Nota: Sarebbe importante disporre di una traduzione in lingua italiana
del pezzo seguente. Chi fosse disponibile a tradurre e' pregato di
contattarci subito: <jugocoord@...>.
---
Note: Bare history is demonstrating, day after day, that the criticism
towards Tito's Yugoslavia and its leadership - as it is expressed in
the following article - is unjustified. Apart from this, we find this
contribution by M. Tepavac really excellent. CNJ
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 08:20:53 +0100
From: "Milan Tepavac"
To: "YUGOSLAVIAINFO" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>,
THE CASE OF BILJANA PLAVSIC
BEFORE THE SO-CALLED HAGUE TRIBUNAL
The acknowledgment of personal guilt if it really exists, is
a moral act, but the fact remains that she did it in the
wrong place, in front of the wrong people, as a trade-off
and without naming the main culprits for the tragedy
faced by her own people and herself.
December 18th 2002 marked the end of the trial
against Biljana Plavsic, former top official and political
leader of the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the time of the
illicit secession war that raged there between 1992 and 1995,
and president of the Republic of Srpska after the signing all
the Dayton agreement, after she changed her mind and
pleaded guilty for crimes against humanity. The sentence of
the court is expected by the end of January 2003. The
prosecution suggested a sentence of 15-25 years of
imprisonment, while the Defense underlined the fact that
any sentence longer than 8 years -- bearing in mind that
the accused is 72 years old -- would be equivalent to a life
sentence.
For those who refuse to recognize this institution as a
legal and legitimate international criminal court (1) --
including the author of this text -- the whole procedure
against Biljana Plavsic and other persons detained in
Scheveningen Prison at the Hague, including, of course,
Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia and
the Republic of Serbia, legally means nothing, i.e. cannot
bear any consequences in the sense of international law. All
the decisions of this illegal and illegitimate institution are
legally unfounded and cannot serve as a precedent in
international law. It is in fact, an institution that was
established by the United Nations Security Council under the
pressure of the United States and contrary to the United
Nations Charter. Certain political reasons -- "political" in
the worse sense of this word -- forced the US to do so. We
shall not dwell upon such reasons, but two must have been
the most decisive ones: the imperialist tendency towards
global domination, and the breakup of SFR Yugoslavia, to
help create in the Yugoslav region mini states that are easily
manipulated, and the grant the Moslems in Yugoslavia --
with the intention to placate their efforts against Israel --
some sort of "Moslimania" right in the heart of Southeast
Europe. The personal hatred against Serbs harbored by
Madeleine Albright, sometimes referred to as "Tribunal's
godmother", must also have played a certain role.(2)
The ICTY was founded by the U.N. Security Council
with its resolution No. 827 dated May 25th 1993, even though
it had no such authority according to the U.N. Charter. With
the same resolution it passed the Tribunal Statute, which is,
obviously, also illegal and invalid as a legal document. Of all
the persons detained by the Tribunal in the Scheveningen
dungeon -- used during World War II by the Gestapo to
torture Resistance fighters -- only Slobodan Milosevic
remains firm in refusing to recognize this institution, and in
his statements during the "process" against him, uses every
opportunity to reiterate this. He is assisted in his efforts by
the Yugoslav Defense Committee, the International
Committee and several other national committees, the
German one being particularly active among them. Naturally,
he also relies on the help of a large number of individuals --
international jurists, politicians, writers and especially the
Russian Duma. Objectively speaking, the Hague Tribunal is
worse than any of Hitler's or Stalin's courts, because those
courts at least had some formal legality, whilst ICTY has
neither legality nor legitimacy. Undoubtedly, no one normal
within the international community would want the Security
Council to become some sort of a World Government
reserving for itself even legislative powers to define
international criminal offenses. One must also consider the
fact that the Tribunal can prosecute only a limited number of
suspects (about 50), whilst the number of those that have
committed crimes is at least ten times greater. Therefore, by
the virtue of things, the national courts are the only ones that
can bring justice to this region.
In the beginning I did not object to the legality of the
Tribunal and its Statute. I thought that Tribunal would be
judging the main culprits fully Yugoslav tragedy -- some
two dozen people -- and this is why the back in 1995 I
submitted to the Tribunal criminal charges against the
following persons: Franjo Tudjman, Alija Izetbegovic, Milan
Kucan, Kiro Gligorov (secession leaders), and the following
foreign assistants, aiders and financers: Hans Dietrich
Genscher, Helmut Kohl, Klaus Kinkel, Peter Alexander
Rupert (Lord) Carrington, Robert Badintere, William
Clinton, Aloysius Mock, Gesa Yanewsky, Carol Woytilla
(Pope John Paul II), James Baker, Hans van den Broek and
Franz Vranicky, as the prime culprits for provoking the
secession wars in Yugoslavia, contrary to international law
and the OSCE Helsinki Final Act. I also asked that
national courts should prosecute Borislav Jovic, Stipe Mesic,
Janez Drnovsek, Ante Markovic, Veljko Kadijevic, Budimir
Loncar and several other persons for breaching the
Constitution of SFRY and the Criminal Code of SFRY, as
well as for not taking measures to protect the constituted
order in accordance with the Constitution, the Criminal Code
and the oath they took when they stepped into the office for
which they collected a handsome salary.(3). Since the
Tribunal refused to initiate proceedings against the main
culprits, it became clear to me that this was by no means a
court administering justice, but rather a political creation of
the anti-Serbian racists, and subsequently a tool used by
NATO for its domination. Instead of prosecuting those
culprits, the "court" turned on Slobodan Milosevic, a man
that did the most normal thing in the world -- i.e. tried to
defend his country and his homeland, from the armed attacks
of the crazed secessionists, from NATO aggression and
enslavement.
Still, in spite of all that, the Biljana Plavsic case must
be analyzed in detail not only from the political perspective,
but also from the legal aspects, because many are those
throughout the world -- lamentably in Yugoslavia and the
Republic of Srpska as well -- that believe either that ICTY is
nevertheless a legal international criminal court, and that its
Statute positively reflects the international criminal law, or
that one should not insist on the lack of legality of the
Tribunal, because it's two objectives -- punishing war
criminals and establishing peace and reconciliation in former
Yugoslavia -- are justified, rational and moral.
So, let's consider the arguments they can invoke in
favor of their standing in the light of what Biljana Plavsic
did, putting aside the issue of legality and legitimacy of the
Tribunal and its Statute. Let us examine the case of Biljana
Plavsic as if a real court were involved.
What is it that made her change her mind about her guilt,
which she initially denied before the Tribunal?
Shocked by the news that Biljana Plavsic admitted to
her guilt with respect to the indictment raised by the
Tribunal, the Serbs in Diaspora -- who sense the
demonization of the Serbian people in the West much more
than we do here in the country -- used the Internet to
address several questions to her, to the public and to the
politicians in Yugoslavia and the Republic of Srpska:
We still recall your willful, and fully conscient decision to
appear as the accused before the International Criminal
Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, to help establish the truth
about the participants and the events that took place. We still
remember your first statement before the court at The Hague,
which you started with the words "your honor".
Subsequently, you stated under oath and guaranteed with
your honor, that you are not guilty on any of the counts, i.e.
that you are not responsible for the crimes that have been
committed. A few days ago we have learned from a videotape
presented before the court at the Hague, that whilst you were
staying in Belgrade -- in an atmosphere and with the status
of a person protected by the Hague court -- you rejected
your initial plea which you gave under oath and guaranteed
with your honor, i.e. that you admitted your guilt for the
crimes.
Mme Plavsic, ex-president of the Republic of Srpska, we
would very much appreciate if you could offer the answers to
the following questions, publicly, in a radio and television
press-conference in Belgrade:
Is the video recording, presented before the Hague Tribunal as
your statement given freely and without coercion, really true,
though it denies your earlier plea given before the court at the
Hague? Which one of the two statements is valid, which one
is true? If the statement presented on videotape is true, we
would very much appreciate if you could explain the crimes
you feel guilty of, and why this is so. On the other hand, if
your initial statement given personally before the court at
The Hague is true, we would be grateful if you were to
explain the circumstances under which you made the
statement presented on videotape before the Court at The Hague.
Mme Plavsic, you know perfectly well that the Serbian people
has invested its kingdom, and generations of its best children,
not only to gain freedom and live freely, but also to free all
other Yugoslav nations, that we might all live in friendship.
You also know, that the Serbian people has been the one to
suffer the most during the rule of Josip Broz Tito, just to
preserve peace. You are aware that the Serbian people in
Bosnia-Herzegovina wanted to continue living in peace with
the other Yugoslav nations in the common state -
Yugoslavia, without seceding from it. You know that it made
this choice at the referendum. You know that both in the
country and abroad the results of the referendum carried out
by all other nations have been honored (even those of the
Republics, in contrast with the Constitution of SFR
Yugoslavia) and that only the referenda of the Serbian people
in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Krayina were belittled and
ignored. You know that according to the Constitution of SFR
Yugoslavia, the right to self-determination had not been
granted to any of the Republics. You know that SR
Bosnia-Herzegovina was a Republic of three equal-righted
and constituent nations: Moslems, Serbs and Croats.
You know that the aggression forced the Serbian nation to
resort to justified defense; the aggression started in
Bosnia-Herzegovina with the Moslem attack on a wedding
party resulting in the wounding of the newlyweds and the
death of the bride's father. This incident in Sarajevo occurred
just because the newlyweds were Serbs. You know that the
aggression continued with the attack of Croatian paramilitary
units on Bosanski Brod, where they massacred Serbs
including the town mayor. The day after, they joined the
Moslem paramilitary units in the attack on the Serbian
village of Sjekovac where they burned down both the village
and the villagers. You are aware that the aggression escalated
further with the slaughters of Serbs around the villages of
Vlasenica and Bratunac. We know all that too. We have, or
we had friends and relatives there, we had -- because some
of them fell as innocent victims.
You are also perfectly aware of the appeal launched back
then by His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Pavle to all the Serbs:
not to succumb to hatred and not to commit crimes.
You were the president of the Republic of Srpska. It is your
moral, material, national and official duty to explain publicly,
as a free person -- primarily to the people of the Republic of
Srpska, then to the Serbian people and to the Moslem and
Croatian people -- what is it that you really did, and what is
it that you are responsible for with regards to the accusations
made against you at the beginning of your trial at the Hague
Tribunal.
If your statement presented on videotape before the court at
the Hague is correct and true, we would greatly appreciate it
if you could explain to the Serbian people why did you betray
the Serbian morale, the dignity of the Serbian people, the
humanity it has always shown to the other Yugoslav nations,
and why did you fail to state that before your own people in
the Republic of Srpska first? Why did you betray the trust
and the honor bestowed upon you by the people of the
Republic of Srpska?
On the other hand, if your first statement given before the
court at the Hague is true, we appeal to you once again -- as
an official that accept the honor and the trusts of her native
people, as a former president all the Republic of Srpska -- to
publicly reveal what was it that induced you to make the
statement shown on videotape at the Hague Tribunal, with
which you denied your earlier plea given under oath and
guaranteed by your honor.
Judging by her attitude in the final stage of the
process before the Tribunal, and by the speech she delivered
in that phase, appeals like the one quoted above, addressed to
her, the public and the relevant factors in Serbia and the
Republic of Srpska, had absolutely no effect. What was the
reason that made her omit in her speech any reference to
even the basic facts, which are so well known, that would
have shed some light on the events in Bosnia and
Herzegovina for which she has been accused, and which she
has confessed to before the Tribunal? Here is her whole
speech; maybe it hides the answer to this essential question.
She spoke in Serbian, and this is unofficial translation of it:
<<
Your Honor, Mme Prosecutor, Defense attorneys -- I thank
you for offering me today this opportunity to speak.
Nearly two years ago I came here as someone
accused of taking part in crimes against other human beings,
even against humanity. I came for two reasons: to face these
accusations and spare my people -- because it was clear that
they will be paying the price of anyone failing to come here. I
have had time to examine these accusations, and to verify and
evaluate them together with my attorneys. I have now been
convinced and I accept that several thousand innocent people
were victims of organized and systematic actions to eliminate
Moslems and Croats from areas that the Serbs thought were
theirs. At that time I had thoughtlessly convinced myself that
this was a question of survival and self-defense. Actually,
even more than that -- our leadership, and I was an essential
part of it -- guided an undertaking which had as its victims
countless innocent people. Clarifications on self-defense and
survival offer no justification. In the end, even our fellow
countrymen have said that in this war, we had lost our
nobleness.
Obvious questions arise: if this truth is so evident
now, why is it that I did not see it before; and -- how is it
possible that our leadership and those that followed it could
have committed to such acts? The answer to both these
questions is, I believe -- fear -- blinding fear leading to
obsession, especially for those among us that have a vivid
memory of World War II, that the Serbs should never allow
to be the victims again. By doing this, we, the leaders,
breached the quintessential duty of every human being -- the
duty to refrain oneself and to honor the dignity of others. We
were determined to do whatever was necessary to overcome.
Although I had been faced with reports on cruel and in
human actions against non-Serbs on various occasions -- I
refused to accept them, or even verify them. Actually, I
completely gave in to talk of innocent Serbian victims of this
war. This daily work, strengthened my conviction that we
were fighting for survival, and that in this struggle the
international community was our enemy. And so, I simply
denied such reports, leaving them unchecked. I remained
firmly convinced that the Serbs were unable of doing
something similar. In this obsession of never again becoming
victims -- we allowed ourselves to become the perpetrators.
You have heard yesterday, and partially even today
much about the suffering caused by all this. I accept the
responsibility for my share in it. This responsibility is mine
-- and only mine. It does not extend to other leaders and
their right to defend themselves. It most certainly does not
extend to our Serbian people, which already paid a high price
for the actions of our leadership. The awareness that I'm
responsible for such human suffering and for smearing the
honor of my people, shall always remain part of me.
There is a justice that demands a life for each innocent life,
death for every sinful death. For me, obviously, it's impossible
to answer the requests of such justice. I can only do what is in
my power and hope that this will serve some purpose -- to
learn to truth, to say it and to accept the responsibility. This
will, I hope, help the innocent Moslem, Croatian and Serbian
victims to avoid becoming taken over by bitterness, which
often becomes hatred, and which is -- in the end --
self-destructive.
As far as my people are concerned -- I said
something about their reputation here today. Therefore I
believe it's necessary to clarify what is it that I am talking
about. Today in Belgrade, right in the heart of Belgrade,
stands a church under a dome whose construction started
back in 1935. Our people have persevered in building this
church consecrated to a man that is -- more than anyone
else -- part of the Serbian nation, and that's St. Sava. The
path he followed was marked by self-restraint and respect for
everyone. He was a great diplomat that earned a reputation
among his people and abroad, a man whose character is
deeply rooted within the Serbian nation. The path an the
example of St. Sava had been followed by great Serbian
leaders, even in recent times, who pursued dedication,
nobleness and dignity even in the most difficult of
circumstances. It is sufficient to mention bishop Artemije
Radosavljevic, which still represents the voice invoking
justice, in what has become for the Serbs -- the desert of
Kosovo. Lamentably, our leadership, myself included,
abandoned this path during the recent war. I believe you
realize that I have disassociated myself from those leaders --
albeit too late. Nevertheless, that same leadership shamelessly
continues to seek the loyalty and the support of our people.
This is done by instigating fear and promoting half-truths to
convince the people that the whole world is against us. But
the fruits of their work -- of those leaders -- are clear:
Graves, refugees, isolation and bitterness towards the whole
world that rejected us precisely because of those leaders. I
have been warned that this is neither the time nor the place
to state this truth -- and that it would be better to wait for
the others to also accept the responsibility for their doing. But
I believe that there is neither time nor place where truth
should not be told. I think that we must bring order in our
house -- the others will have to examine themselves and
their actions. We have to live in this world, and not in a cave.
Still, as long as we preserve our identity and our character --
we have nothing to fear. As far as I'm concerned -- the
judges of this court are the ones who have been given the
responsibility to judge. You must strive to find in your
sentence whichever form of justice that this world can offer
-- not only for me, but for the innocent victims of this war
as well. I will however, address an appeal to this Tribunal --
to judges, prosecutors and investigators -- to do everything
that is in your power to offer justice for all sides. In doing so,
maybe you will have the opportunity to carry out the mission
for which this court exists. Thank you.
>>
The striking fact, stemming not only from this
statement, but from the entire process before that Tribunal (I
watched the TV broadcast very carefully) is that neither she,
nor her defense attorneys, and not even the members of the
panel of judges even mentioned that Bosnia and Herzegovina
was a republic in Yugoslavia, nor has the word "Yugoslavia"
been mentioned once in this context. Furthermore, no one
raised the key question, the question of all questions: who
provoked, whocaused the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, who is
responsible for it? In fact, any sane person realizes that the
war crimes in the battlefield -- or as the jurists say in bello
-- are only the consequence of war, and for that matter --
as history has repeatedly shown -- of every war. Without
going too far back in the history of war and warfare, let us
consider World War II only. Not only the Germans and their
satellites -- the most eager among them being the Croats
and the Moslems in the so-called Independent State of
Croatia, which included Bosnia -- committed war crimes,
but Allies did as well. Dresden (4) and Hiroshima (5) are just
two examples. Both sides committed countless crimes in that
war. In the marvelous film The Nuremberg Process (with
Spencer Tracy and Marlene Dietrich), when the prosecution
presents horrifying scenes filmed when the German
concentration camps were liberated, the attorney of a group
of indicted Nazi officials (played by the fascinating
Maximilian Shell) addresses the prosecutor and the panel of
judges enraged: "I protest most sternly against this action of
the prosecutor, I repeat and repeat: I protest most sternly! I
could show you a film on Hiroshima, couldn't I?"
THE FACTOGRAPHY OF THE WAR IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Therefore, what's astonishing is that neither Biljana
Plavsic -- except for a passing reference to World War II --
nor the defense, nor the prosecution, nor the panel of judges
have shown any interest in the circumstances that brought
about the horrible crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina, committed
undoubtedly by all warring sides. In saying this I'm not
considering the circumstances from "times immemorial", but
circumstances that directly caused this war and consequently
the war crimes. This is even more perplexing considering the
fact that these are circumstances well known not only to
Biljana Plavsic, but probably to everyone else present in the
Tribunal courtroom as well. Still, she bears the greatest
responsibility for not speaking about those circumstances; she
had the obligation to talk about that, both for the sake of her
people and for the sake of truth. Evidently, she traded all that
for her personal interests that she negotiated with Carla Del
Ponte.(6). The first gauleiter of Bosnia-Herzegovina after
Dayton, the Swede Karl Bildt, having appeared as a witness
at the trial against Biljana Plavsic, admitted that when he
took that office, he knew nothing of the meaning of 1941 in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. A thick Swede can permit himself not
to know, but how could have Biljana Plavsic forgotten about
the events that she might even have a personal memory of,
when the Croats and the Moslems from her Bosnia
committed such crimes against her people that can hardly be
equaled in monstrosity and cruelty to any other in the history
of mankind?
This is certainly not the place to go back to the
distant past of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Hence, I shall only
mention the circumstances and the events that caused directly
the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, these circumstances and
events being quite well known to Biljana Plavsic, though she
didn't even mentioned them at the trial.
The Moslem and Croatian leaders, acting against the
position of the Serbian representatives, decided in favor of an
unconstitutional secession of Bosnia-Herzegovina from
SFR Yugoslavia. On October 15th 1991, the deputies of
SDA (Moslems) and HDZ (Croats) adopted -- contrary to
the Constitution of SFR Yugoslavia, and contrary to the
Constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the "Memorandum
on the Sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina" incited by and
urged directly by EC criminals and fiends and, obviously, by
the chief sheriff in Washington. At the so-called peace
conference on Yugoslavia held at the Hague, the British
aristocrat Lord Peter Carrington, acting on behalf of the
European Community, proposed on October 18th 1991 the
plan for "solving the Yugoslav crisis", which merely
advocated that all Yugoslav federal units should become
independent states and that they be granted international
recognition in that status, i.e. that Yugoslavia should be
disintegrated and deleted from the political map! Such a
document -- unheard of in international relations -- had
been accepted by Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and obviously
the Moslem/Croat leaders in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Reacting
to such a course of events, on October 25th 1991, the Serbs in
Bosnia-Herzegovina organized themselves and founded the
Assembly of the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
stressing that -- obviously -- they refused to leave
Yugoslavia and that the Moslems and the Croats had no right
to pull them out of Yugoslavia against their will. In
obliterating Yugoslavia as a country, the European
Community went to the extreme: late at night on December
16th 1991, the EC adopted the decision -- under the
pressure of Hans Dietrich Genscher, i.e. Germany -- that
the Yugoslav republics wishing independence should
submit a request to this effect within eight days, and that
they would be recognized as independent states! (7).
Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina did so
within the given deadline. As a reaction, the Assembly of the
Serbian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina passed a resolution on
the forming of the Republic of Srpska within Yugoslavia.
Trying to give an appearance of legality to their crimes, the
Moslem and Croat secessionist leaders in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, organized a referendum (March 3rd
1992) on the secession of Bosnia-Herzegovina from
Yugoslavia and the creation of the "independent"
Bosnia-Herzegovina, that the Serbs -- obviously -- did not
take part in. Like the previous decision on secession made
without the participation of the constituent Serbian nation in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, this referendum was
unconstitutional both according to the Yugoslav Constitution
and the Constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In spite of all that, the representatives of the Serbian people in
Bosnia and Herzegovina did everything possible to avoid the
armed conflict. At the meeting of the representatives of all
three nations held in Sarajevo on March 17th 1992, the
Serbian representatives agreed to a Declaration on the
principles for the new constitutional arrangement of
Bosnia-Herzegovina (as an independent state), also known
as the "Coutillero Plan", even though they had not been
given the mandate to do so by their people which had
already clearly opted in favor of staying in Yugoslavia, and
dismissed the attempts to forcibly pull it out of the
federation. However, Warren Zimmerman - the U.S.
ambassador to SFR Yugoslavia - flew immediately to
Sarajevo and convinced (forced) Alija Izetbegovic to retract
his signature from the agreement. And that time, the acting
Secretary of State was Lawrence Eagleburger. This removes
any possibility of W. Zimmerman having done this of his own
initiative, for he must have been following the instructions of
his boss L. Eagleburger. It should be noted that both of them,
Zimmerman and Eagleburger, were not only US ambassadors
to Yugoslavia, but worked for many years in the U.S.
Embassy in Belgrade, and hence knew perfectly well that by
undermining the Coutillero Plan they would inevitably ignite
the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In spite of that, or
because of that, they did what they did! (8).
Maybe all this was not completely known to everyone in the
Tribunal "courtroom", but Biljana Plavsic certainly knew it
all, because she was not only a witness but also a player in all
those events. Evidently, acting in favor of her personal
interests, she betrayed not only her people, but also the truth
and the basic human dignity. And, what is more, if she had
said all that the "judges" and the public could have listened to
it?
THE WAR IN BOSNIA AND INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW
Even those international law experts and politicians
that insist that the U.N. Security Council did not breach the
U.N. Charter by establishing the "International tribunal for
prosecuting persons responsible for serious violations of
international humanitarian law committed in the territory of
the former Yugoslavia from 1 January 1991" -- which is the
full name of this incredible institution -- should ask
themselves the question: do Articles 2-5 of the Tribunal
Statute really embody the modern international criminal law?
Even if the Security Council were to have the mandate to
establish international criminal courts according to the U.N.
Charter, it certainly doesn't have, nor could ever have any
international legislative mandate, in the sense of defining
international crimes. And this is exactly what it did with the
Tribunal Statute. The crimes listed and formulated in articles
2, 3, 4, and 5 (serious breaches of the Geneva conventions,
war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity) certainly
represent international crimes, not as the Security Council
had formulated them, but rather as they are formulated by
the modern international law. And not only that. All those
international crimes are made operative only through
national legislations and not directly. For example, as far as
serious breaches of the Geneva conventions are concerned,
these conventions specify that the states assume the
obligation to integrate such breaches into their legislation.
Nearly all the countries have done this, Yugoslavia being one
of the first. The same thing applies to all the other crimes
listed in the Tribunal Statute, including genocide. In fact, the
Convention on Genocide clearly states: "The parties assume
the obligation to ensure that, in accordance with their current
constitutions, legal measures be taken to allow the
implementation of the provisions of this Convention, and in
particular to adopt effective criminal sanctions to be applied
against persons responsible for genocide". This solution is
quite logical bearing in mind the fact that the Convention on
genocide does not specify the punishment.
If someone fails to realize -- even bearing in mind all
these facts -- to which extent has the U.N. Security Council
overstepped its mandate based on the U.N. Charter, then one
should read article 24 of the Tribunal Statute, with which the
Security Council introduces the life sentence!
Practically the only international crime that exists
independently from national legislation (aside from piracy at
sea and a few others) is provoking and initiating war of
aggression, which is what the Nuremberg and Tokyo
Tribunal are about. They tried the German in Japanese
officials for after World War II. But, this particular crime
-- believe it or not -- is not listed in the Tribunal
Statute! Obviously, not by mistake. The creators of the
Tribunal, and the authors of its Statute had a clear idea:
preventing at any cost the Tribunal from judging those
that provoked and caused the war in Yugoslavia. Namely,
the secessionist leaders in Yugoslavia and their foreign
sponsors, helpers and commanders. Furthermore, it is evident
that even back then, when the Statute was drafted and the
Tribunal created, the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia had
been anticipated, Tribunal rules had to be a written in a way
that even in that case the Tribunal would not be competent to
try the culprits! Only moral degenerates and deranged
individuals could have invented, designed and adopted such
solutions and the end of the 20th century.
Biljana Plavsic confessed her guilt for the crime of
"expulsion" and is to be sentenced -- to 15 to 20 years of
imprisonment by request of the Prosecutor, and to "not more
than eight years" by demand of the Defense. The fact is that
the Tribunal Statute does not list such a crime! There is
something called "deportation", and this probably applies to
her and her confession, but in criminal law analogies are not
admissible and crimes must be defined very precisely. The
Statute offers no indication on what does the term
"deportation" refers to actually - or as jurists would say -
what is the actual essence of this crime. Therefore, the
Tribunal "judges" will have the freedom to choose what to
subsum in this notion. Deportation, in fact need not
necessarily entail a crime. If it is done for humanitarian
reasons -- for example to remove the population from a
battlefield, or to carry out a voluntary exchange of population
to prevent massacres in a civil war -- it certainly does not
constitute a crime.
Naturally, no one denies that deportations of the
other kind - representing a crime - were committed by all
sides involved in the conflict in Bosnia. But in Bosnia, after
what the Moslems and the Croats did to the Serbs between
1941 and 1945, and with the breakup of Yugoslavia in
1991-1992, demarcation was the only lasting and rational
solution for ensuring true peace and stability in this part of
Europe. Undoubtedly, Greece and Turkey made a wise move
when they carried out a broad exchange of population after
World War I. By no means am I justifying anyone that
committed any form of crime in the process, but demarcation
is, I repeat, the only rational solution for Bosnia. Forget
Dayton!(7). From that perspective, comments made at the
trial by Alex Boraine, a South African that hasn't the faintest
idea what Bosnia is, are nothing but deceitful and silly
remarks. Truth and reconciliation are, naturally, something
that must come about, but not the way that this man
suggested in his testimony.
Notes:
(1) The full and official name of this institution is
"International tribunal for prosecuting persons responsible for
serious violations of international humanitarian law
committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia from 1
January 1991". In this text it is referred to as ICTY, or simply
Tribunal, without quotation marks, although I believe it to be
an illegal and a illegitimate institution.
(2) At the time that this institution was created, she was the
U.S. ambassador to the UN. This woman spent part of her
childhood and youth in Belgrade, since she was the daughter
of the ambassador of Czechoslovakia in Belgrade immediately
after World War II. As a US agent and a traitor to his
country, her father fled to America. Children of diplomats
usually become lifelong friends of the country where they
grew up, went to school and made friends. For some curious
reason she started hating Serbs. During the NATO
aggression on Yugoslavia, launched partially due to her
efforts, a deadly graffiti appeared on the walls of the bombed
buildings in Belgrade: "I like Madleine Albright as well as my
Coca-Cola: on the table and cold!" In Serbian it rhymes:
Volim Olbrajtovu kao koka-kolu: hladnu i na stolu.
(3) One can quote many examples of how a country is
defended and how it should be defended, but I shall merely
rely on an article recently published by the Belgrade daily
Politika (December 20th 2002) dealing with the attempted
secession of Texas from the U.S.:
In America, one cannot fool around with the federation.
Anyone even thinking of chipping off a piece of it, and thus
undermining the interest of the community of 50 united
states, will regret the day he was born. This warning is
underscored by the court file entitled "Separatists from
Texas". The warning will last until 2118! An absurdity, but
still a ruling of the federal court in Dallas.
Richard McLaren, a separatist that proclaimed the
"Independent State of Texas" back in 1995, has been tried
three times consecutively and sentenced to 121 years in
prison.
The "independence of Texas" was not proclaimed at the
congress of a separatist, independentist, or sovereignist party
-- although representatives from abroad, honored with such
attributes have visited Washington -- because no such party
exists in America; rather, it was was made public at the
meeting of two dozen Texas secessionists that met at a
forsaken farm near Fort Davis.
Richard McLaren (47) leader of the separatists, rallied his
supporters in a self-proclaimed "Embassy", installed initially
in the shack of the volunteer fire brigade, and later on in an
abandoned tramway car. The "temporary Capitol" was
located on a 17 acres ranch near the small town of Quero,
and this is where the separatists converged. "State Secretary"
Bernar Grover thought this would be a safe place for
"receptions and meetings with foreign officials and
diplomats", and the first overseas consulate of the separatist
Texas was supposed to be opened in Barcelona. Even an
airport runway was planned, as well as the customs and trade
zone of the "Republic of Texas".
The small group of separatists advocated the need for
international recognition of the " independent Republic of
Texas", and recognition of the Texan "nation". The
separatists from Texas did not introduce their own currency,
nor had they adopted someone else's currency (at the time the
German mark became the official currency in Montenegro),
but a printed Texas cheques with a face value of milions,
based on the "trust of the people of Texas".
This utopia ended with armed clashes.
In the spring of 1997, when President Clinton's financial and
sexual scandals were shaking the White House, on April 27th
the militia of the separatist "Republic of Texas" declared war
to the U.S. government, in reaction to the arrest of one of the
separatists by the police, after the renegades took three
civilians hostage and declared them "prisoners of war. Several
hundred policemen surrounded the armed separatists, and the
little town of Fort Davies turned into a battlefield. From the
nearby counties came several hundred more policemen, that
quickly overpowered the rebels and arrested seven of them
immediately. The separatist leader Richard McLaren asked
for U.N. mediation to save the "besieged nation" threatening
to fight to the death.
The police say that there were some two dozen activists and
about 800 supporters from the surrounding area. After seven
days, McLaren surrendered without struggle, but the trial
lasted nearly three years.
The leader of the separatists invoked the fact that Texas --
initially an Indian prairie, then a colony of the Spanish
conquistadores, then part of Mexico -- after the battle of
Alamo became a recognized independent state between 1836
and 1845. Settlers from the U.S. quickly stormed Texas and
after a referendum that many have objections to, annexed it
to the U.S. union. Spanish is the mother tongue of one-third
of the Texans, and one out of nine is of African origin.
The keepers of the Federation retaliated against McLaren
with a series of trials. He was accused of undermining the
federal revenue by selling void checks, in the name of the
"sovereign Republic of Texas". But Texas, the second-largest
state in the Federation, larger than France, with 20 million
inhabitants, rich with oil and land of origin of Eisenhower,
George Bush, Lindon B. Johnson - shall never be allowed to
leave the Federation.
McLaren was first sentenced to 99 years of imprisonment in a
state penitentiary - for taking part in kidnapping and
resisting the federal police. Because of the monetary
machinations he was further sentenced to 12.5 years in a
federal prison. The County Court in Midland sentenced him
to 10 more years for posession of firearms and planning the
secession of Texas. Total: 121 years of imprisonment. Nearly
half of the total history of the United States.
His six accomplices in the separatist adventure were each
sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment. Karen Paulson, the
wife of one of the separatists, was sentenced to 50 months of
prison.
The utopian effort of a handful of separatists to threaten the
integrity of the American federation and separate 683.000
km2 of territory (46, times the size of Montenegro) to create a
"independent Republic of Texas" has been punished with a
total of 155 years of imprisonment. Information about the
separatists offered to the U.S. public was very limited:
lunatics, madman from the prairie. If he were to live to serve
all three sentences, the utopian and separatist McLaren,
should hope to reach the age of 168.
I hope that this article from their Politika has been read by
all the members of the committee drafting the Constitutional
Charter of Serbia and Montenegro, as well as all those that
took on state affairs, without even knowing the meaning of
the word STATE.
(4) In Germany just is published a bestseller book (Der Brand
- Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940-1945) in which the
author Joerg Friedrich describes the devastation of German
cities and civilians in them, calling Churchill a war criminal,
implying that the RAF directly caused holokaust against the Jews.
(5) In Hiroshima there were in few seconds more civilian
victims than in Bosnian war - 200.000.
(6) See also the secret agreement between B. Plavsic and C.
Del Ponte, dated November 14th 2002 and made public before
the tribunal on Dec. 16th 2002. This deal is quite interesting
and can be found at http://www.tiker.co.yu/vesti.htm and on
the Tribunal site (www.un.org/icty).
(7) British journalist Misha Gleny in his good book on the
destruction of Yugoslavia - although he also, as almost all
Westerners, is obsessed with "great-Serbian chauvinism and
hegemony" as if he attended the Comintern school in
Moscow - cites commentary of one Krajina soldier on the
recognition of Croatia: "Why did you fucking English
capitulate to the fucking Nazis? You fucking bastard, go fuck
your mother, you spineless motherfucker!". (Misha Gleny,
"The Fall of Yugoslavia", London 1992, p.25). This
diplomatic conversation took place in a smoky Knin tavern.
That Krajina soldier, if he survived, wuold be most sutable for
Serbian ambassador in Bonn or London.
(8) In his text «How the war started», Andy Wilcoxson says:
On March 18, 1992, Alija Izetbegovic (Bosnian-Muslim
leader), Mate Boban (Bosnian-Croat leader), and Radovan
Karadzic (Bosnian-Serb Leader) all reached an agreement
on the peaceful succession of Bosnia & Herzegovina from
Yugoslavia.
The Agreement was known as the Lisbon Agreement (it is
also known as the Cutileiro Plan). The agreement called for
an independent Bosnia divided into three constituent and
geographically separate parts, each of which would be
autonomous. Izetbegovic, Boban, and Karadzic all agreed to
the plan, and signed the agreement.
The agreement was all set, internal and external borders, and
the administrative functions of the central and autonomous
governments had all been agreed upon. The threat of civil
war had been removed from Bosnia that is until, the U.S.
Ambassador Warren Zimmerman showed up.
On March 28, 1992, ten days after the agreement was reached
that would have avoided war in Bosnia, Warren Zimmerman
flew to Sarajevo and met with the Bosnian-Muslim leader,
Alija Izetbegovic. Upon finding that Izetbegovic was having
second thoughts about the agreement he had signed in
Lisbon, the Ambassador suggested that if he withdrew his
signature, the United States would grant recognition to
Bosnia as an independent state. Izetbegovic then withdrew his
signature and renounced the agreement.
After Izetbegovic reneged on the Lisbon Agreement, he called
a referendum on separation that was constitutionally illegal.
On the second day of the referendum there was a Muslim-led
attack on a Serb wedding. But the real trigger was
Izetbegovic announcing a full mobilization on April 4, 1992.
He could not legally do that without Serb & Croat consent,
but he did it anyway. That night terror reigned in Sarajevo.
The war was on.
The Bosnian war was ugly and extremely bloody. People
were maimed and killed in bloody inner-city battles that left
over half a million people dead.
The United States likes to point to Bosnia as a shining
example of where it helped Muslims. It is true that the United
States armed the Muslims in Bosnia. But, after many
thousands of deaths and massive destruction throughout
Bosnia, the Muslims were afforded by the terms of the
Dayton Accords, less territory than they had been guaranteed
by the Lisbon Agreement, which the United States urged the
Muslim leader to reject.
The bottom line here is that this war didn't have to happen at
all. Nobody had to die in Bosnia. If Ambassador Zimmerman
had just left Izetbegovic alone, then none of this would have
happened to begin with. Its that simple. The blame for all of
the death and destruction associated with the Bosnian war
lies exclusively with Alija Izetbegovic for starting the war,
and with the U.S. President Bill Clinton for sending that idiot
Zimmerman to Bosnia in the first place.
www.slobodan-milosevic.org/bosnia-started.
(7) The circumstances under which the republic of
Bosnia-Herzegovina was created as a federal unit within
Yugoslavia, in the middle of World War II, and how it
subsequently existed and evolved quite successfully until Alija
Izetbegovic appeared on the political scene with his Islamic
Declaration and the "upsurging of democracy" in the form of
his SDA party, are explained by Milovan Djilas, one of the
figures that took part in its creation back in the '40s, in what
I believe this is best work ever, Wartime, on p. 356: "The
party had held the view that Bosnia and Hercegovina should
have autonomous status, rather than become republic. This
plan implied autonomy under the Republic of Serbia.
However, the war had turned Bosnia into a battleground
between feuding Ustashi and Chetniks, as well as a base and
haven for the Partisans. Autonomy under either Serbia or
Croatia would have encoraged furter strife and deprived the
Moslems of their individuality. The Bosnian leadership too,
like every authority that grows out of an uprising, insised on
their own state, and later even on their own historical outlet
to the sea. But the republican status of Bosnia and
Hercegovina was not decided at that time, or during the
session of AVNOJ. It was decided in early January 1944 at a
meeting during a march, after the retreat from Jajce.
Rankovic reported that the Bosnian leadership proposed a
republic, Tito agreed, and so did all the rest of us, as if this
were something acceptable on the face of it". And so a
semi-literate corporal of the Austrian Imperial Army and a
small group of fanatic communists found a far more rational
solution for Bosnia than the one created by the Empire in
Dayton. Why? Well, simply because, in spite of all their
ideological and political limitations, they were people born in
this region devoid of any imperialist ambition to rule the
world.
Dr Milan Tepavac
del pezzo seguente. Chi fosse disponibile a tradurre e' pregato di
contattarci subito: <jugocoord@...>.
---
Note: Bare history is demonstrating, day after day, that the criticism
towards Tito's Yugoslavia and its leadership - as it is expressed in
the following article - is unjustified. Apart from this, we find this
contribution by M. Tepavac really excellent. CNJ
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 08:20:53 +0100
From: "Milan Tepavac"
To: "YUGOSLAVIAINFO" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>,
THE CASE OF BILJANA PLAVSIC
BEFORE THE SO-CALLED HAGUE TRIBUNAL
The acknowledgment of personal guilt if it really exists, is
a moral act, but the fact remains that she did it in the
wrong place, in front of the wrong people, as a trade-off
and without naming the main culprits for the tragedy
faced by her own people and herself.
December 18th 2002 marked the end of the trial
against Biljana Plavsic, former top official and political
leader of the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the time of the
illicit secession war that raged there between 1992 and 1995,
and president of the Republic of Srpska after the signing all
the Dayton agreement, after she changed her mind and
pleaded guilty for crimes against humanity. The sentence of
the court is expected by the end of January 2003. The
prosecution suggested a sentence of 15-25 years of
imprisonment, while the Defense underlined the fact that
any sentence longer than 8 years -- bearing in mind that
the accused is 72 years old -- would be equivalent to a life
sentence.
For those who refuse to recognize this institution as a
legal and legitimate international criminal court (1) --
including the author of this text -- the whole procedure
against Biljana Plavsic and other persons detained in
Scheveningen Prison at the Hague, including, of course,
Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia and
the Republic of Serbia, legally means nothing, i.e. cannot
bear any consequences in the sense of international law. All
the decisions of this illegal and illegitimate institution are
legally unfounded and cannot serve as a precedent in
international law. It is in fact, an institution that was
established by the United Nations Security Council under the
pressure of the United States and contrary to the United
Nations Charter. Certain political reasons -- "political" in
the worse sense of this word -- forced the US to do so. We
shall not dwell upon such reasons, but two must have been
the most decisive ones: the imperialist tendency towards
global domination, and the breakup of SFR Yugoslavia, to
help create in the Yugoslav region mini states that are easily
manipulated, and the grant the Moslems in Yugoslavia --
with the intention to placate their efforts against Israel --
some sort of "Moslimania" right in the heart of Southeast
Europe. The personal hatred against Serbs harbored by
Madeleine Albright, sometimes referred to as "Tribunal's
godmother", must also have played a certain role.(2)
The ICTY was founded by the U.N. Security Council
with its resolution No. 827 dated May 25th 1993, even though
it had no such authority according to the U.N. Charter. With
the same resolution it passed the Tribunal Statute, which is,
obviously, also illegal and invalid as a legal document. Of all
the persons detained by the Tribunal in the Scheveningen
dungeon -- used during World War II by the Gestapo to
torture Resistance fighters -- only Slobodan Milosevic
remains firm in refusing to recognize this institution, and in
his statements during the "process" against him, uses every
opportunity to reiterate this. He is assisted in his efforts by
the Yugoslav Defense Committee, the International
Committee and several other national committees, the
German one being particularly active among them. Naturally,
he also relies on the help of a large number of individuals --
international jurists, politicians, writers and especially the
Russian Duma. Objectively speaking, the Hague Tribunal is
worse than any of Hitler's or Stalin's courts, because those
courts at least had some formal legality, whilst ICTY has
neither legality nor legitimacy. Undoubtedly, no one normal
within the international community would want the Security
Council to become some sort of a World Government
reserving for itself even legislative powers to define
international criminal offenses. One must also consider the
fact that the Tribunal can prosecute only a limited number of
suspects (about 50), whilst the number of those that have
committed crimes is at least ten times greater. Therefore, by
the virtue of things, the national courts are the only ones that
can bring justice to this region.
In the beginning I did not object to the legality of the
Tribunal and its Statute. I thought that Tribunal would be
judging the main culprits fully Yugoslav tragedy -- some
two dozen people -- and this is why the back in 1995 I
submitted to the Tribunal criminal charges against the
following persons: Franjo Tudjman, Alija Izetbegovic, Milan
Kucan, Kiro Gligorov (secession leaders), and the following
foreign assistants, aiders and financers: Hans Dietrich
Genscher, Helmut Kohl, Klaus Kinkel, Peter Alexander
Rupert (Lord) Carrington, Robert Badintere, William
Clinton, Aloysius Mock, Gesa Yanewsky, Carol Woytilla
(Pope John Paul II), James Baker, Hans van den Broek and
Franz Vranicky, as the prime culprits for provoking the
secession wars in Yugoslavia, contrary to international law
and the OSCE Helsinki Final Act. I also asked that
national courts should prosecute Borislav Jovic, Stipe Mesic,
Janez Drnovsek, Ante Markovic, Veljko Kadijevic, Budimir
Loncar and several other persons for breaching the
Constitution of SFRY and the Criminal Code of SFRY, as
well as for not taking measures to protect the constituted
order in accordance with the Constitution, the Criminal Code
and the oath they took when they stepped into the office for
which they collected a handsome salary.(3). Since the
Tribunal refused to initiate proceedings against the main
culprits, it became clear to me that this was by no means a
court administering justice, but rather a political creation of
the anti-Serbian racists, and subsequently a tool used by
NATO for its domination. Instead of prosecuting those
culprits, the "court" turned on Slobodan Milosevic, a man
that did the most normal thing in the world -- i.e. tried to
defend his country and his homeland, from the armed attacks
of the crazed secessionists, from NATO aggression and
enslavement.
Still, in spite of all that, the Biljana Plavsic case must
be analyzed in detail not only from the political perspective,
but also from the legal aspects, because many are those
throughout the world -- lamentably in Yugoslavia and the
Republic of Srpska as well -- that believe either that ICTY is
nevertheless a legal international criminal court, and that its
Statute positively reflects the international criminal law, or
that one should not insist on the lack of legality of the
Tribunal, because it's two objectives -- punishing war
criminals and establishing peace and reconciliation in former
Yugoslavia -- are justified, rational and moral.
So, let's consider the arguments they can invoke in
favor of their standing in the light of what Biljana Plavsic
did, putting aside the issue of legality and legitimacy of the
Tribunal and its Statute. Let us examine the case of Biljana
Plavsic as if a real court were involved.
What is it that made her change her mind about her guilt,
which she initially denied before the Tribunal?
Shocked by the news that Biljana Plavsic admitted to
her guilt with respect to the indictment raised by the
Tribunal, the Serbs in Diaspora -- who sense the
demonization of the Serbian people in the West much more
than we do here in the country -- used the Internet to
address several questions to her, to the public and to the
politicians in Yugoslavia and the Republic of Srpska:
We still recall your willful, and fully conscient decision to
appear as the accused before the International Criminal
Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, to help establish the truth
about the participants and the events that took place. We still
remember your first statement before the court at The Hague,
which you started with the words "your honor".
Subsequently, you stated under oath and guaranteed with
your honor, that you are not guilty on any of the counts, i.e.
that you are not responsible for the crimes that have been
committed. A few days ago we have learned from a videotape
presented before the court at the Hague, that whilst you were
staying in Belgrade -- in an atmosphere and with the status
of a person protected by the Hague court -- you rejected
your initial plea which you gave under oath and guaranteed
with your honor, i.e. that you admitted your guilt for the
crimes.
Mme Plavsic, ex-president of the Republic of Srpska, we
would very much appreciate if you could offer the answers to
the following questions, publicly, in a radio and television
press-conference in Belgrade:
Is the video recording, presented before the Hague Tribunal as
your statement given freely and without coercion, really true,
though it denies your earlier plea given before the court at the
Hague? Which one of the two statements is valid, which one
is true? If the statement presented on videotape is true, we
would very much appreciate if you could explain the crimes
you feel guilty of, and why this is so. On the other hand, if
your initial statement given personally before the court at
The Hague is true, we would be grateful if you were to
explain the circumstances under which you made the
statement presented on videotape before the Court at The Hague.
Mme Plavsic, you know perfectly well that the Serbian people
has invested its kingdom, and generations of its best children,
not only to gain freedom and live freely, but also to free all
other Yugoslav nations, that we might all live in friendship.
You also know, that the Serbian people has been the one to
suffer the most during the rule of Josip Broz Tito, just to
preserve peace. You are aware that the Serbian people in
Bosnia-Herzegovina wanted to continue living in peace with
the other Yugoslav nations in the common state -
Yugoslavia, without seceding from it. You know that it made
this choice at the referendum. You know that both in the
country and abroad the results of the referendum carried out
by all other nations have been honored (even those of the
Republics, in contrast with the Constitution of SFR
Yugoslavia) and that only the referenda of the Serbian people
in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Krayina were belittled and
ignored. You know that according to the Constitution of SFR
Yugoslavia, the right to self-determination had not been
granted to any of the Republics. You know that SR
Bosnia-Herzegovina was a Republic of three equal-righted
and constituent nations: Moslems, Serbs and Croats.
You know that the aggression forced the Serbian nation to
resort to justified defense; the aggression started in
Bosnia-Herzegovina with the Moslem attack on a wedding
party resulting in the wounding of the newlyweds and the
death of the bride's father. This incident in Sarajevo occurred
just because the newlyweds were Serbs. You know that the
aggression continued with the attack of Croatian paramilitary
units on Bosanski Brod, where they massacred Serbs
including the town mayor. The day after, they joined the
Moslem paramilitary units in the attack on the Serbian
village of Sjekovac where they burned down both the village
and the villagers. You are aware that the aggression escalated
further with the slaughters of Serbs around the villages of
Vlasenica and Bratunac. We know all that too. We have, or
we had friends and relatives there, we had -- because some
of them fell as innocent victims.
You are also perfectly aware of the appeal launched back
then by His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Pavle to all the Serbs:
not to succumb to hatred and not to commit crimes.
You were the president of the Republic of Srpska. It is your
moral, material, national and official duty to explain publicly,
as a free person -- primarily to the people of the Republic of
Srpska, then to the Serbian people and to the Moslem and
Croatian people -- what is it that you really did, and what is
it that you are responsible for with regards to the accusations
made against you at the beginning of your trial at the Hague
Tribunal.
If your statement presented on videotape before the court at
the Hague is correct and true, we would greatly appreciate it
if you could explain to the Serbian people why did you betray
the Serbian morale, the dignity of the Serbian people, the
humanity it has always shown to the other Yugoslav nations,
and why did you fail to state that before your own people in
the Republic of Srpska first? Why did you betray the trust
and the honor bestowed upon you by the people of the
Republic of Srpska?
On the other hand, if your first statement given before the
court at the Hague is true, we appeal to you once again -- as
an official that accept the honor and the trusts of her native
people, as a former president all the Republic of Srpska -- to
publicly reveal what was it that induced you to make the
statement shown on videotape at the Hague Tribunal, with
which you denied your earlier plea given under oath and
guaranteed by your honor.
Judging by her attitude in the final stage of the
process before the Tribunal, and by the speech she delivered
in that phase, appeals like the one quoted above, addressed to
her, the public and the relevant factors in Serbia and the
Republic of Srpska, had absolutely no effect. What was the
reason that made her omit in her speech any reference to
even the basic facts, which are so well known, that would
have shed some light on the events in Bosnia and
Herzegovina for which she has been accused, and which she
has confessed to before the Tribunal? Here is her whole
speech; maybe it hides the answer to this essential question.
She spoke in Serbian, and this is unofficial translation of it:
<<
Your Honor, Mme Prosecutor, Defense attorneys -- I thank
you for offering me today this opportunity to speak.
Nearly two years ago I came here as someone
accused of taking part in crimes against other human beings,
even against humanity. I came for two reasons: to face these
accusations and spare my people -- because it was clear that
they will be paying the price of anyone failing to come here. I
have had time to examine these accusations, and to verify and
evaluate them together with my attorneys. I have now been
convinced and I accept that several thousand innocent people
were victims of organized and systematic actions to eliminate
Moslems and Croats from areas that the Serbs thought were
theirs. At that time I had thoughtlessly convinced myself that
this was a question of survival and self-defense. Actually,
even more than that -- our leadership, and I was an essential
part of it -- guided an undertaking which had as its victims
countless innocent people. Clarifications on self-defense and
survival offer no justification. In the end, even our fellow
countrymen have said that in this war, we had lost our
nobleness.
Obvious questions arise: if this truth is so evident
now, why is it that I did not see it before; and -- how is it
possible that our leadership and those that followed it could
have committed to such acts? The answer to both these
questions is, I believe -- fear -- blinding fear leading to
obsession, especially for those among us that have a vivid
memory of World War II, that the Serbs should never allow
to be the victims again. By doing this, we, the leaders,
breached the quintessential duty of every human being -- the
duty to refrain oneself and to honor the dignity of others. We
were determined to do whatever was necessary to overcome.
Although I had been faced with reports on cruel and in
human actions against non-Serbs on various occasions -- I
refused to accept them, or even verify them. Actually, I
completely gave in to talk of innocent Serbian victims of this
war. This daily work, strengthened my conviction that we
were fighting for survival, and that in this struggle the
international community was our enemy. And so, I simply
denied such reports, leaving them unchecked. I remained
firmly convinced that the Serbs were unable of doing
something similar. In this obsession of never again becoming
victims -- we allowed ourselves to become the perpetrators.
You have heard yesterday, and partially even today
much about the suffering caused by all this. I accept the
responsibility for my share in it. This responsibility is mine
-- and only mine. It does not extend to other leaders and
their right to defend themselves. It most certainly does not
extend to our Serbian people, which already paid a high price
for the actions of our leadership. The awareness that I'm
responsible for such human suffering and for smearing the
honor of my people, shall always remain part of me.
There is a justice that demands a life for each innocent life,
death for every sinful death. For me, obviously, it's impossible
to answer the requests of such justice. I can only do what is in
my power and hope that this will serve some purpose -- to
learn to truth, to say it and to accept the responsibility. This
will, I hope, help the innocent Moslem, Croatian and Serbian
victims to avoid becoming taken over by bitterness, which
often becomes hatred, and which is -- in the end --
self-destructive.
As far as my people are concerned -- I said
something about their reputation here today. Therefore I
believe it's necessary to clarify what is it that I am talking
about. Today in Belgrade, right in the heart of Belgrade,
stands a church under a dome whose construction started
back in 1935. Our people have persevered in building this
church consecrated to a man that is -- more than anyone
else -- part of the Serbian nation, and that's St. Sava. The
path he followed was marked by self-restraint and respect for
everyone. He was a great diplomat that earned a reputation
among his people and abroad, a man whose character is
deeply rooted within the Serbian nation. The path an the
example of St. Sava had been followed by great Serbian
leaders, even in recent times, who pursued dedication,
nobleness and dignity even in the most difficult of
circumstances. It is sufficient to mention bishop Artemije
Radosavljevic, which still represents the voice invoking
justice, in what has become for the Serbs -- the desert of
Kosovo. Lamentably, our leadership, myself included,
abandoned this path during the recent war. I believe you
realize that I have disassociated myself from those leaders --
albeit too late. Nevertheless, that same leadership shamelessly
continues to seek the loyalty and the support of our people.
This is done by instigating fear and promoting half-truths to
convince the people that the whole world is against us. But
the fruits of their work -- of those leaders -- are clear:
Graves, refugees, isolation and bitterness towards the whole
world that rejected us precisely because of those leaders. I
have been warned that this is neither the time nor the place
to state this truth -- and that it would be better to wait for
the others to also accept the responsibility for their doing. But
I believe that there is neither time nor place where truth
should not be told. I think that we must bring order in our
house -- the others will have to examine themselves and
their actions. We have to live in this world, and not in a cave.
Still, as long as we preserve our identity and our character --
we have nothing to fear. As far as I'm concerned -- the
judges of this court are the ones who have been given the
responsibility to judge. You must strive to find in your
sentence whichever form of justice that this world can offer
-- not only for me, but for the innocent victims of this war
as well. I will however, address an appeal to this Tribunal --
to judges, prosecutors and investigators -- to do everything
that is in your power to offer justice for all sides. In doing so,
maybe you will have the opportunity to carry out the mission
for which this court exists. Thank you.
>>
The striking fact, stemming not only from this
statement, but from the entire process before that Tribunal (I
watched the TV broadcast very carefully) is that neither she,
nor her defense attorneys, and not even the members of the
panel of judges even mentioned that Bosnia and Herzegovina
was a republic in Yugoslavia, nor has the word "Yugoslavia"
been mentioned once in this context. Furthermore, no one
raised the key question, the question of all questions: who
provoked, whocaused the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, who is
responsible for it? In fact, any sane person realizes that the
war crimes in the battlefield -- or as the jurists say in bello
-- are only the consequence of war, and for that matter --
as history has repeatedly shown -- of every war. Without
going too far back in the history of war and warfare, let us
consider World War II only. Not only the Germans and their
satellites -- the most eager among them being the Croats
and the Moslems in the so-called Independent State of
Croatia, which included Bosnia -- committed war crimes,
but Allies did as well. Dresden (4) and Hiroshima (5) are just
two examples. Both sides committed countless crimes in that
war. In the marvelous film The Nuremberg Process (with
Spencer Tracy and Marlene Dietrich), when the prosecution
presents horrifying scenes filmed when the German
concentration camps were liberated, the attorney of a group
of indicted Nazi officials (played by the fascinating
Maximilian Shell) addresses the prosecutor and the panel of
judges enraged: "I protest most sternly against this action of
the prosecutor, I repeat and repeat: I protest most sternly! I
could show you a film on Hiroshima, couldn't I?"
THE FACTOGRAPHY OF THE WAR IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Therefore, what's astonishing is that neither Biljana
Plavsic -- except for a passing reference to World War II --
nor the defense, nor the prosecution, nor the panel of judges
have shown any interest in the circumstances that brought
about the horrible crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina, committed
undoubtedly by all warring sides. In saying this I'm not
considering the circumstances from "times immemorial", but
circumstances that directly caused this war and consequently
the war crimes. This is even more perplexing considering the
fact that these are circumstances well known not only to
Biljana Plavsic, but probably to everyone else present in the
Tribunal courtroom as well. Still, she bears the greatest
responsibility for not speaking about those circumstances; she
had the obligation to talk about that, both for the sake of her
people and for the sake of truth. Evidently, she traded all that
for her personal interests that she negotiated with Carla Del
Ponte.(6). The first gauleiter of Bosnia-Herzegovina after
Dayton, the Swede Karl Bildt, having appeared as a witness
at the trial against Biljana Plavsic, admitted that when he
took that office, he knew nothing of the meaning of 1941 in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. A thick Swede can permit himself not
to know, but how could have Biljana Plavsic forgotten about
the events that she might even have a personal memory of,
when the Croats and the Moslems from her Bosnia
committed such crimes against her people that can hardly be
equaled in monstrosity and cruelty to any other in the history
of mankind?
This is certainly not the place to go back to the
distant past of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Hence, I shall only
mention the circumstances and the events that caused directly
the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, these circumstances and
events being quite well known to Biljana Plavsic, though she
didn't even mentioned them at the trial.
The Moslem and Croatian leaders, acting against the
position of the Serbian representatives, decided in favor of an
unconstitutional secession of Bosnia-Herzegovina from
SFR Yugoslavia. On October 15th 1991, the deputies of
SDA (Moslems) and HDZ (Croats) adopted -- contrary to
the Constitution of SFR Yugoslavia, and contrary to the
Constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the "Memorandum
on the Sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina" incited by and
urged directly by EC criminals and fiends and, obviously, by
the chief sheriff in Washington. At the so-called peace
conference on Yugoslavia held at the Hague, the British
aristocrat Lord Peter Carrington, acting on behalf of the
European Community, proposed on October 18th 1991 the
plan for "solving the Yugoslav crisis", which merely
advocated that all Yugoslav federal units should become
independent states and that they be granted international
recognition in that status, i.e. that Yugoslavia should be
disintegrated and deleted from the political map! Such a
document -- unheard of in international relations -- had
been accepted by Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and obviously
the Moslem/Croat leaders in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Reacting
to such a course of events, on October 25th 1991, the Serbs in
Bosnia-Herzegovina organized themselves and founded the
Assembly of the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
stressing that -- obviously -- they refused to leave
Yugoslavia and that the Moslems and the Croats had no right
to pull them out of Yugoslavia against their will. In
obliterating Yugoslavia as a country, the European
Community went to the extreme: late at night on December
16th 1991, the EC adopted the decision -- under the
pressure of Hans Dietrich Genscher, i.e. Germany -- that
the Yugoslav republics wishing independence should
submit a request to this effect within eight days, and that
they would be recognized as independent states! (7).
Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina did so
within the given deadline. As a reaction, the Assembly of the
Serbian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina passed a resolution on
the forming of the Republic of Srpska within Yugoslavia.
Trying to give an appearance of legality to their crimes, the
Moslem and Croat secessionist leaders in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, organized a referendum (March 3rd
1992) on the secession of Bosnia-Herzegovina from
Yugoslavia and the creation of the "independent"
Bosnia-Herzegovina, that the Serbs -- obviously -- did not
take part in. Like the previous decision on secession made
without the participation of the constituent Serbian nation in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, this referendum was
unconstitutional both according to the Yugoslav Constitution
and the Constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In spite of all that, the representatives of the Serbian people in
Bosnia and Herzegovina did everything possible to avoid the
armed conflict. At the meeting of the representatives of all
three nations held in Sarajevo on March 17th 1992, the
Serbian representatives agreed to a Declaration on the
principles for the new constitutional arrangement of
Bosnia-Herzegovina (as an independent state), also known
as the "Coutillero Plan", even though they had not been
given the mandate to do so by their people which had
already clearly opted in favor of staying in Yugoslavia, and
dismissed the attempts to forcibly pull it out of the
federation. However, Warren Zimmerman - the U.S.
ambassador to SFR Yugoslavia - flew immediately to
Sarajevo and convinced (forced) Alija Izetbegovic to retract
his signature from the agreement. And that time, the acting
Secretary of State was Lawrence Eagleburger. This removes
any possibility of W. Zimmerman having done this of his own
initiative, for he must have been following the instructions of
his boss L. Eagleburger. It should be noted that both of them,
Zimmerman and Eagleburger, were not only US ambassadors
to Yugoslavia, but worked for many years in the U.S.
Embassy in Belgrade, and hence knew perfectly well that by
undermining the Coutillero Plan they would inevitably ignite
the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In spite of that, or
because of that, they did what they did! (8).
Maybe all this was not completely known to everyone in the
Tribunal "courtroom", but Biljana Plavsic certainly knew it
all, because she was not only a witness but also a player in all
those events. Evidently, acting in favor of her personal
interests, she betrayed not only her people, but also the truth
and the basic human dignity. And, what is more, if she had
said all that the "judges" and the public could have listened to
it?
THE WAR IN BOSNIA AND INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW
Even those international law experts and politicians
that insist that the U.N. Security Council did not breach the
U.N. Charter by establishing the "International tribunal for
prosecuting persons responsible for serious violations of
international humanitarian law committed in the territory of
the former Yugoslavia from 1 January 1991" -- which is the
full name of this incredible institution -- should ask
themselves the question: do Articles 2-5 of the Tribunal
Statute really embody the modern international criminal law?
Even if the Security Council were to have the mandate to
establish international criminal courts according to the U.N.
Charter, it certainly doesn't have, nor could ever have any
international legislative mandate, in the sense of defining
international crimes. And this is exactly what it did with the
Tribunal Statute. The crimes listed and formulated in articles
2, 3, 4, and 5 (serious breaches of the Geneva conventions,
war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity) certainly
represent international crimes, not as the Security Council
had formulated them, but rather as they are formulated by
the modern international law. And not only that. All those
international crimes are made operative only through
national legislations and not directly. For example, as far as
serious breaches of the Geneva conventions are concerned,
these conventions specify that the states assume the
obligation to integrate such breaches into their legislation.
Nearly all the countries have done this, Yugoslavia being one
of the first. The same thing applies to all the other crimes
listed in the Tribunal Statute, including genocide. In fact, the
Convention on Genocide clearly states: "The parties assume
the obligation to ensure that, in accordance with their current
constitutions, legal measures be taken to allow the
implementation of the provisions of this Convention, and in
particular to adopt effective criminal sanctions to be applied
against persons responsible for genocide". This solution is
quite logical bearing in mind the fact that the Convention on
genocide does not specify the punishment.
If someone fails to realize -- even bearing in mind all
these facts -- to which extent has the U.N. Security Council
overstepped its mandate based on the U.N. Charter, then one
should read article 24 of the Tribunal Statute, with which the
Security Council introduces the life sentence!
Practically the only international crime that exists
independently from national legislation (aside from piracy at
sea and a few others) is provoking and initiating war of
aggression, which is what the Nuremberg and Tokyo
Tribunal are about. They tried the German in Japanese
officials for after World War II. But, this particular crime
-- believe it or not -- is not listed in the Tribunal
Statute! Obviously, not by mistake. The creators of the
Tribunal, and the authors of its Statute had a clear idea:
preventing at any cost the Tribunal from judging those
that provoked and caused the war in Yugoslavia. Namely,
the secessionist leaders in Yugoslavia and their foreign
sponsors, helpers and commanders. Furthermore, it is evident
that even back then, when the Statute was drafted and the
Tribunal created, the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia had
been anticipated, Tribunal rules had to be a written in a way
that even in that case the Tribunal would not be competent to
try the culprits! Only moral degenerates and deranged
individuals could have invented, designed and adopted such
solutions and the end of the 20th century.
Biljana Plavsic confessed her guilt for the crime of
"expulsion" and is to be sentenced -- to 15 to 20 years of
imprisonment by request of the Prosecutor, and to "not more
than eight years" by demand of the Defense. The fact is that
the Tribunal Statute does not list such a crime! There is
something called "deportation", and this probably applies to
her and her confession, but in criminal law analogies are not
admissible and crimes must be defined very precisely. The
Statute offers no indication on what does the term
"deportation" refers to actually - or as jurists would say -
what is the actual essence of this crime. Therefore, the
Tribunal "judges" will have the freedom to choose what to
subsum in this notion. Deportation, in fact need not
necessarily entail a crime. If it is done for humanitarian
reasons -- for example to remove the population from a
battlefield, or to carry out a voluntary exchange of population
to prevent massacres in a civil war -- it certainly does not
constitute a crime.
Naturally, no one denies that deportations of the
other kind - representing a crime - were committed by all
sides involved in the conflict in Bosnia. But in Bosnia, after
what the Moslems and the Croats did to the Serbs between
1941 and 1945, and with the breakup of Yugoslavia in
1991-1992, demarcation was the only lasting and rational
solution for ensuring true peace and stability in this part of
Europe. Undoubtedly, Greece and Turkey made a wise move
when they carried out a broad exchange of population after
World War I. By no means am I justifying anyone that
committed any form of crime in the process, but demarcation
is, I repeat, the only rational solution for Bosnia. Forget
Dayton!(7). From that perspective, comments made at the
trial by Alex Boraine, a South African that hasn't the faintest
idea what Bosnia is, are nothing but deceitful and silly
remarks. Truth and reconciliation are, naturally, something
that must come about, but not the way that this man
suggested in his testimony.
Notes:
(1) The full and official name of this institution is
"International tribunal for prosecuting persons responsible for
serious violations of international humanitarian law
committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia from 1
January 1991". In this text it is referred to as ICTY, or simply
Tribunal, without quotation marks, although I believe it to be
an illegal and a illegitimate institution.
(2) At the time that this institution was created, she was the
U.S. ambassador to the UN. This woman spent part of her
childhood and youth in Belgrade, since she was the daughter
of the ambassador of Czechoslovakia in Belgrade immediately
after World War II. As a US agent and a traitor to his
country, her father fled to America. Children of diplomats
usually become lifelong friends of the country where they
grew up, went to school and made friends. For some curious
reason she started hating Serbs. During the NATO
aggression on Yugoslavia, launched partially due to her
efforts, a deadly graffiti appeared on the walls of the bombed
buildings in Belgrade: "I like Madleine Albright as well as my
Coca-Cola: on the table and cold!" In Serbian it rhymes:
Volim Olbrajtovu kao koka-kolu: hladnu i na stolu.
(3) One can quote many examples of how a country is
defended and how it should be defended, but I shall merely
rely on an article recently published by the Belgrade daily
Politika (December 20th 2002) dealing with the attempted
secession of Texas from the U.S.:
In America, one cannot fool around with the federation.
Anyone even thinking of chipping off a piece of it, and thus
undermining the interest of the community of 50 united
states, will regret the day he was born. This warning is
underscored by the court file entitled "Separatists from
Texas". The warning will last until 2118! An absurdity, but
still a ruling of the federal court in Dallas.
Richard McLaren, a separatist that proclaimed the
"Independent State of Texas" back in 1995, has been tried
three times consecutively and sentenced to 121 years in
prison.
The "independence of Texas" was not proclaimed at the
congress of a separatist, independentist, or sovereignist party
-- although representatives from abroad, honored with such
attributes have visited Washington -- because no such party
exists in America; rather, it was was made public at the
meeting of two dozen Texas secessionists that met at a
forsaken farm near Fort Davis.
Richard McLaren (47) leader of the separatists, rallied his
supporters in a self-proclaimed "Embassy", installed initially
in the shack of the volunteer fire brigade, and later on in an
abandoned tramway car. The "temporary Capitol" was
located on a 17 acres ranch near the small town of Quero,
and this is where the separatists converged. "State Secretary"
Bernar Grover thought this would be a safe place for
"receptions and meetings with foreign officials and
diplomats", and the first overseas consulate of the separatist
Texas was supposed to be opened in Barcelona. Even an
airport runway was planned, as well as the customs and trade
zone of the "Republic of Texas".
The small group of separatists advocated the need for
international recognition of the " independent Republic of
Texas", and recognition of the Texan "nation". The
separatists from Texas did not introduce their own currency,
nor had they adopted someone else's currency (at the time the
German mark became the official currency in Montenegro),
but a printed Texas cheques with a face value of milions,
based on the "trust of the people of Texas".
This utopia ended with armed clashes.
In the spring of 1997, when President Clinton's financial and
sexual scandals were shaking the White House, on April 27th
the militia of the separatist "Republic of Texas" declared war
to the U.S. government, in reaction to the arrest of one of the
separatists by the police, after the renegades took three
civilians hostage and declared them "prisoners of war. Several
hundred policemen surrounded the armed separatists, and the
little town of Fort Davies turned into a battlefield. From the
nearby counties came several hundred more policemen, that
quickly overpowered the rebels and arrested seven of them
immediately. The separatist leader Richard McLaren asked
for U.N. mediation to save the "besieged nation" threatening
to fight to the death.
The police say that there were some two dozen activists and
about 800 supporters from the surrounding area. After seven
days, McLaren surrendered without struggle, but the trial
lasted nearly three years.
The leader of the separatists invoked the fact that Texas --
initially an Indian prairie, then a colony of the Spanish
conquistadores, then part of Mexico -- after the battle of
Alamo became a recognized independent state between 1836
and 1845. Settlers from the U.S. quickly stormed Texas and
after a referendum that many have objections to, annexed it
to the U.S. union. Spanish is the mother tongue of one-third
of the Texans, and one out of nine is of African origin.
The keepers of the Federation retaliated against McLaren
with a series of trials. He was accused of undermining the
federal revenue by selling void checks, in the name of the
"sovereign Republic of Texas". But Texas, the second-largest
state in the Federation, larger than France, with 20 million
inhabitants, rich with oil and land of origin of Eisenhower,
George Bush, Lindon B. Johnson - shall never be allowed to
leave the Federation.
McLaren was first sentenced to 99 years of imprisonment in a
state penitentiary - for taking part in kidnapping and
resisting the federal police. Because of the monetary
machinations he was further sentenced to 12.5 years in a
federal prison. The County Court in Midland sentenced him
to 10 more years for posession of firearms and planning the
secession of Texas. Total: 121 years of imprisonment. Nearly
half of the total history of the United States.
His six accomplices in the separatist adventure were each
sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment. Karen Paulson, the
wife of one of the separatists, was sentenced to 50 months of
prison.
The utopian effort of a handful of separatists to threaten the
integrity of the American federation and separate 683.000
km2 of territory (46, times the size of Montenegro) to create a
"independent Republic of Texas" has been punished with a
total of 155 years of imprisonment. Information about the
separatists offered to the U.S. public was very limited:
lunatics, madman from the prairie. If he were to live to serve
all three sentences, the utopian and separatist McLaren,
should hope to reach the age of 168.
I hope that this article from their Politika has been read by
all the members of the committee drafting the Constitutional
Charter of Serbia and Montenegro, as well as all those that
took on state affairs, without even knowing the meaning of
the word STATE.
(4) In Germany just is published a bestseller book (Der Brand
- Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940-1945) in which the
author Joerg Friedrich describes the devastation of German
cities and civilians in them, calling Churchill a war criminal,
implying that the RAF directly caused holokaust against the Jews.
(5) In Hiroshima there were in few seconds more civilian
victims than in Bosnian war - 200.000.
(6) See also the secret agreement between B. Plavsic and C.
Del Ponte, dated November 14th 2002 and made public before
the tribunal on Dec. 16th 2002. This deal is quite interesting
and can be found at http://www.tiker.co.yu/vesti.htm and on
the Tribunal site (www.un.org/icty).
(7) British journalist Misha Gleny in his good book on the
destruction of Yugoslavia - although he also, as almost all
Westerners, is obsessed with "great-Serbian chauvinism and
hegemony" as if he attended the Comintern school in
Moscow - cites commentary of one Krajina soldier on the
recognition of Croatia: "Why did you fucking English
capitulate to the fucking Nazis? You fucking bastard, go fuck
your mother, you spineless motherfucker!". (Misha Gleny,
"The Fall of Yugoslavia", London 1992, p.25). This
diplomatic conversation took place in a smoky Knin tavern.
That Krajina soldier, if he survived, wuold be most sutable for
Serbian ambassador in Bonn or London.
(8) In his text «How the war started», Andy Wilcoxson says:
On March 18, 1992, Alija Izetbegovic (Bosnian-Muslim
leader), Mate Boban (Bosnian-Croat leader), and Radovan
Karadzic (Bosnian-Serb Leader) all reached an agreement
on the peaceful succession of Bosnia & Herzegovina from
Yugoslavia.
The Agreement was known as the Lisbon Agreement (it is
also known as the Cutileiro Plan). The agreement called for
an independent Bosnia divided into three constituent and
geographically separate parts, each of which would be
autonomous. Izetbegovic, Boban, and Karadzic all agreed to
the plan, and signed the agreement.
The agreement was all set, internal and external borders, and
the administrative functions of the central and autonomous
governments had all been agreed upon. The threat of civil
war had been removed from Bosnia that is until, the U.S.
Ambassador Warren Zimmerman showed up.
On March 28, 1992, ten days after the agreement was reached
that would have avoided war in Bosnia, Warren Zimmerman
flew to Sarajevo and met with the Bosnian-Muslim leader,
Alija Izetbegovic. Upon finding that Izetbegovic was having
second thoughts about the agreement he had signed in
Lisbon, the Ambassador suggested that if he withdrew his
signature, the United States would grant recognition to
Bosnia as an independent state. Izetbegovic then withdrew his
signature and renounced the agreement.
After Izetbegovic reneged on the Lisbon Agreement, he called
a referendum on separation that was constitutionally illegal.
On the second day of the referendum there was a Muslim-led
attack on a Serb wedding. But the real trigger was
Izetbegovic announcing a full mobilization on April 4, 1992.
He could not legally do that without Serb & Croat consent,
but he did it anyway. That night terror reigned in Sarajevo.
The war was on.
The Bosnian war was ugly and extremely bloody. People
were maimed and killed in bloody inner-city battles that left
over half a million people dead.
The United States likes to point to Bosnia as a shining
example of where it helped Muslims. It is true that the United
States armed the Muslims in Bosnia. But, after many
thousands of deaths and massive destruction throughout
Bosnia, the Muslims were afforded by the terms of the
Dayton Accords, less territory than they had been guaranteed
by the Lisbon Agreement, which the United States urged the
Muslim leader to reject.
The bottom line here is that this war didn't have to happen at
all. Nobody had to die in Bosnia. If Ambassador Zimmerman
had just left Izetbegovic alone, then none of this would have
happened to begin with. Its that simple. The blame for all of
the death and destruction associated with the Bosnian war
lies exclusively with Alija Izetbegovic for starting the war,
and with the U.S. President Bill Clinton for sending that idiot
Zimmerman to Bosnia in the first place.
www.slobodan-milosevic.org/bosnia-started.
(7) The circumstances under which the republic of
Bosnia-Herzegovina was created as a federal unit within
Yugoslavia, in the middle of World War II, and how it
subsequently existed and evolved quite successfully until Alija
Izetbegovic appeared on the political scene with his Islamic
Declaration and the "upsurging of democracy" in the form of
his SDA party, are explained by Milovan Djilas, one of the
figures that took part in its creation back in the '40s, in what
I believe this is best work ever, Wartime, on p. 356: "The
party had held the view that Bosnia and Hercegovina should
have autonomous status, rather than become republic. This
plan implied autonomy under the Republic of Serbia.
However, the war had turned Bosnia into a battleground
between feuding Ustashi and Chetniks, as well as a base and
haven for the Partisans. Autonomy under either Serbia or
Croatia would have encoraged furter strife and deprived the
Moslems of their individuality. The Bosnian leadership too,
like every authority that grows out of an uprising, insised on
their own state, and later even on their own historical outlet
to the sea. But the republican status of Bosnia and
Hercegovina was not decided at that time, or during the
session of AVNOJ. It was decided in early January 1944 at a
meeting during a march, after the retreat from Jajce.
Rankovic reported that the Bosnian leadership proposed a
republic, Tito agreed, and so did all the rest of us, as if this
were something acceptable on the face of it". And so a
semi-literate corporal of the Austrian Imperial Army and a
small group of fanatic communists found a far more rational
solution for Bosnia than the one created by the Empire in
Dayton. Why? Well, simply because, in spite of all their
ideological and political limitations, they were people born in
this region devoid of any imperialist ambition to rule the
world.
Dr Milan Tepavac