*** Fondo per lo sviluppo della democrazia, Belgrado: LETTERA APERTA
ALLA SIGNORA CARLA DAL PONTE (con traduzione in italiano)
*** R. Etinski, I. Cukalovic: L'AGGRESSIONE CONTRO LA RFJ ED IL DIRITTO
INTERNAZIONALE AL PASSAGGIO DEL SECOLO; LE TENDENZE GLOBALI NEL MONDO
*** M. Gee: I LEADERS OCCIDENTALI SONO CRIMINALI DI GUERRA?
Cronistoria del difficile tentativo di un gruppo di avvocati, guidati da
M. Mandel, per imporre al Tribunale dell'Aia di prendere in
considerazione le azioni genocide dei nostri governanti.
*** G. Samuely: PROCEDERE NEI CONFRONTI DELLA NATO
*** W.J. Rockler (ex-pubblico ministero del Tribunale di Norimberga che
giudico' i criminali nazisti): LA LEGGE SUI CRIMINI DI GUERRA SI APPLICA
ANCHE AGLI STATI UNITI

*** CILIEGINA !!! Carla Dal Ponte chiede agli imputati della NATO di
essere "piu' aggressivi" nel perseguire i criminali !!!


---

>Fund for the Development of Democracy
>11000 Beograd (YU), M. Birjuzova 13a
>Tel/Fax: +381 11/ 328 2898
>e-mail: fondbmb@...
>
>
>INTERNATIONAL CRIME TRIBUNAL FOR FORMER YUGOSLAVIA
>Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte
>AEGON Building, Churchillplein 1
>2517 JW
>The Hague (Netherlands
>
>Fax: +31 70/416 5345 Tel: 416 5000
>
>
>As the victims of international demonisation and isolation,
>
>Disposing with the data on a calculated dismemberment of the SFRY,
>ethical extermination and displacement of Serbs,
>
>Aware of organised demonisation and isolation of Serbs, deliberated to
>cover up the true reasons of Europes re-acrchitecturing and of the
>breach of the agreements from Westphalia, Versailles, Yalta, Triannon,
>
>Concerned over realising legal security,
>
>Familiar with the Tribunals regulations,
>
>As authorised initiators, we put forward a motion to the Tribunal on 18
>March 1999, six days before the bombing of Serbia started, to initiate
>proceedings against persons whom we consider organisers of Europes
>re-architecturing, notably responsible for the planning, preparing and
>committing of the crimes related to Articles 2-5 of the Tribunals
>Statute (killing Serbs because of their nationality, ethnicity or
>religious affiliation; intentionally causing great physical suffering,
>or undermining health of Serb nationals; subjecting Serb nationals to
>living conditions meant to bring forth their utter or partial physical
>destruction, ... etc.)
>
>Following your statement of 26 December 1999, that your justice shall
>not by-pass NATO officials, if they have violated regulations in the
>campaign against Serbia, and that legal proceedings shall be
>instituted also against them, we expect you to check the status of our
>motion regarding the responsibility, notably the role of Bill Clinton,
>NATO, Richard Holbrooke, Kofi Annan and Pope John Paul II in the
>dismemberment of the SFRY, displacement, ethnical cleansing,
>demonisation and international isolation of Serbs in the period June 25,
>1991 --March 18, 1999.
>
>Willing to believe that you yet wish to execute your office
>conscientiously and in accord with the rules of professional ethics,
>unlike your predecessors, we hope to soon see a response to our question
>
>and a decision to institute proceedings.
>
>Yours sincerely,
>BMB Fund

"
- In quanto vittime della demonizzazione e dell'isolamento
internazionale;
- avendo a disposizione i dati relativi allo smembramento programmato
della RFSJ, allo sterminio etico ed alla dispersione dei serbi;
- consci della demonizzazione e dell'isolamento organizzati a danno dei
serbi, mirati a coprire le vere ragioni della ristrutturazione
dell'Europa politica con la rottura degli accordi di Westphalia,
Versailles, Yalta, Triannon;
- preoccupati circa l'applicazione della sicurezza legale;
- essendo a conoscenza dei regolamenti di questo Tribunale;
In qualita' di suoi iniziatori indendiamo dare seguito alla Mozione
presentata al Tribunale il 18 marzo 1999, sei giorni prima dell'inizio
dei bombardamenti sulla Serbia, per dar vita ai procedimenti legali
contro quelle persone che consideriamo organizzatori della
ristrutturazione dell'Europa politica, in particolare responsabili della
pianificazione, preparazione ed esecuzione dei crimini di cui agli
Articoli 2-5 dello Statuto del Tribunale (uccisione di serbi in base
alla loro nazionalita', appartenenza etnica o religiosa; intenzionale
procuramento di gravi sofferenze fisiche o minaccia alla salute di
persone di nazionalita' serba; sottomissione dei serbi a condizioni di
vita atte a proseguire nella loro devastazione fisica totale o parziale,
eccetera).
In base alla sua dichiarazione del 26 dicembre 1999, per cui la
giustizia non dovrebbe scansarsi di fronte ai rappresentanti della NATO,
se questi hanno violato delle regole nella loro campagna contro la
Serbia, e che procedimenti legali sarebbero stati aperti anche contro di
loro, noi ci aspettiamo che Lei voglia considerare lo status della
nostra Mozione riguardante le responsabilita', in particolare il ruolo
di Bill Clinton, della NATO, di Richard Holbrooke, Kofi Annan e Papa
Giovanni Paolo II nello smembramento della RFSJ, nella dispersione,
pulizia etnica, demonizzazione ed isolamento internazionale dei serbi
nel periodo compreso tra il 25 giugno 1991 ed il 18 marzo 1999.
Nel desiderio di poter ritenere che Lei voglia ancora eseguire il suo
dovere coscienziosamente ed in accordo con le regole dell'etica
professionale, diversamente dai suoi predecessori, speriamo di vedere
presto un riscontro alla nostra richiesta e la decisione di aprire i
procedimenti.
Distinti saluti
Fondo BMB
"

---

Prof. Dr. Rodoljub Etinski
Prof. Dr. Ivan Cukalovic


AGGRESSION AGAINST THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA AND INTERNATIONAL
LAW AT A CROSSROADS OF CENTURIES AND GLOBAL INTERNATIONAL TRENDS

The basic and most important principles of international law,
forming
the basis of the United Nations, world peace and stability, have been
grossly
violated by the aggression of the NATO member States against the FR of
Yugoslavia. During this aggression, on 29 April 1999, the FR of
Yugoslavia
submitted an application and a request to the International Court of
Justice to
indicate preliminary measures against these States for gravest breaches
of
international law and for most serious crimes. Understandably, the
application
of our country was received with great attention worldwide, both by the
international public at large and even more by the international legal
profession, experts and scientific circles. A symbolic manifestation of
it was
the fact that the courtroom at the Palais de justice in the Hague was
packed
during the oral hearings held on 10-12 May 1999, regarding Yugoslavia's
request
for indication of temporary measures to stop the bombing.

The ICJ hearings were the focus of attention of the world media.
They
were attended by international lawyers, peace movement activists,
champions of
the cause against the use of depleted uranium from the remotest parts of
the
world and also by many people from the aggressor countries wishing to
support
and encourage representatives of the FR of Yugoslavia before the
Court(*1). All
ten respondent State appeared before the Court. On the benches for the
Respondents there sat representatives of the United States, Britain,
Germany,
France, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Belgium, Spain and Portugal. As
expected, they challenged the Court's jurisdiction in the case. This
fact
speaks for itself quite sufficiently. Why was it that these States were
reluctant at the time to accept the jurisdiction of the Court? Did they
doubt
that the Court, of whose fifteen judges six had the nationality of NATO
member
States, could be partial in favour of the FR of Yugoslavia?

In a situation where ten aggressor States rejected the Court's
jurisdiction, it did not accept the requested preliminary measures with
the
explanation that it did not find that it had a jurisdiction in these
cumulative
proceedings. The judges, however, were aware of the importance and
significance
of the dispute and in such a situation could not be silent on the
destruction
of a sovereign State, on daily deaths of civilians, women, children and
elderly
people. By its orders of 2 June 1999, the Court gave a "legal framework"
for
the settlement of the dispute. The Court indicated that all States which
appeared before it must fulfil their obligations under the United
Nations
Charter as well as those established under humanitarian law. The Court
used the
word "must", although it does not use such an imperative expression in
its
orders related to preliminary measures, in which it usually uses the
word
"should" so as to avoid prejudicing the adjudication. The Court,
further,
confirmed that the parties were bound to resolve the dispute by peaceful
means
in accordance with the UN Charter. Regardless of whether the
Respondents
accepted or refused the jurisdiction of the Court, the Court said, they
were
responsible for breaches of international law. Additionally, the Court
warned
the Respondents not to do anything that might complicate and widen the
dispute(*2). The Court set the deadline of 5 January 2000 for the FR of
Yugoslavia to submit its Memorial, which corresponds in our
jurisprudence to a
lawsuit, and the deadline of 5 July 2000 for the Respondents to submit
their
Counter-Memorials.

Besides competent Government authorities, prominent Yugoslav
experts in
some fields of law also participated in the preparation of the Yugoslav
Memorial. Its text was finalized with the help of the Federal Ministry
of
Foreign Affairs. It was elaborated on 350 pages and divided into four
parts.
The text of the Memorial is accompanied by documentary evidence
contained in a
separate annex, consisting of two volumes of the White Paper on NATO
Crimes,
described on 965 pages and published by the Federal Foreign Ministry.
Also
attached as an annex is the reprinted 1899 edition of the Department of
Foreign
Affairs of the Kingdom of Serbia entitled "Correspondence on the
Albanian
violence in the old Serbia 1898-1899" which comprises diplomatic
correspondence
of Mr. Stojan Novakovic, the then Serbian Envoy in Turkey, and deals
with the
crimes committed at that time by Albanian gangs against the Serbs in
Kosovo and
Metohija. These communications are important for understanding the
historical
background of problems in Kosovo and Metohija, i.e. to deny the argument
that
the problems started in 1989. Part I of the Memorial contains
information on
facts related to aerial bombardment and the genocide against the Serbs
and
persons belonging to other non-Albanian ethnic groups following the
deployment
of KFOR in Kosovo and Metohija. Part II presents the relevant law. Part
III is
devoted to the question of jurisdiction of the Court. The last part,
Part IV,
of the Yugoslav Memorial contains the application itself. The
application was
extended in comparison with the one submitted on 29 April 1999. Namely,
the
respondent States, as the States contributing to the Kosovo Force (KFOR)
under
United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999), are obliged to
ensure
security for all the population of Kosovo and Metohija. They not only
failed to
do so, but failed to prevent the genocide of the Serb people and other
ethnic
groups living in Kosovo and Metohija, in breach of the obligation
established
by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide.
The extended application requested that the Court declare the respondent
States
responsible not only for breach of obligations committed by air strikes
but
also for breach of obligations committed through these failures or
omissions.
The case in point are the most important international obligations
including
the obligation not to use force against other States, not to interfere
in the
internal affairs of States, to respect the sovereignty of another State,
the
obligation to protect civilians, civilian facilities and other specially
protected facilities in international armed conflicts, the obligation
not to
use certain types of weapons, the obligation to protect the environment.
The
Court is requested to order these States to go back to the respect of
rights
and to carry out their obligations, as well as to compensate for the
damages.
Most of the Memorial is devoted to the information on the damage caused
by air
attacks that contains data on the destroyed bridges, residential
housing,
hospitals, roads, power supply system and material and other damage. The
Memorial cites information on the loss of lives of Sanja Milenkovic,
Milica
Rakic and other innocent and defenceless children, even though we know
that
such losses are irreparable.

The Yugoslav application was the subject of widespread interest
in the
world. Some people have asked how come that we submitted the application
to the
Court and yet we did not want to co-operate with it. In fact, there are
two
courts in the Hague: the International Court of Justice and the
International
Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Grave Violations
of
International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territories of the
Former
Yugoslavia Since 1991 (hereinafter: the International Criminal
Tribunal). These
are two fundamentally different courts, established at different
periods, in
different ways and for different reasons, and they have completely
dissimilar,
even opposite functions.

The International Court of Justice is the principal judicial
authority
of the United Nations, set up in 1945 under Article 92 of the UN
Charter(*3).
ICJ operates on the basis of its Statute, which forms an integral part
of the
Charter of the United Nations. All UN Member States are ipso facto
States
Parties to the Statute of the Court. The Court settles disputes between
States
and gives its opinions on legal matters of principle at the request of
the
Security Council, the General Assembly and an organization or body
authorized
by the General Assembly to seek an advisory opinion. The Court is based
on the
notion of sovereign equality of States, respect for the sovereignty and
independence of States, implying voluntary consent to the jurisdiction
of the
Court. Confidence in the ICJ, especially of small and medium-sized
countries,
has increased in the last twenty years. More and more States are
submitting
their disputes to the Court or are seeking its protection. Confidence in
this
Court has increased especially after the case Nicaragua v. the United
States of
America, concerning interference of the latter in the civil war in
Nicaragua,
ended by the Court declaring the United States responsible and obliged
to pay
the compensation. Thus, the Court has demonstrated that a small country
can win
a case against a large State. As a result of such an opinion of the
Court, it
is not favoured by those financing the United Nations, as reflected in
its
budget, number of personnel, etc.

Contrary to this, the Hague is also the site of the seat of the
International Criminal Tribunal, which often creates confusion and the
mixing
of the two institutions. The Tribunal is not very flattering for the
residents
of the Hague, and a Hague newspaper published some time ago a letter
from a
non-governmental organization proposing its residents to banish the
International Criminal Tribunal from this city, so that it may not
tarnish the
good reputation of the city as the seat of the headquarters of
respectable
international organizations. The International Criminal Tribunal was
established by Security Council resolution 827 (1993) with a purported
aim of
prosecuting serious violations of humanitarian law committed in the
territory
of the former Yugoslavia. Many international lawyers, Remsey Clark
included,
deny the validity of the establishment of the Tribunal by the decision
of the
Security Council. However, the composition, procedure, method of
funding,
gathering of evidence and bringing of indictments all indicate that the
International Criminal Tribunal is the tool of world power wielders,
which was
set up primarily with the political goal dictated, first and foremost,
by the
interests of those aspiring to an exclusive global power. The
composition of
judges sitting on the Tribunal does not reflect the geographic regions
as
elsewhere in the UN system, which is otherwise the practice and the rule
at the
United Nations. There is not a single Russian or a representative of
Orthodox
Christian nations, while representatives of some regions are
disproportionately
highly represented. The Tribunal has a budget and an administration that
are
several times those of the ICJ, a fact which speaks much of its
relationship
with the power wielders whose interests it protects. The Prosecutor of
the
International Criminal Tribunal has introduced the practice of sealed
indictments, unknown in any legal system. Indictees are tricked into
being
arrested lured by false promises, and sometimes by staging a show for
the
purposes of the media and interests standing behind these media. So
far, the
Tribunal mostly indicted and arrested Serbs. Those well-informed know
that the
Tribunal sticks to an unwritten formula: 70 per cent of Serbs, 25 per
cent of
Croats and 5 per cent of Muslims must be in its penitentiary unit or in
the
docks at any time(*4). Dr. Kovacevic died in detention because of the
lack of
appropriate care at the penitentiary unit, while the detainee Slavko
Dokmanovic
committed suicide. General Djukic died immediately after he had been
released
from prison. Indictees Simo Drljaca and Dragan Gagovic were killed
during the
action to arrest them. Gen. Momir Talic was arrested by means of
treachery as
he attended a meeting of military officials hoseds by the Organization
for
Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna. In both cases
there are
serious indications that powers had been exceeded, but no one was held
responsible. The international community rightfully asks, if the goal is
really
justice and not the diktat of the mighty, why similar tribunals were not
established to prosecute the crimes committed in Vietnam, Grenada,
Panama,
Ethiopia, in other words, wherever the crimes were done by soldiers of
the
great Powers. A great many individuals like Nikolai Rishkov, Chairman of
the
Russian State Duma Commission for the gathering and collation of
information on
crimes committed during the NATO aggression against the FR of
Yugoslavia; Greek
attorney Likouresos; Prof. Mendel and fifteen other professors from
Canada;
Monsieur R. Monsigni from France; British Professor of International Law
Glen
Rangwell and others have asked the Hague Tribunal to bring indictments
against
those responsible for the crimes committed during the aggression against
the FR
of Yugoslavia, against persons coming from the United States, Germany,
Britain,
France, etc. Although the evidence on this is abundant, Tribunal's
Prosecutor
Carla del Ponte has not reacted by issuing indictments, regardless of
the fact
that evidence on the crimes is notorious, thus proving once again that
the
Tribunal is not impartial and even-handed.

The Tribunal was set up riding the wave of international
developments
that run contrary to those beginning in the Hague in 1899 and that bring
into
question the results of the development of international law. The idea
of
international criminal justice is not a new one. It appeared after the
First
World War. However, it was not before 1998 that a Statute of the
Permanent
Criminal Court was adopted at the UN Conference in Rome. This Statute
substantially differs from the Statute of the International Criminal
Tribunal.
The Rome Statute, like the Statute of the ICJ, is based on the principle
of
voluntary consent that stems from the sovereign equality of States. It
is valid
not only for one territory and one time, especially not for members of
one
nation, but for all the States which have accepted it and for all future
times.
It does not relate only to violations of humanitarian law but includes
also the
most serious international crime, that of aggression, and other crimes.
The
position of its Prosecutor is fundamentally different in comparison with
the
position of the Prosecutor envisaged under the Statute of the
International
Criminal Tribunal.

Someone has written that the International Criminal Tribunal
serves
allegedly as a Security Council's Disciplinary Commission. As a matter
of fact,
it serves as a Disciplinary Commission of some permanent members of the
Security Council. They refuse to accept the Permanent Criminal Court,
which
could put them in the dock.

In brief, there is a substantial difference between the ICJ and
ICT.
The FR of Yugoslavia has, therefore, addressed the ICJ whose practice
has
proven that it can resist the pressures of world power wielders, rather
than to
the ICT which is, in essence, an extended hand of the above-mentioned
power
wielders.

* * *

Footnotes:

1. The FR of Yugoslavia, in addition to Yugoslav lawyers, was
represented by
reputed international lawyers such as Ian Brownlie, Professor of
International
Law at OXFORD University, member of the United Nations International Law
Commission (ILC), one of the leading international lawyers and a man who
has,
over the past twenty years, most defended victims in the cases before
the ICJ;
Eric Soy, Professor of International Law at Louvun, Belgium, former
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations for Legal Affairs; Paul de
Vart,
Professor of International Law at Open University in Amsterdam; and
Olivier
Corten, a young and talented international lawyer from the Open
University in
Brussels. These are respectable lawyers who have, despite the fact that
they
come from the respondent States, agreed to represent the FR of
Yugoslavia
before the Court.

2. The Court, on that occasion, suspended proceedings against the United
States
and Spain, considering that there were no chances that it established
its
jurisdiction in the later stages of the dispute, since these two States
have
excluded the jurisdiction of the Court as envisaged under the Genocide
Convention by their reservations, while it decided to resume proceedings
against the eight other States.

3. Its forerunner is the Permanent Court of International Justice which
was the
principal judicial authority of the League of Nations. The latter Court,
in
turn, was preceded by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, established at
the
First Hague Peace Conference in 1899. Indeed, the Department of Foreign
Affairs
of the Kingdom of Serbia prepared for that conference the above
publication
containing the diplomatic corresondence of Envoy Stojan Novakovic, but
it was
never forwarded to the Conference. The roots of the ICJ, therefore, go
back to
the end of the nineteenth century. This instrument of peaceful
settlement of
disputes has developed and strengthened alongside the development and
strengthening of contemporary international law, whose foundations have
been
codified in the constitution of the international community, i.e. the
Charter
of the United Nations. It is a mechanism on whose improvement worked the
best
lawyers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Kingdoms of
Serbia and
Montenegro, later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and Democratic Federative
Yugoslavia all the way to the present Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
have
continuously participated in this process. The Kingdoms of Serbia and
Montenegro participated at the First Hague Peace Conference in 1899 and
they
were parties to the Convention on the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
The
Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which resolved its disputes before the Permanent
Court
of International Justice, had its citizens among the judges of that
court.
Yugoslavia is a founding Member of the United Nations and as such, is
party to
the 1945 Statute of the International Court of Justice since 1945. Judge
Zoricic was a permanent judge of this Court.

4. Currently, the following Serbs are detained in the penitentiary unit
at
Scheweningen: Mladjo Radic, Miroslav Kvocka, Milojica Kos, Zoran Zigic,
Dragan
Kolund`ija, Damir Dosen, Milorad Krnojelac, Dragoljub Kunarac, Goran
Kovac,
Zoran Vukovic, Miroslav Tadic, Dusko Tadic, Goran Jelisic, Simo Zoric,
Brdjanin, Momir Talic, Svetislav Galic, Radoslav Krstic, Stevan
Todorovic and
Miroslav Simic; the following Croats: Zdravko Mucic, Vlatko, Marijan and
Zoran
Kupreskic, Vlado Santic, Drago Josipovic, Tihomir Blaskic, Dario Kordic,
Mario
Cerkez, Martinovic; and the following Muslims: Hazim Delic and Esad
Landzo.

AMBASCIATA DELLA REPUBBLICA FEDERALE
DI JUGOSLAVIA PRESSO LA SANTA SEDE
Via dei Monti Parioli, 20 - 00197 Roma
Tel: 06 3200 099/06 3214 998
Fax: 06 3204 530
E-Mail: sveta.stolica@...

---

STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.HOME-PAGE.ORG

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, Saturday, January 29, 2000 p. A13
Are Western leaders war criminals?
Group wants top officials tried for NATO's bombing campaign
MARCUS GEE
The Globe and Mail
Is Jean Chretien a war criminal?
Michael Mandel says so, and he thinks he can prove it.
The Toronto law professor is in the vanguard of an international effort
to have the Prime Minister and 67 other Western leaders charged with war
crimes before a United Nations tribunal in The Hague.
Along with colleagues from Greece, Norway and Britain, he has compiled a
thick dossier of potential charges against the leaders for their conduct
in last spring's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, an assault Prof.
Mandel calls a "coward's war."
Those charges include "willful killing," wanton destruction of cities,
town or villages," and waging unlawful war. Along with Mr. Chretien, the
dossier names Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy and Defence
Minister Art Eggleton.
"They might not match the archetype of a war criminal," Prof. Mandel
said, "but they snuffed out a lot of lives, and they should be condemned
for it."
The Mandel dossier now rests in the hands of Carla Del Ponte, the Swiss
lawyer who is the chief prosecutor for the UN International Tribunal for
the Former Yugoslavia. She must decid whether to launch a formal
investigation into the conduct of the North Atlantic Treaty organization
during the 78-day war.
Legal experts say that is unlikely. Ms. Del Ponte needs NATO's help to
gather evidence and apprehend suspected war criminals in Bosnia and
other parts of the former Yugoslavia. Indicting NATO leaders would hurt
that relationship.
But Prof. Mandel and his friends won't give up, and their relentless
campaign against NATO has caused a stir of discomfort in the alliance.
Cases such as his are precisely why the United States is so worried
about the spreading grasp of international law. Washington opposed the
creation of a new international criminal court partly because of
concerns that Americans might be hauled before it for overseas military
intervention such as the invasion of Grenada or the bombing of Cambodia
during the Vietnam War.
So when the tribunal revealed last month that it had prepared an
internal report on the accusations against NATO, the White House lashed
out. It said the idea of investigating NATO was "completely
unjustified." Ms. Del Ponte rushed to clarify things, saying that no
formal investigation of NATO was under way.
That prompted Prof. Mandel to write a sharp letter to Ms. Del Ponte,
urging her to take the accusations against NATO seriously.
"The tribunal has not given us much reason to trust in its
impartiality," said Prof. Mandel, who teaches at York University's
Osgoode Hall Law School.
An intense 51-year-old in black wire-framed glasses, he has thrown
himself into many causes over his 25 years of teaching, from the Israeli
peace movement to the international campaign for nuclear disarmament.
Few have seized him as powerfully as the campaign against NATO's war.
He was a visiting professor at the University of Bologna in Italy in
March when NATO started bombing Yugoslavia in an attempt, NATO said, to
stop President Slobodan Milosevic from crushing the ethnic Albanians in
the rebellious province of Kosovo.
As civilian casualties in Yugoslavia rose and Albanians fled Kosovo by
the hundreds of thousands, Prof. Mandel's anger grew.
As a peace activist, he was appalled by the use of overwhelming military
force against a far weaker adversary.
As a teacher of international law for 25 years, he was shocked by NATO's
decision to go ahead with their air strikes without the approval of the
UN Security Council.
As a Jew, he was offended that NATO justified the bombing by equating
what was happening to the Kosovo Albanians to what had happened to the
Jews of Europe in the Second World War – a grotesque comparison, he
says.
"It was a crime against the truth and a crime against the victims of the
Holocaust."
Returning to Canada, he began communicating by phone and e-mail with law
professors in other countries who opposed the war. Their original aim
was to end the bombing. "There was this horrible thing going on," Prof.
Mandel said, "and the question was how to stop it."
Now that the war is over, they want to hold NATO to account for its
actions. Drawing on Yugoslav government figures, Prof. Mandel says that
1,800 people were killed and 5,000 wounded in Yugoslavia during the
bombing campaign.
Many were children or old people. Flipping through a Yugoslav government
booklet filled with colour pictures of blackened bodies and horrifying
wounds, he recalls the long series of NATO accidents: the accidental
attack on a passenger train crossing a bridge, the accidental bombing of
a Belgrade hospital, the accidental destruction of a bridge filled with
people at the height of a busy market day.
He says he is not sure those were accidents at all, but even if they
were, NATO had to know that such things would happen. It went ahead
anyway.
"We believe they knowingly killed people with no justifiable excuse, and
that's murder," he said in an interview in his cramped university
office.
Under his interpretation of the laws of war, only two things could
excuse NATO's conduct: bombing for a lawful reason such as self-defence
or bombing without knowing their bombs would cause such carnage.
He dismisses both. NATO, he says, broke off negotiations with Mr.
Milosevic over Kosovo and started bombing without bothering about the
niceties of international law.
As for the casualties, NATO leaders said over and over that they knew
that some civilians would be killed as a side effect of the bombing.
Such "collateral damage" was, in their words, "inevitable."
Far from being a humanitarian intervention in defence of human rights,
Prof. Mandel says, the bombing was a deliberate attempt to terrorize the
Yugoslav population.
Few experts share that view. "I don't know of a campaign in history
where targets have been selected so painstakingly," said David Rudd,
executive director of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies. "NATO
had the power to level Serbia's cities, but it didn't."
Michael Byers, a Canadian who teaches law at Duke University, agrees
that the accidental casualties caused by NATO didn't compare with the
executions and mass expulsions carried out by Mr. Milosevic's forces.
All the same, he is glad that Prof. Mandel is pressing his case. "Of
course NATO doesn't like it," he said, "but if you accept that there
should be some kind of international legal system, you have to
understand that it applies to all sides, including yourself."

---

STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.HOME-PAGE.ORG


Prosecute NATO
by George Szamuely
New York Press
1/25/99
"I must do my job, otherwise I am not independent, and the independence
of the prosecutor is the most important element... I just depend on the
law, and that's it." The noble sentiments are those of Carla Del Ponte,
chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY). She'd just been asked whether she intended to
investigate the possibility that NATO might have committed war crimes
during its murderous bombing spree last year. What about those
smashed-up refugee convoys, the destroyed housing estates, the bridges
turned into rubble, trains full of dead passengers, devastated
monasteries, bombed electrical grids and tv stations, cluster bombs,
depleted uranium? What about all of that? "It's not my priority," she
explained, "because I have inquiries about genocide, about bodies who
are in mass graves, and that's what I am doing now."
Oh, that's all right then. These inquiries, carried out by NATO
government agencies like the FBI and Scotland Yard, have one objective
only: to nail NATO's enemies. Though the media likes to paint her as an
upright Katharine Hepburn type, Del Ponte is a shameless liar. She is
not "independent" in any sense whatsoever. Her Tribunal is a creature of
the United States. Established in 1993 by Resolution 827 of the UN
Security Council, its objective was to use the aura of "international
law" to persecute the Serbs. Startup funds of $6 million came courtesy
of the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright. She also hired the
initial staff of 25 lawyers. As the president of the Tribunal, Judge
Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, explained in a speech at the U.S. Supreme Court
last April: "[W]e benefited from the strong support of concerned
governments and dedicated individuals such as Secretary Albright. As the
permanent representative to the United Nations, she had worked with
unceasing resolve to establish the Tribunal. Indeed, we often refer to
her as the 'Mother of the Tribunal.'" In May, before the Council on
Foreign Relations, she stated: "The U.S. Government has very generously
agreed to provide $500,000 and to help to encourage other states to
contribute. However, the moral imperative to end the violence in the
region is shared by all, including the corporate sector. I am pleased,
therefore, that a major corporation has recently donated computer
equipment worth $3 million."
During last year's bombing, moreover, Bill Clinton secured a $27 million
appropriation for the Tribunal. In other words, money is rolling in from
people who have a vested interest in the outcome of the trials. This is
a flagrant violation of the Statutes of the Tribunal. Article 32 states
that the "the expenses of the International Tribunal shall be borne by
the regular budget of the United Nations." Soon after NATO launched its
bombing campaign, Louise Arbour, Del Ponte's predecessor, appeared at a
press conference where British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook made a great
show of presenting her with a dossier of Serbian war crimes.
Last year, Prof. Michael Mandel of Toronto wrote to Arbour arguing that,
according to its Statutes, the Tribunal is obligated to investigate
NATO. Article 2, for instance, states that the Tribunal "shall have the
power to prosecute persons committing or ordering to be committed grave
breaches of the Geneva Conventions...willful killing...willfully causing
great suffering or serious injury to body or health; extensive
destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military
necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly." Article 3 cites
"wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not
justified by military necessity" and the "attack, or bombardment, by
whatever means, of undefended towns, villages, dwellings, or
buildings..."
There is not the slightest chance that Del Ponte will investigate NATO's
war crimes. She cannot do it for a simple reason. Yugoslavia broke no
international laws whatsoever and got bombed. NATO broke every
international law in the book and still got to decide who had to stand
trial. And it is the NATO governments that pay her wages.
Here is a quick summary of just a few of the international laws NATO
violated: Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter states: "All Members shall
refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force
against the territorial integrity or political independence of any
state." Article 39 states: "The Security Council shall determine the
existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of
aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall
be taken." The Rambouillet Agreement, Serbia's refusal to sign which
provoked the bombing campaign, violated Article 51 of the 1969 Vienna
Convention on the Law of Treaties: "The expression of a State's consent
to be bound by a treaty which has been procured by the coercion of its
representative through acts or threats directed against him shall be
without legal effect." Not to mention the Geneva Convention and the
targeting of civilians.
Del Ponte's little court is a truly sinister organization. It operates
on the basis of sealed indictments, so that people do not even know if
there is an arrest warrant pending against them. They can be seized
anywhere and hauled off to the Hague. There, cut off from family,
friends and country, they can be held up to 90 days without being
charged. There is no bail or any form of release before trial. Detention
without trial could last several years. Mail is censored. Visits are
severely restricted. Trial witnesses can testify anonymously.
Prosecutors do not have to disclose the sources of their information.
Prosecutors may even appeal an acquittal and ensure that the accused
remain in detention during such an appeal.
The International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia serves for
the United States the same purpose courts of this nature served for
Hitler and Stalin: it terrorizes the opposition. A couple of weeks ago
the U.S. Export-Import Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (EBRD), the World Bank and the U.S.-based
Albanian-Macedonian-Bulgarian Oil Company (AMBO) met and resolved to
build an oil pipeline extending from the Bulgarian Black Sea across
Macedonia and Albania to Western Europe. This is what U.S. policy in the
Balkans is about. Anyone likely to object will find himself bombed and
then yanked off to the Hague–there to rot forever.

---

Chicago Tribune, Sec 2 Perspective, Sunday, May 23, 1999, pp1 and 5

WAR CRIMES LAW APPLIES TO U.S. TOO

by Walter J. Rockler

As justification for our murderously destructive bombing campaign in
Yugoslavia, it is of coarse necessary for the U.S. to charge that the
Serbs have engaged in inhuman conduct, and that President Slobodan
Milosevic, the head Serb demon, is a war criminal almost without peer.

President Clinton assures us of this in frequent briefings, during which
he engages in rhetorical combat with Milosevic. But shouting "war
criminal" only emphasizes that those who live in glass houses should be
careful about throwing stones.

We have engaged in fragrant military aggression, ceaselessly attacking a
small country primarily to demonstrate that we run the world. The
rationale that we are simply enforcing international morality, even if
it were true, would not excuse the military aggression and wide spread
killing that it entails. It also does not lessen the culpability of the
authors of this aggression.

As a primary source of international law, the judgment of the Nuremberg
Tribunal in the 1945-1946 case of the major Nazi war criminals is plain
and clear. Our leaders often invoke and praise the judgement, but
obviously have not read it. The International Court declared:

"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an
international crime, it is the supreme international crime deferring
only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the
accumulated evil of the whole."


At Nuremberg, the United States and Britain pressed the prosecution of
Nazi leaders for planing and initiating aggressive war. Supreme Court
Justice Robert Jackson, the head of American prosecution staff, asserted
"that launching a war aggression is a crime and that no political or
economic situation can justify it." He also declared that "if certain
acts in violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the
United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not
prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we
would not be willing to have invoked against us."

The United Nations Charter views aggression similarly. Articles 2(4) and
(7) prohibit interventions in the domestic jurisdiction of any country
and threats of force or the use of force by one state against the
another. The General Assembly of the UN in Resolution 2131, "declaration
on the Inadmissibility of Intervention," reinforced the view that a
forceful military intervention in any country is aggression and crime
without justification.

Putting a "NATO" label on aggressive policy and conduct does not give
that conduct any sanctity. This is simply a perversion of the North
Atlantic Treaty organization, formed as a defensive alliance under the
UN Charter. The North Atlantic Treaty pledged its signatories to
refrain from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with
the purposes of the United Nations, and it explicitly recognized "the
primary responsibility of the Security Council (of United Nations) for
the maintenance of international peace and security." Obviously, in
bypassing UN approval for the current bombing, the U.S. and NATO have
violated the basic obligation.

>>From another standpoint of international law, the current conduct of the
bombing by United States and NATO constitutes a continued war crime.
Contrary to the beliefs of our war planners, unrestricted air bombing is
barred under international law. Bombing the "infrastructure" of a
country - waterworks, electricity, plants, bridges, factories,
television and radio locations -is not an attack limited to legitimate
military objectives. Our bombing has also caused an excessive loss of
life and injury to civilians, which violates another standard. We have
now killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Serbs, Montenegrins and
Albanians, even some Chinese, in our pursuit of humanitarian ideals.


In addition to shredding the UN Charter and perverting the purpose of
NATO, Clinton also has violated at least two provisions of the United
States Constitution. Under Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution,
Congress, not the president, holds the power to declare war and to
punish offenses against the law of nations. Alexander Hamilton in The
Federalist No. 69 pointed out one difference between a monarchy and the
presidency under the new form of government: A king could use his army
as he pleased; the president would have no such unlimited power. Under
Article VI of the Constitution, treaties, far from being mere scraps of
paper as we now deem them to be, are part of the supreme law of the
United States. Of course, these days a supine Congress, fascinated only
by details of sexual misconduct, can hardly be expected to enforce
constitutional requirements.

Nor can a great deal be expected from the media. Reports rely on
controlled handouts of the State Department, Pentagon and NATO, seeing
their duty as one adding colorful details to official intimations of
Serbs atrocities. Thus, the observation of a NATO press relations
officer that a freshly plowed field, seen from 30,000 feet up, might be
the site of a massacre has been disseminated as news.

The notion that humanitarian violations can be redressed with random
destruction and killing by advanced technological means is inherently
suspect. This is mere pretext for our arrogant assertion of dominance
and power in defiance of international law. We make the nonnegotiable
demands and rules, and implement them by military force. It is all
remindful of Henrik Ibsen's "Don't use that foreign word "ideals." We
have that excellent word "lies."

---------------------------------------------------------------
Walter J. Rockler, a Washington lawyer, was a prosecutor at Nuremberg
War Crimes Trial.


---

http://www.iwpr.net

TRIBUNAL UPDATE 160
Last Week in The Hague (January 17-22, 2000)

DEL PONTE ASKS NATO TO BE "MORE AGGRESSIVE"

In addition to visiting the EC, Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte also visited
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) headquarters in Brussels last
week.

During talks with NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson and the
permanent representatives of the 19 member states, Del Ponte urged NATO
to be more aggressive in hunting down and arresting indictees, in
particular "the most wanted Radovan Karadzic", the former leader of the
Bosnian Serbs.

"He is the symbol of this year, the fugitive who has been longest on the
loose," Del Ponte said before adding that capturing him is "crucial for
a stable peace."

Addressing journalists after the meeting Del Ponte, Robertson said
NATO's commitment to apprehending all those indicted of war crimes in
Yugoslavia was "beyond question."

Robertson returned to the same question two days later when talking to
journalists at NATO headquarters.

Talking about his and NATO's priorities for the year 2000, Robertson
said it was essential that those indicted but still at large be brought
to The Hague for trial and concluded: "I have got a personal commitment
to making sure that they do."

British commandos, as members of SFOR, have carried out as many as 90%
of operations aimed at arresting people accused of war crimes. These
operations only really got underway after Robertson became British
Secretary of Defence in 1997. Karadzic and other accused still at large
should not, therefore, brush away or underestimate such "personal
commitment" from the NATO Secretary General.

Copyright (c) 2000 The Institute for War & Peace Reporting.

-

Tribunal Update 161
Issue 161: January 24-29, 2000

DEL PONTE DISMISSES CHARGES SHE "BACKPEDALLED" ON NATO DOSSIER.

In an interview with Tribunal Update last week we asked ICTY Chief
Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte to clarify the position on the famous
'dossier'
on alleged breaches of the Geneva Conventions by NATO forces during the
air
strikes on Serbia. We asked whether she had studied the evidence, drawn
any
conclusions and whether the fierce criticism levelled against her by
some in
Washington D.C. had caused her to "backpedal" on the issue as claimed by
U.S. Senator Jesse Helms.

"First I will tell you something - I never backpedal, never, never! If
the
press received it in some other way - that is another question. I am not
responsible for that. I have only one voice and I am always saying the
same!" Del Ponte declared.

"What I said in that interview [to London's Observer newspaper on
December
26, 1999] was that no formal investigation is opened against NATO, that
is,
against individuals of NATO. I said that to the journalist: No formal
inquiry! I said I have just received a preliminary report on the
documentation and complaints that [former Chief Prosecutor Louise]
Arbour
had received from many different sources."

"Second, I said I would read it and take a decision. But in the meantime
I
received professor Mandel here and he brought to me another pile of
documents. A few day before Christmas I received a group of members from
the
Russian parliament who brought me a lot of new documents. They told me
that
the Duma [Russian parliament] had created an inquiry commission, which
is
working together with Belgrade, so they have a lot of information."

"I gave all those documents to the same working group in our office to
analyse them. They are doing that now."

"In the meantime I studied the first report and for it I need some
answers
from NATO. So I was in Brussels and spoke with the people there and said
I
have some questions on which I needed answers. So now we are preparing
the
questions and we will send them to NATO."

"In the meantime I am waiting for the second report and an analysis of
the
other documentation. And after, when I finish my work on the preliminary
analysis of that, I will take a decision on whether I must or not open
an
investigation. That's the whole story. So I did not absolutely
backpedal! E
una bruta parola [It is an ugly word]: 'backpedalling'! And it is not my
way
of working. I pedal only forwards."

Copyright (c) 2000 The Institute for War & Peace Reporting.


--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
------------------------------------------------------------

I MESSAGGI PRECEDENTI DEL CRJ SONO ALLE PAGINE:
PROSLE PORUKE CRJ-a SU NA STRANAMA:
THE PREVIOUS MESSAGES OF CRJ MAILING LIST CAN BE READ AT:

http://marx2001.org/nuovaunita/jugo/crj


REMEMBER OUR URL:
http://marx2001.org/crj

MIRRORS:
http://altern.org/crj
http://members.xoom.com/crjmail

OTHER PAGES:
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/info.html
http://marx2001.org/nuovaunita/jugo/crj
http://www.ppl.it/crj/


--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
------------------------------------------------------------

The Criminal Race : The Demonization, Dehumanization and
Criminalization of the Serbian People.
http://www.abolishnato.com

Erin S. LaPorte - December 22, 1999

Florida State U. Student (Sr.) - Tallahassee, Florida, USA

"A whole nation and ethnic group - men, women and children
- appear to be incarcerated in a giant prison. Western policy and the
media campaign is such that ALL Serbs are being economically and
psychologically destroyed. The word "SERBS" has been made synonymous
with the word "EVIL."

Dr. Raju G.C. Thomas, from his essay "Dehumanizing a Nation:
The Balkans Conflict and International Reaction" (1993) p. 1.

CONTENTS

I. Introduction to Group Demonization and Dehumanization.

Here, I use the work of Sam Keen (1986) to explain the basic
sociology of enemy creation through demonizing propaganda.


II. The "subhuman Serbs" as NATO targets.

1. The role of modern mass communication in "national
interests."

2. Human deaths as "collateral damage" and other NATO
propaganda.

III. The "concentration camps" and "ethnic
cleansing" elements in anti-Serb propaganda.

1. The organized efforts to spread anti-Serb propaganda.

2. Making of the Trnopolje "concentration camp" and
those who were shamelessly fooled.

3. "Remember Srebrenica" themes and "Serb ethnic
cleansing" propaganda.

4. Elements of anti-Serb propaganda developed from the
"remember Srebrenica" theme.



IV. Denial of the Victimhood of the Serbs.



V. The Hague Tribunal : The Tribunal from Hell

1. The use of "international tribunals" to validate
labels.

2. Questionable proceedings of the Tribunal from Hell.



VI. Conclusion



VII. My Observations.

1. Racism in human rights activity in Kosovo and the
"international community."

2. Some suggestions to the Serbian people.

3. . . . and this work isn't done yet!



Footnotes and references to this paper.





--------------------------------------------------------------------





I. Introduction to Group Demonization and Dehumanization.

Most human groups and nations create an enemy to create a
sense of social solidarity and membership. The function of war
propaganda is to build social solidarity, to unite a nation or group
against "the Other, evil incarnate."

"In all propaganda, the face of the enemy is designed to
provide a focus for our hatred. He is the other. The outsider. The
alien. He is not human. If we can only kill him, we will be rid of all
within and without ourselves that is evil" (Keen 1986, p. 16).

The stuff that creates a sense of tribal loyalty and
patriotism is paranoia. Paranoia is far from being an occasional
pathology, but a normal condition. We direct hate and suspicion to
strangers and those who are unlike us. The paranoid myth of "the
threat" involves the dualistic Us versus Them, Good versus Evil, we
are good, they are bad. This paranoid myth that unites the group and
defines it, also permits the killing of the immoral, nonhuman members of
the "them," as well as the holy act of dying while killing the
"them" (Keen, 1986).

Humans normally don't kill other humans. The humans that
we intend to kill, eliminate or commit genocide against must be
dehumanized. "The enemy" must be reduced to ugly creatures that are
less than animals with ideas that must be destroyed. Propaganda of the
mass media is employed to create "the good," us and "the evil",
the them. The mass media is employed to justify the righteousness and
piety of "us" and the aggression and evilness of "the enemy."
This creates the fog of paranoia that cannot be cleared, even when
presented with the truth about the true intentions and true humanity of
"the enemy" (Keen 1986).

The propaganda that is used to demonized and dehumanize
"the enemy" often portrays "the enemy" with similar images, both
visual and written. "The enemy" is often portrayed as a beast or a
stone age throw-back with turned down lips and ruff facial features. He
is wild and animal like, engaging in behaviors and customs that are
strange to "us." In print "the enemy" has been portrayed as
dirty, crude, acting either under the influence of home-made liquor or
pure animal instincts (Stover and Peress 1998), combined with the
enemy's "strange" social customs, as in Eric Stover and Gilles
Peress book The Graves: Srebrencia and Vukovar. (1998) (1). These images
are replayed in many ways to create the negative stereotypes of "the
enemy" and only negative news about this demonized group is covered in
"the press" (Keen 1986, McCarus 1994). Speaking of the portrayal of
the enemy's "strange social customs," Sam Keen (1986) stated: He
will be portrayed as rude, crude and uncivilized. More than likely he
will be an irrational, dirty member of a horde organized at best on the
model of an ant heap (p. 43).

Once demonized and stripped of their humanity, it not only
makes it easier for the battlefield solider to kill the "faceless,
non-human enemy," it is also easier to indiscriminately kill any
member of "the enemy." Civilians in the demonized group become
targets, often unable to fight back and are easy prey for violence and
persecutions. They are easy prey for violence and harassment as a result
of knee-jurk, American- patriotic racism called jingoistic racism (2) (
Keen 1986; Burchfield 1997; McCarus 1994).

Since a group stripped of its humanity is not seen as having
human worth, they have no human rights. Such a demonized, out-group is
not deserving of the protections that other human groups are entitled
under international law and conventions. Such a development helps
powerful governments and military alliances, and their media outlets, to
justify the bombing and killing of civilians, and the ignoring of the
human rights of the demonized group ( Burchfield 1997). "They" may
have been the victims of war crimes committed against "them," but
war crimes against "them" are justified.

Lastly, according to Miller and Levin (1998), the media
project images of a "hierarchy of victims," that is, some victims
are more deserving of public attention, sympathy and out rage than other
victims. This projects the image that these "lesser victims"
lives' are of no value and are therefore less newsworthy.

Back to top.

Footnotes and references



II. The "subhuman Serbs" as NATO Targets.

1. The role of modern mass communication in "national
interests."

The media play very important roles in portraying members of
some groups as normal and others as Other. In particular, films and
television programs use the power of visual images to create and
reinforce stereotypic images of Others as scary and different (Zatz and
Mann, 1998, p.8).

While the family and education have a role to play in the
shaping and transmission of the common culture, this role is falling
more on the shoulders of the media and the government. Government is
playing more of a role in the culture, shaping and supporting the
cultural values regarding civil rights, criminal justice and so on. The
mass media are a great influence on the transmission and reinforcement
of some times heavily biased, cultural values ( Burchfield 1997, Ranney
1993). The most influential impact of mass communications in political
communication and political culture is television because of it's
visualness over radio, its visual and voice over newspapers (Ranney
1993).

Journalists will seek out governmental and military
officials when there is some perceived threat to the "national
interest." Many of these reporters rely on official sources, such as
foreign affairs offices and governmental employees. In order to
cultivate relationships with and "not offend" those "in the
know," the reporter reports "facts" he is given, even if he knows
that they are lies. The most esteemed journalists are the ones who are
the most servile. Hearsay is transformed into "the truth"
(Sadkovich, 1998). Often, however, these "facts" that military and
governmental officials put out as "truth" can be disputable and
become part of the propaganda and the process of demonization, or
re-demonization (Sadkovich 1998, Keen 1986).

There is one vivid example of this "reporting of facts"
from the NATO Alliance during it's rather questionable "Operation
Allied Force." The Paris based group, Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF)
chastised NATO for what it said was the Alliance's "distorting the
truth, attempts at misinformation" and "impossible to check
figures." RSF sited the example of the supposed wounding of
ethnic-Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, who then subsequently appeared
healthy on Serbian Television.

Air Commodore David Wilby had stated that the report of
Rugova's demise was from a "very reliable source." The "very
reliable source" that Air Commodore Wilby cited was a London -based
Kosovo Information Center, run by Kosovo exiles. Besides
(dis)information, RSF's report points out the "other features of
Western communication are approximate figures, debatable historical
references and the use of vocabulary that has the aim of making the
adversay appear monstrous. " (3)

2. Human deaths as "collateral damage" and other NATO
propaganda.

"When we know the Serbs did it, we say the Serbs did
it," said a NATO official . . .who spoke anonymously to an American
researcher. "When we don't know who did it, we say the Serbs did it.
And when we know the Serbs didn't do it, we say we don't know who
did it." (4)

Recall in Section I the ideas of both Burchfield (1997) and
Keen (1986). Once a group of humans is stripped of its humanity, such as
the Serbs, this "out group" is seen as "not worthy" of the same
protections granted to "in groups." This includes the human rights
and human worth of the demonized group. Also, according to Keen (1986),
the high tech weapons eliminate much of the demonization process and
make "the enemy" even less human : The atrocities committed from a
high altitude by bomber crews, directed from afar by technicians are not
so much inhuman as ahuman ( p.86). So long as we want to kill from a
distance with clean hands, we must refrain from imagining the
consequences of our weapons, and must completely eliminate any awareness
of the enemy as human (pp.86-87).

NATO officials in Brussels were truly conditioned by their
propaganda to kill "the Other," the "sub-human, ethnic cleansing,
Serbs," and coupled with the distance from Brussels to Belgrade, this
insulated the Alliance from the carnage in Yugoslavia, making bombing
the civil population all the more sanitary.

The results of dehumanizing propaganda and sanitary killing
of "the Other" came out of one NATO official in at least one press
briefing during "Operation Allied Force." During the April 9th press
briefing, CNN correspondent Patricia Kelly questioned Air Commodore
David Wilby's lack of concern for the civil population in and around a
Yugoslav car plant : ". . .your statement on the collateral damage to
civilian property in Kosovo seems to take no account of the fact that
there are still Serb civilians inside of Kosovo which NATO has also
pledged to protect in its early mission statements but the way you put
the information across makes it sound as if you are not particularly
bothered about their safety any longer."

In his reply to the charge, Wilby answers with a well worn
NATO statement, but then continues to describe possible Serb civilian
causalities in non-human terms:

". . .if I gave the impression that I was not concerned
about the loss of civilian life to the Serbian population, you know that
we have always said that we are not in any conflict with the Serbian
people and I am sorry if my emphasis came across slightly wrong to you."

"In terms of the car plant. . .as I have said to you, we
would look very carefully into the collateral damage or damage to
civilians before we attacked that particular plant." (5)

According to The White Book of NATO's Crimes , there were
several civilian homes hit by missiles that day, as well as the car
plant that employed 30,000, but no injuries or deaths were reported in
this publication. (6)

In yet another example that lead to protests by historical
experts was Tony Blair's (mis) use of the term "genocide" and the
characterization of Milosevic's government to that of Hitler's. (7)
The reasons for the NATO Alliance's questionable bombing campaign was
the "humanitarian disaster" of the ethnic Albanians that was created
by the "ethnic cleansing by the Serbs." The common figure being
batted around was 100,000 dead, with one mass grave in Ljubenic said to
contain 350 bodies. ("Remember Srebrenica?! Why those 'nasty, ethnic
cleansing, rapist Serbs' were back to their systematic ethnic cleansing
plans!")

What investigators found , or didn't find ( November 1999)
in Ljubenic was not 350 corpses, but seven(8) and a mine shaft said to
contain lots of corpses of massacred Albanians held none (9). Recently,
teams of forensic experts from Spain and Italy have found only about 200
graves or so with no signs of torture on those corpses the did find.(10)
People were leaving Kosovo because, like Serbia proper, it was being
attacked by NATO.(11) The NATO Alliance is starting to look very much
like an alliance of cheap, brutal war mongers, using propaganda and
outright lies as a justification for war.

However, during the NATO actions against the Yugoslav Serbs,
the West rehashed the same propaganda and old stereotypes of the Serbs
as the "butchers of the Balkans, ethnic cleansers" (Flounders 1998).
The US and NATO used these past anti-Serb propaganda and anti- Serb
stereotypes in an effort to create the social solidarity necessary to
keep the NATO countries' leaders and their publics supportive of the
Yugoslavia bombing campaign ( Keen 1986, Naslund, 1999).

These claims of the "systematic, ethnic cleansing and mass
murder plans" of the Serbs is not new. The anti-Serb propaganda
elements that were being recycled in the NATO action with regard to
Kosovo were the "remember Sreberinca" themes, which are highlighted
in the next section. There was alleged to have been 8,000 Muslim men
"systematically massacred by the Serbs" in Srebreinca, but only 460
bodies have been found (Kent 1998, Pumphrey 1998).

Some of the conscious in the West for the "bombing of
Milosevic" and the Yugoslav Serb civilian population was also
developed and maintained by sometimes concerted demonization and
dehumanization campaigns lead by American PR firms like Ruder Finn
Global Public Affairs(12) with "very important" clients, like the
Republic of Croatia.

Back to top.

Footnotes and references



III. The "concentration camps" and "ethnic
cleansing" elements in anti-Serb propaganda.

"Regrettably, that behavior (ethnic cleansing) is not
unprecedented in Balkan conflicts, and to say that it is a peculiarly
Serb behavior says more about the observer than the Balkans" (Charles
G. Boyd 1995, p.3).

Several groups have been demonized through the use of
propaganda during the 20th Century. Most notably, the Jews, Germans and
Japanese during the Second World War, the Russians during the Cold War,
the Arabs and Muslims during the 70's and the Gulf War. The newest
victims of Western, war- motivated propaganda are the Serbs (Keen 1986,
McCarus 1994, Kent 1999, Flounders 1998). There have been a few intense
media blitzes stemming "from the need to punish" the Serbs for their
insolence against the West and Washington (Kent 1999).

1. The organized efforts to spread anti- Serb propaganda.

Unlike the cartoons and posters of the previous wars, the
"media war" against the Serbs, as many have put it, is a sometimes
concerted, high tech one, incorporating mass communication technology
and public relations firms to demonize and dehumanize and the entire
ethnic group. The current concerted propaganda campaign against the
Serbs began back in the early '90's when the Western world media
heated up it's anti- Serb campaign with its portrayal of Serbs as
barbarians, drunken bandits and murders, even Nazi fascists. Current
political cartoons portray the Serbs as pigs, hyenas and neo-Nazi
monsters. (Thomas 1993, Flounders 1998, Deichmann 1998, Kent 1999).
There is now even an anti-Serb propaganda book, Stover and Peress' The
Graves , being use in the classroom of Florida State University in a
course on "human rights investigations" and this author is finding
that anti-Serb propaganda books with the "remember Srebrenica" theme
are becoming common place.

The current Western/NATO propaganda against the Serbs is an
organized one, involving public relations firms. Charly Reese of the
Orlando Sentinel wrote, ". . .the Serbs were and are up against
powerful American public relations firms, western intelligence agencies
and biased or incompetent Western reporters." Reese cited an interview
by French Two Television of James Harff of Ruder Finn Global Affairs,
the public relations firm that was representing the Muslim side. Harff,
who is Ruder Finn's director, boasted of getting the American Jews on
the side of Muslims after the Bosnian concentration camps hoax (Also
Deichmann, 1998, Flounders 1998). The public relations firm capitalized
on the high emotional content of the ITN "concentration camp" hoax
for the benefit of its clients, the Republic of Croatia, the Republic of
Bosnia-Herzegovina and the parliamentary oppsition in Kosovo. The
Washington based firm shows how the corporate media engages in a modern
propaganda campaign and demonstrates one of the concerted efforts to
demonize the Serbs :

Speed is vital. . .it is the first assertion that really
counts. All denial are ineffective. In a single move we were able to
present a simple story of good guys and bad guys which would hereafter
play itself. We won by targeting the Jewish audience. Almost immediately
there was a clear change of the lanague in the press, with use of words
with high emotional content such as 'ethnic cleansing, concertration
camps, etc., which evoke images of Nazi Germany and the gas chambers of
Auschwitz. No one could go against it without being accused of
revisionism. We really batted a thousand in full" (qtd. in Flounders
1998, pp.54, 55).

2. Making of the Trnopolje "concentration camp" and
those who were shamelessly fooled.

In his essay "The Picture that Fooled the World" (1998)
Thomas Deichman describes the "concentration camp" hoax in detail.
The now famous picture came from a video shot by Penny Marshall of ITN
of a refugee camp in Trnopolje on August 5th, 1992. In fact, Deichmann
has looked at the rest of the footage Marshall and her team shot that
contained the picture. What was used in the Marshell report - and what
wasn't - is revealing. What wasn't in the report was the openness of
the camp, the holes in the fences that Marshell and her crew went
through and that the refugees were free to leave anytime they wanted
(Dechmann, 1998).

What became the picture that Mike Jeremy of ITN pegged
"one of the key images of the war in the former Yugoslavia," (qtd.
in Deichmann, p. 170) was, in fact, presented as to the Western world as
something it was not, a concentration camp. The focus was on Fikret
Alic, who's protruding rib cage behind a fence conjured up images of
Nazi death camps. This "death camp" was a crude, sick lie and Fikret
Alic, who survived the war, was disturbed about the use of his image.

Through the use of camera angles, editing and the focus on
one rather emaciated fellow, the images of a "concentration camp"
were constructed for Western, anti-Serb propaganda consumption,
especially to the delight of the Ruder Finn PR firm (Deichmann 1998,
Flounders 1998).

James Harff of Ruder Finn shows his more of his "pride"
in getting the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish organizations on
the side of Muslims using the "concentration camp " hoax:

"At the beginning of July 1992, New York Newsday came out
with the article on Serb camps. We jumped at the opportunity
immediately. We outwitted three big Jewish organizations - the B'nai
B'rith Anti-Defamation League, The American Jewish Committee and the
American Jewish Congress. In August, we suggested that they publish an
advertisement in the New York Times and organize demonstrations outside
the United Nations.

That was a tremendous coup. When the Jewish organizations
entered the game on the side of the [Muslim] Bosnians, we could promptly
equate the Serbs with the Nazis in the public mind. Nobody understood
what was happening in Yugoslavia. The great majority of Americans were
probably asking themselves in which African country Bosnia was
situated" (qtd. in Flounders 1998, p.55).

Those that were duped- and continue to be duped - are the
American Jewish groups, such as the Anti- Defamation League that,
according Thomas (1993) : "Using the Jewish Holocaust as their
exclusive domain and forgetting the holocaust of the Serbs, the American
Jewish Congress has gone overboard in their calls to bomb the Serbs" (
p. 2)

Thomas points out strongly that the American Jewish
community is actually participating in the genocide of Serbs. Promoting
dehumanizing anti-Serb propaganda is a horrible step by most victimized
ethnic group of the 20th Century- the Jews- to promote violence against
another ethnic group- the Serbs.

3. "Remember Srebrenica" themes and "Serb ethnic
cleansing" propaganda.

"Srebrenica provides an unexpected way precisely what is
wrong with both the media and the constant spreading of hate against the
Serbs" (Kent 1999, p.9).

"Ethnic cleansing" is more often, and falsely,
attributed to Serbs, while at the same time Serb victims of ethnic
cleansing, including at Srebrenica, are forgotten. Serb victims of
ethnic cleansing are either misidentified as another ethnicity or not
identified by an ethnicity. Often the fact that Serbs are also victims
of ethnic cleansing is downplayed or never reported. ( Kent 1999,
Dragnich 1995, Boyd 1995, Rohde 1997, Thomas 1993). Section IV
extensively covers denial of the victimhood of the Serbs by Western
governments and media.

Editors often suppress "pro-Serb" stories, but allow a
few favorable words to be said to give the appearance of "fair play"
(Kent 1999). These stories are often hidden or near the bottom, but then
it is accompanied by demonizing, anti-Serb text ( Kent 1999).

The "Serbophobes," as Kent (1999) calls them, not only
portray the Serbs as dirty, drunken, neo-Nazi monsters, but suppressed
stories defending the Serbs, including false charges and grand
exaggerations of alleged "genocide" (Kent 1999, Thomas 1993, ).
Western reporters and the Eric Stover types, according to Thomas (1993),
go into a frenzy over alleged "genocide" by Serbs and numbers of
Muslims or Croats killed are often inflated and amount to lies. The same
ilk could care less when the victims of ethnic cleansing and mass murder
are Serbs. What the Western propaganda machine drags up constantly are
the alleged atrocities by Serbs in the town of Srebernica (Kent 1999).
This is one of the towns in Eric Stover and Gillies Peress' The Graves
: Srebernica and Vukovar (1998) .

In this book, the Serbs are not only portrayed as a race of
dirty, drunken, animal, ethnic cleansers, but the mainly
photojournalistic work hides the victimization of the Serbs, as well as
portrays the Serbs as drunken, animalistic killers. Stover writes, " .
. . the shelling of towns and villages, mass deportations of Muslims and
Croats and the systematic destruction of their cultural property. . .
what the Serb leaders were intending to accomplish in Bosnia" (p.
137).

However, a good - and shorter than an entire book - example
of this method of anti-Serb stereotype reinforcement is also in the
March 25th, 1996 issue of the New York Times article by Alan Cowell.
Cowell's story was regarding the indictments by the International
Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of three Bosinan
Muslims and a Bosnian Croat for involvement in a alleged "rape camp"
in which Serbs were the victims. One would not know that this is an
article about Serb victims and indictments issued for crimes committed
against Serbs by reading the article:

These are the first individuals indicted for crimes against
Bosnian Serb victims," the tribunal's spokesman, Christian Chartier
said. The indictment was "the first of its kind," it said.

The tribunal's investigations have been dominated by
inquires against Serbs, who investigators say pursued a systematic drive
to purge entire regions of Muslims and Croats, using murder and rape as
weapons in this process of 'ethnic cleansing.'

The tribunal has charged that many of the Serbian atrocities
reflected deliberate policies of the Bosnian Serb leadership, as opposed
to being crimes by rouge individuals . . . "

Even as today's indictments against the Serbs'
adversaries were made known, the United States' chief delegate to the
United Nations, Madeleine Albright, was visiting the site of suspected
mass graves near the central town of Srebrenica, where thousands of
Muslims are believed to have been massacred by Serbs last July." (13)

Was Cowell's story really about the ICTY indictments of
non-Serbs, or was the purpose of Cowell's article really about
something else - like anti-Serb stereotype reinforcement?!

4. Elements of anti-Serb propaganda developed from the
"remember Srebrenica" theme.

In Faces of the Enemy (1986) , on page 46, Sam Keen has
eight elements of decivilizing rhetoric he identified as being used by
former President Ronald Reagan to paint the image "Soviet savagery." I
have noted that much of the "remember Srebrenica" theme was, and
still is, being used as elements of anti-Serb propaganda. Borrowing on
Keen's idea of identifying elements of decivilizing rhetoric, and Eric
Stover's Serb bashing text in The Graves as a main sources, I have
created a list of elements in anti-Serb propaganda :

a.. The Serbs are not victims of "ethnic cleansing"
( p.137, implied).


b.. The Serbs break agreements (p. 121).

c.. The Serbs are rapists of Muslim women (p. 115) .

d.. The Serbs are "dirty, animalistic killers" ( pp.
105, 108, 103, 144, 156).

e.. The Serbs are usually drunk on brandy ( pp.105,
106,).

f.. The Serbs are "cold, cruel occupiers" (
pp.111-112, 130, 140 ).

g.. The Serbs have "strange, animal- like habits" (
pp.83-87, 122).

h.. The Serbs are the only perpetrators of "ethnic
cleansing and mass murder." Stover and Gilles' entire book portrays
this fallacy, but especially on pages 131, 137, 108.

What is also clear from Stover and Gilles' book is that
Bosnian Muslims are human beings, with human traits of concern for
family, have feelings of love and anger, suffer hunger and cold.
Contrast that to the animalistic Serbs who, in this obviously propaganda
book, are cold, cruel, unfeeling, and unmoved by the tears and fears of
the Bosnian Muslim human beings . The Serbs, as a group of human beings,
have their humanity ripped and stripped from then in The Graves. Eric
Stover and Gillies Pervess' The Graves : Sreberinca and Vukovar is an
excellent book for those who want get a good taste of what anti-Serb
propaganda and dehumanization is all about.

Closely related to the "remember Srebrenica" spin of
anti-Serb propaganda is the denial of the victimhood of the Serbs,
including and especially in Srebrenica, at the hands of Eric Stover's
"charismatic - 25 year old leader," Naser Oric.

Back to top.

Footnotes and references



IV. Denial of the victimhood of the Serbs.

"Massacres committed by Serbs are genocide, but not
massacres committed on Serbs. Ethnic cleansing by the Serbs is genocide,
but not that committed by the other side against Serbs" ( Thomas 1993,
p. 5).

Part of the demonization and dehumanization of the Serbs is
not only labels created through propaganda against them, but also the
removal of their victimhood. The funeral of a Serb girl was reported as
that of a Muslim and the rape of a Serb woman was reported as that of a
Muslim (Kent 1999, Thomas 1993).

"When pictures of Serbian victims are shown, their
ethnicity is not identified so as to give the impression that these are
Muslims or Croats. One American newspaper even took the picture of a
Serbian rape victim clearly identified in a caption in a Canadian
newspaper, then reprinted that picture under a caption identifying her
as a Muslim victim" ( Thomas 1993, p. 2 ).

Or the fact that the Serbs have also been victims of ethnic
cleansing is often never reported in Western media. According to Raymond
Kent, "For almost a year before the Serbs took Srebrenica. . . its
Bosnian (Muslim) government forces routinely raided the rural Serbs in
the surrounding countryside, committing all kinds of war crimes without
any fear that the T.V. screens of the outside world could be even a
silent witness" (p. 9 ).

On thing is for certain is that journalist and forensic
anthropologist Eric Stover and photojournalist Gilles Peress were not
there. In fact on page 117 of The Graves , Stover treats Naser Oric, the
local Bosnian Muslin leader suspected of burning over 200 Serbs villages
and brutally and beastly murdering Serbs in raids around Srebrenica
(Kent 1999, Rohde 1997) as a "charismatic, twenty - five year old
policeman" and the brutal, murderous raids as "the success of these
local raids." In the book Endgame (1997) David Rohde paints a picture
of Srebrenica's Serbs living in fear :

Srebrenica's Muslims and Naser Oric had played the United
Nations beautifully in 1993. When the Serbs were on the verge of taking
the town, they had tricked the West into saving them. The safe area was
a joke. For two years, the UN had fed the Muslims, sold them weapons and
done nothing as Naser Oric launched raids from a town that was supposed
to be "demilitarized." Serb villagers within 30 miles of Srebrenica
lived in constant fear, waiting to hear the voices in the night and then
smell smoke. Dozens of civilians had been burned alive in their homes by
Oric's men (p.15).

While I am not condoning any actions that may have been
perpetrated by the Bosinan Serb side, the marked difference between
Naser Oric and Ratko Mladic is that the latter has never been indicted
by the ICTY (Kent 1999) . On of the most grave injustices of Stover and
Gilles' The Graves is that it hides and denies Srebrenica's other
victims, the Bosnian Serbs, and implies that a "politically correct"
war criminal is a hero.

Currently, much of the coverage of "humanitarian
efforts" in Kosovo are often one-side, almost flat out ignorance the
human rights and war crimes violations by the Kosovo Albanian
population, especially the KLA ( the Kosovo, so-called "Liberation
Army ") against the Kosovo Serbs. The ICTY is doing little to
investigate and indict KLA and other Kosovo Albanians for their war
crimes and ethnic cleansing against the Kosovo Serbs and other
minorities(14). In the fashion of "remember Srebrenica" there were
accusations of "Serbian ethnic cleansing" that are now, once again,
turning out to be false(15). Also, as in Bosnia, when Serbs are the
victims, who cares.

As stated by Miller and Levin (1998) the mass media project
a "hierarchy of victims" in which some victims are more deserving of
attention and public outrage than others. The Serbs are quite noticeably
at the bottom of this hierarchy, if they are even on the chart at all.
When a mass grave is made up of Muslims and non-Serbs, the Western mass
media flock to it like vultures(16). When the mass grave is made up of
Serbs - who cares. When the Serbs are victims of ethnic cleansing - who
cares. The Serbs are subhumans - so who cares (Thomas 1993).

The above is commonly called "racism" and those involved
are commonly called "racists."

Denial of victimhood of the Serbs and treating war crimes
against them as if they are less deserving of investigation and
international attention is reflective of racism in the "international
community," the ICTY and the "human rights Serbophobes" (Kent
1999, p.8). The cameras were out and rolling to catch Ratko Mladic - but
not Naser Oric (Kent 1999). Being very concerned with the human rights
and humanitarian needs of one ethnic group, while flat out ignoring the
human rights violations against and the basic human needs of the other,
as is current in Kosovo, is RACIST, to say the least.

Back to top.

Footnotes and references



V. The Hague Tribunal : The Tribunal from Hell.

1. The use of "international tribunals" to validate
labels.

"A problematic individual or group is classified as an
instance of human refuse; the validity of the label is tested and
confirmed in public hearings or tribunals conducted by experts certified
in making defamatory pronouncements: legends are then woven by
mythmakers to 'explain' the necessity for the evil party being as it
is : these legends are passed on . . . as ontological truths, and
received by an audience which, not present during the initial steps, is
unable to fathom the fabricated nature of the evil; finally, the truth
of the myth is recognized (re-known) through its ritual dramatization in
armed engagements, domestic and foreign, against the evil object" (Aho
1994, pp.114-115).

In his book, This Thing of Darkness (1994), James Aho
discusses how this "evil" is created through imagery, validated and
made the stuff of myth and "common knowledge about 'the them.' "
In this way, the "evil" is socially constructed. This is how
criminality, delinquency, and even "war crimes" and "crimes
against humanity" are brought to life, made reality and confirmed.

The first step is naming or labeling. "Persons, acts or
situations are neither good nor evil. They come to be seen as such when.
. .they are so defined" (Aho 1994, p.28). The labels of "ethnic
cleansers" and "genocidal" are attributed to Serbs almost
exclusively by Western media (Thomas 1993, Kent 1999, Flounders 1998),
including by both NATO and the ICTY. However, the label of "ethnic
revenge" and not "ethnic cleansing" is fixed to Kosovo Albanians
engaging in similar acts of violence and ethnic cleansing that the Serbs
are almost exclusively accused of by NATO and the West. In this way, the
Western media can have its label of "ethnic cleansers" to safely
affix to the Serbs to once again demonize them at sometime in the
future.

The next step that Aho (1994) discusses that is of interest
here is the legitimization of the labels : "It is one thing to malign
others; it is another for such labels to 'stick.' If labels are to
adhere to the intended party, they must be validated. One vehicle for
effecting this is the public degradation ceremony. This is a formal
hearing, trial, inquisition or tribunal . . ." ( p. 29). The purpose
of the ICTY Tribunal from Hell - it's "official hearings,
investigators and panels of experts" - the mindlessly, bloody Richard
Goldstone ilk- is not justice, not in the least bit, but as stated by
James Aho (1994), to make the labels of "ethnic cleansers, war
criminals and mass murders" stick to the Serbian people.

2. Questionable proceedings of the Tribunal from Hell.

. When NATO and the Bosnian Muslims kidnapped Djordje Djukic
and another Yugoslav army officer, and spirited them to the Hague, it
was not about "justice." It was not about "justice" to
interrogate this seriously ill man, who was being denied basic medical
care for cancer, for up to 20 hours a day. It was not about
"justice" when the tribunal's judges laughed at the profession of
innocence from Djordje. The cruel and indifferent treatment of Djordje
at the hands of the ICTY Tribunal from Hell, was not about "justice"
(Cavoski 1997, Rubin 1996, Kent 1999).

Djordje Djukich was a non-combat, logistics officer and most
likely innocent of "crimes against humanity." The "trial" of
him, as a Bosnian Serb, was actually a trial of all people of Serb
descent. The "derogation ceremony" served to validate Western mass
media propaganda labels of the Bosnian Serbs as "genocidal, ethnic
cleansers and mass murders" (Kent 1999, Rubin 1996, Aho 1994,
Flounders 1998).

James Aho (1994) demonstrated how labels against
"problematic groups" are validated through a "derogation
ceremony," that is courts, trials, public hearings - or - in this case
- an international tribunal. The ICTY Tribunal from Hell performs this
function. According to Kent (1999) and Thomas (1993), who wrote his
essay as the ICTY was being formed:

What is being set up is nothing more than an 'Ad Hoc
International Kangaroo Court' decked with the frills of respectability
to pacify the historical and revengeful demands of an American-lead,
Western lynch mob. There appears to be no higher court of appeal for the
Serbs. In the minds of the Western and especially American media, Serbs
have already been tried and found guilty. They will accept no other
verdict. The international 'legal process' is a FORMALITY (p. 4).

The Western mass media, the Eric Stovers and Gillies Pervess
of the world, are rather selective about the mass graves they cover,(17)
much in the way the ICTY indicts "war criminals." That is, the ICTY
investigators essentially work for the prosecution looking to indict and
convict persons of a single ethnicity. This "court" issues almost
daily accusations to the world mass media against leaders of one
ethnicity and religion in a civil war with three sides. (Thomas 1993,
Kent 1999). The ICTY seems to depend on the mass media and anti-Serb
propaganda to feed and validate its existence, and the example below is
strong evidence of this dependency.

On one night of drunkenness, reporter and author Nebojsa
Jevric was asked by an American reporter who he would nominate as the
worst rapist of Muslim women. Jevric nominated Gruban of Bijelo Polje.
The American counterpart then forwarded Gruban's name to the "right
places." Soon, the world was flooded with wanted posters of "Serbian
war criminals" with the names of Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and
Gruban. Gruban al>


--------------------------------------------------------------------


Transfer interrupted!
ge : unknown - nationality : unknown - description : unknown
- address : unknown.

With no description, how then were NATO's troops going to
find this notorious Serb war criminal who had raped so many Muslim
women? They weren't. Gruban of Bijelo Polje was actually a character
from the famous novel, "Hero on a Donkey," by Miodrag Bulatovic.(18)

With lots of egg on its face, the ICTY withdrew the
indictment against Gruban.(19)

Another questionable act of the ICTY that served to validate
the Serbs as a "evil, genocidal people" was the issuance of an
indictment for "war crimes and genocide" against Slobodan Milosevic,
President of Yugoslavia, during NATO's "Operation Allied Force."
(20) This indictment- and the timing of it - served to validate - once
again - the Serbs as an "evil people." It derogated the Serbian
people as an ethnic group in need of "collective punishment" by NATO
bombs (Naslund 1999). The current revelations now coming out of Kosovo
are that there was no "systematic policy of mass murder or
genocide." (21)

The ICTY Tribunal from Hell is really is part of the
portrayal of "the Other," the Serbs, as the "evil, human
refuse." It is not only the demonstration of the "justness" of the
cause of NATO and the West, but serves to validate anti-Serb propaganda.
The ICTY, it's derogation ceremonies aimed almost exclusively at
Serbs, serves the function of validating the "evilness" of the Serbs
as a subhuman group and the "need" for Western/NATO intervention (
Keen 1986, Kent 1999, Thomas 1993, Binder 1996).

Some unfortunate Serbs, like Djordje Djukich, are kidnapped
and turned over to NATO's troops to be "processed to the Hague."
(22) (Of the people indicted by this "court" 46 are Serbs, 8 Croats and
one a Muslim.(23) ) "Even if innocent, the accused is contaminated -
his guilt, insanity, addiction, subversives, or apostasy 'confirmed in
the eyes of the masses' " (Aho 1994, p.29). The ICTY is the
"legitimization" process whereby the interest is not justice -
hardly - but the validation of damning labels (Aho 1994).

These unearned labels of Serbs as "genocidal murderers"
have now become "common knowledge" of modern society (Aho 1994) and
it has now been woven and accepted as fact are that the Serbs are
"Nazi-like, ethnic cleansing, rapist, mass murders" (Flounders
1998).

The Serbs that are now, have been, and will be in the
future, subjected to this Tribunal from Hell , the ICTY, have been
relegated to this cruel and inhuman role for the sake of validating
Western propaganda and demonizing labels by going through the James
Aho's (1994) "legitimization" process.

Back to top.

Footnotes and references.



VI. Conclusion

"When Milosevic gets up in the morning, he is counting his
losses. . ." (24)

No, Jamie Shea, actually it is the civil population of
Yugoslavia that is counting its losses, including the losses of friends,
family and co-workers (Naslund 1999, International Action Center 1999).
In the minds of NATO officials, like Jamie Shea and Air Commodore Wilby,
they truly were "bombing Milosevic." The process of demonization of
the Serb population to a deserving mass of "subhuman, rapist, ethnic
cleansers" was easy for the NATO Alliance, for these push button
warriors painted the face of Slobodan Milosevic, an "indicted war
criminal," on the face of every person living in Yugoslavia.
Therefore, the entire population of Yugoslavia stood indicted in mass as
"war criminals and ethnic cleansers of Kosovo," having been indicted
along with the FRY President by that instrument of label validation and
Serb derogation - the ICTY Tribunal from Hell.

Any support for the current Western/NATO Balkans missions is
built and maintained through the use of anti-Serb propaganda. As the
Western propaganda spin goes, the West has a "holy mission," (an
ethnocentric one), to bring "the bad" in line with "the good ,"
and doing what where it desires in the name of "democracy, peace and
security." To accomplish this, the main strategy of Western propaganda
was "good vs evil," and "aggressor vs. aggrieved" (Kent 1999;
Boyd 1995). Much of the motivation for NATO's attack on Yugoslavia was
to stop "the evil aggressors" in the name of "higher moral
standards," even if it ment playing dirty (Naslund 1999). These
self-righteous hypocrites the demonized an entire ethnic group,
attempted to force them to sign a "non- negotiable agreement," (25)
labeled its leaders as "war criminals," and then set out on a
criminal campaign of "collective punishment" by bombing an innocent,
civil population "back into the Stone Age" ( Keen 1986, Naslund
1999).

In the opening pages of this essay I demonstrated the basic
sociology of how a human group like the Serbs can be dehumanized through
the use of demonizing propaganda. I used authors James Aho (1994) and
Sam Keen and his classic Faces of the Enemy: Reflection of the Hostile
Imagination (1986) to demonstrate how one human group defines "the
Other" and paints "the Other" as with sub-human qualities through
the used of negative images: propaganda. Using the work of Sara
Flounders and Thomas Deichmann I demonstrated how the anti-Serb
propaganda campaign is a concerted one directed by chiefly the American
public relations firm Ruder Finn Global Affairs. Ruder Finn jumped on
Penny Marshell's and ITN's "concentration camp" hoax and is
quite boastful of fooling American Jewish Organizations, like the Anti-
Defamation League.

I would like to say- most strongly to those American Jewish
groups(26) that allowed themselves to be duped- and who continue to be
duped - by the likes of the Ruder Finn PR firm and are supportive of the
dehumanizing and violence against the Serbian ethnic group, SHAME ON YOU
- SHAME ON YOU- SHAME ON YOU! (To say this does not make me
anti-Semitic, but places blame where blame is due!)

Besides PR firms and major newspapers, there are now books
pushing anti-Serb propaganda. They often have "remember Srebrenica"
themes. One such book that does a fairly good job of painting the Serbs
as subhuman, smelly, drunken, ethnic cleansing animals is Eric Stover
and Gillies Peress' The Graves : Srebrenica and Vukovar (1998). I use
this book as a model of anti-Serb propaganda throughout this essay.

I also used James Aho's work This Thing of Darkness : A
Sociology of the Enemy (1994), along with that of Raymond Kent (1999),
Raju G.C. Thomas (1993), Kosta Cavoski (1997) Alfed Rubin (1996), and
Maria Naslund (1999) to demonstrate the true purpose of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) : Serb
demonization and the validation of anti-Serb labels and Western/NATO
mass media propaganda through the use of this "official court in the
Hague" as a "derogation ceremony" against the Serbs.

At the ICTY in the Hague - the Tribunal from Hell - justice
is the last thing this judicial devil is seeking. It is set up to solely
seek out and indict Serbs for the purpose of validating anti-Serb
stereotypes and labels like "ethnic cleaners." The cruel treatment
of individual Serbs indicted by this Tribunal from Hell and kidnapped by
NATO is to indict and "put on trial" ALL persons of Serb descent.

NATO carried out the "collective punishment" of the
Serbs, rehashing "remember Srebrenica" elements of anti-Serb
propaganda, as well outright lies of "ethnic cleansing in Kosovo" to
bomb the Yugoslavian population. The "collective punishment" of the
Serbs now continues in Kosovo through the excuse of Kosovo Albanian
"ethnic revenge" against the Kosovo Serbs. The Kosovo Serbs and
other minorities are now the victims of Kosovo "Liberation Army"
ethnic cleansing, and the NATO and the ICTY could care less because the
victims of this "ethnic cleansing" are the deserving Serbs.

Lastly, please remember Srebrenica! Srebrencia is the
birthplace and hometown of many of the elements of current anti-Serb
propaganda. The propaganda elements of the Serbs as "ethnic cleansing,
mass murders and drunken, genocidal animals" were born in Srebrenica.
Please remember Srebrenica, as this is where, according to Kent (1999)
and others, the "Big Lie" about "Serb ethnic cleansing" was
born.(27) Also remember that there are Serb victims at Srebrenica, and
elsewhere, that the Western mass media, NATO, the ICTY and the rest of
the Serbophobic world ignores in a racist manner.

Back to top.

Footnotes and references.



VII. My Observations

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal
and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the
foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. Preamble,
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

It is startling how much this does not apply to the Serbs.
According to Maria Naslund (1999) of the Transnational Foundation for
Peace and Future Research, there is an increasingly "politically
correct" human rights activism unfolding in the "international
community." Currently there is more attention placed on the returning
ethnic -Albanians to Kosovo than on the future of the 11 million people
inside Serbia. More people may have died under NATO bombs than were
killed by Yugoslavian and KLA units (Naslund 1999).

1. Racism in human rights activity in Kosovo and in the
"international community."

What I find the most offensive and anger provoking aspect of
anti-Serb propaganda, its resulting dehumanization, including the shady
activity of the ICTY , is the devaluing of the human rights of the Serbs
as compared to other Balkans ethnic groups, especially Muslims. The
Serbs are also the "less deserving victims" in Miller and Levin's
(1998) "hierarchy of victims," whose lives and suffering are less
deserving of outrage and public outcry when war crimes and ethnic
cleaning are committed against them by the Kosovo Albanians and the KLA.

What I have noted from the websites of "humanitarian"
and "human rights" organizations currently active in Kosovo is an
almost complete lack of equal value for the human rights of Kosovo Serbs
and other minorities as compared to that of Kosovo Albanians. Little is
currently being discussed with regard to this anti-Serb racism in the
human rights community, but Raymond Kent (1999) called these
"concerned human rights activists" working in the Balkans,
especially in concert with the ICTY, "human rights Serbophobes" (p.
8).

Also noteworthy from these "human rights" web sites are
the descriptions of "Serb atrocities" as compared to atrocities
committed on the Serbs. Recall that I demonstrated that there is a
denial of the vicitimhood of the Serbs as being on the receiving end of
ethnic cleansings and a concerted effort to portray the Serbs as having
a monopoly on "ethnic cleansing." However, descriptions and accounts
of alleged Serb violence on other ethnic groups highlights the ethnic
labels of all the groups involved, with "Serb atrocities" on other
groups being described in intricate detail.

On Doctors Without Boarders' web site
(www.dwb.org/missions/kosovo.htm). There are lots of stories related to
DWB's work with Kosovo Albanian refugees, including a study on the
Kosovo Albanian refugees, but little about the plight of Kosovo Serbs.

The Doctors Without Boarders' Kosovo webpage presents a good
example of this one sided concern for all humans in Kosovo in a
statement by an Austian physician in June 1999 who seemed to really not
know, or care, about the plight of the Kosovo Serbs and other minorities
from THEIR homes: "After working for months with Kosovar refugees and
knowing how much they have suffered, it the best feeling that you can
have to see them coming back to their country."

This racist tendency to place more concern on the
humanitarian needs and more value on the human rights of one ethnic
group over another is highly offensive. I have noted that on the web
sites of these "human groups" in the "international community"
there are more stories, regarding the return of Kosovo ethnic-Albanians
than to the ethnic cleansing and murder of Kosovo Serbs and other Kosovo
minorities. There is an obvious value by the "international
community" with the human rights of Kosovo Albanians, but there is not
the same value being placed on the human rights of the Serb population.
As in Stover and Gillies' The Graves , the Serbs are non- humans and
not worthy of the same human rights as Bosnian Muslims. Being concerned
with the human rights of Bosinan Muslims, Croats and Kosovo Albanians,
while ignoring the human rights of the Serbs is RACIST, plain and
simple!

Recall the ideas of Miller and Levin (1998). Mass media
project the image of a "hierarchy of victims," whereby some victims
are seen as being "more deserving" of outrage and public attention
than other, "lesser victims." Crimes against "lesser victims"
are deemed less newsworthy and the lives of "lesser victims," in
this case the Serbs, are not valued as much as Bosnian Muslims and
Kosovo Albanians. I have noted a tendency to explain the violence of
Kosovo Albanians on their Serb neighbors as "ethnic revenge" for
"Serbian ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo.

This "ethnic revenge" is also used to explain attacks on
Serb elderly and children, non- combatants who probably had nothing to
do with any Serb on Albanian violence in Kosovo during NATO's bombing
campaign. How could an elderly Serb couple murdered in their apartment
in Prizren - during KFOR occupation of Kosovo - have anything to do with
an alleged policy of Slobodan Milosevic? This racist devaluing of the
human rights of Kosovo Serbs and the acceptance of "ethnic revenge"
against ALL Kosovo Serbs is clear evidence of the racist "collective
punishment" aspect of NATO and the West's policy toward the Serbian
ethnic group that Maria Nasland touched upon in one of her two papers on
NATO intervention (28).

What I strongly suggest that those of us concerned with
racism in "the international community, human rights and humanitarian
groups," is to use the principle of "equal concern for the human rights
and human needs of ALL groups equally" as a measuring rod to weed out
those practicing racism. With this, we will find the human rights and
humanitarian hypocrites!

I strongly believe that the making of anti-Serb propaganda,
demonization and dehumanization by Western PR firms had, and still has,
a lot to do with the anti-Serb racism in "humanitarian aid and human
rights" and neglect of the human rights of the Serbs. As an American I
am ashamed and highly offended that my government is allowing foreign
governments to hire American PR firms like Ruder Finn to make and spread
the hate of an ethnic group. What if the Ku Klux Klan decided to hire
Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs to spread its message through out the
world?! Something needs to be done, perhaps legislatively, about
allowing groups and governments to hire American PR firms to create
ethnic hate through dehumanizing propaganda. This concerted spreading of
anti-Serb demonization, which lead to the dehumanization of the Serbian
ethnic group, had a strong part to play in the acceptance of the bombing
of the Yugoslav civil population, especially described as "the
Serbs" and "bombing Milosevic," in Washington, London and
Brussels.

2. Some suggestions to the Serbian people. First of all, the
Serbian people need to realizing that they are fighting a concerted
effort to demonize them and dehumanize them. They need to be prepared to
mount a counter- concerted efforts against this hate propaganda, but
there are also things the individual Serb living here in the West can
do. Some of the following was also done by Arab-American groups in the
face of anti-Arab propaganda.

A. Get into the classrooms and get involved in schools and
colleges! Find out just what kind of books and materials are being used
in classes on "human rights, world affairs, international studies and
ethnic conflicts." This also includes the reading and use of newspaper
articles, since Western newspapers are the biggest spreader of anti-Serb
propaganda.

Read the materials and ask : "What kind of image is being
painted about my people in this book?" Look very close at how the
material is worded and how much attention is given to various
situations. If a book, such as the anti-Serb propaganda book The Graves:
Srebreinca and Vukovar , is being used in a classroom as required
reading, as at Florida State University, this gives this book
legitimacy, including the images of Serbs as drunken, smelly, mass-
murdering animals. (29)

B. Get into the libraries and find out what is there and
donate Serbian cultural materials. This allows people in the community
to be able to have the chance to learn positive aspects of the Serbian
culture. Donate books on Serbian epic poetry, history and culture and
food. Put up websites devoted to educating people about the Serbian
culture.

C. Start an international Serbian Student Union. This will
help combat the use of books such as The Graves in classrooms. It will
help bring Serbian culture studies and Slavic studies into more
prominence on college campuses. It will encourage more Serbs into higher
education.

D. Start defining the unequal valuing of human rights of
Serbs by the "international community" as what it really is :
RACISM. It is racist to place an unequal value of the human rights of
one ethnic group over another. Here in America, we refer to the
devaluing of the constitutional rights of minority - Americans as
compared to white - Americans as "racism." The devaluing of one
ethnic group's human rights over another on the international level
ALSO needs to be called just what it is : RACISM! Human rights are for
ALL humans! Human rights are not "granted" by ANY government or
military alliance and are not for sale!

E. Start an organization for human rights for Serbs. We need
to form an organization that will speak up for the human rights of the
Serbian people. It would not only address the lack of concern for the
human rights of the Serbian people, but address racism in "human
rights activism" and the "international community."

This type of organization would demand that the
"international community" address its anti-Serb racism and demand
that the human rights of the Serbian people be valued just as much as
the rights of Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians.

3. . . .and this work isn't done yet!

After all these pages of bring together authors and scholars
in this research project, this labor of love, to expose the offensive
and outright inhuman anti-Serb propaganda working of the West, NATO and
the US, this is only the beginning! There are separate papers and books
that can and have been written on the Tribunal from Hell's role in
anti-Serb label validation, the "remember Srebrenica" theme to
anti-Serb propaganda, the denial of the victimhood of the Serbs, and
propaganda in NATO's Balkan missions.

There will be future additions to this work (and maybe
someday a book, God willing) when I find and add still more sources,
authors, scholars and writers. This is only a start in exposing the
rather extensive and organized efforts to demonize, dehumanized and
lessen the human rights of the Serbian people.

To be addressed later in next additions :

1. The exportation of Western ideas, and I don't mean
democracy! I mean the idea of some groups' human rights being of less
value than other groups. Yes - NATO has exported the ideas of ethnic
inequality and racism to the Balkans! Why is it that the human rights of
Kosovo Serbs are of less value than Kosovo Albanians? Well, I will be
addressing this in the future.

2. The idea of a "hierarchy of victims" and the Serbs as
being "less deserving" victims than other groups, namely Muslims. It
is OK for Muslims to kill Serbs, but not OK for Serbs to kill
Muslims.(30) While Miller and Levin (1998) was speaking of American
minorities, namely African-Americans, the "hierarchy of victims" can
be applied to the Serbs as being "less deserving" victims than
Muslims.

3. The notion of "ethnic revenge" being used to describe
the Kosovo Albanian's ethnic cleaning and their communities of their
Serb neighbors. "Ethnic revenge" is a Kosovo Albanian policy that is
of racist manner, as it is against ANY Serb, including children and
elderly, not just those who might been part of police and army units.

Back to top.

Footnotes and references.

I GRANDI DIFENSORI DEI DIRITTI UMANI / 2: BENITO MUSSOLINI


"L'Italia non 'aggredisce' le popolazioni etiopiche, ma le libera,
emancipa gli schiavi, ridistribuisce il grano razziato dalle orde del
Negus, apre strade, istituisce ambulatori, protegge i bambini
abbandonati, da' pane agli indigenti. Essa compie un'opera 'societaria'
nel vero senso della parola. Fa quello che la Societa' delle Nazioni
avrebbe dovuto fare, e che non ha fatto..."


B. Mussolini su "Il Popolo d'Italia", 25/10/1935; citato su "Che Fare"
n.ro 51, novembre/dicembre 1999

(Nelle puntate precedenti: Winston Churchill)


--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
** NO COPYRIGHT ! **
------------------------------------------------------------