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Con piu' di 550 iscritti, il notiziario JUGOINFO rappresenta una
delle voci piu' riconosciute della informazione sulle questioni
internazionali da una prospettiva antimperialista nel panorama
italiano: una voce autogestita, effettivamente autonoma da
logiche istituzionali e "jugo-liquidazioniste" di qualsiasi tipo.
La nostra attivita' di informazione via internet continua
ininterrottamente (seppur con diverse denominazioni) dal 1997.
Essa puo' continuare solo con il vostro sostegno.
SOTTOSCRIVETE per JUGOINFO e per le altre attivita' del
Coordinamento Nazionale per la Jugoslavia usando il:
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JUGOINFO is the bulletin on Yugoslavia and the Balkans edited by the
ITALIJANSKA KOORDINACIJA ZA JUGOSLAVIJU - https://www.cnj.it
(see archive: http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/)
With more than 550 subscribers, the newsletter JUGOINFO is one
of the most appreciated voices of information on international
issues from an anti-imperialistic perspective on the Italian scene:
ours is a self-managed activity, really independent from
institutional and "jugo-liquidationist" logics of any kind.
Our effort to keep you informed through the net is continuing
without interruption (even if under different denominations)
since 1997. This has a chance to go on only if you support us.
MAKE A DONATION for JUGOINFO and the other activities of the
Coordinamento Nazionale per la Jugoslavia by contributing to:
Conto Bancoposta n. 47595665
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For any contacts: j u g o c o o r d @ t i s c a l i . i t
GRAZIE / HVALA / THANKS
KOSMET (deutsch)
[ Gli esponenti dei partiti politici tedeschi, sia di governo
(socialdemocratici) che dell'opposizione di destra, si esprimono in
modo univoco sulla questione dello "status" del Kosmet. Intervistati
dalla radio tedesca internazionale Deutsche Welle, essi sostengono
tutti indistintamente la stessa posizione, che è anche quella della
lobby dell'International Crisis Group e di Wesley Clark (il generale
della NATO che comandò i bombardamenti sulle industrie chimiche, sulle
piazze dei mercati, e sui convogli di profughi della Serbia nel 1999),
e cioè: secessione nel 2005 oppure, ancora, guerra.
Il sostegno al separatismo neonazista nei Balcani è d'altronde motivo
conduttore della politica estera tedesca sin dal 1991, ed evidentemente
l'esperienza delle tragedie provocate finora non induce il mondo
politico ad alcun ripensamento: vogliono spaccare tutto, a quanto pare,
cancellare ogni residua esperienza di convivenza etnica, umiliare e
disperdere i serbi in numerose repubbliche delle banane, narco-stati e
protettorati militari. Coerente con questo progetto politico
complessivo è anche la politica del Ministero degli Esteri tedesco sul
rilascio dei visti agli albanesi, che ha visto più che raddoppiare il
numero dei permessi annuali rispetto a prima del 1999, e consolidarsi
il fenomeno delle "bustarelle" cioè della corruzione nei consolati,
denunciato da J. Elsaesser in un articolo che riproduciamo. (a cura di
Italo Slavo) ]
1. ,,Stück Land ohne Status"
2. ,,Der Kosovo muss unabhängig werden": Wesley Clark (NATO-General)
3. Einladung für Kriminelle. Albanien, die UCK und die deutsche
Visavergabepolitik (J. Elsaesser)
=== 1 ===
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1107644400.php
06.02.2005
,,Stück Land ohne Status"
BERLIN/PRISTINA - Deutsche Parlamentsabgeordnete aller großen Parteien
plädieren im albanischsprachigen Programm des deutschen Staatsrundfunks
,,Deutsche Welle" für die baldige Sezession der südserbischen Provinz
Kosovo. Sie setze sich schon ,,seit vielen Jahren" dafür ein, dem
Gebiet staatliche Souveränität zu verleihen, erklärt die
SPD-Außenpolitikerin Uta Zapf im Gespräch mit dem Sender, der unter der
albanischsprachigen Bevölkerung des Kosovo das beliebteste ausländische
Radioprogramm ist. Ein von Berlin unterstützter Plan der
,,International Crisis Group" sieht vor, dass die Provinzregierung in
Pristina ab Mitte nächsten Jahres souveräne Herrschaftsrechte erhält.
Während die deutsche Außenpolitik seit Jahren auf dieses Ziel
hinarbeitet, rechnen Kritiker mit einem ,,Domino-Effekt in der Region"
und warnen vor einem mafiotischen ,,Schurkenstaat" Kosovo.
Eigener Weg
Seit Ende Januar stimmt die ,,Deutsche Welle" in mehreren Berichten
ihres albanischsprachigen Programms ihr Publikum auf eine baldige
Loslösung des Kosovo aus dem serbischen Staat ein. Bei dem Gebiet
handele es sich um ,,ein Stück Land ohne Status", erklärt der deutsche
Staatssender wahrheitswidrig über die Südprovinz Serbiens.1) Während
der FDP-Außenpolitiker Rainer Stinner in einer Minderheitenmeinung das
Kosovo der direkten Herrschaft Brüssels unterstellen will2), sprechen
sich Abgeordnete der deutschen Regierungsparteien dafür aus, die
Provinz in einen eigenen Staat umzuwandeln. ,,Ich habe den Eindruck, es
war schon immer klar, dass das Kosovo seinen eigenen Weg geht", erklärt
der Vorsitzende des Außenpolitischen Ausschusses des Europaparlaments,
der Deutsche Elmar Brok (CDU).3)
So bald wie möglich
Mit ihren Äußerungen gegenüber der ,,Deutschen Welle" positionieren
sich maßgebliche deutsche Außenpolitiker für die abschließende Debatte
über die Sezession des Kosovo. Die ,,International Crisis Group" (ICG)
hat am 24. Januar einen Plan vorgelegt, der einen Zeitverlauf für die
Loslösung der Provinz vorschlägt. Demnach soll der UN-Generalsekretär
,,so bald wie möglich" einen Sonderbeauftragten (,,Special Envoy")
ernennen, der unmittelbar Gespräche über einen ,,Kosovo Accord"
aufnehmen und darin die staatliche Loslösung der Provinz abschließend
klären wird. Bis zum Herbst dieses Jahres sollen der ,,Kosovo Accord"
sowie eine Verfassung für den neuen Staat vorliegen. Beide Texte
müssten, heißt es bei der ICG, Ende 2005 von einer Internationalen
Konferenz bestätigt werden, bevor die Bevölkerung des Kosovo im
Frühjahr 2006 über ihre Verfassung abstimmen dürfe. Mitte 2006 soll
Pristina souveräne Herrschaftsrechte erhalten, aber weiterhin von einer
,,Kosovo Monitoring Mission" kontrolliert werden.4)
Vorsorge
Die Berliner Außenpolitik arbeitet seit langem auf eine Loslösung des
Kosovo aus dem serbischen Staat hin. Bereits im November 2002 hatte der
damalige UN-Verwalter im Kosovo, der Deutsche Michael Steiner, ein Ende
der serbischen Souveränität über das Gebiet gefordert.5) Im Juli 2003
dekretierte Steiner für die südserbische Provinz ein eigenes Strafrecht
sowie ein Freihandelsabkommen mit Albanien, das die Voraussetzungen
dafür schuf, die wirtschaftliche Abhängigkeit des Kosovo von den
übrigen Landesteilen Serbiens zu verringern.6) Die kommende Sezession
des Kosovo soll auch mit militärischen Mitteln sichergestellt werden.
Es sei nötig, in der Provinz angesichts der beginnenden
Abspaltungs-Verhandlungen ,,Vorsorge zu treffen", erklärte der
verteidigungspolitische Sprecher der CDU/CSU-Bundestagsfraktion,
Christian Schmidt: Dazu müsse gegebenenfalls das dort stationierte
deutsche Bundeswehrkontingent aufgestockt werden.7)
Zuneigung
Begleitet werden die außenpolitischen Avancen Berlins vom
albanischsprachigen Programm der ,,Deutschen Welle". Wie eine
Sprecherin des Senders bestätigt, hat sich im Kosovo die Rezeption des
deutschen Rundfunkprogramms vor und während des NATO-Überfalls ,,massiv
erhöht". Eine repräsentative Umfrage aus dem Jahr 2001 ergab, dass 97
Prozent der Provinzbevölkerung den deutschen Sender kannten. Die
,,Deutsche Welle" lag bei der Nutzung an der Spitze aller ausländischen
Rundfunksender: Rund 56 Prozent der albanischsprachigen (aber nur 21
Prozent der serbischsprachigen) Bevölkerungsgruppe gaben an, den
deutschen Sender ,,wöchentlich" zu hören. Dies entspricht weiteren
Ergebnissen der Umfrage, nach denen 96 Prozent der albanischsprachigen
Bevölkerungsgruppe ,,Zuneigung" zu Deutschland äußerten, 66 Prozent der
serbischsprachigen Bevölkerungsgruppe hingegen ,,Abneigung".8)
Schurkenstaat
Kritiker befürchten einen ,,Domino-Effekt in der Region", sollte die
Sezession des Kosovo tatsächlich realisiert werden, und warnen vor
baldigen Verhandlungen.9) Einer Loslösung der serbischen Südprovinz
wird eine Präzedenzwirkung für weitere separatistische Bewegungen
zugeschrieben (z.B. Tschetschenien10)), auch wird mit
Anschlussversuchen an Albanien und Teile Mazedoniens (,,Großalbanien")
gerechnet.11) ,,Der Kosovo ist nach wie vor ein Pulverfass", erklärt
der ehemalige OSZE-Direktor für die Demokratisierung im Kosovo,
Friedhelm Frischenschlager. Beobachter verweisen nicht zuletzt auf die
desolate wirtschaftliche und soziale Lage in dem Gebiet und die
ungebrochene Dominanz mafiotischer Strukturen, die nach wie vor mit der
ehemaligen Untergrundarmee UCK verflochten sind. Der Oldenburger
Soziologe Michael Daxner warnt: ,,Kosovo läuft Gefahr, ein geduldeter
Schurkenstaat zu werden."12)
1) Eine schnelle Unabhängigkeit für Kosovo?; Deutsche Welle Fokus
Ost-Südost 03.02.2005
2) s. dazu Sonderwirtschaftszone
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1082704361.php%5d
3) Kosovo-Debatte im Europaparlament; Deutsche Welle Fokus Ost-Südost
27.01.2005
4) International Crisis Group: Kosovo: Toward Final Status. Europe
Report N°161, 24 January 2005
5) s. dazu Deutscher Verwalter stellt territoriale Integrität
Jugoslawiens in Frage
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1037663753.php%5d
6) s. dazu Berliner Beute
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1058051536.php%5d
und Nationbuilding
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1078874136.php%5d
7) Union: Im Kosovo Vorsorge treffen; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
28.01.2004
8) Kosovo 2001: Spitzenplatz für Deutsche Welle - Fast alle Kosovaren
kennen DW; Deutsche Welle 14.01.2005
9) Experten: Keine Lösung des Kosovo-Status 2005; Der Standard
14.01.2005
10) s. dazu Modell Kosovo
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1087943982.php%5d
11) s. dazu Zum Scheitern verurteilt
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/%5d und Entweder - Oder
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1099790046.php%5d
12) ,,Nach wie vor Pulverfass"; Die Presse 14.01.2005
s. auch Leitbild
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1080255601.php%5d
und Kolonialherren
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1095112800.php%5d
Informationen zur Deutschen Außenpolitik
© www.german-foreign-policy.com
=== 2 ===
http://www.tagesspiegel.de/meinung/index.asp?gotos=http://
archiv.tagesspiegel.de/toolbox-neu.php?ran=on&url=http://
archiv.tagesspiegel.de/archiv/10.02.2005/1638912.asp#art
(10.02.2005 )
POSITIONEN
Der Kosovo muss unabhängig werden
Alles hängt am Status: Sonst verlieren wir den Frieden auf dem Balkan
Von Wesley Clark
In seiner visionären Inaugurationsrede sprach Präsident Bush von
der Herausforderung, die Freiheit in der Welt zu verbreiten. Natürlich
hatten wir vor allem den Irak vor Augen. Aber den Fokus ausschließlich
auf den Irak zu richten, erhöht die Gefahren in anderen Regionen – wie
dem Balkan. Mit jedem Tag nehmen die Spannungen im Kosovo zu, das
Risiko einer Gewaltexplosion steigt, hartumkämpfte Freiheiten sind
wieder in Gefahr. Die USA und die internationale Gemeinschaft müssen
2005 endgültig eine Lösung der Statusfrage des Kosovo herbeiführen –
bevor es zu spät ist, um eine Tragödie noch zu verhindern.
Nach dem Eingreifen der Nato 1999 war der endgültige Status des Kosovo
nie geklärt worden. Er steht unter der Verwaltung der UN, die
Souveränität liegt aber weiterhin bei der Union von Serbien und
Montenegro. Aber nach zehn Jahren Unterdrückung durch Belgrad, gekrönt
von Krieg, Massenvertreibungen und Gräueltaten lehnt die albanische
Mehrheit des Kosovo, 90 Prozent der Bevölkerung, eine neuerliche
Verbindung mit Serbien ab und wird sich nicht mit weniger als der
Unabhängigkeit zufrieden geben. Nach fast sechs Jahren ist ein
Zusammenleben von Serben und Albanern noch immer unmöglich. Serbiens
erklärtes Ziel ist es, die Unabhängigkeit des Kosovo zu verhindern.
Die Spannungen im Kosovo und in Serbien nehmen zu, es ist nicht
auszuschließen, dass es vor Jahresende noch zu einer Explosion der
Gewalt kommt – wenn der Westen dem nicht entgegenwirkt. Weitere
Zusammenstöße wie im vergangenen Frühjahr, als 20 Menschen umkamen und
800 verletzt wurden, würden möglicherweise zu einer schnellen Loslösung
des Kosovo führen – einem Präzedenzfall, der alle amerikanischen und
europäischen Bemühungen torpedieren würden, die multiethnischen Staaten
des Balkans zu stabilisieren.
Nach den Ausschreitungen im vergangenen März haben sich einige die
Frage gestellt, ob diese fragile, unberechenbare und unterentwickelte
Gesellschaft ihren eigenen Staat verdient hat – oder ihn überhaupt
aufrechterhalten könnte. Bei aller Hochachtung für diese Bedenken,
sollte man nicht vergessen, dass der Kosovo bereits zwei demokratische
Wahlen veranstaltet und Fundamente für eine moderne, funktionierende
Wirtschaft gelegt hat. Die Grundlage für eine Eigenstaatlichkeit ist
vorhanden. Der Schutz von Minderheiten kann jedoch nicht gewährleistet
werden, solange es keinen Fortschritt bei der Frage des Status des
Kosovo gibt. Und das ist, natürlich, die Schlüsselfrage.
Teile der politischen, militärischen und publizistischen Elite
Serbiens haben sich nicht von der Milosevic-Ära verabschiedet. Für sie
spielt die Aufteilung des Kosovo eine größere Rolle als das Wohlergehen
der serbischen Minderheit dort. Sie glauben von einer wachsenden
Frustration und Gewaltbereitschaft der Albaner profitieren zu können
und verlegen ihre Anstrengungen darauf, diese Frustration zu fördern.
Ihr Ziel ist eine Teilung des Gebiets, die Serbien die nördlichen, von
Serben bewohnten Gemeinden und einen Teil der geteilten Stadt Mitrovica
zuschlagen und zwei Drittel der Serben im Kosovo, die weiter südlich
leben, abtrennen würde.
Um eine Rebellion der Kosovo-Albaner zu verhindern – und dem darauf
folgenden offenen Kampf um Mitrovica und einer serbischen Offensive um
den Nordkosovo –, muss unter der Führung der Amerikaner sofort eine
Lösung der Statusfrage herbeigeführt werden. Die „Contact Group“ (USA,
Großbritannien, Frankreich, Deutschland, Italien, Russland) und der
UN-Sicherheitsrat haben sich eine Frist bis Sommer 2005 gesetzt, um
über den Entscheidungsprozess der Statusfragen zu befinden. Sie sollten
sofort Kriterien für Verhandlungen festlegen und einen Zeitplan. Die
Rahmenbedingungen für eine Zukunft des Kosovo sollten sein: keine
Rückkehr unter die Herrschaft Belgrads, keine Aufteilung des Landes,
und keine zukünftige Union mit Albanien oder einem anderen Nachbarland.
Die Geschwindigkeit, mit der Kosovo eine volle Unabhängigkeit
zugebilligt wird, sollte von seiner Behandlung der Minderheiten
abhängig gemacht werden. Dieser letzte Punkt ist absolut entscheidend.
Der UN-Generalsekretär sollte zusätzlich einen Sondergesandten
benennen, der Verhandlungen über ein „Kosovo-Abkommen“ beginnen soll,
einschließlich einer neuen Verfassung. Außerdem sollte Ende 2005 eine
internationale Konferenz stattfinden, die das Abkommen absegnet.
Kooperiert Serbien, kann es eine Rolle bei der Formulierung der neuen
Verfassung und der Sicherung der Rechte für Serben spielen. Boykottiert
Serbien jedoch den Prozess und weigert sich Souveränität abzugeben –
die Lage ist zu fragil, als dass der Kosovo weiter als Geisel gehalten
werden kann. Wird die Lösung der Statusfrage im Sicherheitsrat
blockiert, sollten die USA zusammen mit den Europäern die Konferenz
ausrichten, ein Verfassungsreferendum im Frühjahr 2006 veranstalten und
dann den neuen Staat Kosovo diplomatisch anerkennen und unterstützen.
Anders als im Irak wird im Kosovo derzeit nicht gekämpft. Aber jetzt
müssen Maßnahmen ergriffen werden, die zur Lösung der Statusfrage
führen. Sonst laufen wir Gefahr, Frieden wie Freiheit auf dem Balkan zu
verlieren.
Der Autor war oberster Befehlshaber der Nato während des Kosovokrieges
und ist Mitglied der International Crisis Group. Deren Bericht zur Lage
im Kosovo ist unter www.crisisgroup.com publiziert.
=== 3 ===
Junge Welt, 21.2.05 -- www.jungewelt.de
Jürgen Elsässer
Einladung für Kriminelle
Albanien, die UCK und die deutsche Visavergabepolitik
Der Visaskandal in Tirana ist für Außenminister Fischer weit brisanter
als der in Kiew«, urteilte Mafia-Experte und Buchautor Jürgen Roth.
Kein Wunder: Aus Albanien und dem mittlerweile albanisch beherrschten
Kosovo kamen vorzugsweise Kriminelle nach Deutschland, was man
-entgegen der propagandistischen Dauerbeschallung durch die CDU/CSU -
für die Ukraine gerade nicht behaupten kann.
In Zahlen: Die Zahl der ausgegebenen deutschen Visa an der deutschen
Botschaft in Tirana stieg von 8 000 im Jahre 1998 auf 19 000 in den
Jahren 2002 und 2003. Das ist weit weniger als in Kiew, wo die
Vergleichszahlen bei 130 000 (1998) bzw. 300 000 (2001) liegen. Doch
das Schmiergeld für Albaner pendelte mit durchschnittlich 2 000 Euro
pro Genehmigung etwa beim Siebenfachen des Bakschischs in Kiew - das
konnten sich wirklich nur noch Leute leisten, die zu Geld gekommen
waren, und das sind in dem Balkanstaat vorzugsweise Kriminelle. Eine
Zunahme von Verbrechen seitens ukrainischer Banden nach Inkrafttreten
des Volmer-Erlasses im Frühjahr 2000 konnte dagegen bisher nicht
festgestellt werden (siehe jW vom Montag).
Das Bestechungsgeld hatten sich albanische Mittelsmänner vor Ort und
deutsche Beamte »in einer von Korruption fast lückenlos durchsetzten
Visa-Stelle« - so die Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung mit Bezug
auf eine Prüfkommission der deutschen Regierung - geteilt.
»Leichtfertige Visavergabe und das hohe Maß an Korruption« hätten
demnach in Tirana dazu geführt, »daß auch an die Chefs von albanischen
kriminellen Banden Visa ausgegeben« wurden. Das habe das
Bundeskriminalamt schon früher festgestellt. Besonders brisant war die
Ausgabe von Langzeitvisa: Nachdem das Leck in Tirana aufgedeckt worden
war, mußten 350 dieser Persilscheine sofort gesperrt werden, über 1 200
weitere Sperrungen folgten bis heute. Im jüngsten Drogenbericht von
Europol ist dokumentiert, daß im Jahre 2004 »albanische Gruppen ihren
Anteil am Rauschgiftmarkt im allgemeinen und am Heroinmarkt im
speziellen kontinuierlich vergrößert« haben. Drei Faktoren haben
demnach zu dieser Entwicklung maßgeblich beigetragen: »Die Anwesenheit
von Albanern aus Albanien, aus dem Kosovo und aus Mazedonien in nahezu
allen westeuropäischen Ländern, die Existenz vieler Erscheinungsformen
organisierter Kriminalität unter Albanern und das Bestreben einiger
Gruppen, aus Albanien, dem Kosovo und Teilen Mazedoniens ein
selbständiges Groß-Albanien zu schaffen.«
Die albanische Bandenkriminalität ist untrennbar mit der
Kosovo-Untergrundbewegung UCK verbunden - die Terrororganisation
finanziert sich hauptsächlich über den Schmuggel von Heroin und
Zwangsprostituierten. Es ist deshalb nicht verwunderlich, daß sich das
Bundesinnenministerium bereits im Sommer 2004 mit »möglichen
Unregelmäßigkeiten« bei der Visavergabe auch in der Kosovo-Hauptstadt
Pristina beschäftigen mußte. Genaue Zahlen darüber wurden allerdings
bislang nicht vorgelegt.
Während die deutsche Visapolitik gegenüber der Ukraine vor allem die
prowestliche Beeinflussung der dortigen Stadtbevölkerung vorantreiben
sollte und letztlich ein Instrument zur Initiierung der sogenannten
orange Revolution in diesem Winter war, muß die ähnliche Freigiebigkeit
gegenüber Albanern andere Gründe haben - sowohl das albanische
Mutterland wie das UN-verwaltete Kosovo sind bereits jetzt viel
weitgehender unter westlicher Kontrolle als die Ukraine bisher.
Möglicherweise verlangten die UCK-Untergrundgangster, mit denen die
deutsche Außenpolitik schon seit den frühen neunziger Jahren enge
Verbindungen geknüpft hat, von ihren Berliner Paten eine gewisse
Freizügigkeit bei Reisen in den EU-Raum zur Abwicklung ihrer dunklen
Geschäfte. Etwaige Unstimmigkeiten ließen sich durch finanzielle
Zuwendungen aus dem Wege räumen - Politiker, auch deutsche, sind in der
Regel käuflich, sonst hätten sie einen anständigen Beruf gewählt.
Es wäre eigentlich zu schön, wenn der Bundesaußenminister, der mit
seinem humanitären Kriegseinsatz zur Rettung der armen Albaner 1999 zum
beliebtesten deutschen Staatsmann der Gegenwart avancierte, nun über
seine balkanischen Freunde stolpern würde. Leider kann man den Sekt
noch nicht kaltstellen, aber zur Sicherheit sollte man ein paar
Fläschchen im Hause haben.
[ Gli esponenti dei partiti politici tedeschi, sia di governo
(socialdemocratici) che dell'opposizione di destra, si esprimono in
modo univoco sulla questione dello "status" del Kosmet. Intervistati
dalla radio tedesca internazionale Deutsche Welle, essi sostengono
tutti indistintamente la stessa posizione, che è anche quella della
lobby dell'International Crisis Group e di Wesley Clark (il generale
della NATO che comandò i bombardamenti sulle industrie chimiche, sulle
piazze dei mercati, e sui convogli di profughi della Serbia nel 1999),
e cioè: secessione nel 2005 oppure, ancora, guerra.
Il sostegno al separatismo neonazista nei Balcani è d'altronde motivo
conduttore della politica estera tedesca sin dal 1991, ed evidentemente
l'esperienza delle tragedie provocate finora non induce il mondo
politico ad alcun ripensamento: vogliono spaccare tutto, a quanto pare,
cancellare ogni residua esperienza di convivenza etnica, umiliare e
disperdere i serbi in numerose repubbliche delle banane, narco-stati e
protettorati militari. Coerente con questo progetto politico
complessivo è anche la politica del Ministero degli Esteri tedesco sul
rilascio dei visti agli albanesi, che ha visto più che raddoppiare il
numero dei permessi annuali rispetto a prima del 1999, e consolidarsi
il fenomeno delle "bustarelle" cioè della corruzione nei consolati,
denunciato da J. Elsaesser in un articolo che riproduciamo. (a cura di
Italo Slavo) ]
1. ,,Stück Land ohne Status"
2. ,,Der Kosovo muss unabhängig werden": Wesley Clark (NATO-General)
3. Einladung für Kriminelle. Albanien, die UCK und die deutsche
Visavergabepolitik (J. Elsaesser)
=== 1 ===
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1107644400.php
06.02.2005
,,Stück Land ohne Status"
BERLIN/PRISTINA - Deutsche Parlamentsabgeordnete aller großen Parteien
plädieren im albanischsprachigen Programm des deutschen Staatsrundfunks
,,Deutsche Welle" für die baldige Sezession der südserbischen Provinz
Kosovo. Sie setze sich schon ,,seit vielen Jahren" dafür ein, dem
Gebiet staatliche Souveränität zu verleihen, erklärt die
SPD-Außenpolitikerin Uta Zapf im Gespräch mit dem Sender, der unter der
albanischsprachigen Bevölkerung des Kosovo das beliebteste ausländische
Radioprogramm ist. Ein von Berlin unterstützter Plan der
,,International Crisis Group" sieht vor, dass die Provinzregierung in
Pristina ab Mitte nächsten Jahres souveräne Herrschaftsrechte erhält.
Während die deutsche Außenpolitik seit Jahren auf dieses Ziel
hinarbeitet, rechnen Kritiker mit einem ,,Domino-Effekt in der Region"
und warnen vor einem mafiotischen ,,Schurkenstaat" Kosovo.
Eigener Weg
Seit Ende Januar stimmt die ,,Deutsche Welle" in mehreren Berichten
ihres albanischsprachigen Programms ihr Publikum auf eine baldige
Loslösung des Kosovo aus dem serbischen Staat ein. Bei dem Gebiet
handele es sich um ,,ein Stück Land ohne Status", erklärt der deutsche
Staatssender wahrheitswidrig über die Südprovinz Serbiens.1) Während
der FDP-Außenpolitiker Rainer Stinner in einer Minderheitenmeinung das
Kosovo der direkten Herrschaft Brüssels unterstellen will2), sprechen
sich Abgeordnete der deutschen Regierungsparteien dafür aus, die
Provinz in einen eigenen Staat umzuwandeln. ,,Ich habe den Eindruck, es
war schon immer klar, dass das Kosovo seinen eigenen Weg geht", erklärt
der Vorsitzende des Außenpolitischen Ausschusses des Europaparlaments,
der Deutsche Elmar Brok (CDU).3)
So bald wie möglich
Mit ihren Äußerungen gegenüber der ,,Deutschen Welle" positionieren
sich maßgebliche deutsche Außenpolitiker für die abschließende Debatte
über die Sezession des Kosovo. Die ,,International Crisis Group" (ICG)
hat am 24. Januar einen Plan vorgelegt, der einen Zeitverlauf für die
Loslösung der Provinz vorschlägt. Demnach soll der UN-Generalsekretär
,,so bald wie möglich" einen Sonderbeauftragten (,,Special Envoy")
ernennen, der unmittelbar Gespräche über einen ,,Kosovo Accord"
aufnehmen und darin die staatliche Loslösung der Provinz abschließend
klären wird. Bis zum Herbst dieses Jahres sollen der ,,Kosovo Accord"
sowie eine Verfassung für den neuen Staat vorliegen. Beide Texte
müssten, heißt es bei der ICG, Ende 2005 von einer Internationalen
Konferenz bestätigt werden, bevor die Bevölkerung des Kosovo im
Frühjahr 2006 über ihre Verfassung abstimmen dürfe. Mitte 2006 soll
Pristina souveräne Herrschaftsrechte erhalten, aber weiterhin von einer
,,Kosovo Monitoring Mission" kontrolliert werden.4)
Vorsorge
Die Berliner Außenpolitik arbeitet seit langem auf eine Loslösung des
Kosovo aus dem serbischen Staat hin. Bereits im November 2002 hatte der
damalige UN-Verwalter im Kosovo, der Deutsche Michael Steiner, ein Ende
der serbischen Souveränität über das Gebiet gefordert.5) Im Juli 2003
dekretierte Steiner für die südserbische Provinz ein eigenes Strafrecht
sowie ein Freihandelsabkommen mit Albanien, das die Voraussetzungen
dafür schuf, die wirtschaftliche Abhängigkeit des Kosovo von den
übrigen Landesteilen Serbiens zu verringern.6) Die kommende Sezession
des Kosovo soll auch mit militärischen Mitteln sichergestellt werden.
Es sei nötig, in der Provinz angesichts der beginnenden
Abspaltungs-Verhandlungen ,,Vorsorge zu treffen", erklärte der
verteidigungspolitische Sprecher der CDU/CSU-Bundestagsfraktion,
Christian Schmidt: Dazu müsse gegebenenfalls das dort stationierte
deutsche Bundeswehrkontingent aufgestockt werden.7)
Zuneigung
Begleitet werden die außenpolitischen Avancen Berlins vom
albanischsprachigen Programm der ,,Deutschen Welle". Wie eine
Sprecherin des Senders bestätigt, hat sich im Kosovo die Rezeption des
deutschen Rundfunkprogramms vor und während des NATO-Überfalls ,,massiv
erhöht". Eine repräsentative Umfrage aus dem Jahr 2001 ergab, dass 97
Prozent der Provinzbevölkerung den deutschen Sender kannten. Die
,,Deutsche Welle" lag bei der Nutzung an der Spitze aller ausländischen
Rundfunksender: Rund 56 Prozent der albanischsprachigen (aber nur 21
Prozent der serbischsprachigen) Bevölkerungsgruppe gaben an, den
deutschen Sender ,,wöchentlich" zu hören. Dies entspricht weiteren
Ergebnissen der Umfrage, nach denen 96 Prozent der albanischsprachigen
Bevölkerungsgruppe ,,Zuneigung" zu Deutschland äußerten, 66 Prozent der
serbischsprachigen Bevölkerungsgruppe hingegen ,,Abneigung".8)
Schurkenstaat
Kritiker befürchten einen ,,Domino-Effekt in der Region", sollte die
Sezession des Kosovo tatsächlich realisiert werden, und warnen vor
baldigen Verhandlungen.9) Einer Loslösung der serbischen Südprovinz
wird eine Präzedenzwirkung für weitere separatistische Bewegungen
zugeschrieben (z.B. Tschetschenien10)), auch wird mit
Anschlussversuchen an Albanien und Teile Mazedoniens (,,Großalbanien")
gerechnet.11) ,,Der Kosovo ist nach wie vor ein Pulverfass", erklärt
der ehemalige OSZE-Direktor für die Demokratisierung im Kosovo,
Friedhelm Frischenschlager. Beobachter verweisen nicht zuletzt auf die
desolate wirtschaftliche und soziale Lage in dem Gebiet und die
ungebrochene Dominanz mafiotischer Strukturen, die nach wie vor mit der
ehemaligen Untergrundarmee UCK verflochten sind. Der Oldenburger
Soziologe Michael Daxner warnt: ,,Kosovo läuft Gefahr, ein geduldeter
Schurkenstaat zu werden."12)
1) Eine schnelle Unabhängigkeit für Kosovo?; Deutsche Welle Fokus
Ost-Südost 03.02.2005
2) s. dazu Sonderwirtschaftszone
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1082704361.php%5d
3) Kosovo-Debatte im Europaparlament; Deutsche Welle Fokus Ost-Südost
27.01.2005
4) International Crisis Group: Kosovo: Toward Final Status. Europe
Report N°161, 24 January 2005
5) s. dazu Deutscher Verwalter stellt territoriale Integrität
Jugoslawiens in Frage
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1037663753.php%5d
6) s. dazu Berliner Beute
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1058051536.php%5d
und Nationbuilding
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1078874136.php%5d
7) Union: Im Kosovo Vorsorge treffen; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
28.01.2004
8) Kosovo 2001: Spitzenplatz für Deutsche Welle - Fast alle Kosovaren
kennen DW; Deutsche Welle 14.01.2005
9) Experten: Keine Lösung des Kosovo-Status 2005; Der Standard
14.01.2005
10) s. dazu Modell Kosovo
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1087943982.php%5d
11) s. dazu Zum Scheitern verurteilt
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/%5d und Entweder - Oder
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1099790046.php%5d
12) ,,Nach wie vor Pulverfass"; Die Presse 14.01.2005
s. auch Leitbild
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1080255601.php%5d
und Kolonialherren
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1095112800.php%5d
Informationen zur Deutschen Außenpolitik
© www.german-foreign-policy.com
=== 2 ===
http://www.tagesspiegel.de/meinung/index.asp?gotos=http://
archiv.tagesspiegel.de/toolbox-neu.php?ran=on&url=http://
archiv.tagesspiegel.de/archiv/10.02.2005/1638912.asp#art
(10.02.2005 )
POSITIONEN
Der Kosovo muss unabhängig werden
Alles hängt am Status: Sonst verlieren wir den Frieden auf dem Balkan
Von Wesley Clark
In seiner visionären Inaugurationsrede sprach Präsident Bush von
der Herausforderung, die Freiheit in der Welt zu verbreiten. Natürlich
hatten wir vor allem den Irak vor Augen. Aber den Fokus ausschließlich
auf den Irak zu richten, erhöht die Gefahren in anderen Regionen – wie
dem Balkan. Mit jedem Tag nehmen die Spannungen im Kosovo zu, das
Risiko einer Gewaltexplosion steigt, hartumkämpfte Freiheiten sind
wieder in Gefahr. Die USA und die internationale Gemeinschaft müssen
2005 endgültig eine Lösung der Statusfrage des Kosovo herbeiführen –
bevor es zu spät ist, um eine Tragödie noch zu verhindern.
Nach dem Eingreifen der Nato 1999 war der endgültige Status des Kosovo
nie geklärt worden. Er steht unter der Verwaltung der UN, die
Souveränität liegt aber weiterhin bei der Union von Serbien und
Montenegro. Aber nach zehn Jahren Unterdrückung durch Belgrad, gekrönt
von Krieg, Massenvertreibungen und Gräueltaten lehnt die albanische
Mehrheit des Kosovo, 90 Prozent der Bevölkerung, eine neuerliche
Verbindung mit Serbien ab und wird sich nicht mit weniger als der
Unabhängigkeit zufrieden geben. Nach fast sechs Jahren ist ein
Zusammenleben von Serben und Albanern noch immer unmöglich. Serbiens
erklärtes Ziel ist es, die Unabhängigkeit des Kosovo zu verhindern.
Die Spannungen im Kosovo und in Serbien nehmen zu, es ist nicht
auszuschließen, dass es vor Jahresende noch zu einer Explosion der
Gewalt kommt – wenn der Westen dem nicht entgegenwirkt. Weitere
Zusammenstöße wie im vergangenen Frühjahr, als 20 Menschen umkamen und
800 verletzt wurden, würden möglicherweise zu einer schnellen Loslösung
des Kosovo führen – einem Präzedenzfall, der alle amerikanischen und
europäischen Bemühungen torpedieren würden, die multiethnischen Staaten
des Balkans zu stabilisieren.
Nach den Ausschreitungen im vergangenen März haben sich einige die
Frage gestellt, ob diese fragile, unberechenbare und unterentwickelte
Gesellschaft ihren eigenen Staat verdient hat – oder ihn überhaupt
aufrechterhalten könnte. Bei aller Hochachtung für diese Bedenken,
sollte man nicht vergessen, dass der Kosovo bereits zwei demokratische
Wahlen veranstaltet und Fundamente für eine moderne, funktionierende
Wirtschaft gelegt hat. Die Grundlage für eine Eigenstaatlichkeit ist
vorhanden. Der Schutz von Minderheiten kann jedoch nicht gewährleistet
werden, solange es keinen Fortschritt bei der Frage des Status des
Kosovo gibt. Und das ist, natürlich, die Schlüsselfrage.
Teile der politischen, militärischen und publizistischen Elite
Serbiens haben sich nicht von der Milosevic-Ära verabschiedet. Für sie
spielt die Aufteilung des Kosovo eine größere Rolle als das Wohlergehen
der serbischen Minderheit dort. Sie glauben von einer wachsenden
Frustration und Gewaltbereitschaft der Albaner profitieren zu können
und verlegen ihre Anstrengungen darauf, diese Frustration zu fördern.
Ihr Ziel ist eine Teilung des Gebiets, die Serbien die nördlichen, von
Serben bewohnten Gemeinden und einen Teil der geteilten Stadt Mitrovica
zuschlagen und zwei Drittel der Serben im Kosovo, die weiter südlich
leben, abtrennen würde.
Um eine Rebellion der Kosovo-Albaner zu verhindern – und dem darauf
folgenden offenen Kampf um Mitrovica und einer serbischen Offensive um
den Nordkosovo –, muss unter der Führung der Amerikaner sofort eine
Lösung der Statusfrage herbeigeführt werden. Die „Contact Group“ (USA,
Großbritannien, Frankreich, Deutschland, Italien, Russland) und der
UN-Sicherheitsrat haben sich eine Frist bis Sommer 2005 gesetzt, um
über den Entscheidungsprozess der Statusfragen zu befinden. Sie sollten
sofort Kriterien für Verhandlungen festlegen und einen Zeitplan. Die
Rahmenbedingungen für eine Zukunft des Kosovo sollten sein: keine
Rückkehr unter die Herrschaft Belgrads, keine Aufteilung des Landes,
und keine zukünftige Union mit Albanien oder einem anderen Nachbarland.
Die Geschwindigkeit, mit der Kosovo eine volle Unabhängigkeit
zugebilligt wird, sollte von seiner Behandlung der Minderheiten
abhängig gemacht werden. Dieser letzte Punkt ist absolut entscheidend.
Der UN-Generalsekretär sollte zusätzlich einen Sondergesandten
benennen, der Verhandlungen über ein „Kosovo-Abkommen“ beginnen soll,
einschließlich einer neuen Verfassung. Außerdem sollte Ende 2005 eine
internationale Konferenz stattfinden, die das Abkommen absegnet.
Kooperiert Serbien, kann es eine Rolle bei der Formulierung der neuen
Verfassung und der Sicherung der Rechte für Serben spielen. Boykottiert
Serbien jedoch den Prozess und weigert sich Souveränität abzugeben –
die Lage ist zu fragil, als dass der Kosovo weiter als Geisel gehalten
werden kann. Wird die Lösung der Statusfrage im Sicherheitsrat
blockiert, sollten die USA zusammen mit den Europäern die Konferenz
ausrichten, ein Verfassungsreferendum im Frühjahr 2006 veranstalten und
dann den neuen Staat Kosovo diplomatisch anerkennen und unterstützen.
Anders als im Irak wird im Kosovo derzeit nicht gekämpft. Aber jetzt
müssen Maßnahmen ergriffen werden, die zur Lösung der Statusfrage
führen. Sonst laufen wir Gefahr, Frieden wie Freiheit auf dem Balkan zu
verlieren.
Der Autor war oberster Befehlshaber der Nato während des Kosovokrieges
und ist Mitglied der International Crisis Group. Deren Bericht zur Lage
im Kosovo ist unter www.crisisgroup.com publiziert.
=== 3 ===
Junge Welt, 21.2.05 -- www.jungewelt.de
Jürgen Elsässer
Einladung für Kriminelle
Albanien, die UCK und die deutsche Visavergabepolitik
Der Visaskandal in Tirana ist für Außenminister Fischer weit brisanter
als der in Kiew«, urteilte Mafia-Experte und Buchautor Jürgen Roth.
Kein Wunder: Aus Albanien und dem mittlerweile albanisch beherrschten
Kosovo kamen vorzugsweise Kriminelle nach Deutschland, was man
-entgegen der propagandistischen Dauerbeschallung durch die CDU/CSU -
für die Ukraine gerade nicht behaupten kann.
In Zahlen: Die Zahl der ausgegebenen deutschen Visa an der deutschen
Botschaft in Tirana stieg von 8 000 im Jahre 1998 auf 19 000 in den
Jahren 2002 und 2003. Das ist weit weniger als in Kiew, wo die
Vergleichszahlen bei 130 000 (1998) bzw. 300 000 (2001) liegen. Doch
das Schmiergeld für Albaner pendelte mit durchschnittlich 2 000 Euro
pro Genehmigung etwa beim Siebenfachen des Bakschischs in Kiew - das
konnten sich wirklich nur noch Leute leisten, die zu Geld gekommen
waren, und das sind in dem Balkanstaat vorzugsweise Kriminelle. Eine
Zunahme von Verbrechen seitens ukrainischer Banden nach Inkrafttreten
des Volmer-Erlasses im Frühjahr 2000 konnte dagegen bisher nicht
festgestellt werden (siehe jW vom Montag).
Das Bestechungsgeld hatten sich albanische Mittelsmänner vor Ort und
deutsche Beamte »in einer von Korruption fast lückenlos durchsetzten
Visa-Stelle« - so die Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung mit Bezug
auf eine Prüfkommission der deutschen Regierung - geteilt.
»Leichtfertige Visavergabe und das hohe Maß an Korruption« hätten
demnach in Tirana dazu geführt, »daß auch an die Chefs von albanischen
kriminellen Banden Visa ausgegeben« wurden. Das habe das
Bundeskriminalamt schon früher festgestellt. Besonders brisant war die
Ausgabe von Langzeitvisa: Nachdem das Leck in Tirana aufgedeckt worden
war, mußten 350 dieser Persilscheine sofort gesperrt werden, über 1 200
weitere Sperrungen folgten bis heute. Im jüngsten Drogenbericht von
Europol ist dokumentiert, daß im Jahre 2004 »albanische Gruppen ihren
Anteil am Rauschgiftmarkt im allgemeinen und am Heroinmarkt im
speziellen kontinuierlich vergrößert« haben. Drei Faktoren haben
demnach zu dieser Entwicklung maßgeblich beigetragen: »Die Anwesenheit
von Albanern aus Albanien, aus dem Kosovo und aus Mazedonien in nahezu
allen westeuropäischen Ländern, die Existenz vieler Erscheinungsformen
organisierter Kriminalität unter Albanern und das Bestreben einiger
Gruppen, aus Albanien, dem Kosovo und Teilen Mazedoniens ein
selbständiges Groß-Albanien zu schaffen.«
Die albanische Bandenkriminalität ist untrennbar mit der
Kosovo-Untergrundbewegung UCK verbunden - die Terrororganisation
finanziert sich hauptsächlich über den Schmuggel von Heroin und
Zwangsprostituierten. Es ist deshalb nicht verwunderlich, daß sich das
Bundesinnenministerium bereits im Sommer 2004 mit »möglichen
Unregelmäßigkeiten« bei der Visavergabe auch in der Kosovo-Hauptstadt
Pristina beschäftigen mußte. Genaue Zahlen darüber wurden allerdings
bislang nicht vorgelegt.
Während die deutsche Visapolitik gegenüber der Ukraine vor allem die
prowestliche Beeinflussung der dortigen Stadtbevölkerung vorantreiben
sollte und letztlich ein Instrument zur Initiierung der sogenannten
orange Revolution in diesem Winter war, muß die ähnliche Freigiebigkeit
gegenüber Albanern andere Gründe haben - sowohl das albanische
Mutterland wie das UN-verwaltete Kosovo sind bereits jetzt viel
weitgehender unter westlicher Kontrolle als die Ukraine bisher.
Möglicherweise verlangten die UCK-Untergrundgangster, mit denen die
deutsche Außenpolitik schon seit den frühen neunziger Jahren enge
Verbindungen geknüpft hat, von ihren Berliner Paten eine gewisse
Freizügigkeit bei Reisen in den EU-Raum zur Abwicklung ihrer dunklen
Geschäfte. Etwaige Unstimmigkeiten ließen sich durch finanzielle
Zuwendungen aus dem Wege räumen - Politiker, auch deutsche, sind in der
Regel käuflich, sonst hätten sie einen anständigen Beruf gewählt.
Es wäre eigentlich zu schön, wenn der Bundesaußenminister, der mit
seinem humanitären Kriegseinsatz zur Rettung der armen Albaner 1999 zum
beliebtesten deutschen Staatsmann der Gegenwart avancierte, nun über
seine balkanischen Freunde stolpern würde. Leider kann man den Sekt
noch nicht kaltstellen, aber zur Sicherheit sollte man ein paar
Fläschchen im Hause haben.
Dalla lista aa-info @yahoogroups.com
Data: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 17:55:41 +0100
Da: "momotombo" <momotombo @...>
Oggetto: La strage di Verona: "gesto inconsulto"? La verità è un'
altra
La strage di Verona: "gesto inconsulto"? La verità è un'altra.
I due giovani poliziotti freddati a Verona durante un servizio di
pattugliamento non potevano immaginare che dentro quell'auto, in una
fredda notte di febbraio, oltre al corpo di una povera giovane ucraina
ci fosse un "terminetor", una spietata macchina addestrata per uccidere
.
Già si parla di "gesto inconsulto", di mostro, di squilibri maniacali.
Quello che ha compiuto Arrigoni ( a parte il suo curriculum) non è
niente di tutto ciò Ma la reazione di uno che stava facendo un
"lavoro". Un "lavoro" molto sporco che , probabilmente, aveva imparato
a fare in Somalia: Uccidere per terrorizzare. La reazione di chi solo
ammazzando due pericolosi testimoni può pensare di farla franca.
Perché dopo avrebbero pensato a coprirlo "loro" i suoi committenti;
come da copione.
Queste affermazioni certamente "impegnative" o forse pesanti non sono
il frutto di qualche banale dietrologismo , come molti lettori,
compagne e compagni sicuramente penseranno.
Sono il frutto di una attenta analisi ormai decennale ( partita da una
contro-inchiesta fatta in romagna sui delitti della UNO BIANCA), di
fatti ed eventi classificati come "criminali" che si saldano invece a
quest'ultimo episodio.
Il primo collegamento immediato è con quanto successe al Pilastro nei
primi anni "90 (dove tre carabinieri ausiliari vennero trucidati dalla
banda della "UNO BIANCA" perché giunti nel posto sbagliato nel momento
sbagliato); e l'omicidio di Bilancia di due guardie giurate dopo aver
sparato a una ragazza nigeriana.
La banda della UNO BIANCA era composta da poliziotti legati ai servizi
segreti militari. Si macchiò di decine di omicidi e ferimenti contro
obiettivi apparentemente diversi fra loro: tabaccai, cassieri,
impiegati, benzinai, passanti e testimoni; inoltre zingari e immigrati
senza neanche il pretesto di finte rapine per pochi spiccioli.
Il periodo più intenso del gruppo si colloca nella delicata fase di
transizione dalla prima alla seconda repubblica ( ma già dalla fine
degli anni '80 era attiva "la banda delle coop" che probabilmente
integrata da altri ignoti elementi operava sempre in E. Romagna e nord
delle marche seminando il terrore nei super mercati coop).
Siamo in un momento di scontri senza esclusione di colpi fra apparati e
servizi segreti legati alla vecchia classe politica (attaccata anche
sul fronte giudiziario con tangentopoli) e quelli legati ai poteri
sovra-nazionali che spingono l'acceleratore delle "riforme" ,
accompagnate dalle dichiarazioni e dai gesti simbolici e plateali di
Kossiga ( il picconatore che durante una cerimonia della massoneria
anglosassone di rito scozzese pianta simbolicamente, in un castello
della Scozia, una quercia dicendo:"speriamo cresca bene").
Flaminio Piccoli, vecchio esponente democristiano,denuncia i piani di
poteri "occulti" per distruggere la prima repubblica e in una
intervista dirà: "Per imporre il turbocapitalismo faranno scorrere
fiumi di sangue".
La scoperta e l'arresto della banda della UNO BIANCA, che agiva
indisturbata da anni lasciando tracce e indizi simili a quelle di un
elefante dentro un negozio di cristalleria, avviene probabilmente negli
ultimi strascichi di questo scontro fra vecchi e nuovi poteri
(ricordiamo il furto "simbolico" di una UNO Bianca dentro la sede del
SISDE a Roma).
Ma la scia di sangue e di crimini particolarmente efferati non si
ferma. Siamo di fronte ad una nuova strategia del terrore che si adegua
e si attualizza alla nuova fase che si è aperta in Italia dopo la
sconfitta del movimento operaio nelle sue forme più "rigide" e la
ristrutturazione sociale e produttiva del paese
Se togliamo gli ultimi bagliori delle stragi di Firenze e Milano, lo
stragismo bombarolo si colloca storicamente nel conflitto di classe
sorto negli anni '70. Conflitto che rappresenta forse la punta più
avanzata nel contesto europeo che fa dell'Italia una "anomalia" nel
mondo occidentale (dopo il riflusso del '68) e soprattutto l'anello
debole della catena imperialista euro-atlantica.
Paradossalmente se lo stragismo bombarolo è una strategia
controrivoluzionaria,tesa a colpire ed arrestare i movimenti sociali di
classe, il nuovo terrorismo dei "serial killers", o dei "terminetors",
si colloca in una strategia "rivoluzionaria" del capitale che deve
necessariamente colpire e disgregare nel più profondo il
conservatorismo e le riluttanze , formali ed informali, della società
italiana alla modernizzazione dopo la caduta del blocco socialista dei
paesi dell'Est e della crisi irreversibile dei modelli
socialdemocratici del Nord Europa .
Esorcizzato il "pericolo comunista" e messi nell'angolino i movimenti
antagonisti resta il problema di disgregare e cancellare tutti quegli
elementi di "arretratezza" che costituiscono un ostacolo al pieno
sviluppo di un capitalismo moderno, efficiente, decisionista, capace
di stare al passo con la competizione globale in formazione.
La società italiana non è preparata a questi cambiamenti radicali che
devono avvenire in tempi rapidi perchè la globalizzazione imperialista
non aspetta nessuno ne tollera ritardatari. Occorre dunque colpirla
nelle sue"cattive" abitudini comportamenrali:
il provincialismo, l'assistenzialismo,la socialità, e persino la
famiglia e le tradizioni religiose, quando diventano ostacolo alla
"rivoluzione culturale" del capitale. Occorre disgregare il
"comunitarismo" conservatore -dirà Luttwak (consigliere speciale della
casa bianca e attento"osservatore" dell'Italia-).
È in questo contesto che appare sempre più evidente la figura del
"serial killer", del"mostro".
Tanti eventi criminali,spesso di una ferocia inaudita, come se si
trattasse di azioni coordinate fra loro.
Li accomuna uno spropositato uso della violenza, spesso la mancanza di
un movente plausibile e , soprattutto, l'indignazione popolare che
riescono a scatenare. Come i delitti della UNO BIANCA.
Menzionarli tutti sarebbe impossibile: ricordiamo "Manolo lo slavo",
ergastolano che riesce a fuggire misteriosamente dal carcere di Rimini
e si mette a terrorizzare le campagne del Nord Italia vestito con
pantaloni mimetici e anfibi .
Usa una 357 Magnum per compiere rapine balorde presso case isolate di
agricoltori "terminando" le sue vittime : 9 morti ammazzati.Una volta
catturato confesserà in una intervista di essere uscito dal carcere
"Grazie a quelli della UNO BIANCA".
Poi c'è il "killer" delle pensionate in Puglia, quello dei taxisti in
Toscana che usa strangolare le sue vittime con un laccio alla
"commandos"; ancora quello delle prostitute a Modena che vede
indagato, che strana coincidenza, un altro ex-parà.
Delle conoscenze del "mostro" Bilancia in ambienti legati ad apparati
statali si ha la conferma quando un detenuto , passato per il carcere
di Rimini, viene a sapere molte cose in merito. Volerà, "suicida" giù
dalla finestra della Questura di La Spezia.
Nel frattempo qualche disgraziato, vuoi per essere immigrato, "terrone,
o per aver avuto qualche precedente per reati sessuali finisce in
"graticola" grazie a ben collaudati depistaggi e impianti accusatori
ridicoli (Vedere la vicenda dei catanesi del Pilastro su cui il
settimanale "Avvenimenti" fece una bella contro-inchiesta).
E che dire del lagunare-assaltatore della Val di Susa (magari qualche
compagno di Torino potrebbe verificare).Circa 3 anni fa Questo tizio ,
descritto da amici e parenti come un uomo mite e gentile (come il suo
collega di Verona), un giorno, forse preso dal rimorso , si presenta
dai giudici di Torino confessando di aver compiuto numerosi omicidi
rimasti insoluti, in finte rapine per conto del SISMI. Partono le prime
verifiche e si comincia a capire che il soggetto non è un mitomane.
Verrà trovato morto "suicidato" con un colpo alla testa nel bagno del
tribunale di Torino durante una udienza.
E perché non ricordare il recente "una bomber" che fabbrica ordignetti
in Veneto ? Chi ha un minimo bagaglio conoscitivo sa che la
preparazione o la manipolazione di esplosivi è qualcosa di estremamente
delicata e pericolosa. Solo chi ha frequentato corsi di "alta
specializzazione" può preparare ordigni di questo tipo. Dove avrà
imparato queste tecniche il nostro amico? In quale base NATO o in quali
"missioni di pace"?
Le vicende di Cogne e di Omar ed Erika sono allo stesso tempo le più
devastanti e "spettacolari": leggete attentamente dall'inizio di questi
tragici fatti fino ad oggi nei maggiori quotidiani ed in particolare
"Il resto del carlino" (stranamente sempre attento a particolari che
lasciano aperte sempre altre ipotesi senza , ovviamente , tirare mai
conclusioni) e vi accorgerete di inchieste zeppe di incongruenze,
sparizioni di prove,depistaggi, confessioni degli imputati
contraddittorie.
Cosa hanno in comune questi due delitti ? Molto:innanzitutto
l'apparizione del reparto dei RIS con le loro investigazioni
"scientifiche" (prova del DNA etc.); poi i genitori che ammazzano i
figli e i figli che ammazzano i genitori nella maniera più sanguinaria
e feroce: a colpi di decine di coltellate e con lo spappolamento del
cranio. Tutto questo non in una grande metropoli, dove farebbe meno
clamore,ma nella provincia italiana,nella piccola comunità montana dove
tutto è sempre più tranquillo e non succede mai niente di eclatante.
L'immaginario collettivo è colpito e turbato profondamente.
Ci penseranno i macellai dell'informazione a rendere tutto più macabro
e "terroristico": "non si può essere sicuri neanche fra le mura
domestiche con la propria famiglia".
L'effetto è equivalente a quello di una strage in una stazione a
ferragostoo o durante le vacanze di Natale .
Del resto non è forse accertato che il "mostro di Rostov" in Russia
negli anni '80 era coperto da settori del KGB che stavano preparando la
transizione a partire dallo scardinamento dei principi socialisti che
garantivano sicurezza e protezione assoluta ai bambini. Occorreva
qualcosa di forte , di traumatico per preparare i russi a quello che
sarebbe venuto più tardi. Qualcosa che i russi non avevano mai visto:
un "mostro" con la tessera del PCUS che divorava bambine.
Lo scopo è sempre lo stesso: condizionare e manipolare costantemente
l'"opinione pubblica" attraverso crimini particolarmente efferati.
Se guardiamo tutto quello che è successo in questi ultimi 15 anni nel
nostro paese ci si renderà conto dei cambiamenti radicali avvenuti in
un lasso di tempo relativamente breve (rispetto ai 45 anni precedenti.
Il terrorismo di stato, nelle sue varie forme ed espressioni ,
accompagna e guida questi cambiamenti.
Rispetto a questa situazione assistiamo ad una completa paralisi e
incapacità dei più disparati settori di movimento nel riprendere in
mano i fili della contro-informazione e della contro-inchiesta. È un
chiaro segno dei tempi di crisi che l'antagonismo di classe vive oggi
in Italia. La crisi ideologica della sinistra rivoluzionaria genera
anche l'incapacità di interpretare i fenomeni e sottovalutarli. Spesso
non vediamo questi fatti come una trave nell'occhio e inseguiamo invece
piccole mosche. Un conto è parlare di strategia terrorista dello stato
un conto fare controinformazione su una banda di teppistelli di
quartiere con simpatie naziste.
Occorre ripristinare il vecchio metodo della controinformazione e della
contro-inchiesta .
Occorre che nei vari ambiti di movimento ci siano soggetti che si
prendano cura della raccolta di informazioni , di analizzarle e
catalogarle. Quella sana abitudine che vari gruppi della sinistra
extraparlamentare avevano durante la strategia delle bombe (anche se
il clima evidentemente non è più lo stesso).
Certo, c'è una netta recrudescenza dell'aspetto repressivo. Sono
tornati a selezionare i militanti più scomodi o pericolosi, si ritorna
all'uso dei reati associativi (vedi il 270 bis), si ripristinano le
provocazioni fasciste per irretire le realtà antagoniste dentro la
spirale della guerra per bande. Ma spesso le strategie che non si
vedono sono le più pericolose perché i movimenti non riescono a
leggerle e a riconoscerle e , soprattutto, a collocarle dentro precisi
progetti politici dell'imperialismo e in questa nuova fase dove si
stanno realizzando molti degli obiettivi che il grande capitale voleva
raggiungere anche attraverso l'uso di queste forme "anomale" di
terrorismo .
Speriamo che qualcuno raccolga questo tentativo di stimolare da parte
nostra la discussione e un interesse maggiore rispetto a questi
fenomeni che rientrano a pieno titolo dentro la così detta strategia
della CONTRORIVOLUZIONE.
"I terroristi sono fra noi"
(Antonio Mantella , maresciallo dei carabinieri "suicidato" nella
strage della caserma di Bagnara di Romagna il 16 Nov 1988)
"siamo in tanti"
(Roberto Savi poliziotto killer della Uno Bianca, dopo l'arresto
Dicembre 1994)
"Per imporre il turbo-capitalismo faranno scorrere fiumi di sangue"
(Flaminio Piccoli esponente nazionale della DC nel periodo di
"Tangentopoli")
Alcuni compagni romagnoli promotori della contro-inchiesta sui delitti
della UNO BIANCA negli anni '90)
Data: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 17:55:41 +0100
Da: "momotombo" <momotombo @...>
Oggetto: La strage di Verona: "gesto inconsulto"? La verità è un'
altra
La strage di Verona: "gesto inconsulto"? La verità è un'altra.
I due giovani poliziotti freddati a Verona durante un servizio di
pattugliamento non potevano immaginare che dentro quell'auto, in una
fredda notte di febbraio, oltre al corpo di una povera giovane ucraina
ci fosse un "terminetor", una spietata macchina addestrata per uccidere
.
Già si parla di "gesto inconsulto", di mostro, di squilibri maniacali.
Quello che ha compiuto Arrigoni ( a parte il suo curriculum) non è
niente di tutto ciò Ma la reazione di uno che stava facendo un
"lavoro". Un "lavoro" molto sporco che , probabilmente, aveva imparato
a fare in Somalia: Uccidere per terrorizzare. La reazione di chi solo
ammazzando due pericolosi testimoni può pensare di farla franca.
Perché dopo avrebbero pensato a coprirlo "loro" i suoi committenti;
come da copione.
Queste affermazioni certamente "impegnative" o forse pesanti non sono
il frutto di qualche banale dietrologismo , come molti lettori,
compagne e compagni sicuramente penseranno.
Sono il frutto di una attenta analisi ormai decennale ( partita da una
contro-inchiesta fatta in romagna sui delitti della UNO BIANCA), di
fatti ed eventi classificati come "criminali" che si saldano invece a
quest'ultimo episodio.
Il primo collegamento immediato è con quanto successe al Pilastro nei
primi anni "90 (dove tre carabinieri ausiliari vennero trucidati dalla
banda della "UNO BIANCA" perché giunti nel posto sbagliato nel momento
sbagliato); e l'omicidio di Bilancia di due guardie giurate dopo aver
sparato a una ragazza nigeriana.
La banda della UNO BIANCA era composta da poliziotti legati ai servizi
segreti militari. Si macchiò di decine di omicidi e ferimenti contro
obiettivi apparentemente diversi fra loro: tabaccai, cassieri,
impiegati, benzinai, passanti e testimoni; inoltre zingari e immigrati
senza neanche il pretesto di finte rapine per pochi spiccioli.
Il periodo più intenso del gruppo si colloca nella delicata fase di
transizione dalla prima alla seconda repubblica ( ma già dalla fine
degli anni '80 era attiva "la banda delle coop" che probabilmente
integrata da altri ignoti elementi operava sempre in E. Romagna e nord
delle marche seminando il terrore nei super mercati coop).
Siamo in un momento di scontri senza esclusione di colpi fra apparati e
servizi segreti legati alla vecchia classe politica (attaccata anche
sul fronte giudiziario con tangentopoli) e quelli legati ai poteri
sovra-nazionali che spingono l'acceleratore delle "riforme" ,
accompagnate dalle dichiarazioni e dai gesti simbolici e plateali di
Kossiga ( il picconatore che durante una cerimonia della massoneria
anglosassone di rito scozzese pianta simbolicamente, in un castello
della Scozia, una quercia dicendo:"speriamo cresca bene").
Flaminio Piccoli, vecchio esponente democristiano,denuncia i piani di
poteri "occulti" per distruggere la prima repubblica e in una
intervista dirà: "Per imporre il turbocapitalismo faranno scorrere
fiumi di sangue".
La scoperta e l'arresto della banda della UNO BIANCA, che agiva
indisturbata da anni lasciando tracce e indizi simili a quelle di un
elefante dentro un negozio di cristalleria, avviene probabilmente negli
ultimi strascichi di questo scontro fra vecchi e nuovi poteri
(ricordiamo il furto "simbolico" di una UNO Bianca dentro la sede del
SISDE a Roma).
Ma la scia di sangue e di crimini particolarmente efferati non si
ferma. Siamo di fronte ad una nuova strategia del terrore che si adegua
e si attualizza alla nuova fase che si è aperta in Italia dopo la
sconfitta del movimento operaio nelle sue forme più "rigide" e la
ristrutturazione sociale e produttiva del paese
Se togliamo gli ultimi bagliori delle stragi di Firenze e Milano, lo
stragismo bombarolo si colloca storicamente nel conflitto di classe
sorto negli anni '70. Conflitto che rappresenta forse la punta più
avanzata nel contesto europeo che fa dell'Italia una "anomalia" nel
mondo occidentale (dopo il riflusso del '68) e soprattutto l'anello
debole della catena imperialista euro-atlantica.
Paradossalmente se lo stragismo bombarolo è una strategia
controrivoluzionaria,tesa a colpire ed arrestare i movimenti sociali di
classe, il nuovo terrorismo dei "serial killers", o dei "terminetors",
si colloca in una strategia "rivoluzionaria" del capitale che deve
necessariamente colpire e disgregare nel più profondo il
conservatorismo e le riluttanze , formali ed informali, della società
italiana alla modernizzazione dopo la caduta del blocco socialista dei
paesi dell'Est e della crisi irreversibile dei modelli
socialdemocratici del Nord Europa .
Esorcizzato il "pericolo comunista" e messi nell'angolino i movimenti
antagonisti resta il problema di disgregare e cancellare tutti quegli
elementi di "arretratezza" che costituiscono un ostacolo al pieno
sviluppo di un capitalismo moderno, efficiente, decisionista, capace
di stare al passo con la competizione globale in formazione.
La società italiana non è preparata a questi cambiamenti radicali che
devono avvenire in tempi rapidi perchè la globalizzazione imperialista
non aspetta nessuno ne tollera ritardatari. Occorre dunque colpirla
nelle sue"cattive" abitudini comportamenrali:
il provincialismo, l'assistenzialismo,la socialità, e persino la
famiglia e le tradizioni religiose, quando diventano ostacolo alla
"rivoluzione culturale" del capitale. Occorre disgregare il
"comunitarismo" conservatore -dirà Luttwak (consigliere speciale della
casa bianca e attento"osservatore" dell'Italia-).
È in questo contesto che appare sempre più evidente la figura del
"serial killer", del"mostro".
Tanti eventi criminali,spesso di una ferocia inaudita, come se si
trattasse di azioni coordinate fra loro.
Li accomuna uno spropositato uso della violenza, spesso la mancanza di
un movente plausibile e , soprattutto, l'indignazione popolare che
riescono a scatenare. Come i delitti della UNO BIANCA.
Menzionarli tutti sarebbe impossibile: ricordiamo "Manolo lo slavo",
ergastolano che riesce a fuggire misteriosamente dal carcere di Rimini
e si mette a terrorizzare le campagne del Nord Italia vestito con
pantaloni mimetici e anfibi .
Usa una 357 Magnum per compiere rapine balorde presso case isolate di
agricoltori "terminando" le sue vittime : 9 morti ammazzati.Una volta
catturato confesserà in una intervista di essere uscito dal carcere
"Grazie a quelli della UNO BIANCA".
Poi c'è il "killer" delle pensionate in Puglia, quello dei taxisti in
Toscana che usa strangolare le sue vittime con un laccio alla
"commandos"; ancora quello delle prostitute a Modena che vede
indagato, che strana coincidenza, un altro ex-parà.
Delle conoscenze del "mostro" Bilancia in ambienti legati ad apparati
statali si ha la conferma quando un detenuto , passato per il carcere
di Rimini, viene a sapere molte cose in merito. Volerà, "suicida" giù
dalla finestra della Questura di La Spezia.
Nel frattempo qualche disgraziato, vuoi per essere immigrato, "terrone,
o per aver avuto qualche precedente per reati sessuali finisce in
"graticola" grazie a ben collaudati depistaggi e impianti accusatori
ridicoli (Vedere la vicenda dei catanesi del Pilastro su cui il
settimanale "Avvenimenti" fece una bella contro-inchiesta).
E che dire del lagunare-assaltatore della Val di Susa (magari qualche
compagno di Torino potrebbe verificare).Circa 3 anni fa Questo tizio ,
descritto da amici e parenti come un uomo mite e gentile (come il suo
collega di Verona), un giorno, forse preso dal rimorso , si presenta
dai giudici di Torino confessando di aver compiuto numerosi omicidi
rimasti insoluti, in finte rapine per conto del SISMI. Partono le prime
verifiche e si comincia a capire che il soggetto non è un mitomane.
Verrà trovato morto "suicidato" con un colpo alla testa nel bagno del
tribunale di Torino durante una udienza.
E perché non ricordare il recente "una bomber" che fabbrica ordignetti
in Veneto ? Chi ha un minimo bagaglio conoscitivo sa che la
preparazione o la manipolazione di esplosivi è qualcosa di estremamente
delicata e pericolosa. Solo chi ha frequentato corsi di "alta
specializzazione" può preparare ordigni di questo tipo. Dove avrà
imparato queste tecniche il nostro amico? In quale base NATO o in quali
"missioni di pace"?
Le vicende di Cogne e di Omar ed Erika sono allo stesso tempo le più
devastanti e "spettacolari": leggete attentamente dall'inizio di questi
tragici fatti fino ad oggi nei maggiori quotidiani ed in particolare
"Il resto del carlino" (stranamente sempre attento a particolari che
lasciano aperte sempre altre ipotesi senza , ovviamente , tirare mai
conclusioni) e vi accorgerete di inchieste zeppe di incongruenze,
sparizioni di prove,depistaggi, confessioni degli imputati
contraddittorie.
Cosa hanno in comune questi due delitti ? Molto:innanzitutto
l'apparizione del reparto dei RIS con le loro investigazioni
"scientifiche" (prova del DNA etc.); poi i genitori che ammazzano i
figli e i figli che ammazzano i genitori nella maniera più sanguinaria
e feroce: a colpi di decine di coltellate e con lo spappolamento del
cranio. Tutto questo non in una grande metropoli, dove farebbe meno
clamore,ma nella provincia italiana,nella piccola comunità montana dove
tutto è sempre più tranquillo e non succede mai niente di eclatante.
L'immaginario collettivo è colpito e turbato profondamente.
Ci penseranno i macellai dell'informazione a rendere tutto più macabro
e "terroristico": "non si può essere sicuri neanche fra le mura
domestiche con la propria famiglia".
L'effetto è equivalente a quello di una strage in una stazione a
ferragostoo o durante le vacanze di Natale .
Del resto non è forse accertato che il "mostro di Rostov" in Russia
negli anni '80 era coperto da settori del KGB che stavano preparando la
transizione a partire dallo scardinamento dei principi socialisti che
garantivano sicurezza e protezione assoluta ai bambini. Occorreva
qualcosa di forte , di traumatico per preparare i russi a quello che
sarebbe venuto più tardi. Qualcosa che i russi non avevano mai visto:
un "mostro" con la tessera del PCUS che divorava bambine.
Lo scopo è sempre lo stesso: condizionare e manipolare costantemente
l'"opinione pubblica" attraverso crimini particolarmente efferati.
Se guardiamo tutto quello che è successo in questi ultimi 15 anni nel
nostro paese ci si renderà conto dei cambiamenti radicali avvenuti in
un lasso di tempo relativamente breve (rispetto ai 45 anni precedenti.
Il terrorismo di stato, nelle sue varie forme ed espressioni ,
accompagna e guida questi cambiamenti.
Rispetto a questa situazione assistiamo ad una completa paralisi e
incapacità dei più disparati settori di movimento nel riprendere in
mano i fili della contro-informazione e della contro-inchiesta. È un
chiaro segno dei tempi di crisi che l'antagonismo di classe vive oggi
in Italia. La crisi ideologica della sinistra rivoluzionaria genera
anche l'incapacità di interpretare i fenomeni e sottovalutarli. Spesso
non vediamo questi fatti come una trave nell'occhio e inseguiamo invece
piccole mosche. Un conto è parlare di strategia terrorista dello stato
un conto fare controinformazione su una banda di teppistelli di
quartiere con simpatie naziste.
Occorre ripristinare il vecchio metodo della controinformazione e della
contro-inchiesta .
Occorre che nei vari ambiti di movimento ci siano soggetti che si
prendano cura della raccolta di informazioni , di analizzarle e
catalogarle. Quella sana abitudine che vari gruppi della sinistra
extraparlamentare avevano durante la strategia delle bombe (anche se
il clima evidentemente non è più lo stesso).
Certo, c'è una netta recrudescenza dell'aspetto repressivo. Sono
tornati a selezionare i militanti più scomodi o pericolosi, si ritorna
all'uso dei reati associativi (vedi il 270 bis), si ripristinano le
provocazioni fasciste per irretire le realtà antagoniste dentro la
spirale della guerra per bande. Ma spesso le strategie che non si
vedono sono le più pericolose perché i movimenti non riescono a
leggerle e a riconoscerle e , soprattutto, a collocarle dentro precisi
progetti politici dell'imperialismo e in questa nuova fase dove si
stanno realizzando molti degli obiettivi che il grande capitale voleva
raggiungere anche attraverso l'uso di queste forme "anomale" di
terrorismo .
Speriamo che qualcuno raccolga questo tentativo di stimolare da parte
nostra la discussione e un interesse maggiore rispetto a questi
fenomeni che rientrano a pieno titolo dentro la così detta strategia
della CONTRORIVOLUZIONE.
"I terroristi sono fra noi"
(Antonio Mantella , maresciallo dei carabinieri "suicidato" nella
strage della caserma di Bagnara di Romagna il 16 Nov 1988)
"siamo in tanti"
(Roberto Savi poliziotto killer della Uno Bianca, dopo l'arresto
Dicembre 1994)
"Per imporre il turbo-capitalismo faranno scorrere fiumi di sangue"
(Flaminio Piccoli esponente nazionale della DC nel periodo di
"Tangentopoli")
Alcuni compagni romagnoli promotori della contro-inchiesta sui delitti
della UNO BIANCA negli anni '90)
da ICDSM-Italia:
1. BRITISH HELSINKI HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP:
Confusing rules and exceptions: Or, why the ICTY should not be judge,
jury and lawmaker (20 February 2005)
2. OPEN LETTER TO THE UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (G.
Louis-Jensen, 11 December 2004)
Lettera aperta di G. Louis-Jensen, rappresentante dell'ICDSM in
Danimarca, alla ex procuratrice del "tribunale" dell'Aia, oggi Alto
Commissario dell'ONU per i Diritti Umani, Louise Arbour...
==========================
26 February Hague International Conference:
The Final Announcement
# http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/icdsm-italia/message/167 #
Terzo - e definitivo - annuncio ufficiale della Conferenza dell'Aia
sulle problematiche legate al processo-farsa contro Milosevic e contro
la Jugoslavia (26 febbraio 2005)
==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
tel/fax +39-06-4828957
email: icdsm-italia @ libero.it
*** CONTRIBUISCI E FAI CONTRIBUIRE:
Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC ***
IL NOSTRO SITO INTERNET:
http://www.pasti.org/linkmilo.htm
IL TESTO IN LINGUA ITALIANA DELLA AUTODIFESA DI MILOSEVIC, IN CORSO
DI REVISIONE E CORREZIONE, E' TEMPORANEAMENTE OSPITATO ALLA PAGINA:
https://www.cnj.it/documentazione/autodifesa04.htm
LE TRASCRIZIONI "UFFICIALI" DEL "PROCESSO" SI TROVANO AI SITI:
http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/transe54.htm (IN ENGLISH)
http://www.un.org/icty/transf54/transf54.htm (EN FRANCAIS)
==========================
1)
http://www.bhhrg.org/LatestNews.asp?ArticleID=60
BRITISH HELSINKI HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP:
NEWS ANALYSIS
Confusing rules and exceptions: Or, why the ICTY should not be judge,
jury and lawmaker
Date: 20 February 2005
“Extensive research has not led to the identification of any case in
any jurisdiction where counsel has been assigned to an accused person
because he was unfit to conduct his case as the result of impaired
physical health.”
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Trial
Chamber, Decision of 22nd September 2004
In a previous news item, dated 13th September 2004, BHHRG reported on
and criticised the decision of the International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia to impose defence counsel on Slobodan Milošević.
Commenting on the Order issued by the Trial Chamber on 10th September
2004,[1] BHHRG concluded,
“Crucially, the Trial Chamber offered no legal argument, i.e. by
quoting precedent or law, for using the health of the accused as a
reason for imposing counsel. It simply rescinded all its earlier
decisions, which had been grounded in law and precedent; it stated that
international and domestic law provided precedents for imposing
counsel, without quoting a single one; and it said that it was ‘in the
interests of justice’ to impose counsel. No definition was given of
these interests.”
Since the publication of that Order (which in turn confirmed an oral
ruling given on 2nd September 2004 [2]) the Trial Chamber has given
more detailed reasoning for its decision, and the Appeal Chamber has
upheld that decision.
(This is in spite of the Appeal Chamber’s decision overturning the
“modalities” laid down by the Trial Chamber for the new regime. In its
Decision of 1st November 2004, the Appeal Chamber criticised the Trial
Chamber for its “excessiveness” in taking away the defendant’s right to
conduct his own counsel, and effectively restored the status quo ante
while upholding the general principle that counsel could be
imposed.[3] This followed the refusal by 92 out of 97 defence witnesses
to testify, after counsel was imposed in September. Although the change
of the modalities means that Mr. Milošević is now once again preparing
and cross-examining witnesses as before, and although he refuses all
contact with imposed counsel, the legal position remains that the ICTY
has invented the principle that a defendant’s right to represent
himself can be overruled for health reasons. The Appeal Chamber upheld
the Trial Chamber’s earlier ruling on this point.)
The Trial Chamber decision of 22nd September 2004 does contain legal
reasoning, most of which was upheld on appeal, and it is therefore
important to revisit this issue in the light of these further legal
statements.
The Trial Chamber issued its “Reasons for Decision on Assignment of
Defence Counsel” on 22nd September 2004.[4] The basic argument of this
document is that the health of the defendant is too fragile for him to
be allowed to defend himself, and that counsel must therefore be
imposed in order to prevent the proceedings from being subject to
excessive delay. The undefined “fairness” of the proceedings is invoked
as an overriding principle in support of this decision.
This report will not concentrate on the merits of the case, which were
dealt with in the report dated 13th September. That report drew
attention to the fact that the right of a defendant to defend himself
in person is clearly enunciated in the ICTY’s own charter (Article 21,
where it is described as a “minimum guarantee”, not subject to any
limitations or qualifications) as well as in all the other relevant
international human rights conventions. It is also forcefully affirmed
in many authoritative national rulings, including most notably the US
Supreme Court’s decision inFaretta v. California(1975). Indeed, the
right was itself clearly enunciated in the Tribunal’s own rulings on
the matter, especially the one dated 4th April 2003, which the
September 2004 decisions overturned.
Instead, the purpose of this report is to look more closely at the
legal methodology employed by the Trial Chamber and the Appeal Chamber
in rescinding their earlier decisions. The legal reasoning is not only
of a disgracefully poor quality; it also calls into serious question
the lawfulness of the Tribunal itself.
One of the key conditions of lawfulness is that the law be clear,
predictable and stable. Yet the reasoning employed by the ICTY
contradicts this fundamental principle. In the explanation given on22nd
September 2004 document, as in the original Order of 10th September
2004 and in the Oral Ruling of 2nd September, the argument is made that
the right to defend oneself in person is not an absolute right, and
that therefore the Trial Chamber has the right to withdraw it. With a
repetition which borders on the compulsive - as if to cover up a guilty
conscience - the Trial Chamber says that the right to defend oneself in
person, recognised by numerous jurisdictions and international
conventions, is in fact not absolute.[5] This point is made repeatedly
in paragraphs 1, 8, 9, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 49, and 50.
The ICTY refers to an earlier ruling which says that the ICTY Charter
is a treaty, and that Article 31 (1) of the Vienna Convention on the
Law of Treaties [6] means that it should be therefore interpreted “in
good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning of the terms of the
treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose.” It
uses this Convention to offset the right to defend oneself in person
(which is described as a “minimum guarantee” in the Charter) and to say
that it must give way to the overarching need for the trial to be fair,
which it will not be if it is repeatedly delayed because of the
defendant’s poor health.
It is unconvincing to see the ICTY suddenly concerned that its trials
should be speedy, when it is (like its sister tribunal, the ICTR in
Arusha) notorious for making defendants wait for years before their
cases come to trial. Had the ICTY Trial Chamber been concerned that the
Milošević trial proceed quickly, it should have prevented the
Prosecution from calling a host of irrelevant “expert” witnesses; it
should have cut down the Prosecution’s time to a few months instead of
two years; and it should have refused to bundle the Bosnia and Croatia
indictments into the same trial as the Kosovo indictment. Apart from
making the trial terribly long, this decision infringed the principle
of extradition law that a defendant cannot be tried for charges other
than those for which he was in fact extradited: the Bosnia and Croatia
indictments were not produced until November 2001, more than two years
after the Kosovo indictment, issued in May 1999, and several months
after the defendant had been transferred to the Tribunal in June 2001.
But the key point in the ICTY’s reasoning is that the right to
self-defence is not absolute. This reasoning contains a fatal non
sequitur, which destroys the Tribunal’s claim to be acting
lawfully. The simple fact that a general rule may admit of some
exceptions – or the fact that a general legal principle can be limited
and refined by other general statements of principle – does not
invalidate the original rule. Instead, the qualifications render the
general rule more precise. This is what jurisprudence is all about. To
infer, as the ICTY does, from the fact that a right is not “absolute”,
that it can be violated in circumstances not covered by the existing
exceptions is to undermine the very notion of lawfulness itself. In
order for the exceptions or refinements to a rule to count as
justification for a decision to overrule it in a particular case, that
case must be an example of the kind of cases dealt with in the
refinements.
On inspection, it appears that none of the exceptions or refinements
discussed in the ICTY Trial Chamber ruling is relevant to the Milošević
case. As the quotation at the beginning of this report shows, the ICTY
has been unable to find a single precedent for the imposition of
counsel against a defendant’s wishes on the grounds of ill health. The
cases adduced by the ICTY in support of its decision to do so for
Milošević are in fact all different from his, and, as such, legally
irrelevant.
For example, in paragraph 33 of the 22nd September 2004 Decision, the
Trial Chamber states:
“If at any stage of a trial there is a real prospect that it will be
disrupted and the integrity of the trial undermined with the risk that
it will not be conducted fairly, then the Trial Chamber has a duty to
put in place a regime which will avoid that … It is widely recognised
in domestic jurisdictions that, where an accused who represents himself
disrupts his trial by misbehaviour, he may be removed from the court
and counsel appointed to conduct his defence. There is no difference in
principle between deliberate misconduct which disrupts the proceedings
and any other circumstance which so disrupts the proceedings as to
threaten the integrity of the trial. These are simply examples of
circumstances in which the right to represent oneself must yield to the
overarching right to a fair trial.” [Italics added.]
Leaving aside for a moment the astonishing idea that the Trial Chamber,
a body which is supposed to apply criminal law, says there is no
difference between an intentional act and events which are outside a
defendant’s control – a criminal tribunal must surely place mens rea at
the very centre of its focus - it is noteworthy that in paragraph 67 of
the same ruling, the Trial Chamber specifically dismisses the
Prosecution’s claim that Mr. Milosevic had been deliberately not taking
his prescribed medicine in order to manipulate his health to delay the
trial. It therefore discounts the possibility that his ill health is
deliberately caused, or that he is being deliberately obstructive. In
other words, this discussion of what to do with obstructive defendants
is totally irrelevant. Mr. Milošević precisely wishes to conduct his
own defence, not obstruct it.[7]
This deliberate elision of intentionally disruptive behaviour with
unintentional illness is especially egregious in view of the fact that,
in its own ruling of 4th April 2003, the Trial Chamber had specifically
considered a case from the Rwanda tribunal,Prosecutor v.
Barayagwiza(Case No. ICTR-97-19-T) and concluded that the Milošević
trial was “very different”.[8] In paragraph 40 of the 4th April 2003
decision, the ICTY Trial Chamber described as “correct” the Amici
curiae’s explanation of what the difference was. The Amici had stated:
“The issue was whether the ICTR Trial Chamber would allow defence
counsel to withdraw from the case in circumstances where the accused
had instructed defence counsel not to represent him in any respect
during the trial. That Trial Chamber held that the accused was
boycotting the trial, that his actions were obstructing the course of
justice, and that defence counsel should not withdraw. Thus, the Amici
Curiae note that Barayagwiza chose not to attend his trial and,
crucially, that he did not assert his right to self-representation;
whereas the Accused in the present case has consistently asserted his
right to represent himself.” [9]
In other words, it is dishonest for the Trial Chamber now (on 22nd
September 2004) to invoke the imposition of counsel in cases where the
defendant is deliberately disruptive, when its earlier rulings clearly
say that this is not an issue in the Milošević trial.
The Trial Chamber uses the same subterfuge in discussing other
qualifications of the general right to defend oneself in person. It
discusses, for instance, its Decision in the Šešelj case, dated 9th May
2003.[10] That ruling approves the imposition of a “standby counsel” to
assist the defendant, whom it also accuses of being obstructive. It is
logically and legally unacceptable to use such a case (whatever one
might think about its merits) to justify imposing counsel on Milošević,
because the imposition is not of “standby counsel,” but instead of
defence counsel, and in any case the defendant has not been found
guilty of deliberate obstruction.
The Trial Chamber then invokes a European Court of Human Rights ruling
from 1992, Croissant v. Germany.[11] Yet as withBarayagwiza, the Trial
Chamberhad already made clear in the 4th April 2003 ruling that this
was not relevant to the Milošević case. The issue turned on whether a
German regional court had the right to impose a third lawyer on a
defendant who already had two. The irrelevance of this to the Milošević
case is threefold: (1) the defendant did not want to defend himself;
(2) he did not suffer from ill health; and (3) the imposition was of an
additional lawyer, not the removal of the ones he had chosen. The
waters were also muddied by the fact that the case was brought to the
ECHR when Mr. Croissant objected to being forced to pay the imposed
lawyer’s legal costs, following his conviction.
It is true that the European Court of Human Rights, which found against
Croissant, does allow for counsel to be imposed against a defendant’s
wishes “in the interests of justice”, and that this phrase is not
defined. But it is also clear that the ECHR approved the imposition of
a third lawyer because it considered that the complexity of the case
required it. So the case is not relevant to the Milošević case: the
complexity of the case has never been invoked as a reason for imposing
counsel, and Croissant did not want to represent himself.
The ICTY then invokes the US Supreme Court Faretta case, and admits
that that ruling confirmed that it is a “fundamental” constitutional
right in the USA to defend oneself in person. The Trial Chamber again
says that this general rule admits of exceptions, which it lists. Yet
the exceptions include only “serious and obstructionist misconduct” by
the defendant and the imposition of “standby counsel” when requested by
the defendant. In other words, the exceptions in Faretta do not support
the Trial Chamber’s argument in the Milošević trial: they refute it.
The ICTY then further claims that even Faretta was hedged around by
Martinez v. Court of Appeal of California in 2000.[12] The ICTY’s
discussion of this case is so tendentious that it seems that whoever
wrote the 22nd September 2004 Decision is deliberately misrepresenting
the evidence. It says that both Martinez and Faretta agree that the
right to pro se defence is “not absolute”. But Martinez qualified that
right only for appeal hearings following conviction, not for trial
hearings. Worse, the ICTY seems to be practising deliberate obfuscation
when it quotes Martinez thus: “Even at the trial level, the
government’s interest in ensuring the integrity and efficiency of the
trial at times outweighs the defendant’s interest in acting as his own
lawyer.” This sentence is quoted as if it supported the ICTY’s decision
to impose counsel on Milošević “in the interests of justice”. But it is
being quoted out of context, in particular by omitting the previous
sentences which read thus: “We have further held that standby counsel
may participate in the trial proceedings, even without the express
consent of the defendant, as long as that participation does not
‘seriously undermine’ the ‘appearance before the jury’ that the
defendant is representing himself … Additionally, the trial judge is
under no duty to provide personal instruction on courtroom procedure or
to perform any legal ‘chores’ for the defendant that counsel would
normally carry out.” Given that this is the sentence immediately prior
to the statement that “the government’s interest in ensuring the
integrity and efficiency of the trial at times outweighs the
defendant’s interest in acting as his own lawyer”, it is clear that
this statement, quoted by the ICTY in support of its own appeal to
“justice” as a reason for imposing counsel, actually refers only to the
obvious fact that a judge cannot be expected waste valuable trial time
coaching an untrained defendant if he elects to represent himself. This
is the conflict of “interest” in question. The statement does not
provide a general rule for the imposition of counsel “in the interests
of justice”. It is simply a misreading of the law, whether deliberate
or accidental, to say that these rulings provide a precedent for the
imposition of counsel on health grounds.
The same applies to the ICTY’s allusion to cases in English and
Scottish law where counsel can be imposed in order to protect witnesses
in rape cases from the trauma of being cross-examined by their alleged
attacker. To bring this into the equation is incredible, for the ICTY
is notorious for proving anonymity for its witnesses, allowing
testimony by video link, and providing other forms of protection for
witnesses, for precisely this reason. These highly exceptional measures
have become (unfortunately) very common in the ICTY, even though they
diminish the defendant’s rights. But nowhere has the issue of trauma
been claimed to be legally relevant to the question of imposing counsel
on Milošević.
The ICTY then makes the extraordinary claim that the jurisprudence of
several civil law countries (France, Germany, Belgium, the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia) requires the presence of a defence lawyer in
serious criminal trial. The fact that it introduces this apparently
decisive argument right at the end of very length legal reasoning gives
rise to suspicion - a suspicion aggravated by the ICTY’s vague
statement that the justification for these rules “appears to be” that
the state requires defendants to have adequate defence. Why “appears to
be”? Do the authors of the document not know what the justification
is? It certainly seems that they are unfamiliar with the civil law
systems of which they speak: Article 13 of the Criminal Procedure of
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia provides that a defendant may elect
to defend himself in person, but the ICTY omits to mention this.
In any case, to adduce jurisprudence from civil law systems is a
subterfuge. While it is true that the ICTY procedures contain some
elements from the civil law tradition – the judges can question
defendants and witnesses, for instance – the basic structure of the
Tribunal is overwhelmingly adversarial. In adversarial systems, the
Prosecution is given huge scope to present his case, and this is why
the Defence is supposed to be on the same level as it. In inquisitorial
systems, by contrast, the emphasis is less on prosecution, but instead
on the judge’s professional duty to ascertain the truth. Indeed, it is
impossible to see how a civil law system could function without the
presence of the defendant in court, since the judge will need to
question him. Yet this is what the ICTY proposes to do with Mr.
Milošević.
The key point is therefore this: no legal system in the world
recognises a difference between a defendant being too ill to defend
himself, and too ill to stand trial. If Mr. Milošević is too ill, the
trial should come to an end immediately. The ICTY has invented this
distinction for the purposes of imposing defence counsel on Mr.
Milošević, just as soon as his defence got under way: It asked its
doctors to answer the question whether Mr. Milošević was too ill to
defend himself, not whether he was too ill to stand trial. [BHHRG has
asked to see the medical reports: no reply has been received from the
ICTY so far.] The ICTY has also invented the principle that a defence
counsel may be imposed on a sick defendant, saying that Mr. Milošević
will be tried in absentia if he is too ill to appear in court. No
jurisdiction countenances this, even for defendants who are represented
by counsel.
The point, though, is not to draw attention to the inherent injustice
of overruling a defendant’s right to defend himself in person. It is,
instead, to highlight the logical and jurisprudential flaws in the
ICTY’s reasoning. These flaws call into question the Tribunal’s very
lawfulness. Lawfulness consists in the correct application of
rules. The repetition of the fact that the right to self-defence is not
absolute is quite insufficient as to justify curtailing it beyond those
circumstances laid down in law and precedent. This is what has happened
in the Milošević case. As the ICTY itself admits, there is no precedent
in any jurisdiction for imposing counsel on a sick defendant. In the
absence of any legislator empowered to change the law, or indeed of any
attempt on the part of the ICTY to make any kind of appeal to a body
other than itself (the International Court of Justice, for instance, or
the European Court of Human Rights), the Hague Tribunal should have
applied the law as it currently stands. That it has done the opposite
shows it to be a law unto itself.
[1] “Order on Request for Certification to Appeal the Decision of the
Trial Chamber on Court Assigned Counsel,” 10th September 2004,
http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/trialc/order-e/040910.htm
[2] http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/040902IT.htm
[3] http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/appeal/decision-e/041101.htm#47
[4] http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/trialc/decision-e/040922.htm
[5] It is stated repeatedly in paragraph 1, 8, 9, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45,
49, 50,
[6] http://www.un.org/law/ilc/texts/treaties.htm
[7] It should be noted that the diagnosis of Mr. Milosevic’s health is
itself open to question. The defendant asked for different physicians
to examine him, alleging that the ones appointed were going to
manipulate their reports to fit the imperatives of the Tribunal. BHHRG
has asked the ICTY to provide the doctors’ reports but it has not yet
received a reply. The doctors were asked to rule on whether the
defendant was too ill to defend himself, a loaded question. Defendants
are often said to be too ill to stand trial, in which case the trial
does not take place, or collapses. The distinction between being too
ill to stand trial and too ill to defend oneself in person has been
completely invented for the purposes of this trial.
[8] The ICTR ruled against Barayagwiza’s application for his counsel to
withdraw on 2nd November 2000, on the grounds that he was being
obstructive and refusing to present a case at all. See
http://www.ictr.org/default.htm
[9] Paragraph 15.
[10] http://www.un.org/icty/seselj/trialc/decision-e/030509.htm, see
especially the discussion in paragraphs 20-30.
[11] The judgement can be read
here: http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/
view.asp?item=1&portal=hbkm&action=html&highlight=Croissant&sessionid=99
0462&skin=hudoc-en
[12]
http://tech.clayton.edu/mshapiro/Para%201107%20Criminal%20Litigation/
Martinez%20v%20Court%20of%20Appeal%20of%20California.htm
==========================
2)
[Lettera aperta di G. Louis-Jensen, rappresentante dell'ICDSM in
Danimarca, alla ex procuratrice del "tribunale" dell'Aia, oggi Alto
Commissario dell'ONU per i Diritti Umani, Louise Arbour...]
Da: "Vladimir Krsljanin"
Data: Ven 17 Dic 2004 17:04:57 Europe/Rome
Oggetto: ICDSM: An Open Letter to Louise Arbour
**************************************************************
INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE TO DEFEND SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC
ICDSM Sofia-New York-Moscow www.icdsm.org
**************************************************************
Canadian Justice Louise Arbour, who fabricated, on direct orders of the
Clinton administration, during its war of aggression against Yugoslavia
in May 1999, the 'initial indictment' against President Milosevic
before the Hague Tribunal, is now the UN High Commissioner for human
rights. In that capacity, she recently visited Denmark. After her
visit, ICDSM member from Denmark, respected architect Mr. Godfred
Louis-Jensen, continuously engaged in the promotion of the truth on the
the dangerous Hague political farce in judicial robes and on the
struggle of President Milosevic, addressed her with the following Open
Letter:
****************************************************************
OPEN LETTER TO THE UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
****************************************************************
Enighedsvej 3
2920 Charlottenlund
D E N M A R K.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
OHCHR-UNOG
8-14 Avenue de la Paix
1211 Geneva 10
SWITZERLAND.
Charlottenlund, 11 December 2004
Dear Louise Arbour,
Re.: The Political Trial of President Milosevic: Open Letter to the UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights
How as a Canadian jurist could you be oblivious of the fact that a
Canadian officer's testimony invalidates the legitimacy of your Initial
Indictment filed while Canada as a member of the NATO was bombing the
F.R. of Yugoslavia, a small nation that in consequence lost its
meaningful capacity to negotiate peace?
On 30th November 2004, when visiting the Danish Institute for Human
Rights (DIHR), speaking at a public meeting you were briefly answering
a couple of questions also on the conduct and progress of the so called
trial against former Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic.
Your answers, as well as my verbal questions are transcribed below (A).
As you were previously the Chief Prosecutor at the International War
Crimes Tribunal in The Hague (ICTY), I ask you to kindly allow me a
couple of comment and further queries:
1) In rather striking contrast to a great many international jurists,
law professors as well as criminal lawyers incl. Bjørn Elmquist, a
former member of the Danish Parliament and current Chairman of DIHR
expressing their alarm and concern over the ICTY's imposition of
counsel on Mr. Milosevic (B), which was decided and executed at the
very start of his defense case in early September this year, you were
concluding that the records of the Tribunal are "absolutely impeccable"
(Sic!).
That would jar on the ears of anyone aware of the facts and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Yet as if the
ICTY were affording Mr. Milosevic every occasion for due process and
fair trial - and even "to excess" - you stressed that the former
Yugoslav president has been "allowed to act unrepresented by councel".
Most recently however the Appeals Chamber - without relying on any
authority whatsoever - decided, that what they now would see as
"substantial disruption of the proceedings" does not require any proof
that the accused had the intention of disrupting the proceedings, a
decision which appears to permit the effective removal of Mr. Milosevic
from the courtroom altogether (C).
Thus opening the door to in absentia trial the ICTY has already made a
mockery also of your suggestion that "councel has been made available
to him". Yet, on that day in Copenhagen you proudly were declaring to
"be the first one to champion the right of any person accused of any
crime to defend himself" - including obviously Mr. Milosevic's to
self-representation in his defence too. As in the circumstances at the
DIHR it did not come out clearly what the OHCHR may in fact do to
promote and protect the rights of Mr. Milosevic, I ask you to kindly
let us know in concrete terms when you are going to exercise your
proposed "championship"?
That exercise might indeed provide an opportunity for you to prove the
very profound consciousness of the right of others associated with, and
said even to be ingeniously created by human rights instruments.
2) If the ICTY were not a political construct, the Trial Chamber could
simply restore Mr. Milosevic´s right to self-representation. If on the
other hand the Tribunal were truly an international judicial
institution - as it is suggested by its name - committed to respect the
Rule of Law, then why would it make such an incredible mess of its own
case, the Prosecution's case?
Without commenting further on the ICTY's performance either as
political or criminal, may I ask you if as responsible for the Initial
Indictment (D) against Mr. Milosevic you did somehow follow the
resulting trial proceedings? You may not of course have been reading up
to 32.079 pages of Trial Transcripts, but surely you studied hearings
specifically devoted to the infamous incident at Racak - which
triggered NATO's war?
The "massacre at Racak" in fact is the one and only count in the
`Kosovo case` dating back to the period prior to the start of the NATO
aggression on 23 March 1999. Hence I find it hard to believe that you
are not aware of the testimony of your countryman, Canadian General
Maisonneuve (E) - a former Head of the OSCE's KVM Regional Centre in
Prizren, Kosovo and these days reportedly a NATO Chief of Staff - who
on Wednesday 29 May 2002 was testifying in The Hague that on the 15th
of January, 1999 he did not know that KLA members had been killed at
Racak, nor in fact that civilians had been killed either (F). In
response to Mr. Milosevic insisting that he "had to know that it was
KLA members", this expert witness - who was in fact in command of the
OSCE's verification mission present at Racak - could not even verify
that anybody were killed there on the day of the alledged "massacre".
The evidence of this key witness for the Prosecution includes wounded
people that he did see to the hospital in nearby Stimlje, in the
afternoon - however they were not members of the KLA, but "a lady and a
young girl" (Trial Transcripts, p.5904, l.1). General Maisonneuve
clearly told the court that "on the 15th, he didn't know" of any
killings! And may I ask you:
Which commander would personally see civilians to the hospital, if in
fact he knew that others had been shot and killed under his very
observing eyes?
It is obviously a crucial point in this 'trial' against Mr. Milosevic,
that only by the 16th did the commanding general learn about those 45
persons alledgedly killed at Racak, as in the early morning hours a
number of bodies were "discovered" on a nearby hill. In the hearing
General Maisonneuve was in fact dissociating himself from the infamous
statement of KVM Head, American Ambassador William Walker - but by that
fundamentally challenging the particular count, which has it that i.a.
"villagers attempting to flee from the Serb police were shot throughout
the village", the general's testimony in fact completely undermines
your Initial Indictment against President Milosevic, as well as against
Milan Milutinovic (then President of Serbia), Nikola Sainovic (then
Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia), Colonel General Ojdanic (then Chief
of the General Staff of the VJ) and the late Vlajko Stojiljkovic (then
a Minister of Internal Affairs of Serbia).
At our meeting on 30 November 2004 you appeared to wish to repudiate
the facts with reference to some BBC-reports of "bodies lying on the
ground".
These however did not appear until later, as you well know - and the
schedule of persons killed, which was eventually attached as an
appendix to your Initial Indictment, does not tie up convincingly with
the your account of the incident - which never made sense at all,
anyway.
The testimony of the commander of the OSCE verifiers, your countryman
was never contradicted during the Prosecution's case - suggesting that
on this particular point at least you are entirely wrong.
The NATO's campaign thus started with a lie - and so did your Initial
Indictment. May I summarize this reasoning by suggesting, that the
rights of Mr. Milosevic are in fact set aside in the interest of the
then U.S. President Clinton, the British Prime Minister Blair and other
Western leaders deciding on the NATO war - and even in a presumed
interest of your own international career.
I am not a criminal lawyer, but as an architect I am quite capable of
finding and judging the facts. As a citizen of Denmark - a NATO country
which regrettably did participate also in what is known to some as "the
conflict in Kosovo" - I hereby challenge your claim of any "absolutely
impeccable" records of the ICTY's case against Mr. Milosevic, and in
particular your theory of what happened "in Racak on January 15th,
1999" (G).
May that suffice to suggest that in respect for international law, and
in fairness also to the peoples of Serbia and the F.R. of Yugoslavia,
this 'trial' at The Hague must now lead to an expeditious release of
Mr. Milosevic, who as President dutyfully stood up to defend his
country.
Faithfully Yours,
Godfred Louis-Jensen, architect
PS: The above contents have been transmitted to Danish and
international press as an open letter in abbreaviated form.
C.C:
President Milosevic, c/o SLOBODA Freedom Association, Belgrade
Bjørn Elmquist, Chairman, Council of the Danish Institute for Human
Rights (DIHR)
Morten Kjærum, Executive Director, Danish Institute for Human Rights
(DIHR)
Tiphaine Dickson, Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
Lieutenant-General J.O. Michel Maisonneuve, NATO HQ SACT COS, Norfolk,
Va.
Enclosures:
A. Transcript of Questions and Answers given by Mme Louise Arbour on
Tuesday November 30th, 2004:
[transcript starts]
GODFRED LOUIS-JENSEN:
Q. I am Godfred Louis-Jensen, an architect. Not a lawyer, I am a member
of the International Committee for the Defence of Slobodan Milosevic.
My question to you is this: Do you not agree, that Mr. Milosevic does
indeed have the right to defend himself? If so - when are you going to
see to it? What are you going to do about it?
Now, I have a small additional question: A countryman of yours, General
Maisonneuve, was testifying in The Hague that: On the 15th of January,
1999 - when General Maisonneuve actually entered the village of Racak
in Kosovo - he "did not know that anybody were killed" (1).
That testimony completely undermines your Indictment (2). Don't you
agree?
Mme LOUISE ARBOUR:
A. I am not aware of Monsieur Maisonneuve - or whoever he was?
testifying in the trial of Milosevic in The Hague, but if indeed he
testified and if he said that in Racak on January 15th, 1999 he didn't
see that anybody had been killed, he should have turned on the BBC as
there he could see the bodies lying on the ground. He may not be able
to see from that who were responsible for it. But if that is the extent
of his testimony I think that it has been amply contradicted by
otherwise very credible evidence.
As to Mr. Milosevic's right to defend himself, I would be the first one
to champion the right of any person accused of any crime to defend
himself. I think that he has been offered that (...) to excess: He has
been allowed to act unrepresented by councel. Councel has been made
available to him. I do not comment on his performance either as
represented or not, but I think that the records of the Tribunal on
affording him every occasion for due process and fair trial are
absolutely impeccable.
[transcript ends]
B. Lawyers Appeal. ICDSM, 29 July 2004:
http://www.icdsm.org/Lawappeal.htm
C."Substantial Disruption" at The Hague: Will Slobodan Milosevic be
Tried in Absentia?". Global Research, November 2004:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/DIC411A.html
D. ICTY INDICTMENT, Case No.IT-99-37. Louise Arbour, 22 May 1999:
http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/mil-ii990524e.htm
E. On Canadian General Maisonneuve:
http://www.act.nato.int/multimedia/bios/maisonneuve.htm
F. Testimony of Canadian General Maisonneuve. ICTY, 29 May 2002:
http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/020529ED.htm
Excerpts from Trial Transcripts, p.5841, l.14 onw.:
Examined by Mr. Milosevic:
Q. I'm asking you, Mr. Maisonneuve, in view of your obligations as a
verifier - and I assume that there is also your obligation to tell the
truth - you had to know, on the 15th when you entered Racak that it was
KLA members who were killed there. Isn't that right or is that not
right?
A. On the 15th, I did not know that KLA members had been killed. In
fact, I did not know that civilians had been killed either. It was on
the 16th that we discovered the bodies, and I can tell you, from my
observations, that these bodies were civilians. In my assessment, they
were not members of the KLA, the bodies that we found.
G. Excerpts of the ICTY's Initial Indictment, Counts 1 - 4:
98. Beginning on or about 1 January 1999 and continuing until the date
of this indictment, forces of the FRY and Serbia, acting at the
direction, with the encouragement, or with the support of Slobodan
MILOSEVIC, Milan MILUTINOVIC, Nikola SAINOVIC, Dragoljub OJDANIC, and
Vlajko STOJILJKOVIC, have murdered hundreds of Kosovo Albanian
civilians. These killings have occurred in a widespread or systematic
manner throughout the province of Kosovo and have resulted in the
deaths of numerous men, women, and children.
Included among the incidents of mass killings are the following:
a. On or about 15 January 1999, in the early morning hours, the village
of Racak (Stimlje/Shtime municipality) was attacked by forces of the
FRY and Serbia. After shelling by the VJ units, the Serb police entered
the village later in the morning and began conducting house-to-house
searches.
Villagers, who attempted to flee from the Serb police, were shot
throughout the village. A group of approximately 25 men attempted to
hide in a building, but were discovered by the Serb police. They were
beaten and then were removed to a nearby hill, where the policemen shot
and killed them. Altogether, the forces of the FRY and Serbia killed
approximately 45 Kosovo Albanians in and around Racak.
1. BRITISH HELSINKI HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP:
Confusing rules and exceptions: Or, why the ICTY should not be judge,
jury and lawmaker (20 February 2005)
2. OPEN LETTER TO THE UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (G.
Louis-Jensen, 11 December 2004)
Lettera aperta di G. Louis-Jensen, rappresentante dell'ICDSM in
Danimarca, alla ex procuratrice del "tribunale" dell'Aia, oggi Alto
Commissario dell'ONU per i Diritti Umani, Louise Arbour...
==========================
26 February Hague International Conference:
The Final Announcement
# http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/icdsm-italia/message/167 #
Terzo - e definitivo - annuncio ufficiale della Conferenza dell'Aia
sulle problematiche legate al processo-farsa contro Milosevic e contro
la Jugoslavia (26 febbraio 2005)
==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
tel/fax +39-06-4828957
email: icdsm-italia @ libero.it
*** CONTRIBUISCI E FAI CONTRIBUIRE:
Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC ***
IL NOSTRO SITO INTERNET:
http://www.pasti.org/linkmilo.htm
IL TESTO IN LINGUA ITALIANA DELLA AUTODIFESA DI MILOSEVIC, IN CORSO
DI REVISIONE E CORREZIONE, E' TEMPORANEAMENTE OSPITATO ALLA PAGINA:
https://www.cnj.it/documentazione/autodifesa04.htm
LE TRASCRIZIONI "UFFICIALI" DEL "PROCESSO" SI TROVANO AI SITI:
http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/transe54.htm (IN ENGLISH)
http://www.un.org/icty/transf54/transf54.htm (EN FRANCAIS)
==========================
1)
http://www.bhhrg.org/LatestNews.asp?ArticleID=60
BRITISH HELSINKI HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP:
NEWS ANALYSIS
Confusing rules and exceptions: Or, why the ICTY should not be judge,
jury and lawmaker
Date: 20 February 2005
“Extensive research has not led to the identification of any case in
any jurisdiction where counsel has been assigned to an accused person
because he was unfit to conduct his case as the result of impaired
physical health.”
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Trial
Chamber, Decision of 22nd September 2004
In a previous news item, dated 13th September 2004, BHHRG reported on
and criticised the decision of the International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia to impose defence counsel on Slobodan Milošević.
Commenting on the Order issued by the Trial Chamber on 10th September
2004,[1] BHHRG concluded,
“Crucially, the Trial Chamber offered no legal argument, i.e. by
quoting precedent or law, for using the health of the accused as a
reason for imposing counsel. It simply rescinded all its earlier
decisions, which had been grounded in law and precedent; it stated that
international and domestic law provided precedents for imposing
counsel, without quoting a single one; and it said that it was ‘in the
interests of justice’ to impose counsel. No definition was given of
these interests.”
Since the publication of that Order (which in turn confirmed an oral
ruling given on 2nd September 2004 [2]) the Trial Chamber has given
more detailed reasoning for its decision, and the Appeal Chamber has
upheld that decision.
(This is in spite of the Appeal Chamber’s decision overturning the
“modalities” laid down by the Trial Chamber for the new regime. In its
Decision of 1st November 2004, the Appeal Chamber criticised the Trial
Chamber for its “excessiveness” in taking away the defendant’s right to
conduct his own counsel, and effectively restored the status quo ante
while upholding the general principle that counsel could be
imposed.[3] This followed the refusal by 92 out of 97 defence witnesses
to testify, after counsel was imposed in September. Although the change
of the modalities means that Mr. Milošević is now once again preparing
and cross-examining witnesses as before, and although he refuses all
contact with imposed counsel, the legal position remains that the ICTY
has invented the principle that a defendant’s right to represent
himself can be overruled for health reasons. The Appeal Chamber upheld
the Trial Chamber’s earlier ruling on this point.)
The Trial Chamber decision of 22nd September 2004 does contain legal
reasoning, most of which was upheld on appeal, and it is therefore
important to revisit this issue in the light of these further legal
statements.
The Trial Chamber issued its “Reasons for Decision on Assignment of
Defence Counsel” on 22nd September 2004.[4] The basic argument of this
document is that the health of the defendant is too fragile for him to
be allowed to defend himself, and that counsel must therefore be
imposed in order to prevent the proceedings from being subject to
excessive delay. The undefined “fairness” of the proceedings is invoked
as an overriding principle in support of this decision.
This report will not concentrate on the merits of the case, which were
dealt with in the report dated 13th September. That report drew
attention to the fact that the right of a defendant to defend himself
in person is clearly enunciated in the ICTY’s own charter (Article 21,
where it is described as a “minimum guarantee”, not subject to any
limitations or qualifications) as well as in all the other relevant
international human rights conventions. It is also forcefully affirmed
in many authoritative national rulings, including most notably the US
Supreme Court’s decision inFaretta v. California(1975). Indeed, the
right was itself clearly enunciated in the Tribunal’s own rulings on
the matter, especially the one dated 4th April 2003, which the
September 2004 decisions overturned.
Instead, the purpose of this report is to look more closely at the
legal methodology employed by the Trial Chamber and the Appeal Chamber
in rescinding their earlier decisions. The legal reasoning is not only
of a disgracefully poor quality; it also calls into serious question
the lawfulness of the Tribunal itself.
One of the key conditions of lawfulness is that the law be clear,
predictable and stable. Yet the reasoning employed by the ICTY
contradicts this fundamental principle. In the explanation given on22nd
September 2004 document, as in the original Order of 10th September
2004 and in the Oral Ruling of 2nd September, the argument is made that
the right to defend oneself in person is not an absolute right, and
that therefore the Trial Chamber has the right to withdraw it. With a
repetition which borders on the compulsive - as if to cover up a guilty
conscience - the Trial Chamber says that the right to defend oneself in
person, recognised by numerous jurisdictions and international
conventions, is in fact not absolute.[5] This point is made repeatedly
in paragraphs 1, 8, 9, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 49, and 50.
The ICTY refers to an earlier ruling which says that the ICTY Charter
is a treaty, and that Article 31 (1) of the Vienna Convention on the
Law of Treaties [6] means that it should be therefore interpreted “in
good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning of the terms of the
treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose.” It
uses this Convention to offset the right to defend oneself in person
(which is described as a “minimum guarantee” in the Charter) and to say
that it must give way to the overarching need for the trial to be fair,
which it will not be if it is repeatedly delayed because of the
defendant’s poor health.
It is unconvincing to see the ICTY suddenly concerned that its trials
should be speedy, when it is (like its sister tribunal, the ICTR in
Arusha) notorious for making defendants wait for years before their
cases come to trial. Had the ICTY Trial Chamber been concerned that the
Milošević trial proceed quickly, it should have prevented the
Prosecution from calling a host of irrelevant “expert” witnesses; it
should have cut down the Prosecution’s time to a few months instead of
two years; and it should have refused to bundle the Bosnia and Croatia
indictments into the same trial as the Kosovo indictment. Apart from
making the trial terribly long, this decision infringed the principle
of extradition law that a defendant cannot be tried for charges other
than those for which he was in fact extradited: the Bosnia and Croatia
indictments were not produced until November 2001, more than two years
after the Kosovo indictment, issued in May 1999, and several months
after the defendant had been transferred to the Tribunal in June 2001.
But the key point in the ICTY’s reasoning is that the right to
self-defence is not absolute. This reasoning contains a fatal non
sequitur, which destroys the Tribunal’s claim to be acting
lawfully. The simple fact that a general rule may admit of some
exceptions – or the fact that a general legal principle can be limited
and refined by other general statements of principle – does not
invalidate the original rule. Instead, the qualifications render the
general rule more precise. This is what jurisprudence is all about. To
infer, as the ICTY does, from the fact that a right is not “absolute”,
that it can be violated in circumstances not covered by the existing
exceptions is to undermine the very notion of lawfulness itself. In
order for the exceptions or refinements to a rule to count as
justification for a decision to overrule it in a particular case, that
case must be an example of the kind of cases dealt with in the
refinements.
On inspection, it appears that none of the exceptions or refinements
discussed in the ICTY Trial Chamber ruling is relevant to the Milošević
case. As the quotation at the beginning of this report shows, the ICTY
has been unable to find a single precedent for the imposition of
counsel against a defendant’s wishes on the grounds of ill health. The
cases adduced by the ICTY in support of its decision to do so for
Milošević are in fact all different from his, and, as such, legally
irrelevant.
For example, in paragraph 33 of the 22nd September 2004 Decision, the
Trial Chamber states:
“If at any stage of a trial there is a real prospect that it will be
disrupted and the integrity of the trial undermined with the risk that
it will not be conducted fairly, then the Trial Chamber has a duty to
put in place a regime which will avoid that … It is widely recognised
in domestic jurisdictions that, where an accused who represents himself
disrupts his trial by misbehaviour, he may be removed from the court
and counsel appointed to conduct his defence. There is no difference in
principle between deliberate misconduct which disrupts the proceedings
and any other circumstance which so disrupts the proceedings as to
threaten the integrity of the trial. These are simply examples of
circumstances in which the right to represent oneself must yield to the
overarching right to a fair trial.” [Italics added.]
Leaving aside for a moment the astonishing idea that the Trial Chamber,
a body which is supposed to apply criminal law, says there is no
difference between an intentional act and events which are outside a
defendant’s control – a criminal tribunal must surely place mens rea at
the very centre of its focus - it is noteworthy that in paragraph 67 of
the same ruling, the Trial Chamber specifically dismisses the
Prosecution’s claim that Mr. Milosevic had been deliberately not taking
his prescribed medicine in order to manipulate his health to delay the
trial. It therefore discounts the possibility that his ill health is
deliberately caused, or that he is being deliberately obstructive. In
other words, this discussion of what to do with obstructive defendants
is totally irrelevant. Mr. Milošević precisely wishes to conduct his
own defence, not obstruct it.[7]
This deliberate elision of intentionally disruptive behaviour with
unintentional illness is especially egregious in view of the fact that,
in its own ruling of 4th April 2003, the Trial Chamber had specifically
considered a case from the Rwanda tribunal,Prosecutor v.
Barayagwiza(Case No. ICTR-97-19-T) and concluded that the Milošević
trial was “very different”.[8] In paragraph 40 of the 4th April 2003
decision, the ICTY Trial Chamber described as “correct” the Amici
curiae’s explanation of what the difference was. The Amici had stated:
“The issue was whether the ICTR Trial Chamber would allow defence
counsel to withdraw from the case in circumstances where the accused
had instructed defence counsel not to represent him in any respect
during the trial. That Trial Chamber held that the accused was
boycotting the trial, that his actions were obstructing the course of
justice, and that defence counsel should not withdraw. Thus, the Amici
Curiae note that Barayagwiza chose not to attend his trial and,
crucially, that he did not assert his right to self-representation;
whereas the Accused in the present case has consistently asserted his
right to represent himself.” [9]
In other words, it is dishonest for the Trial Chamber now (on 22nd
September 2004) to invoke the imposition of counsel in cases where the
defendant is deliberately disruptive, when its earlier rulings clearly
say that this is not an issue in the Milošević trial.
The Trial Chamber uses the same subterfuge in discussing other
qualifications of the general right to defend oneself in person. It
discusses, for instance, its Decision in the Šešelj case, dated 9th May
2003.[10] That ruling approves the imposition of a “standby counsel” to
assist the defendant, whom it also accuses of being obstructive. It is
logically and legally unacceptable to use such a case (whatever one
might think about its merits) to justify imposing counsel on Milošević,
because the imposition is not of “standby counsel,” but instead of
defence counsel, and in any case the defendant has not been found
guilty of deliberate obstruction.
The Trial Chamber then invokes a European Court of Human Rights ruling
from 1992, Croissant v. Germany.[11] Yet as withBarayagwiza, the Trial
Chamberhad already made clear in the 4th April 2003 ruling that this
was not relevant to the Milošević case. The issue turned on whether a
German regional court had the right to impose a third lawyer on a
defendant who already had two. The irrelevance of this to the Milošević
case is threefold: (1) the defendant did not want to defend himself;
(2) he did not suffer from ill health; and (3) the imposition was of an
additional lawyer, not the removal of the ones he had chosen. The
waters were also muddied by the fact that the case was brought to the
ECHR when Mr. Croissant objected to being forced to pay the imposed
lawyer’s legal costs, following his conviction.
It is true that the European Court of Human Rights, which found against
Croissant, does allow for counsel to be imposed against a defendant’s
wishes “in the interests of justice”, and that this phrase is not
defined. But it is also clear that the ECHR approved the imposition of
a third lawyer because it considered that the complexity of the case
required it. So the case is not relevant to the Milošević case: the
complexity of the case has never been invoked as a reason for imposing
counsel, and Croissant did not want to represent himself.
The ICTY then invokes the US Supreme Court Faretta case, and admits
that that ruling confirmed that it is a “fundamental” constitutional
right in the USA to defend oneself in person. The Trial Chamber again
says that this general rule admits of exceptions, which it lists. Yet
the exceptions include only “serious and obstructionist misconduct” by
the defendant and the imposition of “standby counsel” when requested by
the defendant. In other words, the exceptions in Faretta do not support
the Trial Chamber’s argument in the Milošević trial: they refute it.
The ICTY then further claims that even Faretta was hedged around by
Martinez v. Court of Appeal of California in 2000.[12] The ICTY’s
discussion of this case is so tendentious that it seems that whoever
wrote the 22nd September 2004 Decision is deliberately misrepresenting
the evidence. It says that both Martinez and Faretta agree that the
right to pro se defence is “not absolute”. But Martinez qualified that
right only for appeal hearings following conviction, not for trial
hearings. Worse, the ICTY seems to be practising deliberate obfuscation
when it quotes Martinez thus: “Even at the trial level, the
government’s interest in ensuring the integrity and efficiency of the
trial at times outweighs the defendant’s interest in acting as his own
lawyer.” This sentence is quoted as if it supported the ICTY’s decision
to impose counsel on Milošević “in the interests of justice”. But it is
being quoted out of context, in particular by omitting the previous
sentences which read thus: “We have further held that standby counsel
may participate in the trial proceedings, even without the express
consent of the defendant, as long as that participation does not
‘seriously undermine’ the ‘appearance before the jury’ that the
defendant is representing himself … Additionally, the trial judge is
under no duty to provide personal instruction on courtroom procedure or
to perform any legal ‘chores’ for the defendant that counsel would
normally carry out.” Given that this is the sentence immediately prior
to the statement that “the government’s interest in ensuring the
integrity and efficiency of the trial at times outweighs the
defendant’s interest in acting as his own lawyer”, it is clear that
this statement, quoted by the ICTY in support of its own appeal to
“justice” as a reason for imposing counsel, actually refers only to the
obvious fact that a judge cannot be expected waste valuable trial time
coaching an untrained defendant if he elects to represent himself. This
is the conflict of “interest” in question. The statement does not
provide a general rule for the imposition of counsel “in the interests
of justice”. It is simply a misreading of the law, whether deliberate
or accidental, to say that these rulings provide a precedent for the
imposition of counsel on health grounds.
The same applies to the ICTY’s allusion to cases in English and
Scottish law where counsel can be imposed in order to protect witnesses
in rape cases from the trauma of being cross-examined by their alleged
attacker. To bring this into the equation is incredible, for the ICTY
is notorious for proving anonymity for its witnesses, allowing
testimony by video link, and providing other forms of protection for
witnesses, for precisely this reason. These highly exceptional measures
have become (unfortunately) very common in the ICTY, even though they
diminish the defendant’s rights. But nowhere has the issue of trauma
been claimed to be legally relevant to the question of imposing counsel
on Milošević.
The ICTY then makes the extraordinary claim that the jurisprudence of
several civil law countries (France, Germany, Belgium, the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia) requires the presence of a defence lawyer in
serious criminal trial. The fact that it introduces this apparently
decisive argument right at the end of very length legal reasoning gives
rise to suspicion - a suspicion aggravated by the ICTY’s vague
statement that the justification for these rules “appears to be” that
the state requires defendants to have adequate defence. Why “appears to
be”? Do the authors of the document not know what the justification
is? It certainly seems that they are unfamiliar with the civil law
systems of which they speak: Article 13 of the Criminal Procedure of
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia provides that a defendant may elect
to defend himself in person, but the ICTY omits to mention this.
In any case, to adduce jurisprudence from civil law systems is a
subterfuge. While it is true that the ICTY procedures contain some
elements from the civil law tradition – the judges can question
defendants and witnesses, for instance – the basic structure of the
Tribunal is overwhelmingly adversarial. In adversarial systems, the
Prosecution is given huge scope to present his case, and this is why
the Defence is supposed to be on the same level as it. In inquisitorial
systems, by contrast, the emphasis is less on prosecution, but instead
on the judge’s professional duty to ascertain the truth. Indeed, it is
impossible to see how a civil law system could function without the
presence of the defendant in court, since the judge will need to
question him. Yet this is what the ICTY proposes to do with Mr.
Milošević.
The key point is therefore this: no legal system in the world
recognises a difference between a defendant being too ill to defend
himself, and too ill to stand trial. If Mr. Milošević is too ill, the
trial should come to an end immediately. The ICTY has invented this
distinction for the purposes of imposing defence counsel on Mr.
Milošević, just as soon as his defence got under way: It asked its
doctors to answer the question whether Mr. Milošević was too ill to
defend himself, not whether he was too ill to stand trial. [BHHRG has
asked to see the medical reports: no reply has been received from the
ICTY so far.] The ICTY has also invented the principle that a defence
counsel may be imposed on a sick defendant, saying that Mr. Milošević
will be tried in absentia if he is too ill to appear in court. No
jurisdiction countenances this, even for defendants who are represented
by counsel.
The point, though, is not to draw attention to the inherent injustice
of overruling a defendant’s right to defend himself in person. It is,
instead, to highlight the logical and jurisprudential flaws in the
ICTY’s reasoning. These flaws call into question the Tribunal’s very
lawfulness. Lawfulness consists in the correct application of
rules. The repetition of the fact that the right to self-defence is not
absolute is quite insufficient as to justify curtailing it beyond those
circumstances laid down in law and precedent. This is what has happened
in the Milošević case. As the ICTY itself admits, there is no precedent
in any jurisdiction for imposing counsel on a sick defendant. In the
absence of any legislator empowered to change the law, or indeed of any
attempt on the part of the ICTY to make any kind of appeal to a body
other than itself (the International Court of Justice, for instance, or
the European Court of Human Rights), the Hague Tribunal should have
applied the law as it currently stands. That it has done the opposite
shows it to be a law unto itself.
[1] “Order on Request for Certification to Appeal the Decision of the
Trial Chamber on Court Assigned Counsel,” 10th September 2004,
http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/trialc/order-e/040910.htm
[2] http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/040902IT.htm
[3] http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/appeal/decision-e/041101.htm#47
[4] http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/trialc/decision-e/040922.htm
[5] It is stated repeatedly in paragraph 1, 8, 9, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45,
49, 50,
[6] http://www.un.org/law/ilc/texts/treaties.htm
[7] It should be noted that the diagnosis of Mr. Milosevic’s health is
itself open to question. The defendant asked for different physicians
to examine him, alleging that the ones appointed were going to
manipulate their reports to fit the imperatives of the Tribunal. BHHRG
has asked the ICTY to provide the doctors’ reports but it has not yet
received a reply. The doctors were asked to rule on whether the
defendant was too ill to defend himself, a loaded question. Defendants
are often said to be too ill to stand trial, in which case the trial
does not take place, or collapses. The distinction between being too
ill to stand trial and too ill to defend oneself in person has been
completely invented for the purposes of this trial.
[8] The ICTR ruled against Barayagwiza’s application for his counsel to
withdraw on 2nd November 2000, on the grounds that he was being
obstructive and refusing to present a case at all. See
http://www.ictr.org/default.htm
[9] Paragraph 15.
[10] http://www.un.org/icty/seselj/trialc/decision-e/030509.htm, see
especially the discussion in paragraphs 20-30.
[11] The judgement can be read
here: http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/
view.asp?item=1&portal=hbkm&action=html&highlight=Croissant&sessionid=99
0462&skin=hudoc-en
[12]
http://tech.clayton.edu/mshapiro/Para%201107%20Criminal%20Litigation/
Martinez%20v%20Court%20of%20Appeal%20of%20California.htm
==========================
2)
[Lettera aperta di G. Louis-Jensen, rappresentante dell'ICDSM in
Danimarca, alla ex procuratrice del "tribunale" dell'Aia, oggi Alto
Commissario dell'ONU per i Diritti Umani, Louise Arbour...]
Da: "Vladimir Krsljanin"
Data: Ven 17 Dic 2004 17:04:57 Europe/Rome
Oggetto: ICDSM: An Open Letter to Louise Arbour
**************************************************************
INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE TO DEFEND SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC
ICDSM Sofia-New York-Moscow www.icdsm.org
**************************************************************
Canadian Justice Louise Arbour, who fabricated, on direct orders of the
Clinton administration, during its war of aggression against Yugoslavia
in May 1999, the 'initial indictment' against President Milosevic
before the Hague Tribunal, is now the UN High Commissioner for human
rights. In that capacity, she recently visited Denmark. After her
visit, ICDSM member from Denmark, respected architect Mr. Godfred
Louis-Jensen, continuously engaged in the promotion of the truth on the
the dangerous Hague political farce in judicial robes and on the
struggle of President Milosevic, addressed her with the following Open
Letter:
****************************************************************
OPEN LETTER TO THE UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
****************************************************************
Enighedsvej 3
2920 Charlottenlund
D E N M A R K.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
OHCHR-UNOG
8-14 Avenue de la Paix
1211 Geneva 10
SWITZERLAND.
Charlottenlund, 11 December 2004
Dear Louise Arbour,
Re.: The Political Trial of President Milosevic: Open Letter to the UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights
How as a Canadian jurist could you be oblivious of the fact that a
Canadian officer's testimony invalidates the legitimacy of your Initial
Indictment filed while Canada as a member of the NATO was bombing the
F.R. of Yugoslavia, a small nation that in consequence lost its
meaningful capacity to negotiate peace?
On 30th November 2004, when visiting the Danish Institute for Human
Rights (DIHR), speaking at a public meeting you were briefly answering
a couple of questions also on the conduct and progress of the so called
trial against former Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic.
Your answers, as well as my verbal questions are transcribed below (A).
As you were previously the Chief Prosecutor at the International War
Crimes Tribunal in The Hague (ICTY), I ask you to kindly allow me a
couple of comment and further queries:
1) In rather striking contrast to a great many international jurists,
law professors as well as criminal lawyers incl. Bjørn Elmquist, a
former member of the Danish Parliament and current Chairman of DIHR
expressing their alarm and concern over the ICTY's imposition of
counsel on Mr. Milosevic (B), which was decided and executed at the
very start of his defense case in early September this year, you were
concluding that the records of the Tribunal are "absolutely impeccable"
(Sic!).
That would jar on the ears of anyone aware of the facts and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Yet as if the
ICTY were affording Mr. Milosevic every occasion for due process and
fair trial - and even "to excess" - you stressed that the former
Yugoslav president has been "allowed to act unrepresented by councel".
Most recently however the Appeals Chamber - without relying on any
authority whatsoever - decided, that what they now would see as
"substantial disruption of the proceedings" does not require any proof
that the accused had the intention of disrupting the proceedings, a
decision which appears to permit the effective removal of Mr. Milosevic
from the courtroom altogether (C).
Thus opening the door to in absentia trial the ICTY has already made a
mockery also of your suggestion that "councel has been made available
to him". Yet, on that day in Copenhagen you proudly were declaring to
"be the first one to champion the right of any person accused of any
crime to defend himself" - including obviously Mr. Milosevic's to
self-representation in his defence too. As in the circumstances at the
DIHR it did not come out clearly what the OHCHR may in fact do to
promote and protect the rights of Mr. Milosevic, I ask you to kindly
let us know in concrete terms when you are going to exercise your
proposed "championship"?
That exercise might indeed provide an opportunity for you to prove the
very profound consciousness of the right of others associated with, and
said even to be ingeniously created by human rights instruments.
2) If the ICTY were not a political construct, the Trial Chamber could
simply restore Mr. Milosevic´s right to self-representation. If on the
other hand the Tribunal were truly an international judicial
institution - as it is suggested by its name - committed to respect the
Rule of Law, then why would it make such an incredible mess of its own
case, the Prosecution's case?
Without commenting further on the ICTY's performance either as
political or criminal, may I ask you if as responsible for the Initial
Indictment (D) against Mr. Milosevic you did somehow follow the
resulting trial proceedings? You may not of course have been reading up
to 32.079 pages of Trial Transcripts, but surely you studied hearings
specifically devoted to the infamous incident at Racak - which
triggered NATO's war?
The "massacre at Racak" in fact is the one and only count in the
`Kosovo case` dating back to the period prior to the start of the NATO
aggression on 23 March 1999. Hence I find it hard to believe that you
are not aware of the testimony of your countryman, Canadian General
Maisonneuve (E) - a former Head of the OSCE's KVM Regional Centre in
Prizren, Kosovo and these days reportedly a NATO Chief of Staff - who
on Wednesday 29 May 2002 was testifying in The Hague that on the 15th
of January, 1999 he did not know that KLA members had been killed at
Racak, nor in fact that civilians had been killed either (F). In
response to Mr. Milosevic insisting that he "had to know that it was
KLA members", this expert witness - who was in fact in command of the
OSCE's verification mission present at Racak - could not even verify
that anybody were killed there on the day of the alledged "massacre".
The evidence of this key witness for the Prosecution includes wounded
people that he did see to the hospital in nearby Stimlje, in the
afternoon - however they were not members of the KLA, but "a lady and a
young girl" (Trial Transcripts, p.5904, l.1). General Maisonneuve
clearly told the court that "on the 15th, he didn't know" of any
killings! And may I ask you:
Which commander would personally see civilians to the hospital, if in
fact he knew that others had been shot and killed under his very
observing eyes?
It is obviously a crucial point in this 'trial' against Mr. Milosevic,
that only by the 16th did the commanding general learn about those 45
persons alledgedly killed at Racak, as in the early morning hours a
number of bodies were "discovered" on a nearby hill. In the hearing
General Maisonneuve was in fact dissociating himself from the infamous
statement of KVM Head, American Ambassador William Walker - but by that
fundamentally challenging the particular count, which has it that i.a.
"villagers attempting to flee from the Serb police were shot throughout
the village", the general's testimony in fact completely undermines
your Initial Indictment against President Milosevic, as well as against
Milan Milutinovic (then President of Serbia), Nikola Sainovic (then
Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia), Colonel General Ojdanic (then Chief
of the General Staff of the VJ) and the late Vlajko Stojiljkovic (then
a Minister of Internal Affairs of Serbia).
At our meeting on 30 November 2004 you appeared to wish to repudiate
the facts with reference to some BBC-reports of "bodies lying on the
ground".
These however did not appear until later, as you well know - and the
schedule of persons killed, which was eventually attached as an
appendix to your Initial Indictment, does not tie up convincingly with
the your account of the incident - which never made sense at all,
anyway.
The testimony of the commander of the OSCE verifiers, your countryman
was never contradicted during the Prosecution's case - suggesting that
on this particular point at least you are entirely wrong.
The NATO's campaign thus started with a lie - and so did your Initial
Indictment. May I summarize this reasoning by suggesting, that the
rights of Mr. Milosevic are in fact set aside in the interest of the
then U.S. President Clinton, the British Prime Minister Blair and other
Western leaders deciding on the NATO war - and even in a presumed
interest of your own international career.
I am not a criminal lawyer, but as an architect I am quite capable of
finding and judging the facts. As a citizen of Denmark - a NATO country
which regrettably did participate also in what is known to some as "the
conflict in Kosovo" - I hereby challenge your claim of any "absolutely
impeccable" records of the ICTY's case against Mr. Milosevic, and in
particular your theory of what happened "in Racak on January 15th,
1999" (G).
May that suffice to suggest that in respect for international law, and
in fairness also to the peoples of Serbia and the F.R. of Yugoslavia,
this 'trial' at The Hague must now lead to an expeditious release of
Mr. Milosevic, who as President dutyfully stood up to defend his
country.
Faithfully Yours,
Godfred Louis-Jensen, architect
PS: The above contents have been transmitted to Danish and
international press as an open letter in abbreaviated form.
C.C:
President Milosevic, c/o SLOBODA Freedom Association, Belgrade
Bjørn Elmquist, Chairman, Council of the Danish Institute for Human
Rights (DIHR)
Morten Kjærum, Executive Director, Danish Institute for Human Rights
(DIHR)
Tiphaine Dickson, Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
Lieutenant-General J.O. Michel Maisonneuve, NATO HQ SACT COS, Norfolk,
Va.
Enclosures:
A. Transcript of Questions and Answers given by Mme Louise Arbour on
Tuesday November 30th, 2004:
[transcript starts]
GODFRED LOUIS-JENSEN:
Q. I am Godfred Louis-Jensen, an architect. Not a lawyer, I am a member
of the International Committee for the Defence of Slobodan Milosevic.
My question to you is this: Do you not agree, that Mr. Milosevic does
indeed have the right to defend himself? If so - when are you going to
see to it? What are you going to do about it?
Now, I have a small additional question: A countryman of yours, General
Maisonneuve, was testifying in The Hague that: On the 15th of January,
1999 - when General Maisonneuve actually entered the village of Racak
in Kosovo - he "did not know that anybody were killed" (1).
That testimony completely undermines your Indictment (2). Don't you
agree?
Mme LOUISE ARBOUR:
A. I am not aware of Monsieur Maisonneuve - or whoever he was?
testifying in the trial of Milosevic in The Hague, but if indeed he
testified and if he said that in Racak on January 15th, 1999 he didn't
see that anybody had been killed, he should have turned on the BBC as
there he could see the bodies lying on the ground. He may not be able
to see from that who were responsible for it. But if that is the extent
of his testimony I think that it has been amply contradicted by
otherwise very credible evidence.
As to Mr. Milosevic's right to defend himself, I would be the first one
to champion the right of any person accused of any crime to defend
himself. I think that he has been offered that (...) to excess: He has
been allowed to act unrepresented by councel. Councel has been made
available to him. I do not comment on his performance either as
represented or not, but I think that the records of the Tribunal on
affording him every occasion for due process and fair trial are
absolutely impeccable.
[transcript ends]
B. Lawyers Appeal. ICDSM, 29 July 2004:
http://www.icdsm.org/Lawappeal.htm
C."Substantial Disruption" at The Hague: Will Slobodan Milosevic be
Tried in Absentia?". Global Research, November 2004:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/DIC411A.html
D. ICTY INDICTMENT, Case No.IT-99-37. Louise Arbour, 22 May 1999:
http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/mil-ii990524e.htm
E. On Canadian General Maisonneuve:
http://www.act.nato.int/multimedia/bios/maisonneuve.htm
F. Testimony of Canadian General Maisonneuve. ICTY, 29 May 2002:
http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/020529ED.htm
Excerpts from Trial Transcripts, p.5841, l.14 onw.:
Examined by Mr. Milosevic:
Q. I'm asking you, Mr. Maisonneuve, in view of your obligations as a
verifier - and I assume that there is also your obligation to tell the
truth - you had to know, on the 15th when you entered Racak that it was
KLA members who were killed there. Isn't that right or is that not
right?
A. On the 15th, I did not know that KLA members had been killed. In
fact, I did not know that civilians had been killed either. It was on
the 16th that we discovered the bodies, and I can tell you, from my
observations, that these bodies were civilians. In my assessment, they
were not members of the KLA, the bodies that we found.
G. Excerpts of the ICTY's Initial Indictment, Counts 1 - 4:
98. Beginning on or about 1 January 1999 and continuing until the date
of this indictment, forces of the FRY and Serbia, acting at the
direction, with the encouragement, or with the support of Slobodan
MILOSEVIC, Milan MILUTINOVIC, Nikola SAINOVIC, Dragoljub OJDANIC, and
Vlajko STOJILJKOVIC, have murdered hundreds of Kosovo Albanian
civilians. These killings have occurred in a widespread or systematic
manner throughout the province of Kosovo and have resulted in the
deaths of numerous men, women, and children.
Included among the incidents of mass killings are the following:
a. On or about 15 January 1999, in the early morning hours, the village
of Racak (Stimlje/Shtime municipality) was attacked by forces of the
FRY and Serbia. After shelling by the VJ units, the Serb police entered
the village later in the morning and began conducting house-to-house
searches.
Villagers, who attempted to flee from the Serb police, were shot
throughout the village. A group of approximately 25 men attempted to
hide in a building, but were discovered by the Serb police. They were
beaten and then were removed to a nearby hill, where the policemen shot
and killed them. Altogether, the forces of the FRY and Serbia killed
approximately 45 Kosovo Albanians in and around Racak.