 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 07, 2003 at 1:55 am
AnnaRe Michael Lees, try this
By the way, the way I understand it, there were The Chetniks (Mihajlovic's men) and there were chetniks (renegade Serb nationalists). The former were more honourable, the latter were more opportunists. Unfortunately their roles are often mixed up hence the dark clouds hanging over Mihajlovic's name. There is also a 7 part series put out by the Serbian Chetnik movement outlining Mihajlovic's role in WW2, somewhat myopic perhaps but somewhat factual as well. It was produced through cooperation with Chetnik groups throughout the world.
Mihajlovic's "negative" reputation is possibly somewhat equated to that of Milosevic's in that both seem to be haunted by the actions of renegade bands of thugs which the West was only too happy to ascribe to both men because it suited their ends. It may well turn out that both were more patriotic than they are given credit for. Certainly info regarding Mihajlovic seems to be surfacing which seriously throws into doubt the officially negative version distributed by Tito's boys for the last 50 or so years. I wonder if we'll yet see similar outcomes when it comes to Milosevic? The ICTY certainly hasn't done much to support the propaganda lines the West has been peddling about Milosevic, in fact it's done a hell of a lot to turn it all around. So far, according to what I've seen of the trial, I have to say that Milosevic is smelling pretty good relative to the negative propaganda against him.
David
Australia - Wednesday May 07, 2003 at 2:22 am
As for Fitzroy McLean being attached to Tito's partisans, the West was only too happy to have an each way bet. The West was fighting the fascists and it was perfectly fine to enlist the cooperation of the much hated communists. Much like it was perfectly all right to enlist the much hated Islamic fundamentalists in the form of Al Qaeda and the Mujahideen against the Soviets.The end seems to justify the means, even if it means making a pact with the devil. So much for morality, integrity and honour in the free, humanitarian, western world. Thank god we have our "free" mass media to convince us otherwise.
David
Australia - Wednesday May 07, 2003 at 10:40 am
Gogol, >More than 7,000 Muslim men were massacred when Bosnian Serb troops led by General Ratko Mladic overran the Muslim enclave.<I can see a number of reasons why someone would decide to admit they had done something that is just not true. "Making a deal with the prosecuters", would be first on the list.
http://www.zmag.org/Zmag/articles/february02herman.htm
With Milosevic “another Hitler” and the Serbs “willing executioners,” by NATO-power determination in the early 1990s, the quest for bodies was early and intense. But only Bosnian Muslim bodies were sought, not victims of the Bosnian Muslims or Croatians, although there is extensive evidence of repeated massacres of Serbs in Bosnia in the years 1992-1995. In 1994 and 1995, Muslim commander in Srebrenica, Naser Oric, proudly showed journalists videotapes of his “war trophies,” including severed heads and heaps of bodies of Serbs, but these were not the bodies the collective was seeking.
In Srebrenica, there have been only 473 bodies recovered, and there is absolutely no credible evidence that 7,500 men and boys who allegedly disappeared in this area in July 1995 were murdered. The absence of bodies, despite an intense search and strong incentives to produce them, hasn’t interfered with the conclusion that 7,500 were slaughtered there.
Of course, the bodies that HAVE BEEN FOUND, have never had a determination as to ethnicity. It would seem they could bery well be Serbians.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/576/in111.htm (Please notice this is an Egyptian site.)
At that time, writes Chomsky, the KLA appointed the infamous Agim Ceku, as its military commander. In 1995, Ceku had gained notoriety as one of the architects of the Krajina ethnic cleansing operation. With the tacit consent of the Clinton administration and tactical support from the US military, the Croatian army marched into Krajina on 5 August, slaughtered more than 2,500 Serbian civilians and evicted an estimated 200,000 people who were forced to flee for their lives, said political analyst Gregory Elich in The invasion of Serbian Krajina.
The Red Cross determined long ago that the missing Muslims from Srebrenica had, in actuality, been sent to other Muslim Army units in Bosnia. They really were, never missing.
Rebecka Justice
Portland
OR - Wednesday May 07, 2003 at 11:05 am
Rebecka,It is common knowledge that Gen. Radislav Krstic was convicted of genocide over the Srebrenica "massacre." The fact that nobody has proven that 8,000 Muslim men were ever massacred at Srebrenica didn't stop the tribunal from convicting him anyway. Apparently proof that a crime was ever committed in the first place isn't required for the Hague Tribunal to convict somebody.
It appears to me that if you want the tribunal to go easy on you that you'll "confess" even if you're innocent, then you'll testify against others, and MAYBE the tribunal won't send you to jail for as long.
Andy Wilcoxson
Washington, United States - Wednesday May 07, 2003 at 1:55 pm
Andy, that was exactly the idea i got out of that. Anyway, maybe the Geese are going to get a little of their own sauce. :)EU Gets Sanctions Go-Ahead Against U.S. (Reuters) - The European Commission gave the United States an autumn deadline on Wednesday to change disputed tax break laws for major corporations or face the threat of up to $4.0 billion in sanctions. The long-running row over an export scheme for U.S. majors such as Boeing and Microsoft is one of a series of EU-U.S. trade spats. It re-emerges days after the two pledged to work together to boost stalled global trade talks....
Since the US has enacted sanctions against half the globe, might be interesting to see what happens if some are enacted against the US.
Rebecka Justice
Portland
OR - Wednesday May 07, 2003 at 3:05 pm
David,Thanks for all the info.
Anna P
California - Wednesday May 07, 2003 at 3:17 pm
David,In searching for the book by using the ISBN # I found a site with some reviews, and below is one of them. If they actually have the book at this site, it costs a lot less there.
The Rape of Serbia: The British Role in Tito's Grab for Power 1943-1944 > Customer Review #3:
Serbian Chetnik heroes
Michael Lees had a unique prespective on the wars which raged in former Yugoslavia in WWII. As a British SOE officer assigned to work with the Serbian Chetnik guerillas, he witnessed first hand their military efforts at disrupting German supply lines and in attacking large German units. He builds a convincing case, now proven by official British historians, that the British were duped by Communist moles in SOE to switch their support to Tito and his Communist Partisans - bitter foes of the Chetniks. Lees attacks what he calls the "received wisdom" which for years stated that Chetniks eventually "collaborated". In fact, Lees' meticulous research of formerly classified British and American documents concludes the exact opposite. A tremendous contribution to a poorly understood theatre of World War II.
Anna P
California - Wednesday May 07, 2003 at 3:19 pm
Well...I feel foolish. It's just a link to that same Amazon site. Oh, well...
Anna P
California - Thursday May 08, 2003 at 6:42 am
Another more appropriate title to this forum to keep in tune with its evolution I would suggest:
The History Revision Forum (is History getting a fair trial)
Gogol Charlemagne
Shangri-La - Thursday May 08, 2003 at 7:12 am
Serbia Making Steady Recovery from Assassination
Monday's move by President Bush to allow military cooperation with Belgrade for the first time in a decade indicated that U.S. confidence in the will to democratic renewal after the March 12 assassination is stronger than ever.
Perhaps Colin Powell, this luminary of modern diplomacy is getting his insights from a Slobodan Milosevic secret agent at the US embassy. Check at amzon.com in another 30 years if the planet still exist, of course.In the latest sign of resolve, the Serbian authorities this week announced steps to bring the army firmly under civilian control, taking aim at an institution largely untouched since the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic on October 5, 2000.
'I think we are finally seeing them starting to do what we wanted them to do on October 6, 2000,' said Balkan expert James Lyon of the International Crisis Group think tank.
( . . .) Secretary of State Colin Powell last week praised the government for a 'renewed and vigorous political effort to rid the nation of its dangerous criminal elements, to hand over those wanted by...The Hague and to strengthen democracy.'
This was likely to raise hopes in Belgrade that Washington will clear continued U.S. aid by a June 15 deadline, provided it is satisfied there has been further cooperation on war crimes.
Gogol Charlemagne
Shangri-La - Thursday May 08, 2003 at 9:16 am
Rebecka JusticeIf you mean the Balfour Declaration when you say the COLONIALIST Brits promised the Zionists a national home-land, that declaration specified a national HOME, not a home-land. The idea that that necessarily implies the creation of a nationalistic country in an area predominantly populated by Arabs, and to their considerable disadvantag, is more than arguable.
The Balfour Declaration also stated:-
" ... it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, ...
Einstein once said something like (I'm too busy, and can't be bothered looking it up exactly): "If the Jews can not reach an accommodation with the Arabs, than the State of Israel will not deserve to exist."
He also gave as one of his reasons for refusing the leadership of Israel when he was offered it: "I would often have to tell the Jewish people things they would not want to hear".
My view is that Einstein wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes before the Zionists did a 'Rabin' on him.
I guess we'll never know if Americans would have driven NAZI era European Jews trying to enter the US back into the sea, as their ships weren't allowed to come in from the sea in the first place.
With regards to militarism in the US, this copied and pasted "from another place":-"Arab boys are gunned down for throwing stones and sandals. Heavily armed foreign troops check the ID cards of people trying to get in or out of their own hometown. A land is occupied by a superior military power, without even a pretense to legality.
In this way, Iraqis are learning how it is to be Palestinian. U.S. soldiers are learning what life is like in the Israeli Defense Forces. And I'm fairly certain that in the Middle East, America has chosen the wrong role model.
Here's a vignette from the May 2 Washington Post, regarding the town of Fallujah, where U.S. troops shot into crowds of unarmed civilians in late April:
"At the school where Monday's shooting occurred, teachers spent the day cleaning up in preparation for the start of classes on Saturday. The headmaster, Mohammed Ahmed, said that before they left, U.S. soldiers had damaged furniture and classroom supplies and left offensive graffiti on the walls.
"In one classroom, 'I [love] pork,' with the word love represented by a heart, was written on the blackboard, along with a drawing of a camel and the words: 'Iraqi Cab Company.' In another room, 'Eat [expletive] Iraq' was scrawled on a wall. And in Ahmed's office, sexual organs were drawn with white chalk on the back of the door.
"'They came to liberate us?' Ahmed asked, pointing out the graffiti to a reporter. 'What is the point of doing this?'"
It's looking as if we'll be able to occupy Iraq for as long as we like. Israel has managed to squat in the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights for 36 years. They have gotten away with it, and we can, too, because we both have big, tough, well-equipped armies and we both have nuclear weapons.
And each of us has a license to kill. Their license was issued by Adolf Hitler, ours by Osama bin Laden.
I'll admit that, in scale, it's a crude comparison. Two thousand Jews were killed in the Holocaust for every person killed in the September 11 attacks. But for our two nations, the events are serving the same function: The memories of those tragedies allow our governments to justify almost any sort of aggressive behavior, and the rationalization works - if not internationally, at least among the majority of our own citizens.
Most of the people who perpetrated the Final Solution are dead, and those who planned and carried out the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon are all either dead or in hiding. But there are plenty of other targets. America's and Israel's licenses do not specify names or nationalities, and there are no bag limits.
The combined number of Afghan and Iraqi civilians killed by U.S. bombs and gunfire has reached almost double the number killed in Washington and New York. Israel's ratio is still higher: four Palestinian civilians have been killed for every Israeli civilian killed by Palestinians since September 2000. We've both killed a lot more children than terrorists.
Neither Israel's current attackers nor its victims had anything to do with the Holocaust, and none of those killed in Iraq or Afghanistan had any hand in the hijackings. But have a talk with any pro-Israel hawk, digging your way down through the layers of murder, and when you reach bottom, and the hawk needs a firm foundation, he will usually whip out his license, reciting to you some version of what Ariel Sharon said in a speech for Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2001:
"Just as the Holocaust became an integral part of our identity and collective past as a nation, the legacy of Jewish bravery in facing the Nazi extermination mechanism is the very foundation of our unique existence and our future in the State of Israel. Israel is the only place in the world where Jews have the right and capability to defend themselves, by themselves. Only through strict adherence to this principle will we know that the courage and sacrifice of our Holocaust heroes was not in vain, and will ensure the Jewish people's independent existence in our homeland. Only then will we achieve the peace which we so desire."
And any day of the week we can hear some American hawk paraphrase Newt Gingrich's message to U.S. Joint Forces Command last June, when he said that "we have learned the hard way of September 11th that if we are not aggressive, that we could lose millions of Americans."
Ask people in the Congo, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Guatemala, or dozens of other nations, and I'll bet they won't claim that their suffering is unique in history. Their experience tells them that violence never runs in a straight line but only in cycles. They can't ignore that lesson because they don't have the world's biggest war machine, as we do, or a powerful military backed up by the world's biggest war machine, as Israel does.
In the eyes of most of the world, our license to kill expired sometime in the past year, and Israel's has been invalid for a long time. But we're still acting as if international law applies to every nation but our two, and we're getting away with it. Who's going to eject us from the territories we occupy? Who's going to prevent us from enforcing the death penalty for stone-throwing?
Only we ourselves - Americans and Israelis - can do that. We can tell our governments that we are sick of playing the role of vengeful victims, that we're each revoking our own nation's license to kill.
Stan Cox, Kansas
Dennis Revell
USA - Thursday May 08, 2003 at 9:34 am
The Hague Inquisition has decided that it will now accept as evidence written statements form secret witnesses, without any cross-examination.According to chief inquisitor Richard May the following secret witnesses will have their written testimony entered as evidence without any cross-examination: B-1542, B-1543, B-1121, B-1537, B-1538, and B-1540
You can certainly see the problems with this. How do we know that these written statements come from actual people and not from figments of the prosecutors immagination? How do we know they aren't lying? How do we know that the prosecutor isn't expoiting the secret status of these so-called "witnesses" to put words into the mouths of real people?
As for the testimony of today's secret witness Mr. B-1237. I would have to call him typical for the prosecution. He didn't know that on 6 April 1992 Bosnia was recognised (based on an illegal referendum) as an independent state by the EC. That is a notorious fact. Anybody who knows anything about the Bosnian civilwar knows that, but not this witness.
This secret witness, a Muslim, who didn't know when his state was recognised, claimed to have been some sort of high official in Zvornik, apparently he was the only official in Zvornik who was not affiliated with either the SDA or the SDS.
The witness proceeded to tell an interesting story about how a group of unarmed Muslims in Zvornik arrested a group of Arkan's Tigers who were armed with pistols, knives and wires. He said that these Tigers were going from Belgrade to Mali Zvornik.
Asside from the outlandish claim that unarmed people were capturing armed people and imprisoning them it should be noted that Mali Zvornik is in Serbia and Belgrade is in Serbia so is it logical for this group of Tigers to travel between 2 points in Serbia via Bosnia?
To make the story more interesting a Muslim policeman at the jail where the unidentified Tigers were allegedly being held let them go and went back to Serbia with them. Why did he do this? Our witness explained that he knew that Zvornik would be attacked and so he, this Muslim policeman, went to Serbia with these Tigers.
This witness resolutely claimed that no Muslims in Zvornik were armed. This is odd since another secret witness who testified earlier this week, I'm sorry I can't remember his number, testified that he was receiving weapons precisely from Zvornik, maybe Vera can help me with this point.
The pointless farce at the Hague inquisition continues....
Andy Wilcoxson
Washington, United States - Thursday May 08, 2003 at 1:13 pm
Anna, stick to your guns. There is absolutely NO evidence that ANY Chetniks collaborated with the Germans. Think about the message in the Washington Post Ad... Felman etal., had been told not to trust the Chetniks.... They found that their orders/recommendations, were LIES.How many lies have we been fed about the REAL Serbs? The lie about the Chetniks is just one more.......
The following is a pretty well researched article on the TRUTH of what was going on in Serbia. When I stated that 'they' knew Tito was a communist, I wasn't referring to Jack Klugman. Churchill and almost everyone else knew that 'Tito' and his 'Partisans" were communists. Yet they switched allegiance on the basis of what Klugman reported? AND ignored the word of Airmen who knew better??? Makes no sense...
I hope you will read all of the following article.
http://www.serbianna.com/columns/savich/038.shtml
The 1944 rescue of 513 American airmen by Draza Mihailovich and his forces and their subsequent evacuation from the Pranjane airfield in Serbia is one of the most remarkable events of World War II and is one of the largest rescue operations of US troops from behind enemy lines in US history. Why has no movie been made of this remarkable event? Why is it censored and deleted from mainstream historical research about World War II? What is the story behind this long-suppressed and covered-up event of World War II?
Felman and the crew were instructed as follows: “If forced to bail out over that area we were instructed to seek out the guerrilla fighter with the red star on his hat, Tito’s men.” Felman expressed confusion at the time because he had read reports about Mihailovich that did not jibe with this intelligence report. In the May 25, 1942 issue, Mihailovich had been on the cover of Time Magazine in the US under the heading, “Mihailovich: Yugoslavia’s Unconquered” and was one of the major contenders for the title of Time’s Man of the Year. Joseph Stalin ended up the Man of the Year in 1942. But Mihailovich received massive media coverage in the US garnering very favorable popular support. In 1943, a Hollywood movie was released made by a major studio, Twentieth-Century Fox, called Chetniks---The Fighting Guerrillas which portrayed Draza Mihailovich and his forces as allies of the US. The film starred Philip Dorn, who played Papa in the 1948 classic I Remember Mama, as Draza Mihailovich and Anna Sten, Samuel Goldwyn’s answer to Greta Garbo, as his wife, Lubitca Mihailovich. The movie was directed by Louis King, a B movie director best known for directing the My Friend Flicka sequels in the 1940s and B westerns in the 1930s. The movie is listed by Blockbuster and is reviewed by Hal Erickson of All Movie Guide (AMG). Erickson wrote that the movie portrays Mihailovich as “a selfless idealist, leading his resistance troops, known as the Chetniks, on one raid after another against the Germans during WWII.” The film remains unavailable on video in large part because the role of Mihailovich in World War II was rewritten and revised after the war. The movie is no longer politically correct.
The Partisans had nothing to do with this action, although Partisan propaganda alleged that the Partisans captured Belgrade. Even against inferior, low-grade German divisions made up primarily of Roman Catholic Croats, the so-called German-Croatian “Legion” Infantry Divisions, the Partisans never won any battle and never drove out the German forces from any town or city in Yugoslavia. As for the spurious concept of “collaboration”, Martin found that Tito had sent a message in March, 1943 to the German command in Sarajevo requesting that the Germans and Partisans unite their forces to fight against a single enemy, Draza Mihailovich and his Home Army. Tito, moreover, pledged to fight any British amphibious invasion of Yugoslavia from the Adriatic. According to Martin, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop rejected Tito’s offer of collaboration.
He then related how his people took to the hills in April 1941 after the Hitler invasion. How Mihailovich, as King Peter’s Minister of War had gathered together a guerrilla force of over 300,000 men and, though poorly equipped, had wreaked havoc on the hated Nazi. How Moscow-trained Tito suddenly appeared on the scene and declared himself the representative of the Yugoslav government. How Tito amounted to nothing more than a minor annoyance until the Big Three conference at Teheran in November 1943. Uncle Joe, seizing on the opportunity created by the chaotic conditions of wartime occupation and an absentia king, insisted we withdraw Allied support from Mihailovich and recognize his man Tito.
Vasich explained to Felman that Mihailovich was concerned about the Missing In Action (MIA) notices which would be sent to their families in the US so he would wire the name, rank, and serial number of the MIAs using a short wave transmitter to Cairo, which would in turn be sent to Constantine Fotich, the Yugoslav Ambassador to the US. After the war, Felman was informed by Fotich that he had received Mihailovich’s message and had submitted it to the US War Department. But because Mihailovich was not recognized by the US by that time, the message was discarded and ignored. Felman’s family was sent a MIA notice unnecessarily.
Fourth, the Vatican had complicity in the mass genocide of hundreds of thousands of Serbian Orthodox civilians in Roman Catholic Croatia, in a system of concentration/death camps, the largest of which was Jasenovac. How can the Vatican support the military leader of the Serbian Orthodox population when the Vatican had just sanctioned and supported the mass murder of Serbian civilians by the Roman Catholic Ustasha through Zagreb Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac in the Vatican-recognized NDH? Parallel with the massive and unprecedented cover-up and distortion of the role of Draza Mihailovich in World War II is the cover-up of the Vatican-supported mass murders of hundreds of thousands of Serbian Orthodox civilians. Both cover-ups are interrelated.
The role of Draza Mihailovich in the rescue of 513 US and 83 Allied airmen has been censored and suppressed. There has been a massive and unprecedented cover-up of The Halyard Mission in Pranjane and of Mihailovich’s role in that event and in World War II in general. This large-scale cover-up and distortion was organized by the US State Department, the Yugoslav government, anti-Serbian and anti-Orthodox lobby groups in the US, and the mainstream academic community, motivated by bias, and hidden agendas and self-interested motives. We are all the victims of this cover-up.
Rebecka Justice
Portland
OR - Thursday May 08, 2003 at 1:31 pm
Anna, You can also purchase the movie online. It is apparently in Serbian, with English Sub Titles.http://www.gerila.com/video/katalog/35v.htm
Subtitled The Fighting Guerillas, Chetniks purports to be the true story of Yugoslavian guerilla fighter General Draza Mihailovic. Based on the General's own memoirs, the film depicts Mihailovic (played by Philip Dorn) as a selfless idealist, leading his resistance troops, known as the Chetniks, on one raid after another against the Germans during WW II. The best scenes involve the deadly clashes between Chetniks and Germans in the treacherous mountain regions of Yugoslavia... Anna Sten, Sam Goldwyn's 1930s "answer" to Greta Garbo, co-stars as Mihailovitch's self-sacrificing spouse... - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide (73 minutes, 1943)
There is another aspect of the whole thing that is really despicable on the part of the US. ALL attempts to have Mihailovich and the Chetniks recognized has been quashed.
Ruder-Finn has been extremely able in this effort during the last two decades....... So, our government is allowing the Public relations Firm of the KLA to dictate who our heros are???
Rebecka Justice
Portland
OR - Thursday May 08, 2003 at 1:58 pm
Dennis, ????The Balfour Declaration:
November 2, 1917
During the First World War, British policy became gradually committed to the idea of establishing a Jewish home in Palestine (Eretz Yisrael). After discussions in the British Cabinet, and consultation with Zionist leaders, the decision was made known in the form of a letter by Arthur James Lord Balfour to Lord Rothschild. The letter represents the first political recognition of Zionist aims by a Great Power.
Foreign Office
November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour
>The Balfour Declaration also stated:- " ... it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, ... <
Nothing WAS done. What is your point?
>I guess we'll never know if Americans would have driven NAZI era European Jews trying to enter the US back into the sea, as their ships weren't allowed to come in from the sea in the first place.
Hopefully you realize how silly that statement was by now........ The point remains, there was no place for them to go.
You go on about these poor people who are being killed by the Armed forces of Israel. You haven't mentioned the suicide Bombers? I have to wonder if you would bee so sympathetic if you were in the position of the citizens of Israel.
You keep bringing up the "Palestinians". There is NO such animal. there were plenty of opportunities for the Arab countries surrounding Israel, to provide a homeland for the displaced people.
What you don't seem to know, or refuse to acknowledge is that MANY of those people were expelled from Lebanon and Jordan. Including your beloved Arafat. He was considered a threat to Jordan, and a troublemaker, LONG BEFORE he decided to switch his sites to the State of Israel.
What part of "Israel defeated ALL of the Arab Nations surrounding them, when those Arab Nations decided to attack Israel", did you not understand?
Almost the entire world was amazed, to say the least, that Israel prevailed uner overwhelming odds. For instance, all Forts, etc., were turned over to the Arabs by GB. All weapons held by Israel had to be smuggled in, etc., etc., etc.
There is a Prophesy in the Old Testament that might help your understanding. The last chapter of Isaiah has a very telling portrayal of the birth of the new State of Israel, centuries BEFORE it occured. I would say SOMEONE up there is on the side of Israel and I sure as heck am not going to gainsay HIM.
Rebecka Justice
Portland
OR - Thursday May 08, 2003 at 2:46 pm
"Can a nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot."
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Gogol Charlemagne
Shangri-La - Thursday May 08, 2003 at 2:53 pm
"Against stupidity the Gods themselves strive in vain."
Popular proverb
Gogol Charlemagne
Shangri-La - Thursday May 08, 2003 at 4:33 pm
While exercising my newly aquired skill in breaking up the text into paragraphs, I hereby relay the following message from "Milosevic Trial News":08 May 2003 15:39:23 GMT Milosevic trial prosecution months behind schedule
THE HAGUE, May 8 (Reuters) - Prosecutors at Slobodan Milosevic's trial appealed to judges on Thursday for at least six more months to wrap up their case, potentially delaying the start of the ex-Yugoslav leader's defence until early 2004.
U.N. war crimes prosecutors said they hoped to complete their case...by February 2004, two years after the trial started.
Prosecutors said they could not meet a trial deadline to complete their case this month after proceedings were interrupted by Milosevic's ill-health at least half a dozen times since it opened in February last year.
"I would forecast that...it would take us into the new year (to complete the prosecution case)," prosecutor Geoffrey Nice said after telling judges his team still planned to call more than 100 witnesses (in excess of the more than 150 up till this day. gl-j)
Judges said they would announce a decision on a prosecution request for more time soon. The trial, which takes regular breaks to give Milosevic time to rest due to his health problems, is scheduled to take a summer break in August.
A delay in the prosecution completing its case raises the prospect of the marathon trial dragging on for several years.
The trial's three judges have frequently admonished Milosevic, who is conducting his own defence, for wasting time by asking irrelevant questions and making speeches. They have also urged prosecutors to speed up the case.
Well, - the above appears to confirm certain assumptions made by Pythagoras Crotoniatis and Peter Taylor in their kind answers to me on May 6th.
But I have to say, that while I have been searching the ICTY sites and perusing through (most of) this rich and otherwise rather interesting web-discussion on the Milosevic case (and assorted issues!), I still have been unable to find any official version of the "trial schedule", that we are suppposed to be trailing behind.
That strikes me as rather odd; and isn´t it?
Godfred Louis-Jensen
Copenhagen
D E N M AR K - Thursday May 08, 2003 at 7:15 pm
The ICTY is the investigator, the prosecutor, the judge and the appeal court, all under the same roof and robes.
Gogol Charlemagne
Shangri-La - Thursday May 08, 2003 at 7:22 pm
More mistery:
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said Thursday the decision was made after US legal officials suspended the lawyer for Momcilo Krajisnik, one of the highest-ranking Bosnian Serb officials charged.
Gogol Charlemagne
Shangri-La - Thursday May 08, 2003 at 9:41 pm
Godfred Louis-Jensen one person that could help us is our Friend Mr.Frank Tiggelaar. Frank if you are out there Mr. Louis Jensen needs an answer. Thanks.
Wa.lter Trkla
Kamloops BC
Canada - Thursday May 08, 2003 at 11:43 pm
Andy, have you noticed what May said when he read that list of coded witnesses who will 'testify' without appearing nor being cross-examined, but only their written statements would be tendered into evidence? He said that the decision was not taken unanimously, that Robinson disagreed but the majority decided. So, May and Kwon overruled Robinson on this. Nice try by the Jamaican jurist to honour his profession. He would honour it even better if he resigned his post in this 'juridical' institution. May promised that the 'reasons for such decision will be given in writing later on'. Why not explaining it right away verbally? For the same reason he keeps introducing so many private sessions: he is consistent in denying the public the right to know what's going on here. This is getting beyond farce. I bet May would be able to 'give in writing' the verdict right now. What am I saying, he was able to do so at the outset.Re the 'lack' of arms on the Muslim side in the Bosnian civil war in Zvornik area, it was B-1461 who was talking about the fortified Muslim stronghold above Zvornik, called Kula grad, and they provided protection for the surrounding Muslim villages. They were so heavily armed that they were shooting across the river Drina at the JNA units in Serbia. But, as I said in my last post, that witness was clearly a victimised peasant unfamiliar with military things, so his testimony concerning that was at times ridiculous (for example, he spoke of bodies coming down the river, but had to agree with Milosevic that he knew nothing about the ethnicity of these corpses, who could have easily been the Serbs from the northern villages, and who couldn't have been the Muslims from Zvornik, the town being downstream from the village of the witness, 'and things cannot flow upstream', as Milosevic quite logically pointed out).
This story of non-existence of arms at the Muslim side was spun today as well. I particularly remembered one hilarious exchange during the cross-examination of B-1237: after constantly claiming there were no Muslim forces in Zvornik, he actually said there was 'no fire opened from Zvornik against the Serb forces during the combats in spring and summer 1992'. Most interesting statement: no fire from one side during combats?! Whom did the other side fight then? Milosevic finished the witness off by quoting the Sarajevo press of that time, brimming with statements from local Zvornik officials about the heavy losses that the Serbs suffered then. Because that's what it was: a ferocious three-sided civil war (sometimes even four-sided, because Muslims fought Muslims at places as well), and not a sop story of unarmed Muslims who were nothing but defenceless victims.
When the administrative issues were discussed today, I tried to listen carefully to Nice this time: he's truly a disgusting person, not just a disgusting lawyer. His courtroom tactics resemble that of a bad stand-up comedian, who gets furious at his audience for not finding him amusing. It was established that there are some 128 witnesses left to be presented by the Prosecution, but many of them are still unidentified. May complained that the 'amici are saying it's high time the final list to be submitted'. Nice explained that they need two more weeks before 'agreements with these witnesses are reached, which derives from the recent events' (a coded name for the post-Djindjic purges here). He also couldn't say how much time their testimonies might take, given the importance of Bosnia case which 'exceeds by far and large that what happened in Croatia'. He tried to teach May how to limit the time for the cross-examination given to Milosevic ('It has to be pointed out to the accused that he cannot have that much time for his cross-examination as he did so far.') He wanted May to tell him which of the testimonies he finds important in advance, and how much weight is to be ascribed to certain witnesses, so that the Prosecution could concentrate on them (practically, the Chamber is to do the job of the Prosecution here; but they are one and the same at The Hague anyway). He kept reminding May: 'you have all the authority, so that we could present our case', 'the Chamber should use its authority in such a way as to relieve us from that guillotine of time'. When finally pressed by May to name the time needed to present his case if he was given a carte blanche, Nice blurted he would need 'until the New Year, or January-February'. When he saw the darkened face that May pulled to that, Nice tried to soften it by assuring that 'it might be finished even before that time'. When asked by May to give his opinion, Milosevic took his chance to mock them all once more: "It seems that in this enterprise of yours that you call the trial the only factor to be discussed is time, which is totally at odds with all legal norms and requires no comment. As regards undisclosed witnesses, this is the usual practice here. And this last stream of anonymous witnesses shows how 'idyllic' the current relations in Bosnia are and how this what you call the trial contributes to the fomenting of interethnic hatred." May was a bit flabbergasted by the acidity of that little speech, so much that he forgot to interrupt or reprimand Milosevic as he usually does. He just mumbled that they will reconsider the time frame proposed by Nice and adjourned for today.
Vera Martinovic
Belgrade
Yugoslavia - Friday May 09, 2003 at 12:30 am
I'm becoming more and more impressed with May's gall. Not only do we have a host of secret witnesses, secret evidence and secret statements, now we even have NO RIGHT TO CROSS EXAMINE the secret witnesses!Robinson should do the decent and honourable thing and resign instead of further agreeing and signing his name to this now ALL TOO BLATANT FARCE. What price on self respect, Mr Robinson? In light of the no cross examination decision, we know May and Kwon have none.
Not bad for a "PUBLIC" trial... in the best traditions of democracy, rule of law and natural justice. At least the Fascists and the Soviets didn't make many pretences about their methods and objectives.
Hail democracy and the New World Order! The people rule! Only problem is that it's the WRONG people.
David
Australia - Friday May 09, 2003 at 4:01 am
Harakiri would be more appropiate!
Gogol Charlemagne
Shangri-La - Friday May 09, 2003 at 12:15 pm
>"Can a nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot."<
Actually, no one is too likely to claim that ANY of the Arab Nations are 'Free', but they sure have been doing their level best to oppress Israel...
It is rather interesting that yet another Arab group wants to set up yet another Nation with a virtual 'King', in the person of Arafat. Shades of Ibn Saud.
Rebecka Justice
Portland
OR - Friday May 09, 2003 at 12:38 pm
It is my opinion that the glory of the Cetniks has been sung too much.There is evidence that suggests that Cetniks collaborated with Nazis at Sutjeska and other places. One has to see context of second world war in terms of the battle for domestic control of postwar Yugoslavia. For this reason both Partisans and Cetniks collaborated with the Nazis to fight each other and Ustase.
As for heroic cetniks, the role of the church and state in second world war Yugoslavia was shameful. Royal Government of Nedic encouraged anti semitism and made anti Jewish statement to please master Germans. Anti semetic stamps were issued with the CCCC light (only unity can save Serbs) blinding a cowering Jew with its light. Bishop Velimirovic and other clergy also disgraced Serbia with anti semetic public statements available if you look for it or understand Serbian.
Nedic and Mihajlovic are not the same thing but dressing the Communists as evil and Cetniks as good is a joke.
Many more Yugoslavs were killed by betrayal of British post war government which gave back soldiers to Tito. The victims were mostly Serbs and Croats who had been against the Communists. They were exectued by the thousand. That betrayal was much greater than decision to support Communists in WW2 which in the end was a pragmatic decision based on intelligence received by Churchil.
Srdjan Arnautovic
Sarajevo - Friday May 09, 2003 at 1:24 pm
Dressing the Serbs as evil and the Croats or Muslims as good: is that a joke too?
Peter Taylor
Herts/UK - Friday May 09, 2003 at 3:06 pm
Rebecka,Thank you very much for all that information. Very much appreciated, and I will try to get a copy of the film.
Anna P
California - Friday May 09, 2003 at 3:12 pm
"Nedic and Mihajlovic are not the same thing..."Rather a huge understatement, don't you think?
As for antisemitism, I have never met ONE SINGLE SERB who was antisemitic, and certainly not any Cetnik supporters. Maybe I just gravitate toward decent people...
Anna P
California - Friday May 09, 2003 at 3:31 pm
The above post on WWII, addressed from the capital of one of Clinton's various Balkan banana republics, does little of good service to this forum, and merely parrots the typical content of any number of pro-Ustashe websites.How good of this individual to point out "Nedic and Mihajlovic are not the same thing...." And that should take care of any pathetic attempt to link anti-semitism and the Chetnik resistance then, shouldn't it?
Too bad this individual didn't allow himself to extend his examination of such incongruities elsewhere. He should have recognized that the issue of one or two postage stamps in German-occupied Serbia, for example, were not the same thing as murdering 700,000 civilians in Croat and Bosnian Muslim death camps. Similarly, he should have realized that it is folly to group Serb and Croat victims of Tito's firing squads together as "Yugoslavs" without making the proper distinctions. One group was loyal to the Yugoslav state, the other was comprised of traitors. One would expect a student of history not to allow his deluded political fantasies and sentiments to cloud his observation of these facts. This failure in elmentary logic and basic reading comprehension is not at all remedied through rhetoric, especially when this is knee-deep in irony, such as the usage of the word "joke", for example.
Perhaps most indicative of how political and ethnic sentiments can impede all attempts to develop any facilities for reasoning is the claim, echoing (as already noted) many anti-Yugoslavia and anti-Serbia web sites, that the numbers of Ustashe and Serb soldiers turned over by the British to Tito's Partisans were far greater than the number of victims who perished as the consequence of the Allied powers' taking sides in a civil conflict.
The above post, if anything, serves to indicate the sorts of lingering doubts and fears which haunt typical supporters of today's neo-fascism in the Balkans. Already tortured daily by the realization that there is no hope for the banana republics, the lessons of history have a terrible habit of nagging away at the most deluded and fanatical of these individuals, no matter how intoxicated. Particularly upsetting is the realization that many stooges of imperial occupation, such as the Ustashe running for their lives through Austria, were not extended the sort of assistance (jobs and new identities) from the British that the Vatican, various American governments, and the CIA gave higher ranking members of the WWII-era Croatian regime. For today's worshipper of imperial occupation, the least these "Yugoslavs" should have received is the treatment extended to other loyal citizens of a more recent era, a few months of welfare payments from the German or US governments and a generous lump sump payment upon their forcible eviction and resettlement
Nico Tz.
Canada - Friday May 09, 2003 at 3:42 pm
If I were one of the judges of Milosevi`s trial, I would make a death penalty because of the horrible things he has done in these three countries. Vahideh Kh
Montreal
CanadaJust when you thought there wasn't enough of a representative sampling here of the anti-Milosevic or anti-Serb camp, along comes this little gem.
N T
C - Friday May 09, 2003 at 4:03 pm
And here is another joke: I presume.Today ‘The Guardian’ UK reported that Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of State for Defence, was an executive Director of the Corporation ABB when it sold nuclear reactors to North Korea in the year 2000.
Late last year the US made a big fuss about Bosnian Serbs refurbishing Iraq’s ancient MIG fighters and accused Milosevic of arms trade with Saddam Hussein.
But the Anglo/US alliance itself has a long record of arms trade with Iraq?
The Anglo/US alliance has just attacked Iraq killing some ten to fifteen thousand Iraqi’s because the Anglo/US administrations claimed they ‘believed’ Saddam Hussein’s regime might provide terrorists with material for weapons of mass destruction, principally fissionable material. Even though the weapons inspectors had declared that this was impossible at this time.
And even though the principal alliance war leader has recently sold nuclear reactors to the most dangerously unstable country on this earth! Thus lo and behold North Korea, three years on, now claims to have nuclear bombs!
I don’t find any of these jokes funny.
Peter Taylor
Herts/UK - Friday May 09, 2003 at 5:28 pm
Those patriotic young men and the power of bread over hunger.
Gogol Charlemagne
Shangri-La - Friday May 09, 2003 at 5:32 pm
There is also a myth of course without any possible foundation, American hospitals performs organ transplants with imported organs.
Gogol Charlemagne
Shangri-La - Friday May 09, 2003 at 5:38 pm
And who said the Yanks are indiferent tot the problems of the world?
Some time with the chequebook some times with the barrel of the gun.
"You know they do to you with the checkbook what the Nazi used to do with the gun"
Fritz Lang
Gogol Charlemagne
Shangri-La - Friday May 09, 2003 at 5:42 pm
Judge May (NATO): "Mr. Milosevic, no, no point, what is the point in knowing whether the director of this company, or that service was a Muslim or not"
Mr. Milosevic: " gospodine May, it is important, it is since the witness claims there was discrimination against Muslims before the conflict." May 9, 2003 at the Grand Circus of The Hague, The Netherlands.
Gogol Charlemagne
Shangri-La - Friday May 09, 2003 at 5:57 pm
I take the Dutch nation must thrilled to have the honour of hostings such a long and entertaining circus
I would like to read the Ducth press favourable comentaries about this top class of international justice.
Gogol Charlemagne
Shangri-La - Friday May 09, 2003 at 5:58 pm
And last but not least do you know what the ant said to the elephant?
"OK, but please don't hurt me"
Gogol Charlemagne
Shangri-La - Friday May 09, 2003 at 8:59 pm
Andy and Vera,The admittance of the six witnesses Andy listed were argued at the first session on the 28th of April. They were not witness-statements but trial transcripts including crossexamination (hundreds of pages) from 'Foca'-trials. Also Groome stated that they are not able to locate witness B1537 at present !
Another four transcripts will be admitted but the witnesses will reappear here to be crossexamined on JNA-involvment. As I understood it...
Ann-Marie Laios
Sollentuna
Sweden - Friday May 09, 2003 at 10:33 pm
OK, so the trial transcripts and the cross examinations of other trials are going to be admitted as evidence. So what is it that suggests that the cross examinations in those trials were adequate, and what is it that says that Milosevic is NOT entitled to pose questions the other cross examiners didn't pose.
So now we have lawyers acting for a third party being de-facto representatives and lawyers for Milosevic? It's mindboggling that these eminent jurists May and Kwon do not see the denial of justice which is being meeted out to Milosevic. For what reason, if I may ask? To save time? Or to save the Prosecution's case? PS Good post above Nick TZ!
David
Australia - Friday May 09, 2003 at 11:35 pm
Srdjan Arnautovic, Where is this evidence, you say is there? I can find plenty of proof that Tito tried to make a deal with Hitler. None at all that any of the Chetniks ever did.First of all, Tito was a Croatian. Among other things, he will always be remembered for subjugating the Serbs to the other Yugoslavian Governments. (Remember, if it hadn't been for the Serbs, there would have been no Yugoslavia in the first place. "Marshal Tito" was born Josip Broz (1892-1980) in Kumrovec, of Croatian peasant parents.)
>Finally yielding to a GERMAN ULTIMATUM, the Yugoslav government on March 22 decided to sign, and on March 25 the Yugoslav prime minister and foreign minister affixed their signatures in Vienna to the Axis pact.<
>But TWO DAYS later, on March 27 in the early morning hours, the SERB PEOPLE and parts of the army who remonstrated against the surrender to the FASCIST PRESSURE, OVERTHREW THE GOVERNMENT, under the leadership of the chief of Yugoslav aviation, Gen. Dusan Simovic, who became prime minister. King Peter II assumed the government amid UNPRECEDENTED SCENES OF PUBLIC REJOICING ON THE PART OF SERB PEOPLE, WHO SAW THEIR LIBERTY AND THEIR HONOUR SAVED<
Two days is somewhat a record for overthrow of a Government wouldn't you say?
http://www.balkan-archive.org.yu/kosta/pisma/l-a.little.more.truth.html
It certainly cannot be out of ignorance that there is no reference in Cohen's book to Tito's demand at the end of the war, that 16,000 Chetnik Serbs be deported. With the expert assistance of the British officers in control of that zone at the time, 16,000 Serbs were put in boxcars, believing they were being taken to Italy. The next morning when the train arrived in the Slovenian town of Maribor, these Serbs jumped from the boxcars, not to their freedom, but to the waiting gun barrels of Tito's Partisans who exterminated all 16,000.
Of the approximately 60,000 Jews killed in Yugoslavia during WW II, Cohen claims that 900 Jews were killed by Serbs in Belgrade by the Nedic puppet government, a claim he often makes without any evidence to substantiate such a charge, no doubt a diversion of our attention away from the 59,000 Jews killed by the Nazi Croats and Muslims! How compelling that Cohen does not mention the 27,000 Jews that survived in Yugoslavia, due to Serbian resistance and the hiding of Jews by Serbian families.
In the demonization of Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic, Cohen used the Bishops words expressed to the press from the window of his cell at Dachau? Since when do we accept the words of prisoners who make public statements under coercion and possibly at gun point? Bishop Velimirovic said, "he was forced to make these statements." The Bishop was a prolific writer. Why is there not a single quote from the dozens of books he wrote in his lifetime to prove his so-called anti-Semitic ideas? This was a dishonest attack.
Philip Cohen can insist all he wants that the Serbs hate the Jews, but, for every Jew who has had a relationship with a Serb, his nonsense will fall on deaf ears. However, how does this historical revisionist explain why the oldest Jewish Choir in the World is in Belgrade, instead of Israel! This choir was established after the Spanish Civil War when these alleged "antisemitic," and "fascist Serbs" gave a home to the Jews fleeing Spain!
Curiously missing from this book are any references to David Martin's outstanding work, The Web of Disinformation. This foremost scholar on the subject of Yugoslavia was a journalist, political analyst and staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee who also wrote Ally Betrayed and Patriot or Traitor. Or the Aarons & Loftus books, Unholy Trinity and The Secret War Against the Jews, or Michael Lees book, The Rape of Serbia, written by a man who served in WW II along side of Gen. Draza Mihailovic. His book was based on accidentally released British archives. Michael Lees also based his book on his own war diary, substantiated by hundreds of documents of wire reports sent to British intelligence. Philip Cohen has never interviewed Major Richard Felman, another Jew and one of 500 downed American airmen rescued from occupied Yugoslav territory in 1944 with Gen. Mihailovic's help, this single largest recovery of Americans from behind enemy lines in American history was taking place while the Croats were capturing other downed Americans and turning them over to the Germans. Mihailovic, a Serb, received the highest award given by the United States government and recommended by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, The Legion of Merit.
Srdjan, You really need to read ALL of the letter from the Link above. It is pretty obvious that you got most of your erroneous information from Phillip Cohen. The lady that wrote the letter in the above link does a very masterful job of answering Cohen.
Rebecka Justice
Portland
OR - Friday May 09, 2003 at 11:50 pm
Anna, You are very welcome.I remember a time during the bombing of Belgrade when some teenagers were standing on a bridge to save it from being bombed by NATO.
I was already an old lady then, but wished it were possible to join them. Then our Media, clinto and NAATO all kept repeating over and over that they were forced to be there by Milosevic.
Now of course there was live film of the kids on the bridge, and most of the surrounding area. NOT ONE SERBIAN SOLDIER was even in any of that film.
The thing I am getting at is, those kids were making one heck of a heartwarming tribute to their country and Clinton, the Media, and NATO trashed it.
I remember another time when 3,000 Albanians vanished from a camp in Macedonia. Right from under the eyes of all the media over there????? So Clinton, the Media, and NATO all 'surmised' that Milosevic had kidnapped them, (AND ALL THEIR BELONGINGS???) right from under they eyes of NATO and the Media, to use them as Human Shields???
OOOPS, Next day they were found. Right where NATO had moved them, to Albania. But hey, why let a perfectly good piece of propaganda go to waste, so from then on, Milosevic was using Human Shields???
The duplicity of all past and present governments of this country knows no limit. The Indians learned this truth first. Others WITHIN our borders have learned the same lesson since. I have to wonder who is next?
Rebecka Justice
Portland
OR