-------- Original Message --------
Subject: The Court trying Milosevic -- Some things you should know
about it
Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2001 16:07:13 EDT
From: BBlum6@a...
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
Some things you should know about it
Beginning about two weeks after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia began in
March, 1999, international-law professionals from Canada, the United
Kingdom,
Greece, and the American Association of Jurists began to file complaints
with
the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The
Hague,
Netherlands, charging leaders of NATO countries and officials of NATO
itself
with crimes similar to those for which the Tribunal had issued
indictments
shortly before against Serbian leaders. Amongst the charges filed were:
"grave violations of international humanitarian law", including "wilful
killing, wilfully causing great suffering and serious injury to body and
health, employment of poisonous weapons and other weapons to cause
unnecessary suffering, wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages,
unlawful attacks on civilian objects, devastation not necessitated by
military objectives, attacks on undefended buildings and dwellings,
destruction and wilful damage done to institutions dedicated to
religion,
charity and education, the arts and sciences."
The Canadian suit names 68 leaders, including William Clinton,
Madeleine
Albright, William Cohen, Tony Blair, Canadian Prime Minister Jean
Chretien,
and NATO officials Javier Solana, Wesley Clark, and Jamie Shea. The
complaint also alleges "open violation" of the United Nations Charter,
the
NATO treaty itself, the Geneva Conventions, and the Principles of
International Law Recognized by the International Military Tribunal at
Nuremberg.
The complaint was submitted along with a considerable amount of
evidence
to support the charges. The evidence makes the key point that it was
NATO's
bombing campaign which had given rise to the bulk of the deaths in
Yugoslavia, provoked most of the Serbian atrocities, created an
environmental
disaster, and left a dangerous legacy of unexploded depleted uranium and
cluster bombs.
In June, some of the complainants met in The Hague with the court's
chief
prosecutor, Louise Arbour of Canada. Although she cordially received
their
brief in person, along with three thick volumes of evidence documenting
the
alleged war crimes, nothing of substance came of the meeting, despite
repeated follow-up submissions and letters by the plaintiffs. In
November,
her successor, Carla Del Ponte of Switzerland, also met with some of the
complainants and received extensive evidence.
The complainants' brief in November pointed out that the prosecution
of
those named by them was "not only a requirement of law, it is a
requirement
of justice to the victims and of deterrence to powerful countries such
as
those in NATO who, in their military might and in their control over the
media, are lacking in any other natural restraint such as might deter
less
powerful countries." Charging the war's victors, not only its losers,
it was
argued, would be a watershed in international criminal law.
In one of the letters to Arbour, Michael Mandel, a professor of law
in
Toronto and the initiator of the Canadian suit, added:
Unfortunately, as you know, many doubts have already been raised
about
the impartiality of your Tribunal. In the early days of the conflict,
after
a formal and, in our view, justified complaint against NATO leaders had
been
laid before it by members of the Faculty of Law of Belgrade University,
you
appeared at a press conference with one of the accused, British Foreign
Secretary Robin Cook, who made a great show of handing you a dossier of
Serbian war crimes. In early May, you appeared at another press
conference
with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, by that time herself the
subject of two formal complaints of war crimes over the targeting of
civilians in Yugoslavia. Albright publicly announced at that time that
the
US was the major provider of funds for the Tribunal and that it had
pledged
even more money to it.{1}
Arbour herself made little attempt to hide the pro-NATO bias she
wore
beneath her robe. She trusted NATO to be its own police, judge, jury,
and
prison guard. In a year in which the arrest of General Pinochet was
giving
an inspiring lift to the cause of international law and international
justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia,
under
Arbour's leadership, ruled that for the Great Powers it would be
business as
usual, particularly the Great Power that was most vulnerable to
prosecution,
and which, coincidentally, paid most of her salary. Here are her own
words:
I am obviously not commenting on any allegations of violations of
international humanitarian law supposedly perpetrated by nationals of
NATO
countries. I accept the assurances given by NATO leaders that they
intend to
conduct their operations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in full
compliance with international humanitarian law. I have reminded many of
them, when the occasion presented itself, of their obligation to conduct
fair
and open-minded investigations of any possible deviance from that
policy, and
of the obligation of commanders to prevent and punish, if required.{2}
NATO Press Briefing, May 16, 1999:
Question: Does NATO recognize Judge Arbour's jurisdiction over their
activities?
Jamie Shea: I think we have to distinguish between the theoretical and
the
practical. I believe that when Justice Arbour starts her investigation
[of
the Serbs], she will because we will allow her to. ... NATO countries
are
those that have provided the finance to set up the Tribunal, we are
amongst
the majority financiers.
The Tribunal -- created in 1993, with the US as the father, the Security
Council as the mother, and Madeleine Albright as the midwife -- also
relies
on the military assets of the NATO powers to track down and arrest the
suspects it tries for war crimes.
There appeared to be no more happening with the complaint under Del
Ponte
than under Arbour, but in late December, in an interview with The
Observer of
London, Del Ponte was asked if she was prepared to press charges against
NATO
personnel. She replied: "If I am not willing to do that, I am not in
the
right place. I must give up my mission."
The Tribunal then announced that it had completed a study of
possible
NATO crimes, which Del Ponte was examining, and that the study was an
appropriate response to public concerns about NATO's tactics. "It is
very
important for this tribunal to assert its authority over any and all
authorities to the armed conflict within the former Yugoslavia."
Was this a sign from heaven that the new millennium was going to be
one
of more equal justice? Could this really be?
No, it couldn't. From official quarters, military and civilian, of
the
United States and Canada, came disbelief, shock, anger, denials ...
"appalling" ... "unjustified". Del Ponte got the message. Four days
after
The Observer interview appeared, her office issued a statement: "NATO is
not
under investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. There is no formal inquiry
into
the actions of NATO during the conflict in Kosovo."{3} And there
wouldn't
be, it was unnecessary to add.
But the claim against NATO -- heretofore largely ignored by the
American
media -- was now out in the open. It was suddenly receiving a fair
amount of
publicity, and supporters of the bombing were put on the defensive. The
most
common argument made in NATO's defense, and against war-crime charges,
has
been that the death and devastation inflicted upon the civilian sector
was
"accidental". This claim, however, must be questioned in light of
certain
reports. For example, the commander of NATO's air war, Lt. Gen. Michael
Short, declared at one point:
If you wake up in the morning and you have no power to your house
and no
gas to your stove and the bridge you take to work is down and will be
lying
in the Danube for the next 20 years, I think you begin to ask, "Hey,
Slobo,
what's this all about? How much more of this do we have to
withstand?"{4}
General Short, said the New York Times, "hopes that the distress of
the
Yugoslav public will undermine support for the authorities in
Belgrade."{5}
At one point, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea added: "If President
Milosevic
really wants all of his population to have water and electricity all he
has
to do is accept NATO's five conditions and we will stop this
campaign."{6}
After the April NATO bombing of a Belgrade office building -- which
housed political parties, TV and radio stations, 100 private companies,
and
more -- the Washington Post reported:
Over the past few days, U.S. officials have been quoted as
expressing
the hope that members of Serbia's economic elite will begin to turn
against
Milosevic once they understand how much they are likely to lose by
continuing
to resist NATO demands.{7}
Before missiles were fired into this building, NATO planners spelled
out
the risks: "Casualty Estimate 50-100 Government/Party employees.
Unintended
Civ Casualty Est: 250 -- Apts in expected blast radius."{8} The
planners
were saying that about 250 civilians living in nearby apartment
buildings
might be killed in the bombing.
What do we have here? We have grown men telling each other: We'll
do A,
and we think that B may well be the result. But even if B does in fact
result, we're saying beforehand -- as we'll insist afterward -- that it
was
unintended.
Following World War II there was an urgent need for a permanent
international
criminal court to prosecute those accused of war crimes, crimes against
humanity, and genocide, but the Cold War intervened. Finally, in 1998
in
Rome, the nations of the world drafted the charter of The International
Criminal Court. American negotiators, however, insisted on provisions
in the
charter that would, in essence, give the United States veto power over
any
prosecution through its seat on the Security Council. The American
request
was rejected, and primarily for this reason the US refused to join 120
other
nations who supported the charter. The ICC is an instrument Washington
can't
control sufficiently to keep it from prosecuting American military and
government officials. Senior US officials have explicitly admitted that
this
danger is the reason for their aversion to the proposed new court.{9}
But
this is clearly not the case with the International Criminal Tribunal
for the
Former Yugoslavia. It's Washington's kind of international court, a
court
for the New World Order.
NOTES
1. This and most of the other material concerning the complaint to the
Tribunal mentioned here were transmitted to the author by Mandel and
other
complainants.
2. Press Release from Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour, The Hague, May 13,
1999.
3. The Observer (London), December 26, 1999; Washington Times, December
30
and 31, 1999; New York Times, December 30, 1999
4. Washington Post, May 24, 1999, p.1
5. New York Times, May 13, 1999, p.1
6. NATO press conference, Brussels, May 25, 1999
7. Washington Post, April 22, 1999, p.18
8. Ibid., September 20, 1999, p.1
9. New York Times, December 2, 1998, p.1; January 3, 2000
The above is excerpted from "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only
Superpower" by William Blum
http://members.aol.com/superogue/homepage.htm
