Da: "icdsm-italia\@libero\.it"
Data: Mar 3 Mag 2005 13:43:21 Europe/Rome
A: "icdsm-italia" <icdsm-italia @ yahoogroups.com>
Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] C. James: Justice at The Hague?
[Un articolo di Christopher James, curatore del sito della sezione
britannica www.free-slobo-uk.org , nell'anniversario della aggressione
NATO contro la RF di Jugoslavia]
The URL for this article is:
http://www.free-slobo-uk.org/media_james
Morning Star article published March 23, 2005 (6th anniversary of NATO
aggression)
by CHRISTOPHER JAMES
Justice at The Hague?
IS there anybody left who still believes that Slobodan Milosevic is
receiving justice at The Hague? If so, would they please turn off the
light when leaving the room and heed Alice Mahon's damning indictment
of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
(ICTY), which the veteran Labour MP insists must be abolished.
The tribunal, where the former Yugoslav president's trial entered its
fourth year last month, is a "festering sore at the heart of
Yugoslavia," says the Halifax MP and Committee for Peace in the
Balkans chairwoman, who witnessed first-hand the devastation wreaked
by NATO during the western military alliance's 78-day aerial
bombardment of the country in 1999.
Readers may recall that President Milosevic's indictment, covering
alleged crimes supposedly committed several years earlier, was issued
by ICTY prosecutors to coincide with the first bombs falling on
Belgrade, exposing the tribunal's hand-in-glove relationship with NATO.
Over 23,000 tons of explosives were dropped on Yugoslavia - greater
than the power of the Hiroshima bomb - during this illegal NATO
assault, culminating in the annexation of the southern Serbian
province of Kosovo and the subsequent expulsion of 200,000 Serbs,
Roma, Jews, Turks and other non-Albanian minorities by the west's
local proxies, the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Ms Mahon, who is among the speakers at this week's House of Commons
rally in commemoration of the 6th anniversary of the bombing, recently
secured a parliamentary debate on the ICTY - a first for a national
legislature in any NATO country and a rare opportunity to put the
growing opposition to the tribunal on the record.
She describes the tribunal - railroaded through the United Nations
Security Council by Washington in breach of the UN Charter - as a
"victor's court," that was "founded by the west, funded largely by the
west and staffed at very senior levels by the west."
Hague prosecutors, such as Louise Arbour (who issued the Milosevic
indictment) and his current inquisitor Carla del Ponte, are "creatures
of NATO," says Ms Mahon, who cites the following damning confession
from chief NATO spindoctor Jamie Shea: "NATO is the friend of the
tribunal. NATO countries are those that have provided the finances to
set up the tribunal."
Ms Mahon is backed by former United States attorney general Ramsey
Clark, who served under president Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s before
turning peace campaigner and social activist during the Vietnam war.
"You can read the UN Charter all you want and you will never find any
provision that authorises the creation of the ICTY," says Mr Clark,
who advises President Milosevic on his defence.
He cites Washington's "feverish opposition" to the establishment of
the International Criminal Court (ICC), which would be empowered to
try US citizens, as proof of its duplicity.
"Equality is the mother of justice - if equal justice under law is the
founding principle of the rule of law then the ICTY fails to meet most
of the standards because it persecutes only the enemies of the United
States to ensure further domination of the region. In a sense it's
more deadly than the bombs."
Amid the current chorus of protest sparked by the Blair government's
determination to overturn our ancient and fundamental legal rights in
pursuit of the "war on terror," a grand irony has emerged.
Just a few month's ago, the very same protesting champions of our
indivisible legal rights - whether leftists, liberals or human rights
campaigners - were struck dumb when the ICTY took the dramatic step of
stripping President Milosevic of the right to conduct his own defence.
The denial of this fundamental principle coupled with the imposition
of a highly dubious, court-appointed, "defence" team against
Milosevic's will, rolled back precious legal freedoms and safeguards
enjoyed by citizens since the abolition of the Star Chamber in the
Middle Ages.
Quite why such a deafening silence should greet this unprecedented
assault on our legal traditions, at least as threatening to civil
liberties as anything passed by Parliament this month, takes little
fathoming - support for Milosevic, even when he is right, is clearly
considered beyond the pale.
Strange as solidarity with Milosevic might sound to most Western ears,
including those within progressive circles, it is par for the course
elsewhere on our planet - particularly among governments and parties
with first-hand experience of imperialist domination.
Here is what one senior Sandinista official, representing former
Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, told the most recent congress of
the Socialist Party of Serbia, the party which Milosevic continues to
lead from his prison cell and one which welcomed officials from the
ANC and PLO as well as Cuban, Vietnamese and Russian communist
parties on the very same platform.
"I have seen a president who is stronger than ever. President
Milosevic is more liked than ever, not only among his compatriots but
also in the progressive part of the entire world community," he said.
That the Sandinistas should keenly feel such solidarity with the
former Yugoslav president and his comrades is unsurprising given that
they themselves endured similar strategies of vilification,
demonisation and destabilisation at the hands of imperialism as that
suffered by Milosevic, Serbs in general and Yugoslavia as a whole.
In her groundbreaking work on the 1990s Balkans conflict, Fools
Crusade, US academic Diana Johnstone recalls how lurid allegations of
Sandinista "death/rape camps," abounded in the 1980s, foreshadowing
phoney accusations made against Serbs a decade later, while the US
supported Contra terrorists in central America just as they sponsored
fanatical Saudi and Pakistani mujaheddin in Bosnia.
The Sandinistas famously lost power to US-backed forces in Nicaragua's
1990 election in much the same way as Milosevic did in 2001, shortly
before he was snatched from Belgrade and illegally transferred to The
Hague in defiance of Yugoslavia's constitutional court.
Both narrowly lost power to Washington-sponsored "democrats," a
pattern recently repeated through the theatrical "people's
revolutions" in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine -
precedents that similarly threaten several resource-rich central Asian
states, as the NATO new world order closes in on Russia.
* Christopher James edits the website: www.free-slobo-uk.org
==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
tel/fax +39-06-4828957
email: icdsm-italia @ libero.it
*** CONTRIBUISCI E FAI CONTRIBUIRE:
Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC ***
IL NOSTRO SITO INTERNET:
http://www.pasti.org/linkmilo.htm
IL TESTO IN LINGUA ITALIANA DELLA AUTODIFESA DI MILOSEVIC, IN CORSO
DI REVISIONE E CORREZIONE, E' TEMPORANEAMENTE OSPITATO ALLA PAGINA:
https://www.cnj.it/documentazione/autodifesa04.htm
LE TRASCRIZIONI "UFFICIALI" DEL "PROCESSO" SI TROVANO AI SITI:
http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/transe54.htm (IN ENGLISH)
http://www.un.org/icty/transf54/transf54.htm (EN FRANCAIS)
==========================
Data: Mar 3 Mag 2005 13:43:21 Europe/Rome
A: "icdsm-italia" <icdsm-italia @ yahoogroups.com>
Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] C. James: Justice at The Hague?
[Un articolo di Christopher James, curatore del sito della sezione
britannica www.free-slobo-uk.org , nell'anniversario della aggressione
NATO contro la RF di Jugoslavia]
The URL for this article is:
http://www.free-slobo-uk.org/media_james
Morning Star article published March 23, 2005 (6th anniversary of NATO
aggression)
by CHRISTOPHER JAMES
Justice at The Hague?
IS there anybody left who still believes that Slobodan Milosevic is
receiving justice at The Hague? If so, would they please turn off the
light when leaving the room and heed Alice Mahon's damning indictment
of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
(ICTY), which the veteran Labour MP insists must be abolished.
The tribunal, where the former Yugoslav president's trial entered its
fourth year last month, is a "festering sore at the heart of
Yugoslavia," says the Halifax MP and Committee for Peace in the
Balkans chairwoman, who witnessed first-hand the devastation wreaked
by NATO during the western military alliance's 78-day aerial
bombardment of the country in 1999.
Readers may recall that President Milosevic's indictment, covering
alleged crimes supposedly committed several years earlier, was issued
by ICTY prosecutors to coincide with the first bombs falling on
Belgrade, exposing the tribunal's hand-in-glove relationship with NATO.
Over 23,000 tons of explosives were dropped on Yugoslavia - greater
than the power of the Hiroshima bomb - during this illegal NATO
assault, culminating in the annexation of the southern Serbian
province of Kosovo and the subsequent expulsion of 200,000 Serbs,
Roma, Jews, Turks and other non-Albanian minorities by the west's
local proxies, the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Ms Mahon, who is among the speakers at this week's House of Commons
rally in commemoration of the 6th anniversary of the bombing, recently
secured a parliamentary debate on the ICTY - a first for a national
legislature in any NATO country and a rare opportunity to put the
growing opposition to the tribunal on the record.
She describes the tribunal - railroaded through the United Nations
Security Council by Washington in breach of the UN Charter - as a
"victor's court," that was "founded by the west, funded largely by the
west and staffed at very senior levels by the west."
Hague prosecutors, such as Louise Arbour (who issued the Milosevic
indictment) and his current inquisitor Carla del Ponte, are "creatures
of NATO," says Ms Mahon, who cites the following damning confession
from chief NATO spindoctor Jamie Shea: "NATO is the friend of the
tribunal. NATO countries are those that have provided the finances to
set up the tribunal."
Ms Mahon is backed by former United States attorney general Ramsey
Clark, who served under president Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s before
turning peace campaigner and social activist during the Vietnam war.
"You can read the UN Charter all you want and you will never find any
provision that authorises the creation of the ICTY," says Mr Clark,
who advises President Milosevic on his defence.
He cites Washington's "feverish opposition" to the establishment of
the International Criminal Court (ICC), which would be empowered to
try US citizens, as proof of its duplicity.
"Equality is the mother of justice - if equal justice under law is the
founding principle of the rule of law then the ICTY fails to meet most
of the standards because it persecutes only the enemies of the United
States to ensure further domination of the region. In a sense it's
more deadly than the bombs."
Amid the current chorus of protest sparked by the Blair government's
determination to overturn our ancient and fundamental legal rights in
pursuit of the "war on terror," a grand irony has emerged.
Just a few month's ago, the very same protesting champions of our
indivisible legal rights - whether leftists, liberals or human rights
campaigners - were struck dumb when the ICTY took the dramatic step of
stripping President Milosevic of the right to conduct his own defence.
The denial of this fundamental principle coupled with the imposition
of a highly dubious, court-appointed, "defence" team against
Milosevic's will, rolled back precious legal freedoms and safeguards
enjoyed by citizens since the abolition of the Star Chamber in the
Middle Ages.
Quite why such a deafening silence should greet this unprecedented
assault on our legal traditions, at least as threatening to civil
liberties as anything passed by Parliament this month, takes little
fathoming - support for Milosevic, even when he is right, is clearly
considered beyond the pale.
Strange as solidarity with Milosevic might sound to most Western ears,
including those within progressive circles, it is par for the course
elsewhere on our planet - particularly among governments and parties
with first-hand experience of imperialist domination.
Here is what one senior Sandinista official, representing former
Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, told the most recent congress of
the Socialist Party of Serbia, the party which Milosevic continues to
lead from his prison cell and one which welcomed officials from the
ANC and PLO as well as Cuban, Vietnamese and Russian communist
parties on the very same platform.
"I have seen a president who is stronger than ever. President
Milosevic is more liked than ever, not only among his compatriots but
also in the progressive part of the entire world community," he said.
That the Sandinistas should keenly feel such solidarity with the
former Yugoslav president and his comrades is unsurprising given that
they themselves endured similar strategies of vilification,
demonisation and destabilisation at the hands of imperialism as that
suffered by Milosevic, Serbs in general and Yugoslavia as a whole.
In her groundbreaking work on the 1990s Balkans conflict, Fools
Crusade, US academic Diana Johnstone recalls how lurid allegations of
Sandinista "death/rape camps," abounded in the 1980s, foreshadowing
phoney accusations made against Serbs a decade later, while the US
supported Contra terrorists in central America just as they sponsored
fanatical Saudi and Pakistani mujaheddin in Bosnia.
The Sandinistas famously lost power to US-backed forces in Nicaragua's
1990 election in much the same way as Milosevic did in 2001, shortly
before he was snatched from Belgrade and illegally transferred to The
Hague in defiance of Yugoslavia's constitutional court.
Both narrowly lost power to Washington-sponsored "democrats," a
pattern recently repeated through the theatrical "people's
revolutions" in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine -
precedents that similarly threaten several resource-rich central Asian
states, as the NATO new world order closes in on Russia.
* Christopher James edits the website: www.free-slobo-uk.org
==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
tel/fax +39-06-4828957
email: icdsm-italia @ libero.it
*** CONTRIBUISCI E FAI CONTRIBUIRE:
Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC ***
IL NOSTRO SITO INTERNET:
http://www.pasti.org/linkmilo.htm
IL TESTO IN LINGUA ITALIANA DELLA AUTODIFESA DI MILOSEVIC, IN CORSO
DI REVISIONE E CORREZIONE, E' TEMPORANEAMENTE OSPITATO ALLA PAGINA:
https://www.cnj.it/documentazione/autodifesa04.htm
LE TRASCRIZIONI "UFFICIALI" DEL "PROCESSO" SI TROVANO AI SITI:
http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/transe54.htm (IN ENGLISH)
http://www.un.org/icty/transf54/transf54.htm (EN FRANCAIS)
==========================