Informazione
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070308&articleId=5021
Part 2: HRW as a Campaigner for the NATO Wars in the Balkans
From the very beginning of the contests over the fate of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), HRW challenged its territorial integrity and supported the dismemberment of the unitary state, a militarized response to the armed conflicts that ensued, and most vocally of all, the meting out of “justice” to the wrongdoers. In a commentary in the November 10, 1990 New York Times, Helsinki Watch Executive Director Jeri Laber and Kenneth Anderson urged SFRY’s breakup and the provision of Western aid to any breakaway republics that might “protect the rights of all their citizens.”[46] These authors failed to give the slightest weight to the fact that the declarations of independence within the breakaway republics were contrary to both federal and republican constitutions, not to mention international law—including the Helsinki Final Act.[47]
Most important, Laber and Anderson were blind to the fact that pressures for independence within the republics and provinces expressed a surge of nationalism, rather than any concern for the rights of “all their citizens.” Writing about the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina , Robert Hayden observed that “the free elections that marked the end of Communism, in November 1990,…[were] essentially an ethnic census. Given the chance to vote as Bosnians, the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina chose instead to vote, overwhelmingly, as Muslims, Serbs, and Croats.”[48] Obviously, this did not bode well for the rights of minorities. In a letter responding to Laber and Anderson's call for the dismemberment of the SFRY, Hayden pointed out that “Those who would break up the country are strong nationalists, not likely to treat minorities within their own borders well.” Instead, it was only the unified federal state of Yugoslavia that provided protection for minorities—and very possibly would have continued to do so, had it not been attacked, delegitimized, and dissolved. “It seems truly bizarre,” Hayden noted presciently, “that ‘human rights’ activists so cavalierly advocate policies that are likely to turn Yugoslavia into the Lebanon of Europe.”[49]
48. Robert M. Hayden, Blueprints for a House Divided: The Constitutional Logic of the Yugoslav Conflicts (University of Michigan Press, 1999), pp. 91-92.
49. Robert Hayden, "Don't Turn Yugoslavia Into Europe's Lebanon," Letter, New York Times, December 3, 1990.
50. See notes 4 and 5, above.
52. See Mandel, How America Gets Away With Murder, Ch. 4, “The War Crimes Tribunal," pp. 117-146; and Köchler, Global Justice or Global Revenge, esp. the Annex: Memorandum “On the Indictment of the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia…,” pp. 353-356.
53. See, e.g., "No Kosovo Settlement Without Accountability for War Crimes," Human Rights Watch Press release, February 6, 1999.—The earliest high-profile use of the slogan "no peace without justice" in relation to the former Yugoslavia appears to have been a resolution introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives by Rhode Island's Patrick J. Kennedy, War Crimes in Bosnia, November 20, 1995. -- The relevant paragraph stated: "The United States should oppose amnesty for any indicted war criminals. On this anniversary [of the Nuremberg Tribunal], as the world hopes for peace in the Balkans, it is the responsibility of Congress to say unequivocally that there can be no peace without justice." The very same day, the New York Times's veteran columnist Anthony Lewis recounted a discussion he had had with the ICTY's Chief Prosecutor Richard Goldstone: "No Peace Without Justice," it was titled (November 20, 1995). "As the Tribunal's Chief Justice Richard Goldstone has repeatedly said, there can be no peace without justice," the Wall Street Journal editorialized. "On the 50-year anniversary of the Nuremberg trials, that's worth remembering" ("Prisoners of Peace," November 21, 1995). Less than one month later, John Shattuck, the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, picked up the same theme when he noted that one of the positives of the Dayton Accords was its pledge of cooperation with the Yugoslav Tribunal: "There will be no peace without justice." ("U.S. official: No cooperation on human rights issues by Serbs," Deutsche Presse-Agentur, December 13, 1995.)
54. See, e.g., Yossef Bodansky, Some Call It Peace: Waiting for the War in the Balkans (International Media Corp., 1996); Peter Brock, Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting. Journalism and Tragedy in Yugoslavia (GM Books, 2005); David Chandler, "Western Intervention and the Disintegration of Yugoslavia," in Philip Hammond and Edward S. Herman, Eds., Degraded Capability: The Media and the Kosovo Crisis (Pluto Press, 2000), pp. 19-30; Robert M. Hayden, Blueprints for a House Divided: The Constitutional Logic of the Yugoslav Conflicts (University of Michigan Press, 1999); Brendan O'Shea, The Modern Yugoslav Conflict 1991 - 1995: Perception, deception, dishonesty (Frank Cass, 2005); David Owen, Balkan Odyssey (Harcourt Brace & Company, 1995); Dennison Rusinow, Ed., Yugoslavia: A Fractured Federalism (Wilson Center Press, 1988); Susan L. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution After the Cold War (The Brookings Institution, 1995); Warren Zimmerman, Origins of a Catastrophe (Random House, 1996).
55. These sweeping charges represent an amalgam of the no fewer than eight different indictments and amendments thereof of Slobodan Milosevic et al. for Serb conduct in Kosovo (May 22, 1999; June 29, 2001; and October 29, 2001), Croatia (October 8, 2001; October 23, 2002; and July 28, 2004); and Bosnia and Herzegovina (November 22, 2001; November 22, 2002).
57. Writing about the new Clinton Administration's efforts in early 1993 to kill-off the Vance - Owen Peace Plan, which allocated some 42 percent of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Pale Serbs, rather than the 49 percent under Dayton, chief negotiator David Owen explains that Alija Izetbegovic withdrew his signature from the plan because "he felt encouraged by US attitudes to hold out for a better deal." Owen reproduces an excerpt from an early 1993 telegram he sent to an aid in Washington. "We have this Administration briefing the press in a way that could not but stiffen those Muslims who want to continue the war. We have [the Sarajevo Government's UN Representative Muhamed] Sacirbey openly telling everyone that the US Administration has said they should not feel any need to sign the map." Later, Owen adds that "The new administration had already made up their mind and were intent on killing off the [Vance - Owen Peace Plan]….They promised to come up with an alternative policy over the next few weeks, but in the meantime seemed intent on killing off a detailed plan backed by all their allies and close to being agreed by the parties. It was by any standard of international diplomacy outrageous conduct." Balkan Odyssey, pp. 111 - 119. —Here we add simply that this was in early 1993; the Dayton Peace Accords were not signed until nearly three years later, in late 1995.
58. The Rambouillet Conference was held at the Chateau Rambouillet in France from February 6 - 20, 1999. Its ostensible purpose was to negotiate an interim political settlement to the conflict over the Serbian province of Kosovo. But the conference was held under extreme duress, as at no point were the Serb negotiators free from the threat of military attack by NATO, which six days prior to the conference had issued an Activation Order "authoriz[ing] air strikes against targets on [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia] territory" (January 30, 1999). As the former State Department official George Kenney reported shortly after the war, a "senior State Department official had bragged that the United States 'deliberately set the bar higher that the Serbs could accept'. The Serbs needed, according to the official, a little bombing to see reason." See Marc Weller, Ed., The Crisis in Kosovo 1989 - 1999 (Documents and Analysis Publishing Ltd., 1999), Ch. 15, "The Rambouillet Conference," pp. 392-474, which includes a copy of NATO's Activation Order (p. 416); and George Kenney, "Rolling Thunder: the Rerun," The Nation, June 14, 1999.
59. Elaine Sciolino, "U.S. Names Figures It Wants Charged with War Crimes," New York Times, December 17, 1992.
62. See Statute of the International Tribunal Adopted May 25, 1993, along with subsequent updates. None of articles 2 through 5, which run the gamut including breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the laws and customs of war, genocide, and crimes against humanity, so much as mentions the "supreme international crime"—or anything remotely like it.
63. Michael P. Scharf, "Indicted for War Crimes, Then What?" Washington Post, October 3, 1999 (as posted to the Public International Law & Policy Group website).
64. Mandel, How America Gets Away With Murder, p. 126.
65. “The Milosevic Case,” in When People’s Basic Rights Are Trampled, Human Rights Watch, undated press release.
67. Press Conference Given by NATO Spokesman Jamie Shea, May 16, 1999.—The very next day, Shea responded to much the same question: "As you know, without NATO countries there would be no International Court of Justice, nor would there be any International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia because NATO countries are in the forefront of those who have established these two tribunals, who fund these tribunals and who support on a daily basis their activities. We are the upholders, not the violators, of international law." (Press Conference Given by NATO Spokesman Jamie Shea, May 17, 1999.)
68. See Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Office of the Prosecutor, ICTY, June, 2000, par. 90. Also see the accompanying Press Statement (PR/P.I.S./510-e), ICTY, June 13, 2000.
69. See Article 18 of the ICTY's Statute, "Investigation and preparation of indictment" (1993, 2006). Par. 4 states: "Upon a determination that a prima facie case exists, the Prosecutor shall prepare an indictment containing a concise statement of the facts and the crime or crimes with which the accused is charged under the Statute."
70. See Louise Arbour, Prosecutor of the Tribunal Against Slobodan Milosevic et al. (IT-99-37), Schedules A - G, May 22, 1999. —These schedules list the names of 344 dead Kosovo Albanians whom, in this particular case, constituted a sufficient "crime base" to bring the indictment. As noted, however, the deaths of only the 45 persons named in Schedule A ("Racak," January 15, 1999) date from prior to the start of NATO's war.
71. See Amnesty International,
MEMORIE DI UNA STREGA ROSSA
di Mira Markovic
Libro-intervista a cura di Giuseppe Zaccaria
Zambon Editore, Frankfurt 2005
ISBN 88-87826-30-7
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*** http://www.cnj.it/MILOS/stregarossa.pdf ***
A Review of “Weighing the Evidence: Lessons from the Slobodan Milosevic Trial” (Human Rights Watch, December, 2006) |
by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson and George Szamuely; February 25, 2007 |
Another form of bias is the HRW tendency to offer low counts of U.S. and NATO victims, and high counts for victims of U.S. and NATO targets. A study by Marc Herold reveals a pattern in which HRW “reports figures which are about one-third those of other reputable sources.” Herold points out that in the case of the NATO attack on Yugoslavia, HRW estimated 500 civilian deaths in Serbia, whereas other credible sources ran to 1,200-1,500 (and the Serbian official estimate was 1,800); and for Afghanistan, HRW estimated that at least 1,000 civilians were killed whereas Herold’s own studies yielded a total between 3,000-4,000. Herold also shows that in the specific case of a U.S. massacre at Chowkar-Karez in Afghanistan, HRW’s thinly based estimate of 25-35 dead was markedly below the figure of 90 reported in the media of Britain, India, Qatar and Egypt.[28]
On the other side of the ledger, Richard Dicker, the director of HRW's International Justice Program (IJP) and a consultant on Weighing the Evidence, asserted that “hundreds of thousands killed and millions [were] forced from their homes in the four wars [Milosevic] lost while asserting Serbian nationalism.”[29] Dicker's inflated rhetoric was not meant to be exact; nor did it need to be, and his “hundreds of thousands” killed has been drastically deflated by establishment sources, but without explicit acknowledgement by Dicker or HRW. In dealing with Serbia's exquisitely demonized “strongman,” this human rights lawyer knew that just about any charge could be made to stick, whether at the ICTY or before the court of public opinion. In a more subtle display of numbers-bias, HRW's World Report 2007 says that in February 2006, staff at the Sarajevo-based Research and Documentation Center (RDC) “were threatened through an anonymous phone call and warned to stop their analysis on war-related deaths.” The motive was the “center’s downward revision of the number of wartime casualties,” which HRW stresses “has drawn criticism from Bosnian Muslims, the war's principal victims.”[30] In fact, the RDC has found documentable totals of war-related deaths on all sides to be in the area of 100,000.[31] Thus HRW's use of the phrase “downward revision” mischaracterizes the RDC's work, as it understates the dramatic reduction by one-half to two-thirds of the much higher estimates of 200,000 to 300,000 that have been in circulation since late 1992, while HRW never once gives the specific number in the revised estimate that shows Dicker to have been guilty of inflation (and raises questions about HRW’s massive attention to an alleged “genocide” in Bosnia).
Even when HRW applies its microscope to U.S. conduct, as in the related cases of the prisoner of war camp at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and “rendition” to foreign states,[41] it never calls for the prosecution of the political leadership responsible for these practices, much less treat this conduct as something more grave than bad publicity, tarnishing America's image abroad. Thus HRW began 2007 with a PR campaign calling for Guantanamo 's closure. But although HRW labeled Guantanamo a “shameful blight on US respect for human rights,”[42] and Kenneth Roth called it “utterly counterproductive,” a “symbol of the Bush Administration's lawlessness when it comes to fighting terrorism,” a “tool for terrorist recruiters,” and a “disaster for America's standing in the world and a disaster for the effectiveness of the fight against terrorism,”[43] no mention was made of the direct chain-of-command that runs from the White House to Guantanamo. Nor of the fact that Guantanamo is but one node in a network of similar U.S. practices that circle the globe—the reality of which is a U.S. Gulag.[44] Instead, early 2007 found HRW adopting the posture that Guantanamo is yet another “mistake,” and chiding Washington on grounds that its larger objectives in the so-called “war on terror” would be better served were it to shut the camp down.
Throughout HRW's work runs the presumption that the United States is the global lawgiver, with special rights that call for special treatment, including in particular the non-reciprocal right to interfere in the sovereign affairs of other states and peoples, militarily if its leadership so decides. And this remains equally true whether HRW is documenting Washington's “mistakes” across various theaters of war or, as we show below, HRW is decrying what it called Slobodan Milosevic's “coordinated and systematic” campaigns to terrorize, kill, and expel ethnic non-Serbs from the territories he sought to dominate.[45] Can one imagine HRW referring to George Bush’s “coordinated and systematic” campaign to organize a global torture gulag? Or calling a Serb, an Iraqi, or a Sudanese action “unproductive” and a “tool for recruiters against U.S. imperialism”?
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Endnotes to Part 1
2. Orville Shell, quoted in Dusko Doder, "Helsinki Watch Unit Set Up To Monitor U.S. on Rights," Washington Post, March 18, 1979.
3. U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee: The First Fifteen Months, p. 4. Among the activities highlighted by this document (pp. 9-19), fundraisers, lobbying, and publishing efforts on behalf of Soviet bloc dissidents featured the most prominently, and a mark of distinction attached to expressions of solidarity with figures running afoul of Soviet, Czech, and Polish authorities. One Helsinki Watch op-ed that appeared in the June 16, 1979 New York Times was quoted: "Soviet leaders should be told in Vienna that until the legitimate rights of the Helsinki monitors are restored, the fulfillment of another goal of the Helsinki Accords—the granting of most-favored-nation-status—is out of the question" (p. 12). Notwithstanding its pledge to monitor "domestic compliance" to Article VII standards, the U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee was organized around monitoring the Soviet bloc above all.
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