tested Mettle" by Scott Taylor he states that 500 Dutch soldiers relieved a mere 170 Canadians who had been defending Srebenica for almost a year. What happened during the Dutch shift could as easily have happened during any other nations shift, and in particular ours.
Ian Davis
waterloo
canada - Monday May 06, 2002 at 10:13 pm
On the issue of Rugova feeling "safe" among Albanians, but fearing Yugoslav troops is contradicted by the following quotes: "The Kosovo Liberation Army will never accept the actions of the first Albanian negotiator, hence the possibility of OVK starting to liquidate Rugova's associates cannot be ruled out.". --Adem Demaci “the publicised list by the KLA, with the names of the political personalities of Kosova which it had sentenced to death, where Fehmi Agani's name was included“ --Sali Berisha J Olsson Melbourne Australia
J Olsson
Melbourne, Australia - Tuesday May 07, 2002 at 2:32 am
Not only Rugova,but the WHOLE international community is a hostage of KLA. Could You immagine the forces of KFOR countering the resolute armed albanians, when those same forces are not, and have never been willing to put at risk one single soldier ?? The so called "international community" has been mocked and now they find themselves in a BIG mess. The ICTY is also subsequently hostage of this situation, because any favourable outcome for Milosevic would have frightful consequences in Kosovo. And this the international community can't afford.
Serjoe B
Italy - Tuesday May 07, 2002 at 2:57 am
To come back to the illegality of the tribunal: to confirm the illegality of the tribunal one only has to look at the Statute. How many basic principles of criminal law can you find that have NOT been compromised in the Statute? The Statute was adopted on May 25, 1993, yet the jurisdiction of the tribunal reaches back to 1991 (Art. 1). Since the Statute is the legal basis of the crimes to be prosecuted, there goes the principle according to which the crime should be codified before a crime can even exist (nullum crimen). And there also goes the concomitant principle according to which the punishment should be determined beforehand (nulla poena). Just look at the charges of the original indictment against Milosevic et al. It refers to Articles 3 and 5 of the Statute. And when it does not, one can argue that the ICTY does not have jurisdiction: count 3 (murder) refers i.a. to the Geneva Conventions, though the "grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949", which have been exhaustively enumerated in Article 2, do not include murder. Even if the Statute is here rather strict for the prosecution, in other places the prosecution could not hope for a more liberal legal basis. For instance, the "violations of the laws and the customs of war" in Article 3 are not enumerated exhaustively: "Such violations shall include, but not be limited to ..." How do you think this affects legal certainty? Also, the crimes are only mentioned but not defined, so we don't know their constitutive elements. The same observations apply to the crimes against humanity in Article 5. Not only do we not know how the crimes are defined, but neither do we know whether they are all that the tribunal has jurisdiction over: sub i) it says "other inhumane acts". Let us not forget that in the Naletilic case, the European Court of Human Rights declared a complaint against the ICTY inadmissible, because the Statute ensures "fair trial". Is this "fair trial"? The prosecutors can charge you with any inhumane act? In this euphoria it is easy to forget that they are to take place "in armed conflict" and "against any civilian population" (including Serbs). Remember that Milosevic's plea for release has been thrown out from the European Court of the Human Rights as well as the regional court at The Hague, based on the Naletilic case. Let's be fair, the ICTY may have had a rightful place at the time Yugoslavia was falling apart, because the domestic legal system couldn't have possibly functioned adequately. In particular, the international legal status of FRY was open (or so we were told, even if the diplomatic relations were not severed except by Yugoslavia's unilateral decision during the bombing). However, now the international status of Yugoslavia is not questioned. Yugoslavia has been recognized, so it would be a logical step to transfer all the indictees back home. It is an anomalous situation to say that we recognize your state but we do not recognize your courts. The tribunal is even OK with sending the "less prominent" persons to be tried at home. Why should they then keep the prominent persons at The Hague? Couldn't we explain this incongruence by the prosecutors' intention to put the whole former Yugoslav establish in trial, which would be impossible in Yugoslavia? However, here you have a dilemma. At a domestic court you could in principle go as far back in time to prosecute any individual. The tribunal's jurisdiction, on the other hand, is tied to strict temporal limits (if not material limits, which would be much stricter in domestic courts). Therefore, the prosecution's case falls apart (in principle) for overstepping these temporal limits, which means that you have to accept the fact that the whole establishment of any given state is not the easiest thing to put on trial. You simply run out of competent courts. The former Yugoslav republics had no choice but to accept the tribunal's jurisdiction (under duress). The states which have a choice would never have agreed to an international tribunal having such sweeping powers to prosecute their citizens even at the highest level. This gives some indication that the Rambouillet accords, which were not even signed except by one party (KLA, a terrorist organization) under duress, were designed from the start to make it possible to transfer the Yugoslav leadership to The Hague.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Tuesday May 07, 2002 at 3:06 am
Rogova and Milosevic each accused the other of lying regarding the events leading up to Rogova's May 5th, 1999 departure from Kosovo, for Rome. Rogova claims he fled Serb oppression and never had any fear of the KLA. Milosevic claims that Rugova was given permission to leave precisely because Regova had expressed the fear that he would be killed by the KLA. These differing claims can usefully be tested against available historical fact. The article http://www.diaspora-net.org/food4thought/death_to_rugova.htm states "KLA CONDEMNS MODERATE LEADER RUGOVA TO DEATH. Tirana, April 27 (Macedonian Press Agency) The Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) has condemned the moderate leader of the province’s ethnic Albanians Dr. Ibrahim Rugova to death. According to Tirana’s state-owned television station, the UCK is trying to remove Dr. Rugova from the political scene since it does not agree with his efforts to reach a peaceful and political resolution to Kosovo’s issues." This article has a footnote that reads "Last modified May 18, 1999". It is cached by various search engines and refers to events on Albanian television so it should be possible to establish whether this web page is factual and historical. The article http://www.janes.com/regional_news/
europe/news/jid/jid000814_1_n.shtml also brings into doubt Rugova's claim under oath that he has never had any reason to fear the KLA. This article written in 2000 states: "At the same time, there is abundant evidence that former guerrillas [read KLA]are targeting the LDK [Rugova's party] as well as Kosovo's remaining Serbs and other ethnic minorities, such as Gypsies and Muslim Slavs. In the past week two LDK officials have been the victims of attempted assassinations (one in Srbica, the other in Podujevo), while the LDK chairman in Klina, Shaban Manaj, was kidnapped and murdered. KFOR is clearly preparing for the worst as the October poll approaches.
Ian Davis
waterloo
ontario canada - Wednesday May 08, 2002 at 12:10 am
A better understanding of the tribunal is by watching the live feeds or the video archive at hague.bard.edu/video. I am watching it since monday and I see many things that you don't know about. One picture is 1000 words. By watching the video I could see how The New York Times and other news organizations are twisting the trial. I am neutral in this. When Rugova was cross examined I saw that Milosevic was 200% better informed and prepared,with names ,events,documentys and dates to the minutes. I am sorry to say but Rugova looks like a lost artist in Paris.not the president of Kosovo. He never raised his head or look at Milosevic,said that he does't know,made political statements,it was a very poor performance from his part. A couple of peasents followed. It looks that they were KLA( they said no).A clear thing emerge from this trial ( from the albanian part).Nobody wants to take the responsabilities of being KLA or talking against the KLA. It looks that they are afraid of something.It takes to long to answer many of the defendant questions. Basil In NJ
Vasile Ianos
NJ USA - Wednesday May 08, 2002 at 5:26 am
The ICTY cited death threats against witnesses as one of the two reasons why Milosevic couldn't be granted temporary release. The other reason was that the tribunal was not satisfied that Milosevic would show up. No doubt death threats have occurred, but the mentions of the "couple of peasants" reminded me where the threats have most likely come from. Why else would all Kosovo Albanian witnesses lie under oath about the KLA? The trial is a fiasco, but somehow Milosevic always bears the blame. Take the fact that he is under surveillance day and night. The danger of his committing a suicide has been cited. If the tribunal were that concerned about suicide, surely they would have issued a statement on the indictees that have already committed a suicide? Or is a suicide only an opportunity to relieve the tribunal's workload? It has been said in defence of the tribunal that a court tries cases but similarly cases try courts. How reassuring! This tribunal can sentence people for life, so if the tribunal is wrong, what penalty should the tribunal incur? Who's there to try the tribunal? When the payback time comes, the tribunal has already terminated its activities. Take the simple question whether the tribunal has the power to hand out punishments in the first place. The nulla poena rule means that the crime cannot be punishment, unless and until the punishment has been codified. What do you think of Article 24 (2): "In imposing the sentences, the Trial Chambers should take into account such factors as the gravity of the offence and the individual circumstances of the convicted person." Maybe in the common-law system the nulla poena rule does not apply so strictly (I don't know), but the compensating element is the verdict by a jury. The tribunal combines the worst features of both systems: no nulla poena and no jury. This mess point to the problem that the Security Council cannot establish a judicial organ. In this case, the statute is not only the constitutive act but also the criminal code that the tribunal is to apply. Can the Security Council be entrusted with such legislative duties? As it is, the tribunal makes the law at the same time as it applies the law, so the legislative and judicial functions get blurred, as has been noted. What is particularly disturbing about this case is the fact that the indictment was issued about a month later than Yugoslavia had applied for legal proceedings against the Nato countries at the International Court of Justice. The case is known as Legality of Use of Force (see e.g. http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idocket/iyca/iycaframe.htm ). On this same occasion, at the end of April, it also requested the indication of provisional measures. See how similar this request is to the the "schedules" at the end of the later indictment issued by ICTY: names and places are all mentioned. The Nato countries averted the danger when the the majority of the judges (i.e. those from the Nato countries) decided that Yugoslavia recognized the jurisdiction of the Court too late, as the bombings had already begun on March 24. The ruling must have been so embarrassing that an indictment had to be issued. The starting point of the indictment was not the start of the bombing, so nothing could link the indictment to the case at the ICJ. Rather, the massacre at Racak was chosen. The problem was that Nato had gone out of its way to prove that the victims were unarmed civilians. If so, the tragedy could not be designated as a crime against humanity which must occur in armed conflict according to Art. 5 of the Statute. If it was a massacre of unarmed civilians, the ICTY had no jurisdiction, because it took place before the armed conflict and the bombing campaign (i.e. war depending on the perspective) had begun. However, the debacle at the ICJ was evaded: By letter dated 8 February 2002, Yugoslavia, referring to "dramatic" and "ongoing" changes in Yugoslavia which it claimed have put the case "in a quite different perspective", as well as to the decision to be taken by the Court in another case involving Yugoslavia, requested the Court for a stay of proceedings ...
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Wednesday May 08, 2002 at 10:22 am
Just to add to what Jari says: the attempt by Yugoslavia to seek an injunction against NATO bombing from the UN were rejected on a number of legal grounds. (1) The court ruled that the entire war constituted a single indivisible act, committed prior to Yugoslavia recognising the court (2) that FRY in having been told to reapply for membership in UN under a new name, had somehow unbeknown to FRY lost its membership in (and protection from) this organisation, even though it had continued to pay dues and attend functions (3) it would be unfair to find against nations which had agreed to be bound by international law (such as Canada) when the US as the principle player in the conflict was immune from prosecution under these same laws, having never agreed to be bound by its courts. All of these legal arguments struck me at the time as rather contrived, and I found myself in sympathy with the position of the dissenting justices who felt that the ruling undermined the intended purpose and credibility of the UN. http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idecisions.htm
Ian Davis
Waterloo
Ontario, Canada - Wednesday May 08, 2002 at 1:22 pm
I have been lurking around this forum for a while and to thank you for a very informative discussion I copy here a nice and not very well known piece of Serbian history: 1906-1911 - The Pig War "The Hapsburg Monarchy could never allow the creation of a Greater Serbia." Austrian Foreign Minister Agenor von Goluchowski, 1906 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Pig War was not a conflict waged on a battlefield. It was a confrontation of the economic variety brought about by Austria-Hungary in an attempt to put an end to the Pan-Serb movement, and, hopefully, Serbia itself. It is mentioned here because it was the incident that tainted diplomatic relations between the countries and created the atmosphere that would lead to the events of 28-Jun-1914 in Sarajevo. Austria-Hungary had carefully planned the economic dependence of its Slav neighbor since the 1870's. By 1903 a whopping 90 percent of Serbia's foreign trade was with the Hapsburg empire. This disproportionate trade was mostly in the form of livestock, mainly pigs. While this "guaranteed trade" situation was not without benefit for Serbia, many Serbs felt, and rightfully so, that it impeded Serbian industrial growth. In 1906 the Austrians decided to take advantage of the situation and apply an economic stranglehold by stopping the import of all Serbian livestock. The Pig War had begun and would continue for five years with unexpected results for both sides. The Serbians reacted quickly by opening new trade with Egypt, Greece, Turkey and Germany. That's right, Germany. It seems the Germans knew a good pig price when they saw one. By the end of the embargo's first year, the Serbians were exporting more livestock than ever before. Their economy was booming. Vienna could only look on in disbelief. Public opinion outside the empire turned against Austria-Hungary since they were now viewed as bullies. Within the empire, the Magyars were less than pleased. This was a policy invented in Vienna that was having monetary implications in Budapest. It was also clear that this was an open affront to Slavs in general and Serbs in particular. The Pig War had divided the Monarchy. The Pig War would be forgotton to the events that would follow but it is an interesting case study in a foreign policy gone very wrong.
Mira A.
London
UK - Wednesday May 08, 2002 at 6:13 pm
Milosevic revived the Black September and put it in a highere level, that of a state. He was more than a terrorist. He must be punished for what did to Kosovars, Bosnian and Serbs. Ada
Ada R
USA - Wednesday May 08, 2002 at 7:20 pm
ADA R. this is site where people are looking for some facts and documents. You should probably post on CNN. By the way terroist usually carry guns, don't have uniform, don't have a visible token, don't represent recognized state or officaly elected government etc. and use force to obtain power. Even movement (Rugova said - "his party was more like movement") is using illegal means, to clarify it, I have to use a broadly accepted definition that differentiate political party from movement. Political party is organized group of people that is using legal means (not force)to obtain power, in order to be elected. Movement includes political party and special armed groups. The democratic state has a three different types of power: executive legislative and jurisdiction power. Movement has all three centralized. The only group that is allowed to use arms is officialy elected government to protect justice system and state order. (Of course not to attack another state or interfere in internal affairs of another state. Consequently any foreign official deputy should follow a diplomatic procedures in contacting domestic political group and individuals.
Pero Peric
Canada - Wednesday May 08, 2002 at 8:39 pm
To All: This discussion is very interesting to read. I am doing a school project - a mock trial of Slobodan Milosevic. I am supposed to be a witness for the defense and I am finding it hard to get specific information that is also simple enough for me to use. If any of you would know of any good websites where I can get some information, that would be very kind and helpful. Thanks a lot and sorry for interrupting the serious discussion here, but it sounded friendly as well as informative, so I thought it was worth a shot.
Madeleine A.
Minnesota/USA - Wednesday May 08, 2002 at 11:41 pm
Madeline A. This is a very hard topic for a high school student.Probably your teacher thinks that you can grasp it even though people with p.h.d. disagree on many points. People from USA are much more inteligent and there are good sources of information for them: http://europe.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/
05/08/britain.agent/index.html http://www.prweb.com/releases/2002/2/prweb33718.php http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/may2002/milo-m08.shtml
Klaus Klaus
Germany - Wednesday May 08, 2002 at 11:51 pm
another link: http://www.stopnato.org.uk/du-watch/bein/psyops.htm
Klaus Klaus
Germany - Thursday May 09, 2002 at 12:16 am
Madaleine.. my e-mail address is ijdavis@softbase.uwaterloo.ca. If I can help your class project I will. I think it an excellent idea. Years back I saved copies of articles that I found interesting. Some of these articles might still be of interest to you. You decide. http://db.uwaterloo.ca/~ijdavis/kosovo. Regarding background reading, the article http://www.covertaction.org/yugo1.htm is a good introduction to the conflict in Kosovo. The article http://www.covertaction.org/yugo3.htm is very long but is a must read. It is the only article I have ever seen which provides a plausible (if horrifying) reason for why the Serbs and only the Serbs ended up being so unfairly represented in the western media.
Ian Davis
Waterloo
Ontario, Canada - Thursday May 09, 2002 at 12:06 pm
There are a lot of interesting web sites here to read. One who is not biased against Serbs can freely say that a big injustice has been done against them. The next question is:have we any possible mean to help the JUSTICE in The Hague ?? Not for sure!!! We can not expect the help from mainstream media either.They are probably thinking of "soft landing" as the matter is becoming more and more "thorny". The only ones who can help the fairness of the Trial, are the No Global movements. Milosevic (not him personally) could represent after all and unaware of this, also a fight against the wild globalisation. Isn't the collapse of old Yugoslavia a result of it ??? Immagine if the trial becomes more and more interesting for such large movements around the world??? Is this a crazy idea ??? Can somebody give a comment or opinion on this??
Serjoe B
Italy - Thursday May 09, 2002 at 12:30 pm
Hi all: I wanted to screem BRAVO to LOU's Coatney message. Read truth in media on www.
val gor
Jaksonville
fl - Thursday May 09, 2002 at 1:02 pm
Serjoe B. -- See the section titled "Down with the State" in http://www.covertaction.org/yugo3.htm which I previously cited. It is a long way down.
Ian Davis
waterloo
Ontario, Canada - Thursday May 09, 2002 at 7:33 pm
Madaleine I swear by www.emperors-clothes.com who practice very high journalistic standards www.decani.yunet.com for a comparison of the acceptable genocide currently going on in Kosovo.
Neil Craig
UK - Thursday May 09, 2002 at 8:29 pm
Thank you all, your sites have been so helpful!!! This trial is more complicated than I ever thought. It is really interesting to see how much the media sided with the Albanians. Thanks again!
Madeleine A.
Minnesota/USA - Friday May 10, 2002 at 12:43 am
And to answer your question (belatedly!), Anna, I think Milosevic is right in defending himself.
He knows he is being "lynched," but his trial is enabling him to expose the lies which underlied the Kosovo War ... and to expose NATO's guilt for the war and some of the earlier crimes in Kosovo.
His trial is not unlike Bukharin's show trial at the hands of Vishinsky (for Stalin). Bukharin won everyone's respect, even as everyone feared Stalin.
For that matter, this trial is quite similar to that of the anti-slavery American terrorist/insurrectionist John Brown ... who knew he would be hanged for his attack on the Harper's Ferry arsenal, but won everyone's admiration for his compelling belief in his cause ... which moved people in the North to activism against Southern slaveholding and secession.
I see Milosevic winning in 2 ways, when he is convicted and imprisoned: this will be the act of injustice by the West's (ICTY) court and he may be safer in a Dutch prison than he would be back in Yugoslavia ... so that he can continue to write and accuse.
Mind you, I believe Milosevic was guilty of punishable repressions ... at least before Kosovo ... but that had been largely accepted/sanctioned by Dayton.
This is a fascinating drama of humanity's soul, and the Hague's injustice is an unendurable provocation demanding action/redress (in the WCC?) by the world community.
Are your fellow (Hague) residents at all aware of what is going on, here, Anna? Have you mentioned this forum to them in your local newspaper?
They have a right to know how their city and tradition is being misused ... don't they?
Lou Coatney
Macomb
Illinois USA - Friday May 10, 2002 at 2:05 am
I would like to see more comments about the trial itself the quality of witnesses and the who do you think is more prepared ,the prosecutor witnesses or Milosevic itself.I was watching today the captain who deserted from the Yugoslavian army. As a prosecutor witness he scored vey well for Milosevic ,he gave Milosevic exactlly what he wanted.comments please Basil in NJ
Vasile Ianos
NJ USA - Friday May 10, 2002 at 2:48 am
Vasile, we are kept pretty much in the dark as to the actual trial. However, it is also worthwhile to ponder on the how certain acts are qualified in legal terms, so we can know what the witnesses are actually giving evidence for or against. For instance, I wonder why Nato went to such desperate lengths to argue that Racak was a massacre of unarmed civilians. Was it not for the simple reason that Nato could then sell its bombing campaign as a "humanitarian intervention"? As long as the Serbs were the only ones carrying guns, anyone who intervened in favour of the Albanians could not become party to the conflict, because there was no conflict. As for the contact between Nato and Yugoslavia, there was no conflict, because the Nato airplanes flew well beyond the reach of the Serb antiaircraft arsenal (or at least were supposed to). So as contrived as this reasoning sounds, there was no armed conflict between them in a strict sense. As for the "humanitarian" component of the bombing, it applied not only to the declared motivation of the bombing (standing up for the unarmed civilians) but also to the extraordinary lengths to which Nato went to avoid human casualties. Of course, the casualties to be avoided were their own, so in the final analysis the campaign differed from a regular war only by its increasing death toll on the Serb (and the Albanian) side, as Nato was trying to save its own lives (the ingredient of the much publicized "collateral damage"). "Humanitarian" intervention was also a means to avoid a declaration of war. Such a declaration would have meant that Nato countries would have had to engage in many activities which seemed so distasteful when done by the Serbs, such as rounding up the enemy (i.e. the Yugoslav citizens living in Nato countries) in "concentration camps". All this cardhouse of fake reasonings collapsed, when the need arose to prosecute the Serbs for Racak and onwards. In order for these "massacres" to fall under ICTY's jurisdiction, there had to be an "armed conflict" (Art. 5 of the Statute). So the Albanians had to have carried guns after all, at least as long as the mess couldn't be hushed up. Didn't that alter the Nato intervention? It certainly did: Nato was now a party to the armed conflict. You could still argue that there were no real situations of engagement, but Nato's accountability was now incurred by way of the armed conflict between the Albanians and the Serbs. Nato couldn't convincingly argue that they were engaged in an innocent humanitarian intervention, while the the Serbs were in war against Nato. Legally, there was an armed conflict between Nato and Yugoslavia (declared or not), and the civilian casualties amounted to crimes against humanity. Humanitarian intervention or not, crimes against humanity are committed "against any civilian population". Some solace could still be found for Nato in the fact that the later Security Council resolution 1244 (1999) evoked the Rambouillet Accords with its provisions of immunity in Appendix B. According to paragraph 11 of the resolution, (what was later to be known as) UNMIK was to take the Accords into full account. Yes, the immunity of Nato would thus seem to be confined to the exercise of duties in Kosovo after the bombing, but on the other hand, the Security Council resolution 1244 (1999) was also higher up in the hierarchy than any ICTY indictment, so it would be a venial omission for ICTY to "forget" to prosecute Nato. Besides, the UNMIK is run by the special representative of the Secretary-General himself, whereas the prosecutor of the ICTY is just an official of some temporary organ under the Security Council. So what common sense cannot to do to demolish the prospects of prosecuting Nato, the fuzzy normative hierarchy certainly can. And fuzzy logic is what the Milosevic case thrives on.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Friday May 10, 2002 at 11:08 am
Franz Kafka was right in "The Trial" when he basically showed us that powerful institutions and governments made a mockery of justice. The rules of evidence are drafted and set in nice rule books and on paper there is a semblance of fair play but the judges ignore them dduring the course of the trial. The rules of procedure are also legally drafted to comply with well recognised legal principles but again, the judges contrue them in ways which suit their own rehearsed agendas. The semblance of reality is all that matters, you see. It was thhe same with the trial of the Japanese General Yamashita who was tried in a similar way after false and misleading evidence of war crimes was pitted against him and it took 50 years before an American intelligence officer was prepared to reveal all - it is now clear than General McArthur wanted Yamashita out of the way because he defeated McArthur when they fought each other in the theatre of war. This Milosevic trial is virtually a repeat performance and Hollywood is the means by which the message is trotted out to the morons in the US who digest the garbage dished out to them Despite all of this I congratulate you all for keeping the hyprocisy alive and to expose the gravy train of media corporatalism feeding on the corpses of lies that they have created. Alexander Ardalich
Alexander Ardalich
Adelaide
Australia - Friday May 10, 2002 at 11:36 am
Jari, Serbs shot down a sleath bomber. Do you not remember their subsequent apology -- "Sorry, but we didn't know it was supposed to be invisible".
Ian Davis
waterloo
canada - Friday May 10, 2002 at 12:55 pm
Thanks, Alexander, for the valuable insight into the Yamashita affair. As you may know, that case has been cited also in connection with the case against Milosevic et al. because of its "command responsibility" doctrine. However, as you pointed out, the parallels may run much deeper than that. And Ian, I do remember the Stealth bomber. Come to think of it, I actually don't know how heavy engagement there was in the Yugoslav airspace. From what I have heard, the Serb anti-aircraft fire as well the Serb MiGs gave Nato a hard time. But that may be beside the point. What makes or breaks the prosecution's case is the four charges in the indictment. Charge 1: deportation. That means the "ethnic cleansing". Charge 2: murder. Charge 3: murder. Charge 4: persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds. We see immediately how "prosecutor-friendly" the statute of the ICTY is. The prosecution can take an act and choose to call it by a name that is mentioned in the statute. It's so easy, because the statute doesn't offer any definitions. The problem is particularly palpable in charge 1. It just says "deportation". Compare that to the IV Geneva Convention Article 49. There the deportation means deportation from an occupied territory (which Kosovo was not). And notice the sweeping exemption offered by the IV Geneva Convention in Art. 49(1): deportation is not necessarily outlawed "if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand". What is the difference between deportation in the statute and deportation in the Geneva Conventions? The same question can be asked as far as the difference between charges 2 and 3 is concerned. Both are called "murder". Charge 2 relies on the statute exclusively. Charge 3 is a violation against the laws and the customs of war, and it refers not only to the statute but also to Art. 3(1)(a) of the Geneva Conventions (the first of them). There "murder" is restricted to "persons taking no active part in the hostilities". What is the difference to charge 2? The crime against humanity in charge 2 is still restricted to armed conflicts. If there is a difference, it must be that charge 2 aims at outlawing particular conflicts altogether. This is quite evident in charge 4: persecution. Again, an armed conflict is required. But how could an armed conflict fail to be persecution based on political, racial or religious grounds? As soon as a conflict breaks out which falls under the Statute, the prosecutors have their work cut out for them. But that does not mean that the prosecution's case cannot be broken.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Friday May 10, 2002 at 2:04 pm
Regarding the issue of deportation two moral issues have always troubled me. (1) Was not deportation more humane than locking a hostile population up in concentration camps as the Canadians and US did to Japanese citizens during WWII, or murdering them as happened in Ruwanda. Had I been living in Kosovo at the time would it not have been in my own interests to spend 11 weeks in a tent, surrounded by aid workers, a long way from the fighting. The Jews in WWII would have welcomed such deportations, as no doubt would Kurds in Iraq, and civilians caught up in other conflicts. (2) The logistic problems NATO encountered in attempting to aid the refugees, and the grave concerns about the approach of winter, forced the most powerful nation on earth to return to the negotiating table, and brought a rapid termination to NATO's war of aggression, thus saving lives. To what extent can the deportation of Albanians be viewed not as a crime but as a desperate and highly effective act of self defence, when Serbia had no other logical defence from the crimes committed by NATO.
Ian Davis
Waterloo
Ontario Canada - Saturday May 11, 2002 at 4:36 am
My point exactly. Remember that at the time of the indictment there was some talk of genocide. The charge of genocide was discarded, because genocide would have implied that the Serbs had closed the borders and seen to it that the people inside the borders were exterminated. Obviously, that was not the case, because people were streaming out of the province. And yes, I agree with you. Wasn't the "deportation" actually the least the Yugoslav government could do out of humanitarian motives when the province was under fire from the sky and on the ground? Let's take a closer look at the three charges that have to do with "crimes against humanity", because they are the trickiest but also the most interesting. We know next to nothing of the individual crimes enumerated in Art. 5 of the statute. It would be tempting to give some meaning to the crimes by taking a look at some other documents of international humanitarian law, primarily the Geneva Conventions (even if that is contrary to the so-called "prohibition of analogy". What we have in Art. 5 of the Statute is the double criterion of "armed conflict" and acts directed "against any civilian population". What the "crimes against humanity" means is simply this: the ongoing armed conflict is used as a pretext to do away with the civilian population one way or another. In other words measures that are permissible when used against armed combatants become crimes against humanity when used against the civilian population! Let us begin with charge 2: murder, a crime against humanity. We should bear in mind that the Geneva Conventions where it is expressly stated that "murder" has to do with acts against non-combatants. However, going to the Conventions is not necessary. It should be obvious that in an armed conflict eliminating enemy combatants cannot be qualified as a murder. No, this is by definition "armed conflict". Do the casualties listed in the "schedules" at the end of the indictment point to anything else that an armed conflict pure and simple, at least insofar as we are talking about the period before the bombing? Charge 4: persecution. This is very tricky, but again we should bear in mind that something which is permissible against combatants is wrongly used against non-combatants. What makes persecution especially difficult is the fact that it is prohibited on "political grounds". What if the "political grounds" means suppressing an independence movement? What if the movement has already taken up arms to further their aims? Are the measures against this sort of combatants "persecution"? No, what we have is an "armed conflict". Persecution is targeted at the "civilian population". But isn't it necessary to "persecute" one population group, whose avowed aim is independence and armed struggle, when the combatants are lurking behind the civilian population? Isn't this sort of "persecution" again something every decent human being would do to minimize the civilian casualties. An alternative would be to drop a bomb in a population centre and get rid of everybody. No, this sort of "persecution" is exactly what an adequate distinction between combatants and non-combatants requires! So is this "persecution" a dead letter? Not at all, if the Kosovo Albanians had been subjected to inhumane treatment outside Kosovo, the rationale of distinguishing combatants and non-combatants would have been faked. The Kosovo Albanians were not thus treated outside Kosovo, in fact, many Kosovo Albanians fled the Nato bombings to Serbia! Then we have Charge 1: deportation. This is what we get when the conflict has reached a certain level. Going house to house in search of combatants has necessitated so drastic measures that the non-combatants have to be evacuated (again something that is explicitly stated in the Geneva Conventions). They may leave voluntarily or they can be ordered to leave, which is not unheard of in evacuation situations. In Vietnam the US resorted to this kind of large-scale evacuations to save the civilian population and also to get it out of the way to facilitate the combat. It would be scandalous to call this kind of measure a crime against humanity. I don't deny that excesses have taken place. Identification documents have been shred. However, this happened after the bombing had started, so the Kosovo Albanian independence movement had led to an international conflict, so it may have been tempting to drive the self-style Kosovo citizens into exile. In classical terms, a state has an extensive right of self-preservation, so it has the right to send foreign nationals to exile, round them up in concentration camps and what have you. When Kosovo independence had manifested itself in an international conflict, the Kosovo Albanian could be qualified, by some stretch of imagination, foreign nationals. As we can see, Milosevic has been right to hammer on the KLA presence and mayhem in Kosovo and the need to root it out. But that is not all. Just as using measures against combatants as a pretext to harm the non-combatants is a crime against humanity, it would be seem that using the non-combatant status as a pretext to eliminate combatants is a crime against humanity too. In its most classical form, you have the prohibition of using a white flag to lure the enemy into an ambush. According to more modern instruments, it is not allowed to use the flag of the Red Cross (or the Red Crescent) or the UN flag for military manoeuvres. What about using the designation of a "humanitarian intervention" when the primary objective is to strike at military targets? Besides, the "humanitarian intervention" was so conducted that it was too difficult to attend to avoiding civilian casualties. It has also been claimed that civilian population was targeted intentionally. The refusal to call a military campaign a "war" or an "armed conflict" does not relieve one of observing humanitarian law, rather, it amounts to what is called "perfidy", and the crime is only multiplied. It is multiplied even more when the casualties that this sort of "humanitarian intervention" has caused are attributed to those who are in effect the enemy. It is multiplied even more when this enemy is accused of not taking all necessary precautions to avoid any civilian casualties that were caused by the "humanitarian intervention". It is multiplied even more when the enemy is accused of crimes against humanity for doing just that. However, at this stage the tables are turned. In order for there to be crimes against humanity, you must recant what you have said. There was an armed conflict to begin with. So what you did wasn't a humanitarian intervention after all. So what you did was a crime against humanity after all. Does this matter in the Milosevic case? At least Milosevic can show that was callously called a humanitarian catastrophe was his own "humanitarian intervention" and Yugoslavia did everything it could to curb human suffering even when the world's mighties military machine was causing a humanitarian disaster. Does the prosecution know that Milosevic could do that and succeed? I think so. That is why the so-called Yamashita criterion has been paraded. This means the Milosevic is guilty if he knew about the humanitarian situation and did nothing to prevent it or to punish the perpetrators. This approach has at least three flaws: 1) Who is to determine what Milosevic knew when all the prosecution witnesses are lying? 2) The original indictment was issued two months after the bombing had started, so should he have punished the alleged perpetrators during the bombing campaign? 3) The indictment does not mention the Yamashita doctrine. It says what the Statute says in Art. 7(1): "planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted". Why wasn't Art. 7(3) chosen instead? That would have been the prosecution's dream: "if he knew or had reason to know ... and ... failed to take the ... measures to prevent such acts or to punish the perpetrators thereof." As for punishing the perpetrators, I think that is what Milosevic is doing now at The Hague.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Saturday May 11, 2002 at 5:01 pm
I have been following the Kosovo crisis from the beginning and I belong to the group of people who consider the Milosevic trial as an insult to justice. From the beginning in 1989 it was clear that there was no room for negtiation, the Albanians wanted a mono-ethnic Kosovo, in fact their own mono ethnic country and with the help of NATO they succeeded. I am quite convinced that Milosevic never intended to harm the Kosovo Albanians, Albanians lived and live in Serbia and basically Serbia is and was a multi-ethnic society, but,he could not accept separatism. In The Netherlands nobody at all is interested in this case. I am happy to see that your site at least gives a platform for discussion, the "international community" probably thinks: we'll give him a fair trial and than we'll hang him, again, neither the people living in The Hague nor the Dutch in general give a damn! Keep up the good work, Adriaan Verstijnen, Breukelen, The Netherlands
Adriaan Verstijnen
Breukelen
The Netherlands - Sunday May 12, 2002 at 8:53 am
The Kosovo indictment against Milosevic et al. was amended twice. The last, especially, is quite elaborate, but the four original charges are there - only one charge (the notorious "other inhumane acts") has been added. The Yamashita criterion is still conspicuous by its absence. Carla del Ponte has been meticulous in substantiating the charges with details, which wasn't done in the original indictment (doesn't that make the original indictment invalid?). What Milosevic has to do, and what he has been doing, is show the KLA connections and the Nato activity in the air. Some of the most obscure crimes have been elaborated in the Statute of the International Criminal Court. There we have some indication of what is meant by "persecution" or "deportation". By the way, the hopeful phenomenon is that the "deportation" can be excused in the ICC Statute according to international law (notably the Geneva Conventions)! And I was wrong to designate the use of humanitarian paraphernalia for military manoeuvres as a crime against humanity. No, according to the ICC Statute, this is a war crime pure and simple, more in particular "a serious violation of the laws and the customs of war" (Art. 8 (e)). It is interesting to count all the war crimes of this sort that Nato did NOT commit (I could find one). How about this one in Art. 8(b)(iv) (this is also called a serious violation of law and customs of armed conflict): "Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated"?
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Sunday May 12, 2002 at 10:42 am
THE DEMON’S RETURN. :-) The attempt by Western powers to demonise the Serbs by comparing them to the Nazi’s is beyond doubt: ‘Google’ “Milosevic Hitler” to view the hundreds, if not thousands, of references to this fact. In truth the reverse is more convincing. Compare Hitler and the Nazi’s to Blair and his Nato cronies. Who supported the SFC terror campaign to annex the Sudetenland in 1938 and the KLA terror campaign to annex Kosovo in 1998? Who invented atrocities to initiate unwarranted attacks on Poland in 1939 and Yugoslavia in 1999? Who unleashed a Blitzkrieg on Poland in 1939 and Yugoslavia in 1999? Who bombed Belgrade in 1941 and Belgrade in 1999? Which overwhelming Powers’ propaganda reached Kafkaesque proportions in the 1930’s and the 1990’s? Who deployed indiscriminately terror weapons on defenceless civilians: V1, V2, and High Altitude Cluster Bombs, DU, Cruise Missiles? Who made international agreements (Munich 1938 and Security Council Resolution 1244 in 1999) with no intention of honouring them? Who usurped the powers of sovereign states and then abused the populations they claimed to rescue? Which powers’ strategy included a ‘Drang nach Osten’ in the 1930’s and the 1990’s? Milosevic committed none of these crimes or dishonest policies. In fairness to Herr Hitler he never ever claimed like Blair to be a pacifist or to support CND. Unlike Blair he did not cloak a hidden agenda under the dishonest spin of Global Humanitarianism (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/History/TheySpeak.html). Nor did he turn a blind eye to terror groups operating within his own country. :-) Many a true word is spoken in jest.
Peter Taylor
Herts/UK - Sunday May 12, 2002 at 4:45 pm
Alexander Ardalich from Australia wrote a very interesting letter to all here, dated May 10. I'd like to refer you to his statement. All the best, Val
val gor
Newark
NJ/usa - Monday May 13, 2002 at 2:51 am
So I guess Milosevic is doing fine. Does this mean that he's going to win? I can imagine Judge May faking surprise and saying: "Mr Milosevic, if all these things you claim the KLA and Nato did are true, why aren't they in the dock?" But it isn't even necessary for Milosevic's case that the KLA and Nato did some horrible things. It is enough that the Serb and Yugoslav forces were in armed conflict with them. The things that Carla del Ponte now accuses Milosevic of, are just indications that there was an armed conflict. It is true that the Statute of the ICTY is replete with blanket provisions that have no "escape clauses" like the ones in the Geneva Conventions or even in the Statute of the International Criminal Court. However, the element of "armed conflict" is a sort of escape clause. Let's remember that, technically, the prosecution has the burden of proof. By bringing out the charges against Milosevic it has already admitted that there was an armed conflict. Now the prosecution has to prove that in none of the numerous instances, there were no KLA connection. The prosecution has mounted a desperate project. As the old adage goes, "you can't prove a negative" (unless a witness says so). But just the fact that the prosecution can't prove the absence of KLA connections doesn't mean that the prosecution has proved there were no KLA connections. This should be obvious, but I wonder if it is. Then comes the "Yamashita" doctrine: Milosevic knew that horrible things were done by the Serb forces but he did nothing to stop them (Art. 7(3) of the Statute). As has been pointed out, this criterion was not in the indictments so I doubt how appropriate it is to introduce it to the proceedings at a later stage. But by making its indictment as elaborate as it has, the prosecution is almost eating at its own case. Now, in every instance it has to show that Milosevic knew what was happening. Maybe the prosecution thought this was an easier thing to prove than the charge in the indictement according to which Milosevic "planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted". I wonder. How do you prove that he knew? The fact that he is so well-informed at trial, proves nothing else than the fact that he has prepared his defence. All that Milosevic had to know to exculpate himself was that there was a KLA connection and the Serb forces were there to root the KLA out. How can he do that when the witnesses are saying that the KLA didn't even exist? But if it didn't exist, who were the Serb forces in armed conflict with? What is this phantom army that the prosecution invokes to get the "armed conflict" element into the charges of "crimes against humanity" but is absent from all the testimonies? So the prosecution may have noticed that it was conducting a self-contradictory case. That was why they had coached Rugova to admit that there was a KLA but it was only a response to the Serb oppression. However, even this line of reasoning is self-defeating. Rugova went as far back in history as 1987 (and beyond), where as "the temporal jurisdiction of the International Tribunal shall extend to a period beginning on 1 January 1991" (Art. 8). And it doesn't matter if the Serbs were awful and the Albanians were good. All you need is the "armed conflict". The tribunal doesn't pronounce on the question whether the conclift was a "just" conflict. The "persecution" of Art. 5(h) is confined to the armed conflict, and it doesn't mean persecution that allegedly led to the conflict. So Rugova's testimony should have been ruled irrelevant. Were this a normal case, Milosevic would have a better than 50-50 chance of walking free. This is an exceptional situation to be sure. But what is so exceptional about it? That the indictiment was issued during an armed conflict? I wonder what would happen if Milosevic were regarded as a prisoner of war in the sense of the III Geneva Convention. The trial would look a lot different. To begin with "prisoners of war shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities" (118 Art.). So he shouldn't have been caught in the first place.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Tuesday May 14, 2002 at 6:31 am
The so-called "Hague Tribunal" is a complete farce. During recent months the only war criminals that del Ponte has been asking for are Serbs (Mrksic,Sljivancanin,Mladic,Karadzic,Martic,etc). Don't Croats,Bosnians and Albanians have any war criminals? Ante Gotovina got indicted months ago and now the "Hague Tribunal" has completely forgotten about him and is not even asking the Croatian government about him anymore. According to them,he is not in Croatia but when the Serbian government tells del Ponte that Mladic is not in Serbia,she says how she has 'proof' that he is but can't actually tell the Serb government WHERE. Then she says how the first indictment against a former KLA officer who allegedly committed war crimes against Serbs will come by the 'end of the year'. Wow,it sure takes a long time when indictments against non-Serbs are made public..... So,when will the other 2 be indicted?In another 4 year time,perhaps?
Ryan Mircic
UK - Tuesday May 14, 2002 at 7:51 pm
GENOCIDE: Article 2 of the 1948 UN Convention states the following: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group such as (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”. This is what “genocide” means for the purposes of international law. --- Because of extremely biased media reporting it is apparent that the vast majority are unaware of the true horror that has befallen Kosovo under Nato bombardment and subsequent occupation of this sovereign territory. The alliance of Nato/KLA/KPC ground forces has been catastrophic. The archives of http://groups.yahoo.com/group/decani/messages shed some light on these horrific events. In summary some 700 Serbs and other non-Albanian minorities have been murdered, some 1600 have been abducted (according to Kosovo chief Steiner one must now presume that they have been murdered) and the KLA/KPC and their associates have murdered hundreds of ethnic Albanians too. Thousands of Serb homes and businesses have been destroyed or stolen. More than 100 Christian churches, monasteries and other religious sites have been destroyed. Some 200,000 Serbs and other minorities have been ethnically cleansed from the Province by this violence or threats thereof. The remainder live in ghettoes without a normal life and from which they dare not venture without fear of attack. In short GENOCIDE: all this under Nato’s overall control. Worse this reign of terror has extended across Kosovo’s borders into Macedonia, Serbia’s Presovo Valley and Montengro where hundreds more have been murdered, tortured and tens of thousands displaced. Because Serbs approximated only 12% of Kosovo’s population these atrocities are significantly worse, in relative terms, than those perpetrated on the Albanians. To put some flesh on the bones of these bare statistics sample just a few messages in the archives of the site addressed above. Message 14339: Murders, abductions, violent assaults & rape. 14549: KLA murders KLA. 16135 & 66249: Massacres in Gracko & Ugljari. 17008: Ethnic cleansing. 18000: Murders, kidnapping, assaults, rapes, lootings. 18012: Massacre. 19013: Murders, abductions, homes torched and looted. 19271: Grenade attack on market 36 victims, knife attacks and businesses demolished. 19975: Murders and houses torched. 20568: Ghettoes. 21515: Cover up. 21964 KLA attacks moderate Kosovars. 23569 & 23578: Bomb attacks. 23918: Murders and assaults. 23928: Nato lies. 24016: Family of 4 slain at home. 24984: Over 100 attacks in the environs of Gnjilane including 6 murders, 5 assaults, 5 bombings, 13 threats, destruction of a church and 80+ properties destroyed or damaged, stolen or looted. 25876: Murder and bomb attacks. 27489: Beyond the myths. 27506: CNN? 27643: Murder rate jumps. 29622, 29630 &29631: Murder and violent assaults. 30001 & 30089: Blame the victims. 35113: Mortar attack. 35130: Murder & violent assault. 39910: KLA/KPC murder Kosovars and Ashkaelis. 44996: Bus massacre. 45069: A French view. 50029: Bomb attack. 45254: Abduction and murder. 45605: Axe Murders. 45766: Hidden bodies of abducted. 54877: KLA terror in Macedonia. 60119: Ambush. 65356: Al-Qaeda. 14579: Ex pacifist Blair, CND, N.W.O., he of the Ethical Foreign Policy, not content with his cluster bomb killings now presides over genocide. --- IN THIS SO-CALLED COURT OF JUSTICE WHY HAS del PONTE NOT INDICTED ANYONE FOR THESE THOUSANDS OF HORRIFIC CRIMES OF WHICH THE ABOVE ARE BUT A SMALL SAMPLE?
Peter Taylor
Herts/UK - Wednesday May 15, 2002 at 9:47 am
It is the year 2005 and the political climate in Carbania is dark and dangerous. The country is run by a fascist state and a dictator, one of the worst on the archipaelago of Indonesia. People start streaming over the borders and are settled into Australia's largest island, Tasmania. The island has a existing population of 300,000 of largely Anglo Saxon heritage and they welcome the oppressed Carbanians as temporary residents out of a sense of comradeship or humanitarian concern. The Carbanians have a culture of religious fervour which has been oppressed in their country of origin and they are grateful to find respite in Tasmania. They are taken into care and are placed on welfare and begin to readjust their lives. It is a cultural custom to have large families of 10 children on average and by the year 2050 the population of the Carbanians on Tasmania has reached 1 million as opposed to the now 400,000 Australian Tasmanians. It is to be noted that the Tsmanian Australians are no different in any way to the mainland Australian in cultural mix or otherwise. Now the Calbanians have been enfranchised and are allowed to vote and now they have their own candidates at elections. The Tasmanian Australians have been out voted and are now a monirity in their own State. It is to be borne in mind that Tasmania is one of six States in the Commonwealth of Australia in federalist system of government. Tasmania, now represented by the majority of Calbanians,wishes to cede from the constitutional systen of federal government and this is not legally possible unless the constitution is amended. Tasmania is not that interested in listening to consitutional questions annd goes to the Unites States of America, still the powerful country in the world, and put a case of independence to the President. At this point in time the President is besieged in his own country with scandals of monumental proportions, sees an opportunity and, together with Great Britain and the European Mega State, snd out communiques to the United Nations and other international forums that it is iniquitous for Australia to deny independence to Tasmania despite the fact that there are no constitutional grounds for cessation. The President is a powerful man and represents a powerful country and is undeterred by any oppostion by countries of the world (the overwhelming majority of the United Nations)to such thoughts of independence. The President engages the tols of his trade and begins to lay the foundation for his new foray - he engages the services of the omnipotent American media, government power and influence and builds a case for intervening in Tasmanian affairs. No need to seek US House of Representatives approval, he thinks and he acts. He send in "advisors" from the CIA (Competent International Advisors) to assess the situation and to create a confraglation confusion or a 'massacre' by Australian troops. Naturally, CNN and other media outlets, all of who have been given "exclusive rights' to report the news are given daily briefings in washington about what happened in Tasmania. Australian authorities object that the reporting of news is completely lacking in integrity and factness exactitude and complained that the uS has been a valued and trusted ally for nearly 100 years. The uS, like in Bosnia and Kosovo, ignore the call. The calbanians, encouraged by US support, which is financial,diplomatic and military in nature, being to attach police stations and miltary barracks. After 2 years war and conferences in salubrious Geneva in Switzerland, it is declared that a Night Time Accord (nay, not Dayton Accord)is passed though it is noted that Australia was not invited to attend to or put submissions to the conference in respect of a state of the Commonwealth of Australia of which it is the sovereign governing power. The United Nations is impotent because the United States, with its power of veto at the Security Council vetoes every single attempt to debate the issue or make any other intelligible resolution on the subject. Tasmania, is declared a republic in 2060 and this year, 2070 there has been a refugee influx (from Tasmania) from the mainland. The United Nations has objected to the border control activities of Australia set up to prevent Tasmanian "refugees" from entering the mainland and the military have been called in to defend the countries borders. The Us sends in a team of international observors, most of whom are CIA operatives, and reports back to the United Nations that Australia's stand in preventing the influx of Tasmanian refugees is against the Human Rights directives passed by the United Nations and recommends that the Australian let in the refugees. The matter is then taken to the World Court in the Hague, and the World Court holds that Australia must relent. Australia refuses and world embargoes and trade restrictions are placed against the country. Still the country refuses to relent and the US sends in its bombers and begins the "softening up process". Australia gives in. It is now too late and Australia is now trasnformed - it is the depot for all refugees of the world and the United States and Europe do not have to worry about receiving any more unwanted refugees because Australia is the chosen place. regards, Alexander Ardalich
Alexander Ardalich
Adelaide
Australia - Thursday May 16, 2002 at 3:53 am
The UN declared Kosovo self-government a "great success" today. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=3678&Cr=kosovo&Cr1= . I guess the lesson is that we should avoid "great successes" of the UN (which is perhaps the gist of Alexander's posting). By the way, the cause of the great celebration, the Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-Government, can be found at http://www.un.org/peace/kosovo/pages/regulations/reg01.09.html . (It is a mystery why they don't post all the regulations. Change the numbers at the URL, and see what you can find). There is a certain déjà-vu in reading the Constitutional Framework. If you have read the framework agreements for Kosovo's self-government dating from 1998 and early 1999, i.e. the Milosevic era, they are almost the same. The extras are the points that may have made the self-government such a "success", like the institution of the Kosovo Protection Corps.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Thursday May 16, 2002 at 4:58 am
NEW LABOURS’S ETHICAL FOREIGN POLICY. Yesterday evening Prime Minister Blair was questioned by BBC2’s Paxman on ‘Newsnight’. Asked about his ‘Ethical Foreign Policy’ Blair blustered on his friendship with the undemocratic regimes in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Seeking to avoid his discomfort he declared “I will give you two examples of what I would call a foreign policy based on values. Sierra Leone, where this country didn't need to but intervened and helped a country that would be taken over by a gang of gangsters and returned it to democracy. Kosovo, in the face of a lot of people telling us we were naive and foolish, we made sure the refugees could return to their country. In the end, we got rid of Milosevic and Serbia and now the whole of the Balkans is moving towards Europe and away from conflict.” So his ‘Ethical Foreign Policy’ has got rid of Serbia? According to at least one English Broadsheet this interview was staged and pre-recorded with agreed questions where the answers were rehearsed. Alastair Campbell, Blair’s special advisor, was standing by to intervene. Put over as a straight interview by the BBC, the recording was actually revised several times. Hitler and Goebbels had nothing over Blair and Campbell. Don’t miss tonight’s session in which Blair explains his moral principles and values which underlie New Labour’s ‘Ethical Foreign Policy’: presumably including an explanation of the indiscriminate use of cluster bombs to get “rid of” the Serbs. The text may be viewed at http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight
Peter Taylor
Herts/UK - Thursday May 16, 2002 at 12:58 pm
Mr Blair should get a few things straight. He did not get rid of Milosevic, the Serb people did (as if). Milosevic is not at The Hague to be got rid of but to clear his name (as if). The Balkans is not moving towards Europe, the Balkans is in Europe. The only thing that is moving is Blair and his European hordes towards the Balkans. Serbia is in the Balkans. So the "whole" of the Balkans excludes Serbia. And above all, even if the Balkans were moving towards Europe and away from conflict, couldn't one qualify getting rid of Milosevic as a sort of conflict? Getting rid of him to facilitate the move of the "whole" of the Balkans towards Europe sounds like a big project. Mr Blair didn't say that Europe was in the Balkans to stop any conflict. No, the whole of the Balkans is now moving AWAY from conflict, and the implication could be that the conflict was caused by the Balkans not moving towards Europe.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Friday May 17, 2002 at 5:02 am
Sadly BBC2’s Paxman interview of Blair on his moral principles and values was a complete waste of time. Blair refused to explain how his religious beliefs impinged on his political decisions. Blair, the self styled moral leader of Nato aggression on the reduced Yugoslavia, claimed the previous evening “Kosovo … we made sure the refugees could return to their country. In the end, we got rid of Milosevic and Serbia … ” Why do most of us tolerate such huge lies? There were no refugees until Blair and his cronies supported a KLA terror campaign and subsequently bombed Kosovo. There are now some 200.000 non-Albanian refugees, from their centuries old homeland in Kosovo, who for three years have not been able to return because of a continuing reign of terror by the KLA/KPC rule enforced by Nato. What does Blair mean when he says “ … we got rid of Milosevic and Serbia … ? As for his claim that the KLA and its various hybrids are “moving away from conflict” the continuing acts of genocide reported on http://groups.yahoo.com/group/decani/messages/ do not support such a statement.
Peter Taylor
Herts/UK - Friday May 17, 2002 at 1:26 pm
I think Tony Blair sincerely believes what he is saying, and means well. And that's the horror of it.
Of course, "Ethical Foreign Policy" is impossible without truth and justice, so until TB admits his/NATO's wrongdoing in Kosovo, it's all a lie.
This is like "glasnost" and the Katyn Massacre -- you can read my masters thesis covering this via my webpage -- until the Soviets admitted their guilt for Katyn, "glasnost" wasn't believed.
And when Jaruzelski's Polish communist government finally had to (admit it was the Sovs and not the Nazis who did the mass murders at Katyn and elsewhere) and got away with that, the credibility of Soviet terror disappeared throughout Eastern Europe, and the Wall came down.
If Tony Blair has faith in democracy and himself, he will admit the truth about Rambouillet and Appendix B and Kosovo -- not continue to cover it up.
Lou Coatney
Macomb
Illinois USA - Saturday May 18, 2002 at 5:40 am
It may be inappropriate to continue comparing the Statute of the International Criminal Court to the working of the ICTY, but for the sake of argument, just take a look how much more accommodating the ICC is with its clients. Again, under the ICC rules Milosevic, as the acting president, couldn't have been indicted, because he enjoyed immunity. Art. 98 (1) reads: "The Court may not proceed with a request for surrender or assistance which would require the requested State to act inconsistently with its obligations under international law with respect to the State or diplomatic immunity of a person or property of a third State, unless the Court can first obtain the cooperation of that third State for the waiver of the immunity". Remember that Louise Arbour's motivation for the indictment of Milosevic was that "he kept her out of Kosovo". The Statute of the ICC also takes into account the precariousness of revealing classified documents, which the ICTY on the other hand demands of Yugoslavia (a.k.a Serbia and Montenegro) as a matter of course. Art. 72 (1) of the Statute of the ICC reads: "This article applies in any case where the disclosure of the information or documents of a State would, in the opinion of that State, prejudice its national security interests..."
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Saturday May 18, 2002 at 6:28 am
Oh boy, this "approach" of comparing the statutes of the ICC and the ICTY does seem fruitful. Which of the following due process right does the ICTY offer, which are offered by the Statute ICC? In my view none! "These rights include the presumption of innocence (Art. 66); a speedy and public trial (Arts. 67(1), 67(1)(c)); the assistance of counsel (Arts. 67(1)(b), (d)); the right to remain silent (Art. 67(1)(g)); the privilege against self-incrimination (Arts. 54(1)(a), 67(1)(g)); the right to written statement of charges (Art. 61(3)); the right to examine or have examined adverse witnesses (Art. 67(1)(e)); the right to compulsory process to obtain witnesses (Art. 67(1)(e)); a prohibition against ex post facto crimes (Art. 22); the protection against double jeopardy (Art. 20); the freedom from warrantless arrest and searches (Arts. 57 bis (3),(58)); the right to be present at trial (Art. 63); the exclusion of illegally obtained evidence (Art. 69(7)); and a prohibition against trials in absentia (Art. 63)." This was a quote from The Washington Working Group on the ICC website http://www.wfa.org/issues/wicc/safeguards.html . Its purpose was to coax the US to ratify the ICC Statute. Although some of the points may seem simplistic (like the operation of diplomatic immunity I referred to earlier), this is a very revealing article, because it brings up so many points in the ICC which the Statute of the ICTY lacks. I would also like to add that the ICC statute includes "general principles of criminal law" in Part 3, like the "nullum crimen" and "nulla poena" (Art. 22 and 23 respectively), whose total lack I referred to at the ICTY. As we all know, the trial is public at the ICTY (subject to broadcasting budgets and other excuses). The stated purpose of this practice is to ensure that nothing foul happens in the proceedings. I wonder how the public trial prevents anything foul happening. There is growing disenchantment with the ICTY, so how are we to capitalize on this publicity?
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Saturday May 18, 2002 at 8:05 am
Just to go on for a little while. The theme of this discussion is "Is Milosevic getting a fair trial?". Of course he is, because the Statute of the ICTY says so. That is why the European Court of Human Rights threw the Naletilic case out as inadmissible: the ICTY guarantees fair trial according to its statute. Indeed, the "safeguards" that the Washington Working Group on the ICC refers to are nothing new. They have been tried already in the ICTY, which the Working Group avoids mentioning. Art. 21 of the ICTY Statutes (rights of the accused) is a fair resemblance of Art. 67 of the ICC Statute (rights of the accused), which the Working Group cites in such glowing terms. For instance, Art. 21 (3) reads: "The accused shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to the provisions of the present Statute". Are we happy? No we are not. What went wrong? Of course, the European Court of Human Rights was wrong to throw Naletilic out. Just the fact that something is written in the law does not guarantee that the law is never broken. I think the judges at ECHR know that. The same problem arises in a slightly different form in the provisions concerning public trial. So what if we have a public trial. Does that mean that the trial is fair? Of course not, why should the trial otherwise be public? This kind of circular reasonings abound. Let's take an interesting comparison. Art. 17 (1) states that the Court shall determine that a case is inadmissible where the case is being investigated or prosecuted by a State which has jurisdiction over it, unless the State is unwilling or unable GENUINELY to carry out the investigation or prosecution. Note the word "genuinely". Let's apply this condition of genuineness conversely to ICTY. Does the fact that the tribunal is sticking to the letter of the provisions concerning the rights of the accused guarantee that it is GENUINELY observing them? Is the tribunal evil? Well, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. What the statute gives to the accused with one hand it takes back with the other. This takes us back to the general principles of criminal law which the statute of the ICTY isn't in the least mindful of. You have to define the crime and you have to codify the punishment. That is the minimum. Another example. The sentences that the ICTY has handed down cannot be reevaluated in the domestic courts. This is called magnanimously and misleadingly non-bis-in-idem (AT. 10). The more one reads the Statute of the ICC the more one has the impression that the shortcomings of ICTY and the Kosovo bombing have been corrected. Even if one is optimistic and thinks that the new statute (ICC) will work better than the old one (ICTY), is that a consolation for all the people that the ICTY has sentenced? There is some slender hope, because the ICTY statute does provide for pardon (Art. 28). However, I think the U.S. has made a reasoned choice not to taste its own medicine ( = the ICC statute).
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Wednesday May 22, 2002 at 11:21 am
It is embarrassing to send four postings in a row, so I guess I will just have to initial this one. Remember that Kosovo is not the only obstacle on the way to Milosevic's acquittal. There are Bosnia and Croatia as well. I received the following four links just this morning, and I don't think the sender will mind me sharing them with you. This is VERY POWERFUL stuff on Bosnia and Croatia. 1) Take a look at the study on Bosnian Muslims: http://srpska-mrezacom.powweb.com/library/facts/again_turkey.html . 2) Jihad troops openly march through Europe: http://srpska-mrezacom.powweb.com/library/facts/jihad-in-Europe.html . 3) Arafat's uncle Hajj Amin Al Husseini, personal friend of Adolf Hitler forms SS unit out of Bosnian Muslims, in RECORD TIME (in 1943). See the documentation at: http://srpska-mrezacom.powweb.com/library/facts/hanjar.html . 4) America resurrects Nazi Croatia - to the last detail: http://srpska-mrezacom.powweb.com/library/facts/again-ustashi.html .
J N
Finland - Wednesday May 22, 2002 at 5:03 pm
For the ICTY to charge Milosevic with genocide in Croatia shows an amazing mixture of cynicsm & desperation. The 12.2% of Croatia's population who are Serbs arn't there anymore. Accusing Milo of genocide there is like accusing Ben Gurion of genocide of Germans in the Warsaw Ghetto rising. The ICTYs accusations in Bosnia depend largely on the myth of the Srebrenica massacre. The bodies found are clearly those of Serb civilians murdered by the local Moslem commander Nasir Oric. Mr Oric has not only boasted of the genocide of thousands of civilians but has shown Washington Post journalists videos of his murders. Del Ponte, May etc cannot be ignorant of this irrefutable evidence - in refusing to question him they can only be acting to maintain an accusation they know to be faked & are accessories to Oric's genocide.
Neil Craig
UK - Thursday May 23, 2002 at 6:25 pm
Sorry Neil, but I beg to differ with you on this. Surely you dont think that the whole Dutch Government resigned for a 'myth'? Hang on, we can not talk of the Srebrenica massacre as a myth - or in a la Le Pen style ' a mere detail of history'. The bones in Srebrenica are of more than 7500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, I know this because I worked in a refugee centre in Tuzla during the war and the stories I have heard and treaumatised, deadened women I have seen are not a myth, let me assure you. Most of them still find the only purpose in life to identify the bodies, which you claim are 'are clearly those of Serb civilians murdered by the local Moslem commander Nasir Oric. ' The only thing that is clear from this is that : 1. your mind is completely deluded by those rubbish websites our finnish friend is duly supplying us with 2. you are an evil embodied who likes to revert the truth in line with the Balkan fashion 3. you are taking the piss (I hope it is the last one.) I feel personally offended by this and this is the first time I was prompted to respond in such a public way. OK - let's recap it again: Srebrenica was a major affair exercised by UN Dutch Battalion and General Ratko Mladic. French General Janvier made the deal with Mladic : a few members of Dutch batallion for the male Muslim population of more than 7500 plus some fuel to transport the bodies to execution sites. The whole thing was over in a week. Seven years later a report comes out (note the speed in comparison with September 11th identification of criminals) and a whole Dutch cabinet resigns from power (shame that they left space for the radical right to move in though) Hope you come to your senses and stop offending people with the inanities plucked from obscene websites
Mel Farmer
UK - Friday May 24, 2002 at 12:57 am
Dear Mel: You have heard the stories of dead Muslims from traumatized women? What a good argument you have. I think maybe it would be better to stick to information gathered from the internet. Your post tells me that you have seen too many movies. Sorry Neil, I could not help it.
Kathryn Love
SJC
USA - Friday May 24, 2002 at 5:14 am
As far as I know, the website that I provided make no mention of Oric, so you cannot dismiss a valid viewpoint based on the large font and graphic photographs of one website, which is openly over the top. I believe that the website has a correct view of the Lisbon Agreements, safe havens and ethnic cleansing at http://srpska-mrezacom.powweb.com/library/facts/bosnia101.html . If so, the Serb version of the Srebrenica massacre would fit in quite well. As is generally acknowledged, the bodies that have been found have NOT been identified, so you cannot "revert the truth in line with the Balkan fashion" automatically against the Serbs either. Taken together with the Kosovo lies, that would simply be too bad to be true. As to the appalling practice of using the Holocaust as a pretext to make a political point of one's own, I would like to refer to a statement of the Jewish-Serbian Friendship Society at http://www.iacenter.org/warcrime/cottin.htm . This shows how difficult it is to talk simplistically about Jewish opinion to make everybody shut up. Also, there we find the name of the PR firm Ruder Finn, which has been mentioned in this discussion earlier. I wouldn't be surprised to hear from some do-gooder that the Jews are the real Nazis.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Friday May 24, 2002 at 6:56 am
Could the missing men from Srebrenica have gone to a Muslim counteroffensive to lift the siege of Sarajevo where the Muslims, aided by US organisers and instructors ended up in a trap set by the Serbs and where several thousand were killed in combat? Thta's when they decided NATO had to come in and bomb the Serbs. Now who here can tell me that there are 7-8000 Muslims bodies found in Srebrenica? As far as I know, most bodies are not clearly identified and they are nowhere near that number. Could it be that the Serbs have a more expeditious way of disposing of all trace of bodies than anyone else on this planet? Go propaganda! Maybe the Serbs put them in microwaves like Rudder and Finn did in Iraq? With all the media disinformation and propaganda, Milosevic hasn't a chance even if he could indisputably demonstrate that he was at the North Pole at the time.
DD DD
AUS - Friday May 24, 2002 at 12:49 pm
Ms Love, I understand why you might find my argument of wretched peasant Muslim women who have lost all their men folk a bit over-used and maybe distasteful. However, it is not irrelevant at all: one can in complete honesty ask where are the 7.500 fathers, sons, brothers, husbands claimed by tens of thousands of destitute women? It has become easy to ignore the tears, images of women in scarves, and emotional stories of those who like me have worked closely with the victims during the war (Tuzla is around 100 kms away from Srebrenica) presented in some odd discussion boards. You can not however ignore the fact that there is an organised international effort led by the International Commission on Missing Person (ICPM) which has been going on for several years. So, Yuri, a large number of bodies have been identified, as you can read from the article presented later. There has been difficulties due to the peculiar nature of the genocide. This was an act of ultimate deliberation and a product of long term strategy of ethnic cleansing which started in the early 90s whose grand masters are now being trialed, which is coincidentally the forum for our chat here. The bodies are not possible to identify, because, in line with the systematic ethnic cleansing method, the identification papers have been removed and some more gruesome methods employed to make sure bodies are not to be idetified ever. The only hope lies with the DNA method and this is the first time this method is being used on such a grand scale. Determination to find truth is there, and that is why I am sticking to this absurd discussion. I feel personally involved because of my experience during the war, and I dont think that is a wrong thing - the determination only comes from the feeling of responsibility towards the world. I dont blame all Serbs, in fact most of my best friends are Serbs from Tuzla who I am still in touch with. For anyone interested more about Srebrenica please read on - the article was published in the Guardian Monday April 15, 2002, by Duncan Staff: 'Above the bodies, each wrapped in white plastic and marked with a serial number, are stacked brown paper bags, the kind American stores pack groceries in. They contain the washed and ironed clothes of the victims below. This warehouse, on the outskirts of Tuzla in Bosnia, belongs to the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), which has been exhuming the remains of people killed in the massacre at Srebrenica. The organisation was set up by Bill Clinton when he was US president to return victims' bodies to their families. "When they come in here we carry out a post mortem. We determine age, sex, stature, ante-mortem and postmortem changes, and whether the body was broken when it was moved, or during the moments of death," says forensic pathologist Dr Debra Komar. She is standing over the bullet-riddled remains of a Muslim man on a steel mortuary table. His body is so badly disfigured that it takes a while to make out the limbs. This is the work of mechanical diggers, which were used by the Serb killers to move thousands of bodies from where they had been buried immediately after the massacre. They hoped to confuse war-crimes investigators. The effort at concealment has, until now, proved successful. In common with the 7,500 people who died at Srebrenica, this man has no identifying papers. The damage inflicted on his body after death ensures that only the grimmest determination can yield any clues as to his identity. "Our main aim is to identify people, but even the type of weapon they were shot with can help us differentiate them. If you know that they were shot with a shotgun or a machine-gun, for example." Komar bends over the body and probes what remains of the limbs for machine-gun bullets with her latex-gloved fingers. Standing next to her, taking photographs, is a boiler-suited Bosnian police officer. "Because the body has been folded in on itself a multiple number of times, it's impossible to tell whether the opaque bullet which shows up in the x-ray is in this muscle or the muscle underneath," she says. Eventually, after several minutes of prodding and cutting, she finds a bullet, plucks it out with a small grunt of satisfaction and hands it to the police officer. He carefully washes, dries and bags it for possible use as evidence in war-crimes prosecutions. "Once this work is done, the x-rays are done, and the removal of any kind of projectile is done, the flesh is removed by a power spray. Once the flesh has been removed and it's been dried out, we will do age, stature, sex." There are so many bodies here that they have to be processed as they were killed: with industrial efficiency. Down the corridor from the mortuary is a room filled with racks for drying clothes. Here, children's jeans, T-shirts and underwear hang alongside those of their parents. One by one the clothes are taken down, ironed and photographed. The pictures are added to a thick volume known as the Book of the Missing. This is carried around the country by Red Cross workers, who show it to families in the hope that they might recognise something. Never before has DNA been used to identify the victims of genocide. The ICMP has assembled a team of scientists from around the world to design a programme capable of handling such an enormous task. In order to identify a victim, their DNA needs to be compared with that of a living relative. Outreach teams have collected more than 20,000 samples from the families of the missing. Bone samples have also been cut from the remains in the body-storage warehouse. Their DNA profiles are being extracted in purpose-built laboratories in the hope of being able to match them. The teams are starting with the 800 or so children who died in the massacre. The emotional need to return them to their families is the most pressing. It will also be relatively straightforward to check the DNA results against their remains, says Komar. "If this particular individual turns out to be a 14-year-old male, say, there will only be a limited number of individuals who fall into that category. You'll be able to catch glitches in the system should they exist - if the matches are coming up with 80-year-old women, you know you've got a problem." The DNA programme costs around £7m a year. The US government is the biggest donor, closely followed by the Dutch. The British government also contributes. Bacon says that there is a clear political reason for funding this work. "These people will never be reconciled unless they have closure. We can give them closure. That was not possible before - with DNA it is possible, and I think we owe it to the people here to try and help them in that reconciliation process.'' Last week the ICMP made the 112th DNA identification. But it has a serious problem. Neither Hasa nor any of the other families will allow their relatives to be buried. They are demanding that the battery factory and field opposite be turned into a graveyard and museum. Bacon says that the situation is critical. "We need those bodies to be buried. Already this year there have been over 1,000 bodies from Srebrenica recovered. They are lying in undignified circumstances in effectively factory premises and saltmine tunnels." As the factory is in Republica Srpska, the families will only get their way with the support of the UN high representative and the US government. They worry that political will is fading with the passage of time. There is a new president in the White House who is planning a war in the Middle East. The number of US troops in Bosnia is being reduced, and ICMP is short of cash. What's more, Radovan Karadic and Mladic are still free. The families see the demand for the memorial as linked to the demand for justice. Hasan Nuhanovic says that its physical presence will make it harder to forget about war crimes. "Courts in Germany processed 60,000 people after the second world war for complicity in war crimes. That approach is what is necessary here. They say they are going after the big fish but they are not even getting them. If these questions are not resolved, I worry for the future." --------------------------- You can look up the whole report on http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4393983,00.html Reading from this my relative guess is that more than 1000 bodies have been identified. My thoughts lie with all those who come personally to these morgues to identify their sons and achieve their internal peace, as well as with the human determination to find truth, to unbury the bones and lay them to rest and to move on. It will take a long time, much longer than our little squabbles over discussion boards (that is one thing you might aggree with me on). 'Could the missing men from Srebrenica have gone to a Muslim counter-offensive to lift the siege of Sarajevo where the Muslims, aided by US organisers and instructors ended up in a trap set by the Serbs and where several thousand were killed in combat?' The argument doesn't hold water (although its a bit better than the theory that Naser Oric killed 7500 Serb men whose bodies no one is claiming). There were around five massive graveyards identified and hundrends of male children (boys). Bosnian (or Serbian or Croatian) armies dont have children in their armed forces.
Mel Farmer
UK - Friday May 24, 2002 at 5:17 pm
Mel at last we have a serious discussion. Nonetheless despite your having worked in Bosnia you are certainly in error in your posting that "the bones of 7500" people have been found. You should know Nato is currently claiming 4000. If all of these 4000 are Muslim soldiers what has happened to the bodies of those Mr Oric has boasted of murdering. Do their relatives have a right to "closure". As you have been to Tuzla you must know of Mr Oric's disco. I am going to answer you criticism by including a shortened version of a letter sent to most Brit national newspapers (including the Guardian you quote). None of them found it sufficiently well argued to publish, even tho Glasgow's local paper devoted substantial space to the creationist "controversy". " The case presented by the Nato funded “court” for the alleged Serb involvement in the Srebrinica massacre is not as clear-cut as is pretended. For example "Everybody is parroting everybody [about Srebrenica] but nobody shows hard evidence. In the Netherlands people want to prove at all costs that genocide has been committed. I don’t believe any of it. The day after the collapse of Srebrenica, July 13, I arrived in Bratunac [alleged massacre site] and stayed there for eight days. I was able to go wherever I wanted to. I was granted all possible assistance; nowhere was I stopped." (Captain Schouten, the ranking UN officer on the scene in Bratunac, Het Parool, 27/07/95 reported by www.emperors_clothes.com The court is also forced to ignore the statement by the International Red Cross that up to 2000 of the allegedly murdered garrison had reached Moslem lines & immediately been transferred to Tuzla “without being allowed to contact their families”. This was at the time Mr Izetbegovic was telling the world they had all been killed. The US government subsequently released satellite photographs of alleged mass graves. At least 1 set of these photographs had been faked. In what purports to be 2 before & after photos claimed to be taken 24 hours apart a completed house is visible which had not been started 24 hours before. After Dayton they visibly back-pedalled on these “graves” & in due course announced that these 8000 bodies had been dug up & destroyed leaving not even microscopic dust particles.There was however evidence elsewhere. On separate occasions reporters from the Washington Post & Toronto Star were shown home videos from his extensive collection by Nasir Oric, Srebrenica’s commander. These showed Mr Oric beheading & otherwise personally murdering hundreds of Serb civilians in raids on surrounding villages, even though part of the agreement that introduced the Dutch troops was that the garrison would be disarmed. Mr Oric, & indeed the Dutch commander maintaining the cease fire lines through which he had to pass, have not been indicted. To do so would obviously implicate their respective bosses Alia Izetbegovic & Wim Kok. Mr Oric is currently making a living running a disco in, coincidentally, Tuzla. Coincidentally the overwhelming majority of the 4000 bodies discovered since we were advised they had been destroyed have been either at known sites of fighting or around villages visited by Mr Oric. All this evidence is in the public domain so though it can be suppressed it cannot be destroyed.
Neil Craig
Glasgow
UK - Friday May 24, 2002 at 6:21 pm
Mr. Farmer your sentence "The bones in Srebrenica are of more than 7500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, I know this because..." Typically, you have to say you know, so you are the only source of information? We don't need to look for information anywhere else. That is your message. I am assuming that you belong to one of the opposite sites of Yugoslavia. Well I have to tell you something. This is exactly what globalization asked you to do. They will think instead of all of us, and we need just to obey. This is what all secessionists in Ex Yugoslavia didn't see, and they hurried to welcome occupying force ("poljubiti skute tudjoj cizmi"). Of course they didn't say, "we are an occupying force, they said we want to endure freedom. And you as secessionist didn't confirm that information, you believed in that source just as you said in your message. It is not consciousness that determines essence of your being; it is essence of your being that determines your consciousness. Mr. Farmer, this was the problem from the beginning - They said to you and you believed. I don't know what happened in Srebrenica and around Srebrenica. But: Oric said he did (some of it) and you don't believe it- Why? Srebrenica was a safe haven and Muslims attacked from it - why? There was a battle around Srebrenica and you assumed nobody died at that battle - why? You said that ethnical cleansing was planned from 1990. -Why? I can tell you (don't worry I'll explain every single year what I list here where ethnical cleansing happened) Have you heard for a court that lasted for 200 hundred years with Maria Teresia for "Gomirske Sume" - During that time many people have left (Uskoci, Hajduci) 1914-1918 (recruit Serbs in Austro-Hungary and send them in battles against Serbia- many stayed in Vojvodina, never came back) 1918 - moving Solun's volunteers to a northern parts 1938 - consequences of "Banovina Hrvatska" 1941-1945 See history of ISC (Independent state of Croatia) 1945 - Tito has forbidden Solun's volunteers to come back to Kosovo 1947- "Osma Ofanziva" Ethnical dislocation of Serbs from "Krajina" to Serbia and Vojvodina 1948 - removal of all Serbs from prominent position in Croatia under excuse of "Informbiro" - There were no other nationalities (or very, very small number) on "Goli otok" (detention of 250.000) and - then many thousands Serbs left for Serbia - Do you know that in Belgrade every Serbian communities had its own night except born Belgrades (Hercegovacka Noc,licka, kordunaska, banijska etc) 1957- Foundation of "JNA training Field" in region of Slunj - after that Bakaric concluded it would be nice to remove (ethnically cleanse) Serbs from Tobolic - That action was a continuation of Mile Budak's theory and his speech in Slunj 1941 and they have changed ethnical picture in Slunj 1968 - Demonstration in Pristina - sparkled continued repression on Serbs in Kosovo - I don't want argue about it just see the census from 1961 and 1991 and we assume we should have one from last year election in Kosovo 1966- Removal of Alexandar Rankovic as a "last Serbian with a great authority" - (He was as democrat as others at that time but his removal enabled removal of other Serbs freely) 1970 - "Cesna afera" or Road scandal in Slovenia 1971 - "Maspok" in Croatia and its consequences 1990/91 Secession of Slovenia (They stripped all Serbians from any citizenship rights - later some of them gained them back in court but thousands had to leave - no a single word in any Western media) 1990/91 Era of Croatian Democratic Movement & Unilateral secession and removal of Serbs from a Croatian Constitution - I am talking about of hundreds of thousands of Serbs (and these that they declared themselves asYugoslavians) that left their belongings and finished up anywhere in the world from Zagreb, Karlovac, Rijeka, Gospic, Ogulin, Osijek, Karlobag, Zadar, Sibenik, Bjelovar, Varazdin, Split, Dubrovnik, Novska, Slavonski Brod, Grubisino Polje, Virovitica, Vocin, Podravska Slatina, Sisak, Zupanja, Vinkovac, Krapina Notice that there are no cities from "Krajina" 1991 - 1995 - Medacki Dzep Maslenica, Pakracka Poljana, Daruvar, West Slavonia, Krajina 1997 - Istocna Slavonija 1999 - Kosovo 1945-1999 - Since JNA later JA was formed mainly from Serbian people ( "1 proleterska "was formed on 22.12.1941 in Rudo SERBIAN town in Bosnia) . Majority of the officers in JNA during Second World War came as Serbs from Krajina and Bosnia. Since Tito (as Croat from almost Slovenia had a great ear for Slovenian and Croatian wishes) he tried to balance nationalities and power in JNA. (this is how Tudjman, Tus, Spegelj, Bobetko etc became generals. Of course they didn't have partisans in Varazdin) In order to balance he had to retire war generals and hire these "Varazdince", to keep them "quiet and happy" he brought made regulation in military service which stipulated that before retirement the Officer can choose place where to live in retirement. Since in SFRJ apartments under socialist rules where given free, choosing a place of living meant a free apartment. Many serbs from bosnia and Krajina have chosen Serbia mostly Belgrade. That way thousands of Serbs left their ancestral land. 1991-2000 - Do you know how many Serbs left Serbia highly educated? Do you really think that real ethnical cleansing and genocide (intention to permanently remove part or the group as a whole) happened anywhere else in ex Yugoslavia except where Serbs lived? It is very bad for the humankind that there is any human getting killed. I rally regret all victims in Srebrenica and anywhere else. But it doesn't seem to me that you do the same (and people from ICTY) and this is where the problem was from a beginning. In order to have a happy life we need justice. I am ready and willing to contribute to it - are you and ICTY? If yes please watch carefully above list, and give me yours but not from PR firms. P.S. You should know by now that Serbian is nationality and Muslim is a religion. Consequently Serb could be Orthodox or Muslim. Why do you say that Muslims are killed in Srebrenica and not Serbs? Muslim from Bosnia have their national descent, do you know what is it?
Pero Peric
Canada - Friday May 24, 2002 at 6:30 pm
I just noticed the last line of Mel's posting. If the bodies Nato are claiming as Moslem soldiers include hundreds of children (I don't think forensic science can be so sure as to their sex) then they CANNOT be the moslem militia Nato is claiming - they must be civilians as I suggested. That is the Serb civilians Oric boasted of murdering. Mel you also said "a large number of bodies havs been identified". I understand the official figure is about 70 out of 4000. Nato are obviously only interested in identifying moslems.
Neil Craig
UK - Saturday May 25, 2002 at 2:13 am
Mr. Farmer I have no doubt that there are bodies around Srebrenica. Bosnia and Herzegovina has many karst pits full of bones as a result of SS Ustase and Hangar divisions. I know the history of this region well. What bothers me is your assertion that we who post on this page are apologists for the Serbs and belong to some lunatic fringe. I want to assure you that I want to know the truth more then you because there is more than enough killing in Bosnia, Ireland and the Middle East. You seem to be a fair minded person and you might believe a letter written to Time magazine by I. R. Thornton, Interpreter Sergeant, British Army who wrote from Vitez Bosnia back in 1994. He takes “issue with the nature of reporting from this region”. He states that the press has been “scathing in denouncing the Bosnian Serbs and their shelling of the town. He further writes and asks the question what happened to the Serbian population of Srebrenica? He states that “early in the conflict, they were forced out of their homes with whatever belongings they could carry and ordered to leave. As the Bosnian Serbs fled, Muslims fired wildly on men, women and children on the road.” Could any of those bodies around Srebrenica belong to former Serb residents of Srebrenica? Sergeant Thornton further states that he “was told this by Muslims themselves and later by Bosnian Serbs”. In this letter he writes that in the surrounding area the Muslim offensive earlier in the year, the Muslim soldiers, many were from Srebrenica, bombed “Bosnian Serb villages, raping women and destroying livestock”. Neither Sergeant Thornton, nor I wish to be seen as apologist for Serbian action but you and the press have as he said a “moral duty to report objectively”.
Walter Trkla
Kamloops
Canada - Saturday May 25, 2002 at 4:13 am
At least now we know why Milosevic isn't getting a fair trial. Any discussion of the "genocide" is deemed "absurd". Here we have the voice of the international community speaking to us directly. If you want to know what the Bosnians think of the UN troops, in particular, go and see the Oscar-winning film No Man's Land. The UN troops failed in their job to save only three men. But seriously. In some Pentagon report, of which I have only read but which I haven't seen, there are details of how the Bosnians killed Muslim civilians to be able to blaim the Serbs. Some Middle Eastern terrorist group (Hizbullah, if I remember correctly) was there to help them. Be that as it may, the activity of Muslim mujaheddin in Bosnia and elsewhere is well documented. I hope this file has a small enough font to appear serious, at least it has no pictures, and it is on a "Harvard" website http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/kokkalis/GSW3/Ibrahim_Al-Marashi.pdf . Once you allow the presence of the terrorists, the difference between militants and civilians, adults and children, does admittedly get blurred. But you don't even have to go that far. Does Nato say that the bodies that have been found were those of Bosnian militants? If so, how do they know if they were combatants or not? Killing combatants is no war crime (given certain parametres, few of which Nato has been mindful of). And as has been pointed out, if determining even the sex of a body can be a tricky business, how can you determine the whole life story of a rotting body? I would like to give you a very long text (to honour the emerging tradition) of an analysis of the latest Milosevic witness whose field of expertise is forensic science. I am afraid I cannot find a link to this one on the Internet (I can't understand why not, because the interest in this Freedom Fight series would be overwhelming). Begin quote: French forensic expert Eric Bacard today’s testimonial referred to pathologists reports from different locations in Kosovo and Metohia where bodies of people died during the conflict were found. It appeared that these findings, while based on scientific achievements in this field, were written in order to prejudge crimes against the victims. Namely, wherever it was not possible to come to a decisive conclusion, meaning different causes of death were possible, the reports were insisting on causes that meant crimes had been committed. However, Milosevic managed to unmask such report tendencies during his cross-examination, since the witness himself while answering had to remain consequent to his trade and communicate the real truth, something that often was not coinciding with the Prosecution intentions. Keeping in mind the high level of expertise to these questions, in this report only some characteristic examples may be pointed out. At Milosevic’s question, how come it was possible to induce several death causes for the same person, Bacard replied that only several causes can be induced. The witness said that the circumstances of lethal outcome, if there had been caused by war casualty or a conflict between two persons, may be established only as a hypothesis, and not as it is been done in a report. Most of the ambiguous quotes relate to skeletized corpses, where tissue putrefaction occurred. So at Milosevic’s question, how possible it may be to make a distinction if injuries were committed with a sharp object on a person alive or after death, or how such quotes apply to carbonized corpses, Bacard replied that in most of the cases it is rather difficult or virtually impossible to give an answer. He was expressed that blindfolds were never found on victims, which was mentioned in one of the reports. Several Milosevic’s questions referred to details of the pathologists report from Racak, and from the witness’s answers no one could have concluded that reliable findings show murders were committed from a short range, e.g. there was no massacre as characterized by OSCE Mission chief William Walker. Bacard even denied the allegations enshrined in the pathologists report from Racak, stating that in neither of the cases the distance from which the victims found there were shot could have been precisely established. The witness insisted no cold-blooded execution took place in Racak, since only shots from less than a few centimeters could be reliably detected as such. Typically, in the pathologists report from Racak there was no analysis of the “parafin glove”, by which it has been proved that the dead ones before being shot were themselves shooting with firearms. Bacard said that method was rejected as unreliable. However, he could not give an answer to the Amici’s question why a traditional analysis of the victims’ clothes had not been performed, something that even today would be possible to do. How unprecise and incomplete, and especially one-sided, are the reports on pathologists’ findings on which the Prosecution relies, was clearly shown by some of Bacard’s conclusions. In one of the reports it's been said that some of the victims, due to their health could not take part in the armed conflicts, like the one who had bladder cancer, but Bacard testified that illness was in such stage, so that person could take part in armed conflicts. Also, other report affirms 19 out 20 found skeletons were women, but the witness had to clarify that their gender could not with certainty be established for corpses in their stage of skeletization. In today’s cross-examination Bacard came out with the conclusion that reports about the victims of NATO bombing of Dubrava penitentiary were not true, since they were all killed by the blasts, and their subsequent wounds were caused by bumping on different kinds of objects, meaning part of them had not been executed after the bombing had stopped. The unreliability of some of the pathologists’ reports was evidenced also today by the case of Suva Reka, where Bacard could not be a judge of two pathologists’ totally opposed findings. Photographs, shown to the witness by one of the Amici, from which it is clearly visible that the corpses in the ditch near Racak were brought there from another location, made Bacard only conclude that photographs could not constitute a reliable evidence.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Saturday May 25, 2002 at 9:36 am
Mr. Pero, what is a national descent of moslems from Bosnia? What are you trying to say that Serbs in Bosnia fought among themselves? - Is it what are you trying to say?
John Smith
Canada - Saturday May 25, 2002 at 11:47 am
Not exactly, Mr John. It is very difficult to understand a history of Balkan. If you don't understand history you don't understand endeavour of one group, your decesions cannot make all parties satisfied. Probably that's why UN was established on a principle of worshipping of sovergnity and non interference in internal affairs. New world order broke that principle and people with no understanding were brought in balkans to make decesion in a name of soverign nations that lived over there, and we had bloody wars, and I think all people over there regardless of their nationality or current position, will be suffering. To answer your question:"What national descent are Bosnian moslems?" Some of them are Turks (a very small number) Since 1990 There are afganistanies, pakistanies, chehcens and some of them are of arabs descent. The majority of them are of Slavic descent. (Over 95%). Serbians say that moslems from Bosnia are Serbians in a background since Turks took many of Sertbs as kids then educated them in Turky and brought them back "Janjicari", this lasted for several centuries. And as a moslem during Otoman Empire you had more privileges, and many were converted. Some of the Croats say they are "Flowers of Craoatian nation". Moslems from Bosnia say they are Bosnians today (It wasnt like that before Alia's era). Bosnians is a nationality created under New World order rule and is named just after the region. But still they didn't answer the question - What are moslems from Herzegovina - Did Herzegovina suddenly disappeard from a geographical maps, or they are Herzegovinians? (There are many such regions - Tirol, Quebec, Vojvodina - Banija, Slavonija - However there is no Vojvodinans, Banijanians or Slavonians as nationalities, People in Quebeq are French not Quebequa descent - Maybe a next New world order will create them too as nationalities) To emphisize that Bosnians are created under New World Order Rule and under influence of foreign factors I have to say that when there was no foreign influence in 1974 these same people wanted to be nationality and they got that nationality under SFRJ Constitutional Law - That nationality was named Moslem, Before that all of Slavic descent moslems declered themselves in all sensuses as Serbs or Croats - Mostly Serbs. Moslem nation in Bosnia was created under Tito's communistic dictatorship. (for a good relationship with oil countries and in order to weaken Serbs, as myth about grater Serbia was created in Tito's homeland - it didn't cost him anything anywhy) One point more: All great powers in World at a time where fighting over Bosnia with Serbs (Otoman Empire, Austro-Hungary, Germany and its allies in a II World War, and these days NATO and US). I am very supportive to the principle that any human being should have right to decide what nationality he/she belongs too. One could be manipulated too - so, people have to decide freely with no foreign interference who they are. - Can we now say, including all moslems from Bosnia, that any decesion was/is made freely. The basic attribute of the nationality is a language. For centuries one couldn't diferentiate language among nationalities in Bosnia but they got a task from a New world order creators to find a difference in a language. I hope this will bring some doubts to to the omnisciently people.
Pero Peric
Canada - Saturday May 25, 2002 at 1:37 pm
The point is that the Muslims in Bosnia are mostly of Serb origin who have been forced to convert to islamism during the Turkish yoke in past centuries after the lost Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1364 The life in Bosnia is very well described by Ivo Andric-Bosnian Serb (Nobel prize winner in literature 1961) in his Book: "The Bridge on the Drina river" His name and his works You can find on web. But apart of this,You probably noted from somatic point of view, that islamic people with blue eyes and blond hair you can trace only in Bosnia and that's why. The N.O."played" on such "differences" to inflame the nationalism and through it to intervene for its hidden agenda. Probably most of You do not even know that Montenegrins are also Serbs. The difference is that those Serbs who lived in mountainous region of Montenegro during the turkish occupation have never been subjugated as they brothers living in flat territories of Serbia. And here again the international community is trying to "diversify" the people with the purpose to follow the ancient Roman's rule:" Dividi et impera" (divide and reign).
Serjoe B
Italy - Monday May 27, 2002 at 12:53 am
You are right Jari.It looks that Bacard sidestepped few issues .Also May cut short " amici" cross examination.After watching this courtroom it looks that the case is becomming more and more a political debate ,with prosecutor's witnesses repeteating the same isssue ,serb prosecution,albanian desire for independence,KLA never killed anybody. It looks that judge May is becomming more and more inclined toward the prosecution.Once in a while he cuts off the prosecutor witnesses but when the acused is explaining ,or is demanding answers from the witnesses the judge is cutting him off every time.I wish there is a way to communicate judge May that this is a political case and there are a lot to be learned from here about the inner circles and how things were done. This is not your regular penal case,with yes and no answers .Anyway is very interesting when you watch it live,and read the papers later.I saw a lot silence and ommisions by the papers and news agencies .
Vasile Ianos
NJ USA - Monday May 27, 2002 at 4:42 am
Criticizing the Milosevic trial isn't any more the exclusive right of the lunatic fringe. The Daily Telegraph published this article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2002%2F05%2F25%2Fwslob25.xml . (By the way, the Telegraph website has a link to this site.) George Szamuely makes some good technical points, like the presumption of guilt, in his article at http://www.nypress.com/14/28/taki/bunker.cfm . It took some time for people to wake up. How could the prosecution produce such a witness as Ratomir Tanic and on the other hand fail to indict the self-confessed genocidal murderer Oric?
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Monday May 27, 2002 at 11:35 am
Jan, Please read that Telegraph article again. The 'criticism' of the Milosevic trial consists of snide comments about Milosevic's "guile" in delaying tactics with plenty of statements about the "mountain of evidence" that the poor prosecution will never get to use. And they blame it all on Carla Del Ponte's egotism as if she was working in a vaccuum when she planned this trial.
Nikole J
Canada - Monday May 27, 2002 at 12:10 pm
The phrase "mountain of evidence" was added in the Canadian "National Post", from which you may have read the article. The headline in the National Post was "Milosevic's court strategy frustrates prosecutors - Despite a mountain of evidence against him, he has time on his side". Leave that out, and the article isn't so bad. The original headline in The Daily Telegraph was "Prosecutors pay price for Milosevic 'opera'".
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Monday May 27, 2002 at 2:36 pm
'Mountain of evidence' is just a another buzz word phrase. Judge May adnauseam refers the 'witnesses' as giving 'evidence' rather than 'testimony', mostly is laced with 'speeches'. A forum where this 'topic' has some exposure can be found at freerepublic.com. If you haven't yet, give it a try.
Joe P
Wisconsin/USA - Monday May 27, 2002 at 4:35 pm
The article in the Daily Telegraph carried a different headline from the National Post but the message is: The prosecution will not be able to present its evidence because Carla del Ponte is a bad planner. Here is the letter I sent to both papers: Neil Tweedie's article "Milosevic's court strategy frustrates prosecutors -- despite a mountain of evidence against him, he has time on his side" (May 25) is presented on your news page. Having billed the Milosevic trial as the greatest genocide trial since Nuremberg, the press has treated us to practically no reports on this many months old process. Now Tweedie tells us that the trial timetable has been speeded up and Carla del Ponte bungled the job by preparing for a trial that would go on for years. He tells us that a "mass of forensic evidence has been discarded." Is anybody reading between the lines? He says the witnesses due to give evidence are "victims of Serb atrocities." This isn't an accusation, it's a verdict. Perhaps the U.S. sees that it may not get its money's worth from this trial, that NATO may not be exonerated for its own atrocities, that indeed, there was no reason to go to war against a small nation. And to top it off we are told that it is Milosevic's "guile" that is drawing out the trial. Thank you for the report but what could we expect in an era when the byword is "advocacy journalism", another name for propaganda.
Nikole J.
Canada - Tuesday May 28, 2002 at 4:58 am
The good news is that it has been the prosecution's strategy to overpower Milosevic with procedural niceties, and now the prosecution is bitten in its own game. Another piece of good news is that the prosecution is worried (or at least says it is) that they have the burden of proof to show that Milosevic is guilty. Technically, if they cannot do that, it doesn't matter if he is guilty or not - and it may not be much, but the way to break a politically motivated trial is to make the most of technical blunders made by the prosecution. A third piece of good news is that the article put the "public" back into the "trial". We differ among ourselves politically, but all of us can agree on one thing: this trial sucks. If you want to get a hold of high-profile (and not so high-profile) statements against the Milosevic trial, a good place to go to is http://www.2net.co.yu/ucgi-bin/apis/prikaz2.pl?novo016 . This site belongs to Apis in Yugoslavia (worked this morning). They even have a statement made by retired Nato generals against the Milosevic trial! (OK, so it has been signed by one retired Greek general.) And I finally found the place where to find the "Freedom fight in the Hague" series (by Vladimir Krsljanin), which comments on the prosecution witnesses. Here it is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indict-nato/messages . One of these postings, which I pasted on mine, was approved by Vasile as giving a fair review of the Bacard session.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Tuesday May 28, 2002 at 9:56 am
Jari, do you speak Serbo-Croat? (some of the links above are in S-C only)
Neka Mira
Temporary UK - Tuesday May 28, 2002 at 12:37 pm
No, but I can read some of it. However, although the link was mainly in Serbian (as I guess the official name is these days), they have managed to gather much interesting material in English and even in French. - By the way, I just thought that maybe the greatest "accomplishment" of the Milosevic trial thus far has been the American "unsigning" of the Statute of the ICC!
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Tuesday May 28, 2002 at 6:01 pm
A witness usually talks for the things that are directly related to him or his experience, then it is very difficult to find out his lies. But the prosecutor's witnesses are lying so obviously that many people can easily prove that. For example: (May 23 and 24) Baton Hadžiju is saying (twice) that nobody left Kosovo because of NATO bombing, not even a single Serbian left Serbia and Vojvodina because of NATO Bombing. He is probably not aware that tens of thousands of Serbs left Serbia and Vojvodina during NATO bombing, including more than half of the Serbian new "democratic" gowernment with his premier Zoran Djindjic as a lead. He is a jurnalist going to get a price from USA for freedom of speech.
Klaus Clive
Germany - Tuesday May 28, 2002 at 7:38 pm
How much did Djindjic sell Milosevic for? I wonder how many Serbs feel depressed over Djindjic selling of the Serbs one by one to the Hague. Brothers, fathers and sons.
Kathryn Love
SJC
USA - Tuesday May 28, 2002 at 8:52 pm
Spanish philosopher Miguel Unamuno said during the Spanish Civil War that “Sometimes to be silent is to lie”. What can we that post on this page tolerate? Is there a limit to the lies that we can accept? What are we doing to change the fact that the world’s greatest superpower is killing, lying and subverting the Charter of the United Nations? Is it enough that we tell each other to go to this or that web page? We must speak to the leaders of our nations and raise their consciences so that they start to question. It is up to us as citizens of Finland, Canada, United Kingdom, Italy and Slovenia that gunboat diplomacy must stop. It must stop in Kosovo, it must stop in Chechnya, and it must stop in New York. We know that the Hague Tribunal is a farce. We know that the New World Order is an American euphemism for; if you are not with me you are against me. We will fail unless we start a concerted action to change the lies.
Walter Trkla
Kamloops
BC Canada - Wednesday May 29, 2002 at 8:21 am
Kathryn... How much did Djindjic sell Milosevic for? Why for the 30 pieces of silver, luv!
dd dd
Oz - Wednesday May 29, 2002 at 11:37 am
Funny, Djindjic sold Milosevic and the country for personal gain = POWER, for how long?? People in Serbia (Yugoslavia) would have appritiated opportunity to deal with his "crimes", and as a Sate Yugolsavia is entitled to deal with its own criminals, political or others.
Carla Berg
Austria - Wednesday May 29, 2002 at 3:48 pm
People, do You know who is Milo Djukanovic ?? The mainstream media depicted him so far, as a democratic,pragmatic and modern president of Montenegro, who fiercely opposed Milosevic's dictatorship on behalf of "international community". Today this "hero" was officially put under official inquiry by Antimafia prosecutor Giuseppe Gelsi from Bari regarding his involvemnet in international cigarette's smuggling affair. Something is "moving" after all.
Serjoe B
Italy - Wednesday May 29, 2002 at 5:03 pm
MAJOR ACTION OF LAWYERS NEEDED! Yesterday, May 28, a letter of FREEDOM Association has been handed over to the Embassies of United States of America and United Kingdom in Belgrade UNDER PROTEST. Today, the same letter will be handed to all other Embassies of the UN Security Council member countries. The Security Council is formally responsible for the works of the Hague "tribunal", but has no mechanism of monitoring of the works of its own Frankenstein child. Annual short discussions in the SC with the President and Main Prosecutor of ICTY, who usually report on number of cases processed and necessary funds is certainly not enough to judge the works of this legal monster. In the same way, e.g. managers of a concentration camp could submit their reports. This situation is very dangerous, but it is not strange, since the SC (nor even the General Assembly) has no judiciary power, so it can not transfer it to its subsidiary organ. With the "trial" of Slobodan Milosevic, number of political and legal misuses and malfunctions in ICTY rapidly and shamefully increased. ICTY discredits the very idea of international judiciary. So it's high time for concrete action of Bars' Associations and Chambers, Law Faculties and Institutes, interested NGOs and all honest and decent lawyers - to expose the primarily political nature of this US/NATO instrument of aggression called "tribunal" by exposing how little it has in common with internationally accepted standards and principles of fair trial and human rights protection. Experts' opinions, further independent research and even forming of commissions to evaluate all violations of law by ICTY, and especially in the case of Slobodan Milosevic, are needed. Therefore we call upon all committees for the defense of Slobodan Milosevic world wide and all friends of justice to act in that direction. Lawyers' community in SC member countries should be particularly concerned, and should submit to their governments concrete recommendations for abolishment of this ad hoc "court" which puts on trial political leaders of the people that opposed NATO and blinds the eyes over the massive crimes committed by NATO itself. Hoping that letter submitted today by FREEDOM Association, and written by Belgrade law experts, who follow the "trial" in The Hague can serve as good first impulse for such activities, we present below its content: More at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indict-nato/message/882
Peter Varavejke
Belgium - Thursday May 30, 2002 at 1:12 am
RE: Srebrenica Seven years after the fact Srebrenica remains an explosive issue. Only six days after releasing a new Dutch report on what has been dubbed “the greatest massacre in Europe since World War II” it already caused the resignation of the Dutch Prime Minister on April 16, and Gen. Ad van Baal, the army chief of staff on April 17. The 7,600-page report’s most important finding was the lack thereof: it found no proof that orders for the 1995 Srebrenica “massacre” came from Serb political leaders in Belgrade, effectively pulling the Srebrenica affair as the crown jewel of the genocide charges against Slobodan Milosevic in the ongoing trial at The Hague. Hans Blom, the Institute Director blamed Milosevic for the disintegration of Yugoslavia but did not link him directly to Srebrenica. The report puts the primary responsibility for the events on Ratko Mladic, adding that the involvement of Bosnian wartime leader Radovan Karadzic was not clear. The report is a long overdue and welcome step in the direction of reckoning with the truth surrounding the celebrated Srebrenica case. But there is more to the highly charged affair than meets the eye. The report will undoubtedly trigger a new blame game and a chain reaction of further and wider inquiries into the role of Sarajevo and Washington that has been swept under the rug for nearly seven years as to not collide with the convenient “safe haven” myth. As a matter of record, the “safe area” status was coerced from Gen. Morillon in April 1993 by a mob of local Muslim women who were prevented by the Sarajevo government to leave the enclave, already evidencing willingness to sacrifice the residents for political gain. Buthros Ghali duly fired Murillon for overstepping his authority, but could not withdraw the granted magic status. Under the convenient UN cover the Muslim military contingent had used Srebrenica to stage raids on surrounding Serbian areas. By all accounts, between 1993 and July 1995, arms shipments from Tuzla to Sarajevo had been regular. The Muslim soldiers in Srebrenica had a M-48 artillery gun, Chinese-made TF-8 Red Arrow antitank missiles, about 300,000 rounds of ammunition, 44 RPGs, 6 mortars, 60 mortar grenades, and 100 AK-47s that had been smuggled into the “safe haven” by regular helicopter flights from Tuzla. Promoting the “safe haven” myth by both the Bosnian government and the local Muslim forces had served a dual purpose. Beside of presenting the image of Srebrenica as a defenseless enclave for public relations benefit, the Muslims were also careful not to reveal of having hidden arms on their own, since the enclave would lose its “demilitarized” safe area status and not be defended by UN. The UN was fully aware of this and did not appreciate being used as a front for a military outpost. And a military outpost it was. Between April 1993, when Srebrenica was declared a “safe haven” and July 1995, close to 2,000 Serbs - soldiers and civilians alike had been killed around Srebrenica. Over 50 Serb villages were burned, and scores of Serb cemeteries desecrated. In fact, the Bosnian Serb Army’s onslaught in July 1995 came as a retaliation of the previous week’s attack by the Muslim forces out of Srebrenica. David Rohde Pulitzer-winning book on the affair justly sees Srebrenica as one of the great controversies and mysteries of the war in Bosnia, admitting that there was a strong case for conspiracy, albeit ultimately backing out of any of the possible scenarios as altogether impossible ones. Serbs who captured the town were convinced that the Muslims defending it had secret orders from Sarajevo to leave the enclave defenseless - that alone should have put Mladic on alert, suggesting a setup. Likewise, many Dutch peacekeepers were certain that the Muslims had instructions from Sarajevo not to defend the town. The meticulously gathered pieces of information in Rohde’s book offer a view that not only sharply contrasts with the common perception of Srebrenica Muslims as defenseless refugees, but also supports the theory of purposeful abandonment of the enclave by the Bosnian Muslim government, in tandem with the orchestrated provocation of the Serbian attack. Naser Oric, the Muslim commander and the only authority in Srebrenica, had been suddenly and inexplicably recalled by the Sarajevo government in May 1995. The lack of NATO air strikes, the mysterious departure of Oric and his 15 top officers were confirming suspicions of the locals the Srebrenica was being sacrificed. On July 11, 1995 the mayor, Fahrudin Salihovic came to the conclusion that the town was being intentionally sacrificed by the Bosnian government. Rohde himself acknowledges that either a decision was made in Sarajevo by June to sacrifice Srebrenica, or the government was guilty of ignoring the Serbian threat. One month before the attack, senior Bosnian Army officers in Tuzla-based 2nd Corps warned UN officials about the impeding Serbian attack against Srebrenica. At the August 2, 1996 session of the Bosnian Assembly devoted to the Srebrenica investigation, Hasan Muratovic, Bosnian government’s minister for relations has put the blame squarely on the UN, without mentioning that the government had pulled the military leadership out of Srebrenica. Naser Oric is convinced that Srebrenica was deliberately sacrificed. He testified that his efforts during the attack to get the 2nd Corps in Tuzla to launch a major offensive in Central Bosnia to relieve pressure on Srebrenica were rejected by Sarajevo. Suspicions about what the U.S. intelligence knew about the attack on Srebrenica have been abound. Rohde refers to a theory according to which the CIA knew of the pending attack and knew the town would fall. The U.S. then stood by, Rohde asserts, as Srebrenica did not fit into Washington’s plans with regard to the joint Croat-Muslim offensive, already scheduled for August. In fact, Srebrenica appears to have been the cornerstone of Anthony Lake’s endgame theory, and the Serb buildup around Srebrenica was the key factor that must have been known to the CIA. Aerial photos of “suspected mass graves” as Rohde refers to them, were suppressed until the executions were well over to avoid embarrassment, according to Rohde. Citing that the aerial surveillance was “temporarily non-operational”, the CIA denied that it had prior knowledge of the concentration of Serbian troops around Srebrenica, including dozens of buses that were consequently used by the Serbs to bus women and children to safety. Major Franken, one of the the Dutch commanders on the ground called such excuses “f*** nonsense.” The Serb offensive played into the hands of the Clinton administration that had its own aims, priorities, and timetable. Part of Lake’s endgame strategy was an active Bosnian-Croat alliance, well into the final stages of planning by Srebrenica’s fall. On July 23, Tudjman and Izetbegovic signed a joint defense pact in Split, clearing the way for a joint Muslim-Croat offensive a few weeks later. Srebrenica seems to have fit Washington’s plans perfectly, first, by resulting in severe casualties, all of whom were presented as victims of executions on the public relations level, thus causing an international outcry for action; secondly, blunted the criticism over the massive Croatian assault by the US equipped and trained army in Krajina that produced 350.000 Serb refugees only three weeks after Srebrenica; thirdly, totally discredited the UN and made it irrelevant in the Balkans; and thus padded the way for introducing U.S. presence in the Balkans following Dayton, which, as the outcome of the Croatian attack, must have been well into the pipeline by the time Srebrenica fell in mid-July. The main benefit of the “massacre”, however was a public relations one: it perfectly neutralized any and all negative fallout resulting from the U.S.- supported and managed Croatian invasion only three weeks after Srebrenica. The message that had to be conveyed to the world opinion was that the Serbs were murderous maniacs who had it coming. The cooperation of Sarajevo was vital. As far as the killing by Mladic’s forces, while no one disputes that isolated executions took place, their reports appear to have been blown out of proportions to meet political ends - just as intended. The bulk of the perished Muslim men were armed and were killed either in combat, or in a series of ambushes as they tried to fight their way to Tuzla. Moreover, 5,000 of the claimed 8,000 (sometimes it is referred to as 6,000, only proving its essence as a public relations number) bodies have not been recovered for seven years, much to the surprise of those who would think that the massive system comprising the mightiest military, public relations, media and judicial forces would spare no effort to back up its case with a few thousand more bodies. The Bosnian Serb forces bare the share of responsibility for their deeds. But those who made it possible by design should be held accountable as well. Pointing the finger at the Bosnian Serbs, the UN and the Dutch is to play the blame game on the cheap. Those who know the whole story are in Washington and Sarajevo. Great many questions beg to be asked in the Srebrenica matter, and the usual whipping boys can answer few.
Andre Huzsvai
Boston
U.S. - Thursday May 30, 2002 at 2:50 am
What strikes me in Andre's thorough account is the prominence of the US short-term planning at the cost of long-term planning. Like this one: "The main benefit of the “massacre”, however was a public relations one: it perfectly neutralized any and all negative fallout resulting from the U.S.- supported and managed Croatian invasion only three weeks after Srebrenica." Or this one: "...padded the way for introducing U.S. presence in the Balkans following Dayton, which, as the outcome of the Croatian attack, must have been well into the pipeline by the time Srebrenica fell in mid-July." I guess (no, I know) that the US had no idea at the time that their public-relations stunts would come under such a close scrutiny in the form of the high-profile case of Milosevic. Milosevic was part of their end-game, wasn't he? It was Milosevic himself who messed things up by taking the Nato countries to the World Court after the Kosovo bombing had started. What we have is history in the making. What seemed OK at the moment is now evaluated against a different set of standards. We have been served the Srebrenica "myth" so we could accept Dayton. Now let us take a look at the making of the myth. There are so many things which even the best analysts cannot predict. No matter how the rumors abound, I believe the 9/11 attack came to everybody as a surprise. At least its consequences did. Immediately the reports of al-Qaeda terrorists' presence surfaced. It still remained at the level of oddball conspiracy theories, until Milosevic voiced them publicly in the court hearings. Now it is common knowledge. Surprisingly, Carla del Ponte issued the indictment on Bosnia after the 9/11 attacks, on 22 November 2001. This was surely no part of the plan. Then after that we have the Dutch report coming out, which directly starts eating away at the new indictment introduced by Carla. As Andre said, the report bears out no links with Srebrenica and Milosevic. Maybe one cannot argue from silence, but remember that the burden of proof is on the prosecution, and Milosevic will have the time of his life rebutting the charges using material produced by western reports. As was also pointed out, the big guys in Washington know the story. So here I would like to answer Walter. What point is there to "speak to the leaders of our nations and raise their consciences so that they start to question" when what we ourselves have is crumbs from their own more or less secret reports? At least we can spread those crumbs through the Internet to the whole world. And I think Internet is doing a good job. "If it is working, don't fix it". Besides, the world leaders will not tarnish what little credibility the trial has left by succumbing to political pressure. The way to do it is to be on the lookout for the mistakes that May and Carla make. This is still a trial. Besides, if there is anyone who will get Milosevic out, it is Milosevic himself, so let us do his job. As to Andre's remark "But those who made it possible by design should be held accountable as well", take a look at Article 7 of the Statute: "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." Isn't that planning, instigation ... aiding and abetting? I know this isn't a case against Nato, but it is a funny thing that we are washing their dirty laundry in a trial where the accused obviously isn't guilty as charged.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Thursday May 30, 2002 at 6:47 am
Those IWPR articles posted on this site have a clear agenda against Milosovics and are really trying to distort the truth. It's the same stuff that was used to brainwash us during the NATO aggresion.
Peter Varavejke
Belgium - Thursday May 30, 2002 at 9:04 am
Jari, as a native Serb speaker I would be glad to translate anything you may wish to see in English. This would be my small token of appreciation and gratitude for all you are doing for the Serb cause. I am not a great Milosevic supporter, but like the most here, I agree that The Hague 'tribunal' is an instrument of the US/NATO to justify its aggression against Yugoslavia. PS. IWPR was set up during the bombing of Yugoslavia. In the first few months of its existence it used to list its sponsors. The usual Soros/US government formula. Another instrument of propaganda!
Neka Mira
Temporar UK - Thursday May 30, 2002 at 9:42 am
To get a total picture about Srebrenica, in addition to Andre's excellent mail, it's interesting to know something about figures and facts in the area just before much discussed happenings took place. I found interesting article from the Dutch source: …In 1991 the municipality of Srebrenica had 37,211 inhabitants, of whom 27,118 were Muslims (72.8 percent) and 9,381 Serbs (25.2 percent). Bratunac had 33,575 inhabitants: 21,564 Muslims (64.2 percent) and 11,479 Serbs (34.2 percent). As farmers, the Serbs on average owned more land than Muslims. "Ethnic mixing" only existed in the eyes of a superficial observer; most villages and townships had distinct ethnic-religious majorities, being either Serb or Muslim. This became a problem just prior to the war, when tension rose and both groups started to feel vulnerable. Muslims no longer responded to draft into the JNA, the Yugoslav Federal Army. Serbs were no longer called for service in the local Territorial Defence and police reserves. As Serbs relied on protection by the JNA, Croatian militia trained Muslim groups. SDA, the Muslim party of [Islamist leader] Alija Izetbegovic, provided the weapons. One of the reasons for the mounting Serb suspicion was the SDA Congress held in December 1991. This party...decided to implement a radical ethnic policy. The ultimate goal was the dzamahirija or Islamist State. Muslims had to settle Eastern Bosnia in large numbers. A cordon sanitaire took shape between Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs in the north, while in the south a demographic and territorial connection with Sandzak [north of Kosovo in Serbia] and Kosovo was desirable. Thousands of Muslims from Sandzak migrated to Bosnia, and descendants of Bosnian Muslims who had settled over a period of time in Turkey received an appeal to return. In the beginning of 1992, Serbs were shocked again as invitations were distributed throughout the republic for a mass meeting of Muslims at Bratunac, to be held at the first day of the Bajram, the celebratory end of the Ramadan. The initiative for this event at the "geographic centre of Muslims from entire Yugoslavia" came from the National Muslim Council which openly advocated arming people and establishing a Muslim state within the Bosnian boundaries. Armed Muslim gangs, some of them factions of the Patriotic League - which was formed in the neighboring Vlascenica - started to intimidate Serb inhabitants of smaller towns with Muslim majorities on April 12, 1992. The Muslims themselves were also scared of militia from outside the region. In this context, Ivanisevic speaks about a "balance of fear." Mutual deterrence, whereby militia and armed civilians spy on their neighbors or keep them hostage, quickly led to a drama. On 20 April 1992, the day before Serbs took Vlasenica and drove the Muslims out of the city, five Serbs died in the area of Srebrenica. They were probably members of the Jovic militia, a group of non-local Serbs. On May 6 (the Orthodox holiday of Saint George - Djurdjevdan), Muslims from Potocari and Srebrenica carried out an attack on the villages of Gniona and Bljeceva. Serbian houses were looted and burned, and part of the population did not survive the ordeal. Leading the attack on Gniona was Naser Oric. The following day, seven Serbs died in an ambush at Osmace. On May 8, judge Goran Zekic, Member of Parliament and leader of the Srebrenica SDS (the Serb nationalist party), was lured into an ambush and killed. Almost all of sixteen hundred Serbs living in the city decided to leave after this incident. In the night of May 8, they left in large numbers towards Bratunac. Cerska, Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde became a refuge for thousands of Muslims who were chased away by Serb offensives, but Serbs were also victims of ethnic cleansing. At first, between May 1992 and April 1993, all towns with a Serbian majority were attacked. Then towns with a Serbian minority were surrounded by Muslim towns, and eventually whole areas with a dense Serb population - Podravanja, Kravica and Skelani - were targeted. 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. "Naser Oric gained control over large parts of Bosnia through scorched-earth tactics. Because of this, Karremans is right about it, large massacres of the Serb population were committed. The Netherlands in return is asking for proof. It is asking for evidence because, of course, there are no ‘funniest home videotapes’ showing raped women and murdered men. But these things did happen!" ( Lieutenant Jasper Verplanke of the Korps Commandotroepen [the Dutch equivalent of the Green Berets] writing in the Dutch daily Nieuwsblad van het Noorden of 17 August 1995) AFTER THE UN declared Srebrenica a ‘safe haven’ in April 1993, the attacks continued. Speaking about funniest home videos: in February 1994, Naser Oric proudly showed a videotape of a burned town and decapitated bodies of Serbs to John Pomfret of The Washington Post. The fact that first the Canadian, and later the Dutch UN contingents could not prevent these kind of actions because they failed to implement the agreed-on disarmament of Muslim forces, testifies in itself to the failure of the "safe area" concept. "The systematic attacks of Muslim fighters against Bosnian Serb targets around the enclave raised the tension in the area of Srebrenica and were used by the Serbs as a justification for their offensive against the enclave," Secretary of State Voorhoeve reported to the Dutch parliament. The Serbs pointed out the fact that since the coming of the UN peace force, more than a hundred of their civilians and soldiers had been killed in raids by Muslim commandos. In May and June 1995 alone, the Muslims had supposedly organized ten of these missions, even penetrating the area close to Bratunac. "The goal of this action is to eliminate terrorists and is not focussed on civilians, or UN-troops," Mladic wrote to the British UN commander, General Rupert Smith, during the attack on Srebrenica. Serb soldiers, most of them living in this area, carried lists with hundreds of Muslims suspected to have committed war crimes. The arrests of Muslim men partly were of a selective character. "The Serbs knew the men," according to a Dutch UN driver. "They had complete lists and photos. They pointed them out amidst a crowd."… Another little known fact which had a big influence on the number of dead was that different Muslims fractions fought each other: …Muslims who wanted to leave to Macedonia via Serbia fought aginst Oric’s men, who controlled the Drina crossings in the hamlet of Luka. Later, unconfirmed reports mentioned a rivaling "modest" military unit under command of Osman Suljic. In July, Muslims from Srebrenica who wanted to surrender apparently received a harsh treatment by hard-liners under command of Zulfo Tursun, Ejub Golic and Nezir Mandzic. Such a fight, according to Deronjic, had taken place just after the fall of the enclave at Bokcin Potok. A team of the Dutch NOS-news discovered the corpses of tens of victims on 3 February…
Rade Plecas
The Netherlands - Thursday May 30, 2002 at 12:57 pm
Neka, let's put it this way: I will do what little I can as a token of appreciation for the Serb cause. I just hope that these informative mailings keep coming in. For me, at least, most of the stuff is quite new. I think that I am speaking for many of us when I say that while Kosovo caught our attention from day one, the events in Bosnia and Croatia for some reason didn't, so we are pretty much dependent on "the official version", which we of course have learned to distrust after what we saw take place in Kosovo. That was about ten years ago, and I for one was too busy doing something else to keep up with the news. I think everybody would agree (I mean everybody) that we have not been given a balanced view of Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. The next question is: why not? Would the "balanced" view be too one-sided after all? Since this discussion took the turn to the Bosnian war, I have been wondering if these thousands of bodies that have been found (or at least the bulk of them) could really have been Serbs. Like it or not, this is a "numbers game". Rade's posting answered some of that: "The Bosnian Serb weekly Javnost reported on 23 December 1995, that in the entire Podrinje ... 192 villages were burned, 2800 Serbs were killed and six thousand injured". Am I biased if I can see no reason to doubt such a report?
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Thursday May 30, 2002 at 11:52 pm
RE: "Milosevic is responsible for the breakup of Yugoslavia" Think again. The role of the U.S. State Department and especially Warren Zimmermann’s role in triggering the Bosnian war is yet to attract full scrutiny. It is a matter of record that Izetbegovic reneged on the already signed Lisbon Accord brokered in March 1992 by European Community negotiator Jose Cutileiro, following Zimmermann’s suggestion. There is general understanding that prior to Zimmermann’s alleged remark “Why sign it if you don’t like it?” the Bosnian issue could have been resolved peacefully. Zimmermann in his book plays down the importance of the signed Lisbon accord: it was not even included in the index of the book. The references to the agreement itself by Zimmermann are rather contradictory: “At our meeting on February 25 Karadzic was ecstatic over developments in Lisbon..” (p.189), while “..the Bosnian Serbs never accepted Cutileiro’s map..” (p.190-91). He refers to it as only “Cutileiro’s plan” or the “Lisbon approach.” To circumvent the already signed agreement, Zimmermann encouraged Izetbegovic to forge ahead with the referendum on independence while being fully aware that it will result in a violent response from the Bosnian Serbs. Thus, creating a new situation rendering the Lisbon agreement obsolete and void was clearly part of the damage control after Izetbegovic’s signature. Zimmermann believed “that early Western recognition, right after the expected referendum majority for independence, might present Milosevic and Karadzic with a fait accompli difficult for them to overturn,”, while being mindful “that there is some chance of violence if Bosnia wins recognition.”, yet he denies that Western recognition provoked “that aggressive strategy, nor would the lack of Western recognition have deterred it.” Hoping to see Zimmermann on the witness stand soon.
Andre Huzsvai
Boston
U.S. - Friday May 31, 2002 at 3:13 am
Neil made a significant remark earlier. He said that only 70 of the 4000 bodies (and I guess this figure is only of those found in Srebrenica) have been identified and added that Nato is interested in identifying the Muslim bodies. You don't have to identify the bodies to know if they are Serbs or Muslims. On the contrary, you have to know if they are Serbs or Muslims in advance to be able to identify them. No-one can kill thousands of people without anybody noticing that somebody is missing. So once somebody signals that people are missing, you go to the bodies. Then you know who you are looking for, and only then can you identify the bodies. The reason that only 70 of the 4000 in Srebrenica have been identified could indeed indicate that the bodies that Nato has been looking for have been Muslims, and lo and behold, all the bodies that they have identified are indeed Muslims. The rest of the bodies are a much bigger problem than this approach would admit. We know that thousands of Serbs have been killed. Would it be a bad idea to identify the bodies using the personal data of the missing Serbs, or how does this research work? By the way, the word "farce" has been used a lot to describe the ongoing trial. Read the latest Freedom fight in the Hague bulletin (no 9) and you know that the word "farce" is not an exaggeration.
Jari Nousiainen
Finland - Friday May 31, 2002 at 10:36 pm
The following site provides an astonishly detailed Balkan Chronology for April 1998 to April 1999 from a most suprising source. http://www.nwc.navy.mil/balkans/ Something seems wrong when I can find out more about Racak from the US Navy than from Milosevics trial.
Ian Davis
Waterloo
Ontario