==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
tel/fax +39-06-4828957
email: icdsm-italia @ libero.it
Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC
sito internet:
http://www.pasti.org/linkmilo.htm
==========================
[ Tre articoli tratti dal giornale marxista statunitense Workers World,
a proposito degli sviluppi del "processo" dell'Aia nel contesto piu'
generale della crisi internazionale e delle lotte contro l'imperialismo
e la guerra... ]
Source: Workers World - http://www.workers.org/ww/
1. EDITORIAL: Bush & NATO (FRANCAIS + ENGLISH)
2. WHY HAGUE COURT WANTS TO SILENCE MILOSEVIC
(By John Catalinotto)
3. LET MILOSEVIC HAVE A FAIR FIGHT
---( 1 - FRANCAIS )---
Bush et l'OTAN
Worker's World, ed. du 8 juillet 2004
http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/edit0708.php
tradution par alerte-otan:
http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/alerte_otan/messages
Le gang Bush a été si arrogant en menant unilatéralement la puissance
militaire US en Irak, que la demande de Bush pour avoir l'aide de
l'OTAN pourrait erronément être vue comme une étape vers la paix. Ce
serait une mauvaise compréhension grossière du rôle de l'OTAN. L'OTAN
n'est pas une organisation internationale de 'maintien de la paix'.
C'est une alliance militaire conduite par les USA et les puissances
coloniales européennes plus anciennes, dirigées contre les travailleurs
et les nations opprimées.
Les USA ont fondé l'OTAN en 1949 pour maintenir la révolution
socialiste hors d'Europe occidentale, et pour menacer l'Union
Soviétique. Elle a également garanti un rôle dominant à la politique
étrangère US à l'égard de ses alliés européens. La structure de l'OTAN
a des officiers US au sommet, et les puissances impérialistes plus
faibles de l'Europe Occidentale on subordonné leurs intérêts
individuels à la confrontation avec le camp socialiste. Aussi longtemps
que l'URSS et le Pacte de Varsovie existaient, l'OTAN n'a pas mené
d'attaques militaires. Elle ne le pouvait pas. Mais les plans de l'OTAN
ont formé la base du coup d'état fasciste des colonels grecs en 1967.
Des agents de l'OTAN ont travaillé avec les militaristes et les
fascistes en Italie pour semer la terreur dans les années 70. Les
armées de l'OTAN ont menacé d'intervenir contre la révolution
portugaise e, 1974-1975, si les travailleurs avaient tenté de prendre
le pouvoir.
L'effondrement de l'URSS en 1989-1991 a laissé les États-Unis avec un
problème vis-à-vis de l'OTAN. Les stratèges US voulaient prendre ce
pacte anti-soviétique et le transformer en une arme pour l'intervention
en Europe de l'Est, en Afrique et au Moyen-Orient. Cela laisserait les
USA au siège de commandement pour les interventions militaires, mais
engagerait sur le terrain les Anglais, les Français, les Allemands et
les autres rivaux impérialistes.
La première grande zone d'intervention a été les Balkans. Pouvant
compter sur la puissance aérienne US, l'OTAN a fait sa première
intervention militaire de la période post-soviétique contre le peuple
de Yougoslavie, bombardant impitoyablement les cibles civiles pendant
78 jours en 1999, pour le 50e anniversaire de l'OTAN. Cela a prouvé une
fois de plus que l'OTAN était un pacte entre puissances prédatrices,
aspirant à oppresser et à exploiter la grande majorité des gens sur la
terre. A la fin de cette guerre les grandes puissances ont taillé le
Kosovo hors de la Serbie, se partageant le butin, tout juste comme les
puissances coloniales l'avaient fait lorsqu'elles avaient découpé
l'Afrique.
L'aventure du gang Bush en Irak a été un pas plus loin que l'OTAN.
Cela a été une tentative de piller un pays sans partager le butin avec
les rivaux des USA. L'échec de Bush en Irak a forcé la classe
dirigeante états-unienne à se tourner à nouveau vers l'OTAN, que Bush
ou Kerry soit à la Maison Blanche l'année prochaine.
Le procès Milosevic.
Avec l'OTAN qui va vraisemblablement continuer à être un point
principal de la politique étrangère US, ce serait un bon moment pour le
mouvement progressiste d'accorder de l'attention au procès contre
l'ancien président yougoslave Slobodan Milosevic à La Haye. Après 3 ans
dans une ancienne prison Nazi, et une parade de 300 témoins à charge
qui n'ont rien su prouver contre lui, Milosevic commence sa défense en
juillet. Et même durant deux années de contre-interrogatoires des
témoins de l'accusation, Milosevic a réussi à montrer l'agression de
l'OTAN. Sa défense va probablement montrer au monde les crimes de
guerre de l'OTAN dans les Balkans.
---( 1 - ENGLISH )---
http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/edit0708.php
EDITORIAL
Bush & NATO
Reprinted from the July 8, 2004,
issue of Workers World newspaper
The Bush gang has been so arrogant in wielding unilateral U.S. military
power in Iraq that Bush's request for help from NATO might falsely look
like a step toward peace. That would be a gross misunderstanding of
NATO's role. NATO is no
international organization of "peacekeepers." It's a military alliance
led by the U.S. and the older colonial powers in Europe, aimed at the
workers and oppressed nations.
The U.S. founded NATO in 1949 to keep socialist revolution away from
Western Europe and to threaten the Soviet Union. It also guaranteed a
leading role for U.S. foreign policy with regard to its European
allies. The NATO structure had U.S. officers at the top, and the weaker
imperialist powers in Western Europe subordinated their individual
interests to the confrontation with the socialist camp.
As long as the USSR and the Warsaw Pact existed, NATO made no military
attacks. It couldn't. But NATO plans formed the basis for the
pro-fascist coup of Greek colonels in 1967. NATO agents worked with the
militarists and fascists in Italy to sow terror in the 1970s. NATO
armies threatened to intervene against the Portuguese revolution in
1974-1975 should the workers there attempt to seize power.
The collapse of the USSR in 1989-1991 left the U.S. with a problem
regarding NATO. U.S. strategists wanted to take this anti-Soviet pact
and turn it into a weapon for intervention in Eastern Europe, Africa
and the Middle East. This would leave the U.S. in the driver's seat
regarding military intervention, but would enlist the British, French,
German and other imperialist rivals in the ground armies taking
casualties.
The first major area of intervention was the Balkans. With reliance on
U.S. air power, NATO made its first military intervention in the
post-Soviet period against the people of Yugoslavia, bombing civilian
targets mercilessly for 78 days in 1999 on NATO50th anniversary. It
proved once more that NATO was a pact of predatory powers, aimed at
oppressing and exploiting the vast majority of the world's people. At
the end of that war, it was fitting and symbolic that the major powers
carved up Serbia's Kosovo province, sharing the spoils just as the
19th-century colonial powers did when they carved up Africa.
The Bush gang's adventure in Iraq went a step beyond NATO. It was an
attempt to plunder a country without sharing the spoils with U.S.
rivals. Bush's failure in Iraq has forced the U.S. ruling class to look
back toward NATO, whether Bush or Kerry is in the White House next year.
The Milosevic case
With NATO likely to continue as a major focus of U.S. foreign policy,
it would be a good time for the progressive movement here to pay
attention to the case against former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic in The Hague. After three years in an old Nazi prison and a
parade of 300 prosecution witnesses who proved nothing against him,
Milosevic is opening his defense case in July. Even during the last two
years of cross-examinations of prosecution witnesses, Milosevic managed
to expose NATO's aggression. His defense will likely expose to the
world NATO's own war crimes in the Balkans.
---( 2 )---
http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/milosevic0715.php
WHY HAGUE COURT WANTS TO SILENCE MILOSEVIC
By John Catalinotto
Reprinted from the July 15, 2004,
issue of Workers World newspaper
July 10, 2004--The NATO-created International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague took ominous new
steps July 5 to restrict former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's
right to represent himself. The ICTY used Milosevic's real health
problems as an excuse to justify depriving him of his rights.
The following day the court ruled that his trial would resume on
July 14, but that it would assign a cardiologist to monitor
Milosevic's health in preparation for forcing him to accept assigned
counsel.
Milosevic has been imprisoned for three years in The Hague in a
place where the Nazis held resistance fighters. For two years he
cross- examined some 300 prosecution witnesses. He was about to
begin his defense case. Though he was to be restricted to 150 days in
court, the former president was prepared to present a powerful
case exposing U.S. and NATO crimes in his country and exonerating
himself and the Yugoslav people.
Milosevic told the media and the court that he would never accept
an appointed counsel and he insisted on continuing his own
defense. "This illegal court is daring to judge biological and
medical issues after they have proven incapable of judging legal and
historical issues," he said. "This court is like the Inquisition."
Madeleine Albright, who was U.S. secretary of state during the
1999 U.S.- NATO war against Yugoslavia, was seen in The Hague at
the ICTY building on July 5. Albright is known as "the mother of
the ICTY." Supporters of Milosevic believe her presence is connected
with the court's decision to postpone the trial and its attempt to
change the rules.
Milosevic's long-time aide, Vladimir Krsljanin, said from Belgrade
on July 5, "What we have seen at The Hague is the worst kind of
political theater and legal outrage directed at the president.
Slobodan Milosevic was brought to trial while he was suffering bad
health conditions. Despite our pleas and complaints and the
petitions of medical experts to the ICTY, it refused our demands
for more time for preparation and rest for President Milosevic.
"First the court created conditions that worsened his health, and
now they are using his ill health to justify stifling his
presentation of his powerful defense case," said Krsljanin.
CHANGING THE RULES
The ICTY opened the prosecution case in February 2002 after a year
of preparation. The well-funded and staffed court set its own
rules for the proceedings. It allowed Milosevic to represent
himself, as he insisted.
At that time, the ICTY and the media presented the Milosevic case
as "the trial of the century." That's when the prosecution hoped
to use it as a show trial to convict the Yugoslav leader and blame
him and the entire Serb people for the wars in the Balkans.
Within the first month, however, Milosevic had so ably handled his
political and legal presentation, and had so effectively
cross-examined hostile witnesses, that many reporters had to admit the
case against the Serb leader was weak to non-existent. Publicity
on the case was damaging NATO's justification for the war.
Throughout the two years of prosecution that ended last February,
President Milosevic was plagued by high blood pressure and a heart
ailment. Dozens of doctors pleaded for a more humane treatment of
the president. The court delayed proceedings, but refused to release
him from the harsh prison conditions or give him the medical care
of his choice.
Though prosecutors took a year to prepare their case and two to
present it, the ICTY allowed Milosevic only 90 days to prepare his
defense and was to allow only 150 days for him to present it. Any
time there is a delay for his health, the court refuses to allow him
access to any papers or books or to interview potential witnesses
at leisure. He lost 51 of the 90 days preparation when he
complained of bad health.
As part of his defense case, Milosevic intended to call U.S.
President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and
other NATO leaders as witnesses so he could charge them for the
war crimes NATO committed against Yugoslavia.
He also planned to call a number of political analysts and
activists who have written, spoken and organized against U.S. and
NATO intervention in the Balkans. Some of these potential witnesses
participated in the Peoples Tribunal on Yugoslavia organized by the
International Action Center (IAC) in 1999-2000.
Faced with the embarrassment of a powerful political exposure of
NATO and U.S. leaders, the ICTY, like a schoolyard bully who keeps
getting beaten at his own game, decided to change the rules and
refuse to allow Milosevic to defend himself.
One potential witness was Sara Flounders, a co-director of the IAC
and an editor of the IAC book, "Hidden Agenda: the U.S.-NATO
Takeover of Yugoslavia." Flounders was scheduled to testify early.
She met with Milosevic in The Hague on June 28.
Flounders said that "The attempt to remove President Milosevic as
his own attorney is an admission of his innocence of the war
crimes charges and of U.S. and NATO guilt in planning, executing
and carrying out a 10-year war that broke up a strong and successful
Yugoslav Federation into a half-dozen weak colonies and
neo-colonies subservient to the United States and Western Europe.
"Just as the weapons of mass destruction have never been found in
Iraq," Flounders continued, "the charge of massacres, mass graves
and genocide proved to be an utter fabrication in Kosovo. It is
essential that President Milosevic have a full opportunity to
expose NATO's war crimes, to defend Yugoslavia and to answer these
charges against his government."
IAC founder and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark made
himself clear on the issue of Milosevic's right to defend himself:
"President Milosevic chose to 'defend himself in person,' a
fundamental human right recognized by the Inter national Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights."
Tiphaine Dickson, an attorney from Canada who is assisting the
Inter national Committee for the Defense of Slobodan Milosevic,
said, "Within the U.S., the Supreme Court has recognized this as a
right under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. To refuse to allow
him this right would turn the already illegal ICTY hearings into a
star-chamber proceeding."
---( 3 )---
http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/edit30729.php
LET MILOSEVIC HAVE A FAIR FIGHT
Reprinted from the July 29, 2004
issue of Workers World newspaper
Conquering a new colony, the Roman legions drag the defeated chieftain
back to the Colosseum. They offer a final challenge: "We will bury you
up to your neck in sand and set the lion on you. If you defeat him, you
will be set free."
As the lion leaps on him, the chieftain ducks and then bites the lion
in the groin. The lion bleeds to death. "Now you must free me," he says.
"Not so fast," counters a Legionnaire. "You didn't fight fair."
For those who follow the case of former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic, this enraging old "joke" hits home. Yugoslavia's imperialist
conquerors dragged the defeated leader to NATO's court in The Hague,
which spent tens of millions of dollars, prepared for a year, put on
295 prosecution witnesses over two years and proved nothing.
That's the reason most people have probably heard little of what was
supposed to be the "war crimes trial of the century."
Ill much of the time, Milosevic worked with the aid of a handful of
supporters and little money before hostile judges who make up the rules
as they go along. He still demolished the prosecution by exposing
"witnesses" as stool pigeons and war criminals trading lies for
immunity.
Milosevic had only 50 days to prepare his defense. He was set to expose
U.S./NATO war crimes against Yugoslavia. Like the Romans in the story,
the court changed the rules. The illness Milosevic complained of for
two years suddenly became useful to the judges. Instead of giving him
time and care to recover, they now threaten to stop him from
representing himself.
For "fairness," for historic truth, the court must give Milosevic time
off to recover his health, time to prepare his case, and the right to
defend himself in court.
---
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and
distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not
allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY,
NY 10011; via email: ww@ wwpublish.com. Subscribe wwnews-on@
wwpublish.com. Unsubscribe wwnews-off@ wwpublish.com. Support
independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
tel/fax +39-06-4828957
email: icdsm-italia @ libero.it
Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC
sito internet:
http://www.pasti.org/linkmilo.htm
==========================
[ Tre articoli tratti dal giornale marxista statunitense Workers World,
a proposito degli sviluppi del "processo" dell'Aia nel contesto piu'
generale della crisi internazionale e delle lotte contro l'imperialismo
e la guerra... ]
Source: Workers World - http://www.workers.org/ww/
1. EDITORIAL: Bush & NATO (FRANCAIS + ENGLISH)
2. WHY HAGUE COURT WANTS TO SILENCE MILOSEVIC
(By John Catalinotto)
3. LET MILOSEVIC HAVE A FAIR FIGHT
---( 1 - FRANCAIS )---
Bush et l'OTAN
Worker's World, ed. du 8 juillet 2004
http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/edit0708.php
tradution par alerte-otan:
http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/alerte_otan/messages
Le gang Bush a été si arrogant en menant unilatéralement la puissance
militaire US en Irak, que la demande de Bush pour avoir l'aide de
l'OTAN pourrait erronément être vue comme une étape vers la paix. Ce
serait une mauvaise compréhension grossière du rôle de l'OTAN. L'OTAN
n'est pas une organisation internationale de 'maintien de la paix'.
C'est une alliance militaire conduite par les USA et les puissances
coloniales européennes plus anciennes, dirigées contre les travailleurs
et les nations opprimées.
Les USA ont fondé l'OTAN en 1949 pour maintenir la révolution
socialiste hors d'Europe occidentale, et pour menacer l'Union
Soviétique. Elle a également garanti un rôle dominant à la politique
étrangère US à l'égard de ses alliés européens. La structure de l'OTAN
a des officiers US au sommet, et les puissances impérialistes plus
faibles de l'Europe Occidentale on subordonné leurs intérêts
individuels à la confrontation avec le camp socialiste. Aussi longtemps
que l'URSS et le Pacte de Varsovie existaient, l'OTAN n'a pas mené
d'attaques militaires. Elle ne le pouvait pas. Mais les plans de l'OTAN
ont formé la base du coup d'état fasciste des colonels grecs en 1967.
Des agents de l'OTAN ont travaillé avec les militaristes et les
fascistes en Italie pour semer la terreur dans les années 70. Les
armées de l'OTAN ont menacé d'intervenir contre la révolution
portugaise e, 1974-1975, si les travailleurs avaient tenté de prendre
le pouvoir.
L'effondrement de l'URSS en 1989-1991 a laissé les États-Unis avec un
problème vis-à-vis de l'OTAN. Les stratèges US voulaient prendre ce
pacte anti-soviétique et le transformer en une arme pour l'intervention
en Europe de l'Est, en Afrique et au Moyen-Orient. Cela laisserait les
USA au siège de commandement pour les interventions militaires, mais
engagerait sur le terrain les Anglais, les Français, les Allemands et
les autres rivaux impérialistes.
La première grande zone d'intervention a été les Balkans. Pouvant
compter sur la puissance aérienne US, l'OTAN a fait sa première
intervention militaire de la période post-soviétique contre le peuple
de Yougoslavie, bombardant impitoyablement les cibles civiles pendant
78 jours en 1999, pour le 50e anniversaire de l'OTAN. Cela a prouvé une
fois de plus que l'OTAN était un pacte entre puissances prédatrices,
aspirant à oppresser et à exploiter la grande majorité des gens sur la
terre. A la fin de cette guerre les grandes puissances ont taillé le
Kosovo hors de la Serbie, se partageant le butin, tout juste comme les
puissances coloniales l'avaient fait lorsqu'elles avaient découpé
l'Afrique.
L'aventure du gang Bush en Irak a été un pas plus loin que l'OTAN.
Cela a été une tentative de piller un pays sans partager le butin avec
les rivaux des USA. L'échec de Bush en Irak a forcé la classe
dirigeante états-unienne à se tourner à nouveau vers l'OTAN, que Bush
ou Kerry soit à la Maison Blanche l'année prochaine.
Le procès Milosevic.
Avec l'OTAN qui va vraisemblablement continuer à être un point
principal de la politique étrangère US, ce serait un bon moment pour le
mouvement progressiste d'accorder de l'attention au procès contre
l'ancien président yougoslave Slobodan Milosevic à La Haye. Après 3 ans
dans une ancienne prison Nazi, et une parade de 300 témoins à charge
qui n'ont rien su prouver contre lui, Milosevic commence sa défense en
juillet. Et même durant deux années de contre-interrogatoires des
témoins de l'accusation, Milosevic a réussi à montrer l'agression de
l'OTAN. Sa défense va probablement montrer au monde les crimes de
guerre de l'OTAN dans les Balkans.
---( 1 - ENGLISH )---
http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/edit0708.php
EDITORIAL
Bush & NATO
Reprinted from the July 8, 2004,
issue of Workers World newspaper
The Bush gang has been so arrogant in wielding unilateral U.S. military
power in Iraq that Bush's request for help from NATO might falsely look
like a step toward peace. That would be a gross misunderstanding of
NATO's role. NATO is no
international organization of "peacekeepers." It's a military alliance
led by the U.S. and the older colonial powers in Europe, aimed at the
workers and oppressed nations.
The U.S. founded NATO in 1949 to keep socialist revolution away from
Western Europe and to threaten the Soviet Union. It also guaranteed a
leading role for U.S. foreign policy with regard to its European
allies. The NATO structure had U.S. officers at the top, and the weaker
imperialist powers in Western Europe subordinated their individual
interests to the confrontation with the socialist camp.
As long as the USSR and the Warsaw Pact existed, NATO made no military
attacks. It couldn't. But NATO plans formed the basis for the
pro-fascist coup of Greek colonels in 1967. NATO agents worked with the
militarists and fascists in Italy to sow terror in the 1970s. NATO
armies threatened to intervene against the Portuguese revolution in
1974-1975 should the workers there attempt to seize power.
The collapse of the USSR in 1989-1991 left the U.S. with a problem
regarding NATO. U.S. strategists wanted to take this anti-Soviet pact
and turn it into a weapon for intervention in Eastern Europe, Africa
and the Middle East. This would leave the U.S. in the driver's seat
regarding military intervention, but would enlist the British, French,
German and other imperialist rivals in the ground armies taking
casualties.
The first major area of intervention was the Balkans. With reliance on
U.S. air power, NATO made its first military intervention in the
post-Soviet period against the people of Yugoslavia, bombing civilian
targets mercilessly for 78 days in 1999 on NATO50th anniversary. It
proved once more that NATO was a pact of predatory powers, aimed at
oppressing and exploiting the vast majority of the world's people. At
the end of that war, it was fitting and symbolic that the major powers
carved up Serbia's Kosovo province, sharing the spoils just as the
19th-century colonial powers did when they carved up Africa.
The Bush gang's adventure in Iraq went a step beyond NATO. It was an
attempt to plunder a country without sharing the spoils with U.S.
rivals. Bush's failure in Iraq has forced the U.S. ruling class to look
back toward NATO, whether Bush or Kerry is in the White House next year.
The Milosevic case
With NATO likely to continue as a major focus of U.S. foreign policy,
it would be a good time for the progressive movement here to pay
attention to the case against former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic in The Hague. After three years in an old Nazi prison and a
parade of 300 prosecution witnesses who proved nothing against him,
Milosevic is opening his defense case in July. Even during the last two
years of cross-examinations of prosecution witnesses, Milosevic managed
to expose NATO's aggression. His defense will likely expose to the
world NATO's own war crimes in the Balkans.
---( 2 )---
http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/milosevic0715.php
WHY HAGUE COURT WANTS TO SILENCE MILOSEVIC
By John Catalinotto
Reprinted from the July 15, 2004,
issue of Workers World newspaper
July 10, 2004--The NATO-created International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague took ominous new
steps July 5 to restrict former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's
right to represent himself. The ICTY used Milosevic's real health
problems as an excuse to justify depriving him of his rights.
The following day the court ruled that his trial would resume on
July 14, but that it would assign a cardiologist to monitor
Milosevic's health in preparation for forcing him to accept assigned
counsel.
Milosevic has been imprisoned for three years in The Hague in a
place where the Nazis held resistance fighters. For two years he
cross- examined some 300 prosecution witnesses. He was about to
begin his defense case. Though he was to be restricted to 150 days in
court, the former president was prepared to present a powerful
case exposing U.S. and NATO crimes in his country and exonerating
himself and the Yugoslav people.
Milosevic told the media and the court that he would never accept
an appointed counsel and he insisted on continuing his own
defense. "This illegal court is daring to judge biological and
medical issues after they have proven incapable of judging legal and
historical issues," he said. "This court is like the Inquisition."
Madeleine Albright, who was U.S. secretary of state during the
1999 U.S.- NATO war against Yugoslavia, was seen in The Hague at
the ICTY building on July 5. Albright is known as "the mother of
the ICTY." Supporters of Milosevic believe her presence is connected
with the court's decision to postpone the trial and its attempt to
change the rules.
Milosevic's long-time aide, Vladimir Krsljanin, said from Belgrade
on July 5, "What we have seen at The Hague is the worst kind of
political theater and legal outrage directed at the president.
Slobodan Milosevic was brought to trial while he was suffering bad
health conditions. Despite our pleas and complaints and the
petitions of medical experts to the ICTY, it refused our demands
for more time for preparation and rest for President Milosevic.
"First the court created conditions that worsened his health, and
now they are using his ill health to justify stifling his
presentation of his powerful defense case," said Krsljanin.
CHANGING THE RULES
The ICTY opened the prosecution case in February 2002 after a year
of preparation. The well-funded and staffed court set its own
rules for the proceedings. It allowed Milosevic to represent
himself, as he insisted.
At that time, the ICTY and the media presented the Milosevic case
as "the trial of the century." That's when the prosecution hoped
to use it as a show trial to convict the Yugoslav leader and blame
him and the entire Serb people for the wars in the Balkans.
Within the first month, however, Milosevic had so ably handled his
political and legal presentation, and had so effectively
cross-examined hostile witnesses, that many reporters had to admit the
case against the Serb leader was weak to non-existent. Publicity
on the case was damaging NATO's justification for the war.
Throughout the two years of prosecution that ended last February,
President Milosevic was plagued by high blood pressure and a heart
ailment. Dozens of doctors pleaded for a more humane treatment of
the president. The court delayed proceedings, but refused to release
him from the harsh prison conditions or give him the medical care
of his choice.
Though prosecutors took a year to prepare their case and two to
present it, the ICTY allowed Milosevic only 90 days to prepare his
defense and was to allow only 150 days for him to present it. Any
time there is a delay for his health, the court refuses to allow him
access to any papers or books or to interview potential witnesses
at leisure. He lost 51 of the 90 days preparation when he
complained of bad health.
As part of his defense case, Milosevic intended to call U.S.
President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and
other NATO leaders as witnesses so he could charge them for the
war crimes NATO committed against Yugoslavia.
He also planned to call a number of political analysts and
activists who have written, spoken and organized against U.S. and
NATO intervention in the Balkans. Some of these potential witnesses
participated in the Peoples Tribunal on Yugoslavia organized by the
International Action Center (IAC) in 1999-2000.
Faced with the embarrassment of a powerful political exposure of
NATO and U.S. leaders, the ICTY, like a schoolyard bully who keeps
getting beaten at his own game, decided to change the rules and
refuse to allow Milosevic to defend himself.
One potential witness was Sara Flounders, a co-director of the IAC
and an editor of the IAC book, "Hidden Agenda: the U.S.-NATO
Takeover of Yugoslavia." Flounders was scheduled to testify early.
She met with Milosevic in The Hague on June 28.
Flounders said that "The attempt to remove President Milosevic as
his own attorney is an admission of his innocence of the war
crimes charges and of U.S. and NATO guilt in planning, executing
and carrying out a 10-year war that broke up a strong and successful
Yugoslav Federation into a half-dozen weak colonies and
neo-colonies subservient to the United States and Western Europe.
"Just as the weapons of mass destruction have never been found in
Iraq," Flounders continued, "the charge of massacres, mass graves
and genocide proved to be an utter fabrication in Kosovo. It is
essential that President Milosevic have a full opportunity to
expose NATO's war crimes, to defend Yugoslavia and to answer these
charges against his government."
IAC founder and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark made
himself clear on the issue of Milosevic's right to defend himself:
"President Milosevic chose to 'defend himself in person,' a
fundamental human right recognized by the Inter national Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights."
Tiphaine Dickson, an attorney from Canada who is assisting the
Inter national Committee for the Defense of Slobodan Milosevic,
said, "Within the U.S., the Supreme Court has recognized this as a
right under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. To refuse to allow
him this right would turn the already illegal ICTY hearings into a
star-chamber proceeding."
---( 3 )---
http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/edit30729.php
LET MILOSEVIC HAVE A FAIR FIGHT
Reprinted from the July 29, 2004
issue of Workers World newspaper
Conquering a new colony, the Roman legions drag the defeated chieftain
back to the Colosseum. They offer a final challenge: "We will bury you
up to your neck in sand and set the lion on you. If you defeat him, you
will be set free."
As the lion leaps on him, the chieftain ducks and then bites the lion
in the groin. The lion bleeds to death. "Now you must free me," he says.
"Not so fast," counters a Legionnaire. "You didn't fight fair."
For those who follow the case of former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic, this enraging old "joke" hits home. Yugoslavia's imperialist
conquerors dragged the defeated leader to NATO's court in The Hague,
which spent tens of millions of dollars, prepared for a year, put on
295 prosecution witnesses over two years and proved nothing.
That's the reason most people have probably heard little of what was
supposed to be the "war crimes trial of the century."
Ill much of the time, Milosevic worked with the aid of a handful of
supporters and little money before hostile judges who make up the rules
as they go along. He still demolished the prosecution by exposing
"witnesses" as stool pigeons and war criminals trading lies for
immunity.
Milosevic had only 50 days to prepare his defense. He was set to expose
U.S./NATO war crimes against Yugoslavia. Like the Romans in the story,
the court changed the rules. The illness Milosevic complained of for
two years suddenly became useful to the judges. Instead of giving him
time and care to recover, they now threaten to stop him from
representing himself.
For "fairness," for historic truth, the court must give Milosevic time
off to recover his health, time to prepare his case, and the right to
defend himself in court.
---
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