{"article":{"id":8543,"heading":"Hague\/Yugoslavia Case against the US??","author":"b blum","created":"2001-07-09 06:47:54","modified":"2005-08-15 00:36:19","last_modified":"Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:36:19","article":"

-------- 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

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