Informazione
POVRATAK ISTORIJI
Spomenik Njegošu u Rimu
Rim, 11. decembra (Tanjug)
U parku čuvene Vile Borgeze u Rimu danas je postavljen, dva i po metra
visok, spomenik Petru Petroviću Njegošu (1813-1851), velikom piscu,
vladici i vladaru Crne Gore.
Zvanično otkrivanje spomenika planirano je za 2004, kada budu završene
pripreme na kojima rade rimska opština i crnogorsko Ministarstvo za
kulturu. Danas se na otkrivanju okupio veliki broj Srba i Crnogoraca
koji žive u Rimu, studenata, diplomata, arhitekata, novinara.
Skulptura, izrađena u bronzi, teška 1,5 tonu, rad je akademskog vajara
Sretena Stojanovića.
http://www.politika.co.yu/2003/1212/01_12.htm
Spomenik Njegošu u Rimu
Rim, 11. decembra (Tanjug)
U parku čuvene Vile Borgeze u Rimu danas je postavljen, dva i po metra
visok, spomenik Petru Petroviću Njegošu (1813-1851), velikom piscu,
vladici i vladaru Crne Gore.
Zvanično otkrivanje spomenika planirano je za 2004, kada budu završene
pripreme na kojima rade rimska opština i crnogorsko Ministarstvo za
kulturu. Danas se na otkrivanju okupio veliki broj Srba i Crnogoraca
koji žive u Rimu, studenata, diplomata, arhitekata, novinara.
Skulptura, izrađena u bronzi, teška 1,5 tonu, rad je akademskog vajara
Sretena Stojanovića.
http://www.politika.co.yu/2003/1212/01_12.htm
Handke, Peter
Un disinvolto mondo di criminali
Einaudi - Collana: I Coralli
n. 173 - Pagine 87 - Formato 14x21 - Anno 2002 - ISBN 8806161458
Argomenti: Narrativa
Prezzo di vendita: € 10.00
Note: Annotazioni a posteriori su due attraversamenti della Iugoslavia
in guerra - marzo e aprile 1999 - Traduzione di Claudio Groff
Caratteristiche: brossura
---
Note di Copertina
Peter Handke in questo suo nuovo resoconto di due soggiorni in
Iugoslavia durante la guerra del Kosovo, si propone come il narratore
di una storia polemicamente opposta a quella raccontata dai giornali e
dalla televisione.
Esito di due soggiorni in Serbia nella primavera del 1999, durante la
guerra del Kosovo, questo diario riprende la riflessione avviata da
Peter Handke nei precedenti Un viaggio d'inverno e Appendice estiva a
un viaggio d'inverno. Le veementi accuse che l'autore austriaco aveva
allora rivolto alle potenze occidentali con i loro macchinari di guerra
e di propaganda non sono state smentite, ma hanno anzi trovato conferma
anche nella nuova situazione. E tuttavia quello polemico è solo uno dei
livelli proposti dal testo: l'altro ci mostra l'attento osservatore, il
poetico rievocatore delle piccole cose che considera suo dovere
innanzitutto umano prestare ascolto alle voci di coloro che anche nella
moderna società dell'informazione non hanno alcuna visibilità, alcuna
possibilità di farsi sentire.
Se da un lato mette in discussione le verità e la logica degli attacchi
Nato - secondo la quale «possono essere bombardati anche un campo di
mais e un pollaio, perché mais, carne di pollo e uova servono da
vettovaglie» -, dall'altro cerca di rintracciare momenti di verità e
forse di eternità nel fluire del quotidiano, in ciò che resta di
un'antica convivenza, in una vecchia quercia (anch'essa un bersaglio
strategico?), negli sguardi di una «vecchia partigiana quasi cieca».
Prestando orecchio a un'umanità confinata ai margini, Handke riesce a
ridare nuovamente voce e realtà a un popolo la cui «tolleranza non ha
nemmeno bisogno del concetto di "tolleranza"».
Dall'anticipazione:
Sulla guerra contro la Jugoslavia l'era dell'informazione è finita.
Queste annotazioni, scritte prima che il conflitto terminasse, gridano
con le parole ciò che i fatti stanno dimostrando: i problemi
dell'umanità non si risolvono con le bombe. Dopo Un viaggio d'inverno
sui fiumi Danubio, Sava, Morava e Drina. Ovvero Giustizia per la Serbia
e Appendice estiva a un viaggio d'inverno Handke torna a raccontare i
suoi pellegrinaggi nei Balcani feriti dalla guerra.
Guardando con attenzione, indagando, accertandosi delle cose Peter
Handke descrive le due traversate che ha compiuto durante la guerra in
Jugoslavia (la prima nella Settimana Santa del 1999 e la seconda circa
un mese dopo). Il suo libro, composto di due parti redatte al rientro
in Austria, è un'attenta osservazione, una rievocazione poetica di
fatti minuti, dove l'autore si fa compagno di dolore di coloro che sono
stati colpiti da questa tragedia. Peter Handke non s'improvvisa
esperto. Racconta ciò che gli è accaduto, ciò che gli è stato
raccontato da conoscenti e amici nelle tappe del suo viaggio, ciò che
pensava lungo quel cammino. E ciò che pensa ora, una volta ritornato a
casa. S'interroga sulla distruzione che la guerra si è lasciata dietro
e sceglie di stare, senza tentennamenti, dalla parte delle vittime che,
a dispetto di quanto dicono i media, sono rimaste, e tuttora rimangono,
invisibili.
http://www.liberonweb.com/asp/libro.asp?ISBN=8806161458
---
Un passo del libro:
<< Una goccia di pioggia cade in una pozzanghera, e io vedo
il bersaglio. Nel bosco un tronco segato con gli anelli
annuali: il bersaglio. Ritorno?…Vivere come in un disinvolto
mondo di criminali. L'annientamento della Jugoslavia non
ancora completamente manifesto al mondo: un'insidia che a me non
sembra spaziale, ma temporale, foriera di rovina per dopo;
un'insidia nel tempo. Un altro linguaggio; o anche solo un
altro tono, per la Jugoslavia, per tutti i paesi! Uomini di
buona volontà, dove siete? Si presentano solo quelli di
cattiva volontà, con le loro massime morali preconfezionate.
"La fantasia al potere!"… Coloro che un tempo diedero a
intendere di volersi mettere in marcia con questa parola d'ordine
si sono dimostrati assolutamente privi di immaginazione; non
vedono, non sentono e neppure presagiscono quello che fanno.
Il giovane cambogiano - cameriere nel ristorante asiatico -
finora così rispettoso e riservato, adesso vedendo la
targhetta "bersaglio" storce la bocca con disprezzo: "Pol
Pot! Milosevic! Serbia!". Sì, a voi occidentali è riuscito
in effetti un colpo planetario contro la Jugoslavia… A
questo proposito il portavoce dell'agenzia pubblicitaria
Saatchi & Saatchi (Londra): "L'epoca dell'informazione è
finita. Entriamo nell'epoca dell'idea. Vale a dire, abbiamo bisogno
di un contesto che dia un senso all'informazione". La guerra
contro la Jugoslavia: condotta non solo con bombe dirompenti
e missili, ma anzitutto con "contesto" e "idea". L'epoca
dell'informazione è finita. >>
(da: http://www.ragionamentidistoria.it/n03/scaffali01.htm )
Un disinvolto mondo di criminali
Einaudi - Collana: I Coralli
n. 173 - Pagine 87 - Formato 14x21 - Anno 2002 - ISBN 8806161458
Argomenti: Narrativa
Prezzo di vendita: € 10.00
Note: Annotazioni a posteriori su due attraversamenti della Iugoslavia
in guerra - marzo e aprile 1999 - Traduzione di Claudio Groff
Caratteristiche: brossura
---
Note di Copertina
Peter Handke in questo suo nuovo resoconto di due soggiorni in
Iugoslavia durante la guerra del Kosovo, si propone come il narratore
di una storia polemicamente opposta a quella raccontata dai giornali e
dalla televisione.
Esito di due soggiorni in Serbia nella primavera del 1999, durante la
guerra del Kosovo, questo diario riprende la riflessione avviata da
Peter Handke nei precedenti Un viaggio d'inverno e Appendice estiva a
un viaggio d'inverno. Le veementi accuse che l'autore austriaco aveva
allora rivolto alle potenze occidentali con i loro macchinari di guerra
e di propaganda non sono state smentite, ma hanno anzi trovato conferma
anche nella nuova situazione. E tuttavia quello polemico è solo uno dei
livelli proposti dal testo: l'altro ci mostra l'attento osservatore, il
poetico rievocatore delle piccole cose che considera suo dovere
innanzitutto umano prestare ascolto alle voci di coloro che anche nella
moderna società dell'informazione non hanno alcuna visibilità, alcuna
possibilità di farsi sentire.
Se da un lato mette in discussione le verità e la logica degli attacchi
Nato - secondo la quale «possono essere bombardati anche un campo di
mais e un pollaio, perché mais, carne di pollo e uova servono da
vettovaglie» -, dall'altro cerca di rintracciare momenti di verità e
forse di eternità nel fluire del quotidiano, in ciò che resta di
un'antica convivenza, in una vecchia quercia (anch'essa un bersaglio
strategico?), negli sguardi di una «vecchia partigiana quasi cieca».
Prestando orecchio a un'umanità confinata ai margini, Handke riesce a
ridare nuovamente voce e realtà a un popolo la cui «tolleranza non ha
nemmeno bisogno del concetto di "tolleranza"».
Dall'anticipazione:
Sulla guerra contro la Jugoslavia l'era dell'informazione è finita.
Queste annotazioni, scritte prima che il conflitto terminasse, gridano
con le parole ciò che i fatti stanno dimostrando: i problemi
dell'umanità non si risolvono con le bombe. Dopo Un viaggio d'inverno
sui fiumi Danubio, Sava, Morava e Drina. Ovvero Giustizia per la Serbia
e Appendice estiva a un viaggio d'inverno Handke torna a raccontare i
suoi pellegrinaggi nei Balcani feriti dalla guerra.
Guardando con attenzione, indagando, accertandosi delle cose Peter
Handke descrive le due traversate che ha compiuto durante la guerra in
Jugoslavia (la prima nella Settimana Santa del 1999 e la seconda circa
un mese dopo). Il suo libro, composto di due parti redatte al rientro
in Austria, è un'attenta osservazione, una rievocazione poetica di
fatti minuti, dove l'autore si fa compagno di dolore di coloro che sono
stati colpiti da questa tragedia. Peter Handke non s'improvvisa
esperto. Racconta ciò che gli è accaduto, ciò che gli è stato
raccontato da conoscenti e amici nelle tappe del suo viaggio, ciò che
pensava lungo quel cammino. E ciò che pensa ora, una volta ritornato a
casa. S'interroga sulla distruzione che la guerra si è lasciata dietro
e sceglie di stare, senza tentennamenti, dalla parte delle vittime che,
a dispetto di quanto dicono i media, sono rimaste, e tuttora rimangono,
invisibili.
http://www.liberonweb.com/asp/libro.asp?ISBN=8806161458
---
Un passo del libro:
<< Una goccia di pioggia cade in una pozzanghera, e io vedo
il bersaglio. Nel bosco un tronco segato con gli anelli
annuali: il bersaglio. Ritorno?…Vivere come in un disinvolto
mondo di criminali. L'annientamento della Jugoslavia non
ancora completamente manifesto al mondo: un'insidia che a me non
sembra spaziale, ma temporale, foriera di rovina per dopo;
un'insidia nel tempo. Un altro linguaggio; o anche solo un
altro tono, per la Jugoslavia, per tutti i paesi! Uomini di
buona volontà, dove siete? Si presentano solo quelli di
cattiva volontà, con le loro massime morali preconfezionate.
"La fantasia al potere!"… Coloro che un tempo diedero a
intendere di volersi mettere in marcia con questa parola d'ordine
si sono dimostrati assolutamente privi di immaginazione; non
vedono, non sentono e neppure presagiscono quello che fanno.
Il giovane cambogiano - cameriere nel ristorante asiatico -
finora così rispettoso e riservato, adesso vedendo la
targhetta "bersaglio" storce la bocca con disprezzo: "Pol
Pot! Milosevic! Serbia!". Sì, a voi occidentali è riuscito
in effetti un colpo planetario contro la Jugoslavia… A
questo proposito il portavoce dell'agenzia pubblicitaria
Saatchi & Saatchi (Londra): "L'epoca dell'informazione è
finita. Entriamo nell'epoca dell'idea. Vale a dire, abbiamo bisogno
di un contesto che dia un senso all'informazione". La guerra
contro la Jugoslavia: condotta non solo con bombe dirompenti
e missili, ma anzitutto con "contesto" e "idea". L'epoca
dell'informazione è finita. >>
(da: http://www.ragionamentidistoria.it/n03/scaffali01.htm )
Massacro sociale in Serbia (english / italiano)
---
Le puntate precedenti - in ordine cronologico inverso - su:
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2863
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2699
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2683
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2680
Vedi anche:
La situazione nella Serbia jugoslava, Ottobre 2003
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2964
Serbia: non si intravede la fine della crisi (Ruzica Milosavljevic)
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2941
Protests and political crisis in Serbia
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2931
Serbia: i lavoratori in piazza a Smederevo e Belgrado
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2907
STRIKE AT US-OWNED SERBIAN STEEL PLANT
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2869
---
NOTA A MARGINE
Nessun organo di informazione italiano si degna di analizzare,
tantomeno di commentare, le condizioni sociali in Serbia, determinatesi
dopo la presa del potere da parte delle destre filo-occidentali
nell'ottobre 2003. Il caso "Telekom Serbia" viene usato a fini di
strumentalizzazione politica interna, ma delle devastanti
privatizzazioni attuali - di quelle vere, insomma - non si parla.
Questo "embargo" informativo sussiste anche e soprattutto per gli
organi di stampa di "sinistra", che fino all'ottobre 2000 avevano
viceversa dedicato tantissimo spazio ed una attenzione costante -
benche' spesso morbosa, "deviata" e deviante - alle tragedie in atto
nei Balcani ed ai soggetti e movimenti attivi su quei territori -
soprattutto la vezzeggiatissima "opposizione" serba.
Potremmo al limite comprendere, pur senza giustificarlo, il silenzio
sulla grave involuzione politica, che ha comportato addirittura la
completa omissione dalle cronache e dai commenti della cancellazione
della Jugoslavia dalle cartine geografiche (il paese, in seguito ad un
decreto della nuova classe dirigente di destra, voluto da Solana, si
chiama oggi "Unione di Serbia e Montenegro"). Quello che pero' non
possiamo assolutamente ne' capire ne' accettare, da parte di
"Liberazione" ed "Il Manifesto" in primo luogo, e' la totale assenza di
qualsivoglia analisi sugli effetti delle politiche neoliberiste piu'
feroci, attuate in un paese e contro un popolo cosi' concretamente
vicini.
Le svendite, i licenziamenti, la demolizione dello stato sociale,
l'abbandono di centinaia di migliaia di profughi (politicamente
"inopportuni") da parte delle istituzioni sia serbe che internazionali,
i crescenti legami con gli USA e con la NATO, i diktat delle
istituzioni finanziarie internazionali, la chiusura di moltissime
aziende, le iniziative del movimento di solidarieta' verso i lavoratori
jugoslavi da anni attivo in Italia, l'imposizione del regime "di
emergenza" la scorsa primavera, con le torture in carcere e gli arresti
indiscriminati, la persistente violazione dei diritti politici delle
opposizioni antiliberiste... per non parlare del regime di terrore
instaurato in Kosmet - a tutto questo "Il Manifesto" e "Liberazione"
non dedicano nessuno spazio. Questo atteggiamento e'
giornalisticamente becero, politicamente squallido e moralmente
ignobile.
Questo dato di fatto non ci assolve, certo, dalle nostre proprie
responsabilita' in quanto amici della Jugoslavia: siamo noi stessi
incapaci. Incapaci di comunicare con il movimento contro la guerra,
incapaci di costruire iniziative comuni, incapaci di esprimere
coralmente una nostra posizione. Ci perdiamo tra invettive moralistiche
(compresa la presente) ed iniziative solidaristiche, atte a
tranquillizzare le nostre proprie coscienze, senza cambiare nulla.
La crisi nei Balcani tornera' ad esplodere - innanzitutto a causa della
"patata bollente" del Kosovo. La opinione pubblica italiana non sara'
stata informata di niente, i militanti della sinistra antiliberista e
pacifista saranno stati privati degli strumenti per capire ed agire.
Andrea Martocchia
=====
PRIVATIZZAZIONI A RAFFICA
=====
http://www.b92.net/english/news/index.php?nav_id=25818&style=headlines
Beta, December 4, 2003
Mass privatisation auction today
BELGRADE -- Thursday – A thousand Serbian companies go
under the hammer of the Privatisation Agency’s
auctioneer today, Privatisation Minister Aleksandar
Vlahovic has announced.
Vlahovic told media that over the past two and a half
years, 1.3 billion euros had been raised in state
company sell-offs, with a further 750 million euros
invested as part of sale contracts.
Another 260 million euros has been put into social
welfare programs for workers made redundant by company
restructuring.
Vlahovic added that no major companies will be
scheduled for sale until a new government is formed to
avoid any suspicion of irregularity.
---
SERBIA: PRIVATIZZAZIONI, QUOTA 1.000 IMPRESE VENDUTE
(ANSA) - BELGRADO, 4 DIC - Ha raggiunto la quota di mille aziende
vendute il programma di privatizzazioni portato avanti dalla Serbia
dopo la caduta del regime dell'ex presidente jugoslavo Slobodan
Milosevic. Oggi e' stata ufficializzata la cessione della compagnia
'Inos metalli' di Belgrado, acquistata per 191 milioni di dinari
(circa 2.850.000 euro) dall'azienda montenegrina 'Interprom'.
All'asta avevano partecipato anche imprese tedesche e greche, e
l'offerta iniziale e' stata moltiplicata di venti volte. Finora la
maggior parte del programma di privatizzazioni ha comunque coinvolto
piccole e medie imprese, con pochissimi investimenti esteri. I giganti
industriali dell'epoca comunista sono infatti troppo obsoleti, con
manodopera in eccesso e con troppi debiti per risvegliare l'interesse
dei grandi investitori. Il programma di privatizzazioni in Serbia
ha avuto un costo sociale elevato, alimentando il numero dei
disoccupati, che tocca ormai il milione di persone, un terzo della
popolazione attiva. Lo stato pero' ha incamerato 1,3 miliardi di euro,
altri 700 milioni sono stati reinvestiti nelle imprese privatizzate e
280 milioni sono stati stanziati per la previdenza sociale.
La quota di mille privatizzazioni e' stata festeggiata dal ministro
responsabile del programma, Aleksandar Vlahovic, con un'asta di
beneficenza nella quale sono stati messi all'incanto il martelletto
usato per battere la prima vendita di un'azienda statale, una copia
della prima gazzetta ufficiale che indiceva la gara e il primo invito
pubblico per l'asta: il ricavato, destinato al fondo per l'infanzia,
e' stato di 1,77 milioni di dinari, ovvero 26.400 euro. (ANSA).
OT 04/12/2003 17:17
http://www.ansa.it/balcani/serbiamontenegro/20031204171732776659.html
---
LINK:
1,000th Serbian company goes private
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
12/04/332244.html
=====
FMI, USA, BEI, AER... TUTTI SODDISFATTI DELLA POLITICA ECONOMICA DEL
REGIME DI BELGRADO
=====
LINKS:
IMF welcomes Serbia's tax administration reform
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
12/03/332206.html
US Restores Normal Trade Relations with Serbia-Montenegro (by Dusan
Kosanovic)
http://www.balkantimes.com/
default3.asp?lang=english&page=process_print&article_id=21874
US resumes normal trade relations with Serbia-Montenegro
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
12/03/332222.html
EIB and Serbian government continue cooperation
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
12/12/332400.html
EAR to help Serbian infrastructure development agency start operations
with 10.5 million euros
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
12/12/332402.html
=====
L'AUTUNNO CALDO DELLA SERBIA
=====
http://www.tanjug.co.yu/
EEconomy.htm#No%20major%20progress%20achieved%20in%20talks%20between%20t
rade%20unions,%20US%20Steel
Tanjug - November 6, 2003
No major progress achieved in talks between trade
unions, US Steel
20:27 SMEDEREVO , Nov 6 (Tanjug) - The general strike
of US Steel Serbia workers is entering its second
month and the management is doing nothing to seriously
review strikers' demands, it was said on Thursday by
the strikers' committee made up of the representative
trade unions of the former Sartid concern.
Although it has not observed any of the obligations
envisaged under the Law on the Strike, collective
agreement and signed protocol, the company management
is behaving as if it is not a side in the dispute and
is neglecting its obligations, the statement said.
---
http://www.b92.net/english/news/
index.php?&nav_category=&nav_id=25463&order=priority&style=headlines
Beta - November 12, 2003
Union alliance announces nationwide protests
BELGRADE -- Tuesday – The Alliance of Independent
Serbian Unions has announced a series of protests
across Serbia.
Union member Dragan Zarubica said that protest rallies
would be held in Nis, Krusevac, Zrenjanin, Cacak,
Raska and “several other towns”.
The Alliance organised a protest rally in Belgrade
last month, attracting more than 10,000 workers.
Speakers called on the government to step down and
slate early elections.
---
http://www.b92.net/english/news/
index.php?&nav_category=&nav_id=25460&order=priority&style=headlines
FoNet, November 12, 2003
Borba workers on strike
BELGRADE -- Tuesday – Employees at Belgrade daily
Borba went on general strike today over late pay.
Union leader Obrad Gacic said workers were demanding
the dismissal of manager Zoran Kalicanin and the
president of the board of directors, Zarko Jokanovic.
He claimed that workers had not been paid since
August, and said Kalicanin was responsible.
Around 800 of the 1,500 workers are currently on
strike, said Gacic, adding that he expected the number
to reach 1,000 by the end of the day.
---
http://www.workers.org/ww/2003/yugo1113.php
Thousands battle police in Belgrade
Union workers demand gov't resign
By John Catalinotto
Ten thousand workers struck the Sartid steel complex in Smederevo,
Serbia, on Oct. 14. Two weeks later, on Oct. 29, the largest workers'
demonstration since the overthrow of the government of Slobodan
Milosevic in October 2000 marched on the Serb parliament in Belgrade.
Thou sands of demonstrators demanded an end to privatization of
state-owned companies and the resignation of the government.
These two events, seemingly so far removed from here, impact directly
on the lives of workers in the United States.
To understand this, it helps to know that the U.S. Steel Corporation
had bought Sartid a month before the strike. Access to this
technologically advanced plant and its 10,000 skilled workers cost the
giant U.S. corporation a mere $23 million, although Yugoslavia had
invested $1 billion in it from 1990 to 2000. The steel complex produces
specialized steel that has buyers on the world market.
But the best part of it all--as the owners of U.S. Steel see it--is
that these workers with more than 30 years experience receive the
equivalent of $159 per month. According to an article by Spomenka
Deretic in the Oct. 17 issue of the Serb journal Artel, their pay is 33
Serbian dinars per hour, or about 65 cents. The union is asking for 55
dinars, or about $1.10.
Deretic's article compares the low wages of the workers at Sartid with
the higher wages paid at a U.S. Steel plant in nearby Slovakia--where
workers get $3.74 an hour--and with workers at U.S. Steel here, who are
paid $15 to $25 per hour.
The strike--at least the first phase of it--lasted until Oct. 23, when
negotiations started. What worker in the U.S. would not see this strike
as completely justified?
Workers here might also be outraged that U.S. Steel could go into the
Balkans or into Central Europe to find skilled, talented workers and
force them to accept one-25th of what steel workers get here.
But it is harder to see the connection between those low wages and the
so-called humanitarian war the U.S. and its NATO allies waged against
Yugoslavia over four years ago. Or how that war allowed the
privatization and sell-off of major Yugoslav industries.
Clinton's lie that this was a "humanitarian" war was as big as the Bush
administration's tale that the invasion of Iraq has nothing to do with
oil.
Before the 78-day bombing of Yugo slavia and the overthrow of the
government led by the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) the following
year, the steel plant was off-limits to U.S. capital. Replacing that
government with parties and individuals tied to Western governments and
banking interests has opened up Yugoslav industry to the world, that
is, to the imperialist world, to the same monopolies that control
economic life in the West.
Before this happened, the Yugoslav state protected its workers against
foreign capital. It also, in effect, protected U.S. workers from
competition. At least no big U.S. corporation could just take over and
make decisions to fire workers in Serbia, then a part of Yugoslavia.
The same was true in Slovakia, which before the 1990s was part of
socialist Czechoslovakia.
The U.S. Steel purchase of Sartid is only one of 882 major purchases at
low prices of Yugoslav industries by U.S. and West European capital.
They paid $1.4 billion in total to the regime, of which about 50
percent is from U.S. corporations. Less than 25 percent of these funds
went to social benefits for the 110,000 workers, who in the former
Yugoslavia were considered owners of the industries.
In most cases, the company taking over an industry savagely cut the
work force. In some, they just stopped production entire ly, to destroy
competition with their other factories around the world. But Sartid's
highly developed electronically run machines, especially its technology
for finishing the steel, and its work force, made it a going concern.
Workers march on parliament
What also made Sartid remarkable is that the workers fought back. And
they did so as workers in all of Serbia were preparing to battle the
pro-NATO government.
On Oct. 29-31 thousands of workers protested before the parliament in
Bel grade, called out by the Alliance of Inde pendent Serbian Unions.
Meanwhile Par li ament was debating a no-confidence vote in the
government. Many of the workers, including the miners, were from unions
that in October 2000 had supported the parties now in office.
Police stopped buses filled with workers from arriving at the capital.
On Oct. 30, they used teargas to break up the protest.
After three years of a post-Milosevic, pro-capitalist, pro-NATO
government that is even promising to send troops to Iraq and is helping
turn the former Yugo slavia into a colony of the West, the organized
workers in Yugoslavia are showing resistance.
Meanwhile, Milosevic has been battling charges at The Hague,
Netherlands, for alleged war crimes. He has represented himself before
the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY),
which was organized by the same NATO countries that launched a brutal
78-day bombing campaign of that country. Many accounts assert that
Milosevic's determined political defense and sharp cross-examinations
have stymied the ICTY prosecutors. NATO's court has failed to prove its
case.
In synch with the growing resistance inside Serbia, groups of emigrants
from Yugoslavia plus European organizations that defend Milosevic will
march on The Hague Nov. 8, demanding that the former Yugoslav president
be released from prison and given two years to prepare his defense case.
They say that by standing steadfastly against the ICTY, countering all
the lies told about Serb people, and straightening out the facts about
NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia, Milosevic has been doing a
service, not only to Serbia and Yugoslavia, but to the workers of the
world and anyone fighting U.S. imperialism.
Reprinted from the Nov. 13, 2003, issue of Workers World newspaper
=====
COLLABORAZIONE MILITARE CRESCENTE
=====
ITALIA-SERBIA: RAMPONI INCONTRA MINISTRO DIFESA TADIC
(ANSA) - ROMA, 19 NOV - Il presidente della commissione Difesa della
Camera Luigi Ramponi ha incontrato oggi a Montecitorio il ministro
della Difesa di Serbia e Montenegro Boris Tadic. Nel corso di un
incontro ''lungo e cordiale'', Ramponi e Tadic hanno manifestato
''reciproco compiacimento'' per l'avvio di concreti rapporti di
collaborazione nel settore della Difesa tra Italia e
Serbia-Montenegro, e sono state create le premesse per un futuro
incontro tra le commissioni Difesa dei due Paesi. Il ministro Tadic
ha inoltre chiesto il sostegno dell'Italia perche' il suo Paese
ottenga lo status di partecipante al partenariato per la pace ed alla
forza internazionale di pace Isaf in Afghanistan; un'aspirazione
condivisa da Ramponi, il quale ha assicurato ''ogni sforzo
possibile'' in questo senso. (ANSA). FLB
19/11/2003 14:13
http://www.ansa.it/balcani/serbiamontenegro/20031119141332760482.html
---
> http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
> 11/27/332122.html
Serbia-Montenegro to build partnership relations with NATO
Belgrade, Nov 27, 2003 - Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic
said late on Wednesday following a meeting with NATO Secretary-General
George Robertson that Serbia-Montenegro should build partnership
relations with NATO.
Covic told Robertson that the future professional soldiers of
Serbia-Montenegro should be first sent to flash points around the
country, such as southern Serbia, and only after that they could be
incorporated into UN peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan.
The Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and the NATO Secretary General agreed
that Serbia-Montenegro and NATO should be partners in the upcoming
processes, and Covic added that the talks on the participation of the
country's soldiers in the international peacekeeping missions should be
continued.
Covic and Robertson also talked about the situation in Kosovo-Metohija
and the "standards before status" principle, as well as about the
country's accession to the Partnership for Peace, and continuation of
reforms in the country.
Robertson also met in Belgrade with Serbia-Montenegrin President
Svetozar Marovic, Minister of Foreign Affairs Goran Svilanovic and
Minister of Defence Boris Tadic.
=====
I PROFUGHI CREPANO DI FAME
=====
http://news.serbianunity.net/bydate/2003/December_05/6.html
Agence France-Presse, December 5, 2003
Serb refugees: Out of sight, out of mind
PANCEVO -- Dragana Vitosevic, a nine-year-old Serb
girl from Kosovo, has spent almost half her life in a
refugee centre in Pancevo, a grim industrial town near
the Serbian capital Belgrade.
She is just one of around 700,000 Serbs, those who
fled or were driven from their homes during the wars
in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo in the 1990s. Now they
make up about 10 percent of Serbia's population.
It is a burgeoning underclass which Serbia cannot
afford to support, and now even the United Nations is
looking for an "exit strategy" so it can focus on new
crises such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
"The problem is donor fatigue. Donors believe that
after eight years the humanitarian crisis is ending
here and they are turning to other hot spots," Andrej
Mahecic, spokesman for Serbia-Montenegro operations of
the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), told AFP.
He said the "trend of lower (aid) budgets will
continue," noting that the UNHCR had managed to raise
only 12.8 million dollars for its Serbia-Montenegro
operations next year compared to 18.9 million in
2003."This does not mean an end of all UNHCR aid
operations, but rather an exit strategy from the
humanitarian crisis situation," he said.
Paul Emes, the Belgrade delegation chief for the
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies, said that by the end of the year aid
distributions from the World Food Programme and the
UNHCR will have "ceased." "There is also no funding
foreseen for soup kitchens from international donors
after the end of April," he said.
The Red Cross of Serbia and Montenegro distributes
international aid to 56,000 refugees and provides food
to 12,500 others in soup kitchens every day, he said.
"The government of Serbia and Montenegro clearly
understands that these poor, vulnerable and hungry
people are its responsibility, but despite its
commitment lacks the resources to finance these
humanitarian assistance operations fully," Emes said.
"As such, there is a real risk of hunger and
increasing vulnerability. The Federation therefore
calls upon the international community to support the
government to assist its most vulnerable people."
For Dragana, there was no birthday cake or candles
when she turned nine last week in the tiny room which
she shares with her family. Crowded in by stacked beds
and a small refrigerator, there is barely enough space
for the oven where Dragana and her mother, Ankica,
prepared their favorite meal: "Kosovo pie" with cheese
and cabbage. "This is not life, this is a fight for
survival. My smile is not a smile, it is a grimace of
hopelessness," said Ankica, who worked for 25 years in
the textile industry in Kosovo before the family fled
the war there in 1999. They receive no more than 30
euros (36 dollars) per month in foreign aid, and even
that may disappear next year.
"The announced international disengagement is
premature. These people should not be forgotten," said
Vesna Milenkovic, the secretary of Serbia's Red Cross.
More than a decade since the fall of communism in
Serbia, the benefits of capitalism are not trickling
down to ordinary people. Two thirds of the population
live on less than 160 euros a month and more than one
million people are unemployed, out of a population of
10 million.
Industrial production actually fell this year,
according to government figures. Political instability
following the ouster of former Yugoslav president
Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 has stymied foreign
investment.
Analysts say the poverty and hopelessness is good news
for a new breed of nationalist politicians. Opinion
polls last week showed the ultra-nationalist Serbian
Radical Party will emerge as the strongest single
party in the country after general elections on
December 28.
Milan Skoko, a senior Red Cross official based near
Pancevo, said the wealthy nations of Western Europe
should be ashamed of the poverty in their own
backyard. "The situation is catastrophic. If the
international aid runs out of steam, people will begin
dying of hunger. It will bring shame to Europe in the
21st century," he said.
---
http://www.ifrc.org/docs/news/03/03121001/
Surviving day-to-day in Serbia
10 December 2003
by Marie-Françoise Borel in Stara Pazova
"Just give me a normal job, and I will be able to
buy a house and give my children a better future."
There is frustration, resentment and sadness in
Gojko Grubic's voice as he thinks back on the eight
years which have passed since he was forced to flee
with his parents, his wife, Mira, and their two children
from Benkovac, a village now in Croatia.
Mira, 38, was pregnant then with their third child.
They left their house, their land, their garden by
tractor on August 4, 1995, and entered Serbia on
August 12. The baby was born in Pancevo, a town just
northeast of Belgrade, ten days later.
Gojko and his family are among an estimated 700,000
people living in Serbia and Montenegro, who have
been displaced by the successive conflicts in the
region since 1991. More than 95 per cent of them are
housed in private accommodation, just like the Grubic
family.
After spending five years living in a collective
centre in Kragujevac, some 90 km south of Belgrade,
they moved to Stara Pazova, 40 km north of Belgrade,
where Gojko thought he would have a better chance of
finding a job. Nearly 40 per cent of the town's population
of 60,000 are refugees or displaced.
Gojko, 46, is a plumber by trade and his wife used
to work in a factory. Now, he scrambles for odd
plumbing jobs in private homes. Mira cleans houses
and does some laundry.
Precarious
"In a good month," Mira explains, "we are able
to make 300 euros, but we pay 75 euros in rent for the
house, plus electricity and school fees. Today,
there is enough for food, but tomorrow? We are
living day-to-day," she says. If they do not come up
with the money to pay the rent, they will be
expelled from their small house.
Survival is precarious in Serbia where, according to
the government's latest survey, published in April
2003, some 1.6 million people, out of a population
of 7.5 million, live at or just below the poverty
line equivalent to 67 euros a month. Those statistics
do not take into account the refugees and displaced people who
are considered even more vulnerable than the local
population.
The Red Cross of Serbia and Montenegro is doing its
best to provide them with the essentials for sheer
survival, providing monthly food supplies - 12 kg
wheat flour, 1 kg sugar, 1 litre oil, 1 kg beans per
person - to those over 65 years old and to children.
It also serves 42,000 meals a day to the poorest.
Such help is welcome in a country where the economy
and government resources are insufficient to meet
the needs of the poorest. But with most
international aid ending at the end of the winter,
the Red Cross will have to cut back its assistance.
Milan Skoko, Secretary of the Stara Pazova Red Cross
branch explains just how serious the situation is in
this town, which has received 23,000 refugees since
1992, most of them coming from the Krajina region in
1995: "The situation is particularly critical. A
large number of people are too young, too old or too
sick to work. And those who can work cannot find jobs. If
humanitarian aid stops, people will starve in the heart of Europe.
This conclusion is drawn from the facts, not from my
imagination.”
Return impossible
The Grubic family wants to stay in Serbia, as their
house has been burned and return is impossible for
them. They are placing their hope in their children,
and trying to put them through school so they have a
chance for a better future.
The three children are good students; the eldest,
their 19-year-old son, Ljubisa, is working towards a
diploma in technological sciences, while their
daughter, Milena, 17, is studying to be a
pharmacist. They are both in Belgrade since local schools
cannot offer them the same opportunities.
Grandfather Savo Grubic, 75, has just lost his wife.
He says, wistfully: "It’s been difficult for me, but
my life is almost over, and now I worry about my
children's and my grandchildren’s future.”
The situation is just as bad for the refugees as it
is for the local population, says Milan Skoko. “What
will the Red Cross do when we have no more food to
distribute? How will these people survive? They must
not be forgotten.”
=====
GAZPROM, LUKOIL, PHILIP MORRIS ED AMERICAN TOBACCO... TUTTI ADDOSSO
ALLE SPOGLIE DI UN PAESE
=====
Agreement on settling Serbian oil company's debt to Gazprom reached
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
11/11/331868.html
Lukoil acquires Beopetrol fuel chain
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
09/26/
331152.html
Philip Morris and British American Tobacco Enter the Serbian Market (by
Dusan Kosanovic)
http://www.balkantimes.com/
default3.asp?lang=english&page=process_print&article_id=20730
---
Le puntate precedenti - in ordine cronologico inverso - su:
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2863
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2699
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2683
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2680
Vedi anche:
La situazione nella Serbia jugoslava, Ottobre 2003
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2964
Serbia: non si intravede la fine della crisi (Ruzica Milosavljevic)
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2941
Protests and political crisis in Serbia
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2931
Serbia: i lavoratori in piazza a Smederevo e Belgrado
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2907
STRIKE AT US-OWNED SERBIAN STEEL PLANT
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2869
---
NOTA A MARGINE
Nessun organo di informazione italiano si degna di analizzare,
tantomeno di commentare, le condizioni sociali in Serbia, determinatesi
dopo la presa del potere da parte delle destre filo-occidentali
nell'ottobre 2003. Il caso "Telekom Serbia" viene usato a fini di
strumentalizzazione politica interna, ma delle devastanti
privatizzazioni attuali - di quelle vere, insomma - non si parla.
Questo "embargo" informativo sussiste anche e soprattutto per gli
organi di stampa di "sinistra", che fino all'ottobre 2000 avevano
viceversa dedicato tantissimo spazio ed una attenzione costante -
benche' spesso morbosa, "deviata" e deviante - alle tragedie in atto
nei Balcani ed ai soggetti e movimenti attivi su quei territori -
soprattutto la vezzeggiatissima "opposizione" serba.
Potremmo al limite comprendere, pur senza giustificarlo, il silenzio
sulla grave involuzione politica, che ha comportato addirittura la
completa omissione dalle cronache e dai commenti della cancellazione
della Jugoslavia dalle cartine geografiche (il paese, in seguito ad un
decreto della nuova classe dirigente di destra, voluto da Solana, si
chiama oggi "Unione di Serbia e Montenegro"). Quello che pero' non
possiamo assolutamente ne' capire ne' accettare, da parte di
"Liberazione" ed "Il Manifesto" in primo luogo, e' la totale assenza di
qualsivoglia analisi sugli effetti delle politiche neoliberiste piu'
feroci, attuate in un paese e contro un popolo cosi' concretamente
vicini.
Le svendite, i licenziamenti, la demolizione dello stato sociale,
l'abbandono di centinaia di migliaia di profughi (politicamente
"inopportuni") da parte delle istituzioni sia serbe che internazionali,
i crescenti legami con gli USA e con la NATO, i diktat delle
istituzioni finanziarie internazionali, la chiusura di moltissime
aziende, le iniziative del movimento di solidarieta' verso i lavoratori
jugoslavi da anni attivo in Italia, l'imposizione del regime "di
emergenza" la scorsa primavera, con le torture in carcere e gli arresti
indiscriminati, la persistente violazione dei diritti politici delle
opposizioni antiliberiste... per non parlare del regime di terrore
instaurato in Kosmet - a tutto questo "Il Manifesto" e "Liberazione"
non dedicano nessuno spazio. Questo atteggiamento e'
giornalisticamente becero, politicamente squallido e moralmente
ignobile.
Questo dato di fatto non ci assolve, certo, dalle nostre proprie
responsabilita' in quanto amici della Jugoslavia: siamo noi stessi
incapaci. Incapaci di comunicare con il movimento contro la guerra,
incapaci di costruire iniziative comuni, incapaci di esprimere
coralmente una nostra posizione. Ci perdiamo tra invettive moralistiche
(compresa la presente) ed iniziative solidaristiche, atte a
tranquillizzare le nostre proprie coscienze, senza cambiare nulla.
La crisi nei Balcani tornera' ad esplodere - innanzitutto a causa della
"patata bollente" del Kosovo. La opinione pubblica italiana non sara'
stata informata di niente, i militanti della sinistra antiliberista e
pacifista saranno stati privati degli strumenti per capire ed agire.
Andrea Martocchia
=====
PRIVATIZZAZIONI A RAFFICA
=====
http://www.b92.net/english/news/index.php?nav_id=25818&style=headlines
Beta, December 4, 2003
Mass privatisation auction today
BELGRADE -- Thursday – A thousand Serbian companies go
under the hammer of the Privatisation Agency’s
auctioneer today, Privatisation Minister Aleksandar
Vlahovic has announced.
Vlahovic told media that over the past two and a half
years, 1.3 billion euros had been raised in state
company sell-offs, with a further 750 million euros
invested as part of sale contracts.
Another 260 million euros has been put into social
welfare programs for workers made redundant by company
restructuring.
Vlahovic added that no major companies will be
scheduled for sale until a new government is formed to
avoid any suspicion of irregularity.
---
SERBIA: PRIVATIZZAZIONI, QUOTA 1.000 IMPRESE VENDUTE
(ANSA) - BELGRADO, 4 DIC - Ha raggiunto la quota di mille aziende
vendute il programma di privatizzazioni portato avanti dalla Serbia
dopo la caduta del regime dell'ex presidente jugoslavo Slobodan
Milosevic. Oggi e' stata ufficializzata la cessione della compagnia
'Inos metalli' di Belgrado, acquistata per 191 milioni di dinari
(circa 2.850.000 euro) dall'azienda montenegrina 'Interprom'.
All'asta avevano partecipato anche imprese tedesche e greche, e
l'offerta iniziale e' stata moltiplicata di venti volte. Finora la
maggior parte del programma di privatizzazioni ha comunque coinvolto
piccole e medie imprese, con pochissimi investimenti esteri. I giganti
industriali dell'epoca comunista sono infatti troppo obsoleti, con
manodopera in eccesso e con troppi debiti per risvegliare l'interesse
dei grandi investitori. Il programma di privatizzazioni in Serbia
ha avuto un costo sociale elevato, alimentando il numero dei
disoccupati, che tocca ormai il milione di persone, un terzo della
popolazione attiva. Lo stato pero' ha incamerato 1,3 miliardi di euro,
altri 700 milioni sono stati reinvestiti nelle imprese privatizzate e
280 milioni sono stati stanziati per la previdenza sociale.
La quota di mille privatizzazioni e' stata festeggiata dal ministro
responsabile del programma, Aleksandar Vlahovic, con un'asta di
beneficenza nella quale sono stati messi all'incanto il martelletto
usato per battere la prima vendita di un'azienda statale, una copia
della prima gazzetta ufficiale che indiceva la gara e il primo invito
pubblico per l'asta: il ricavato, destinato al fondo per l'infanzia,
e' stato di 1,77 milioni di dinari, ovvero 26.400 euro. (ANSA).
OT 04/12/2003 17:17
http://www.ansa.it/balcani/serbiamontenegro/20031204171732776659.html
---
LINK:
1,000th Serbian company goes private
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
12/04/332244.html
=====
FMI, USA, BEI, AER... TUTTI SODDISFATTI DELLA POLITICA ECONOMICA DEL
REGIME DI BELGRADO
=====
LINKS:
IMF welcomes Serbia's tax administration reform
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
12/03/332206.html
US Restores Normal Trade Relations with Serbia-Montenegro (by Dusan
Kosanovic)
http://www.balkantimes.com/
default3.asp?lang=english&page=process_print&article_id=21874
US resumes normal trade relations with Serbia-Montenegro
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
12/03/332222.html
EIB and Serbian government continue cooperation
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
12/12/332400.html
EAR to help Serbian infrastructure development agency start operations
with 10.5 million euros
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
12/12/332402.html
=====
L'AUTUNNO CALDO DELLA SERBIA
=====
http://www.tanjug.co.yu/
EEconomy.htm#No%20major%20progress%20achieved%20in%20talks%20between%20t
rade%20unions,%20US%20Steel
Tanjug - November 6, 2003
No major progress achieved in talks between trade
unions, US Steel
20:27 SMEDEREVO , Nov 6 (Tanjug) - The general strike
of US Steel Serbia workers is entering its second
month and the management is doing nothing to seriously
review strikers' demands, it was said on Thursday by
the strikers' committee made up of the representative
trade unions of the former Sartid concern.
Although it has not observed any of the obligations
envisaged under the Law on the Strike, collective
agreement and signed protocol, the company management
is behaving as if it is not a side in the dispute and
is neglecting its obligations, the statement said.
---
http://www.b92.net/english/news/
index.php?&nav_category=&nav_id=25463&order=priority&style=headlines
Beta - November 12, 2003
Union alliance announces nationwide protests
BELGRADE -- Tuesday – The Alliance of Independent
Serbian Unions has announced a series of protests
across Serbia.
Union member Dragan Zarubica said that protest rallies
would be held in Nis, Krusevac, Zrenjanin, Cacak,
Raska and “several other towns”.
The Alliance organised a protest rally in Belgrade
last month, attracting more than 10,000 workers.
Speakers called on the government to step down and
slate early elections.
---
http://www.b92.net/english/news/
index.php?&nav_category=&nav_id=25460&order=priority&style=headlines
FoNet, November 12, 2003
Borba workers on strike
BELGRADE -- Tuesday – Employees at Belgrade daily
Borba went on general strike today over late pay.
Union leader Obrad Gacic said workers were demanding
the dismissal of manager Zoran Kalicanin and the
president of the board of directors, Zarko Jokanovic.
He claimed that workers had not been paid since
August, and said Kalicanin was responsible.
Around 800 of the 1,500 workers are currently on
strike, said Gacic, adding that he expected the number
to reach 1,000 by the end of the day.
---
http://www.workers.org/ww/2003/yugo1113.php
Thousands battle police in Belgrade
Union workers demand gov't resign
By John Catalinotto
Ten thousand workers struck the Sartid steel complex in Smederevo,
Serbia, on Oct. 14. Two weeks later, on Oct. 29, the largest workers'
demonstration since the overthrow of the government of Slobodan
Milosevic in October 2000 marched on the Serb parliament in Belgrade.
Thou sands of demonstrators demanded an end to privatization of
state-owned companies and the resignation of the government.
These two events, seemingly so far removed from here, impact directly
on the lives of workers in the United States.
To understand this, it helps to know that the U.S. Steel Corporation
had bought Sartid a month before the strike. Access to this
technologically advanced plant and its 10,000 skilled workers cost the
giant U.S. corporation a mere $23 million, although Yugoslavia had
invested $1 billion in it from 1990 to 2000. The steel complex produces
specialized steel that has buyers on the world market.
But the best part of it all--as the owners of U.S. Steel see it--is
that these workers with more than 30 years experience receive the
equivalent of $159 per month. According to an article by Spomenka
Deretic in the Oct. 17 issue of the Serb journal Artel, their pay is 33
Serbian dinars per hour, or about 65 cents. The union is asking for 55
dinars, or about $1.10.
Deretic's article compares the low wages of the workers at Sartid with
the higher wages paid at a U.S. Steel plant in nearby Slovakia--where
workers get $3.74 an hour--and with workers at U.S. Steel here, who are
paid $15 to $25 per hour.
The strike--at least the first phase of it--lasted until Oct. 23, when
negotiations started. What worker in the U.S. would not see this strike
as completely justified?
Workers here might also be outraged that U.S. Steel could go into the
Balkans or into Central Europe to find skilled, talented workers and
force them to accept one-25th of what steel workers get here.
But it is harder to see the connection between those low wages and the
so-called humanitarian war the U.S. and its NATO allies waged against
Yugoslavia over four years ago. Or how that war allowed the
privatization and sell-off of major Yugoslav industries.
Clinton's lie that this was a "humanitarian" war was as big as the Bush
administration's tale that the invasion of Iraq has nothing to do with
oil.
Before the 78-day bombing of Yugo slavia and the overthrow of the
government led by the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) the following
year, the steel plant was off-limits to U.S. capital. Replacing that
government with parties and individuals tied to Western governments and
banking interests has opened up Yugoslav industry to the world, that
is, to the imperialist world, to the same monopolies that control
economic life in the West.
Before this happened, the Yugoslav state protected its workers against
foreign capital. It also, in effect, protected U.S. workers from
competition. At least no big U.S. corporation could just take over and
make decisions to fire workers in Serbia, then a part of Yugoslavia.
The same was true in Slovakia, which before the 1990s was part of
socialist Czechoslovakia.
The U.S. Steel purchase of Sartid is only one of 882 major purchases at
low prices of Yugoslav industries by U.S. and West European capital.
They paid $1.4 billion in total to the regime, of which about 50
percent is from U.S. corporations. Less than 25 percent of these funds
went to social benefits for the 110,000 workers, who in the former
Yugoslavia were considered owners of the industries.
In most cases, the company taking over an industry savagely cut the
work force. In some, they just stopped production entire ly, to destroy
competition with their other factories around the world. But Sartid's
highly developed electronically run machines, especially its technology
for finishing the steel, and its work force, made it a going concern.
Workers march on parliament
What also made Sartid remarkable is that the workers fought back. And
they did so as workers in all of Serbia were preparing to battle the
pro-NATO government.
On Oct. 29-31 thousands of workers protested before the parliament in
Bel grade, called out by the Alliance of Inde pendent Serbian Unions.
Meanwhile Par li ament was debating a no-confidence vote in the
government. Many of the workers, including the miners, were from unions
that in October 2000 had supported the parties now in office.
Police stopped buses filled with workers from arriving at the capital.
On Oct. 30, they used teargas to break up the protest.
After three years of a post-Milosevic, pro-capitalist, pro-NATO
government that is even promising to send troops to Iraq and is helping
turn the former Yugo slavia into a colony of the West, the organized
workers in Yugoslavia are showing resistance.
Meanwhile, Milosevic has been battling charges at The Hague,
Netherlands, for alleged war crimes. He has represented himself before
the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY),
which was organized by the same NATO countries that launched a brutal
78-day bombing campaign of that country. Many accounts assert that
Milosevic's determined political defense and sharp cross-examinations
have stymied the ICTY prosecutors. NATO's court has failed to prove its
case.
In synch with the growing resistance inside Serbia, groups of emigrants
from Yugoslavia plus European organizations that defend Milosevic will
march on The Hague Nov. 8, demanding that the former Yugoslav president
be released from prison and given two years to prepare his defense case.
They say that by standing steadfastly against the ICTY, countering all
the lies told about Serb people, and straightening out the facts about
NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia, Milosevic has been doing a
service, not only to Serbia and Yugoslavia, but to the workers of the
world and anyone fighting U.S. imperialism.
Reprinted from the Nov. 13, 2003, issue of Workers World newspaper
=====
COLLABORAZIONE MILITARE CRESCENTE
=====
ITALIA-SERBIA: RAMPONI INCONTRA MINISTRO DIFESA TADIC
(ANSA) - ROMA, 19 NOV - Il presidente della commissione Difesa della
Camera Luigi Ramponi ha incontrato oggi a Montecitorio il ministro
della Difesa di Serbia e Montenegro Boris Tadic. Nel corso di un
incontro ''lungo e cordiale'', Ramponi e Tadic hanno manifestato
''reciproco compiacimento'' per l'avvio di concreti rapporti di
collaborazione nel settore della Difesa tra Italia e
Serbia-Montenegro, e sono state create le premesse per un futuro
incontro tra le commissioni Difesa dei due Paesi. Il ministro Tadic
ha inoltre chiesto il sostegno dell'Italia perche' il suo Paese
ottenga lo status di partecipante al partenariato per la pace ed alla
forza internazionale di pace Isaf in Afghanistan; un'aspirazione
condivisa da Ramponi, il quale ha assicurato ''ogni sforzo
possibile'' in questo senso. (ANSA). FLB
19/11/2003 14:13
http://www.ansa.it/balcani/serbiamontenegro/20031119141332760482.html
---
> http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
> 11/27/332122.html
Serbia-Montenegro to build partnership relations with NATO
Belgrade, Nov 27, 2003 - Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic
said late on Wednesday following a meeting with NATO Secretary-General
George Robertson that Serbia-Montenegro should build partnership
relations with NATO.
Covic told Robertson that the future professional soldiers of
Serbia-Montenegro should be first sent to flash points around the
country, such as southern Serbia, and only after that they could be
incorporated into UN peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan.
The Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and the NATO Secretary General agreed
that Serbia-Montenegro and NATO should be partners in the upcoming
processes, and Covic added that the talks on the participation of the
country's soldiers in the international peacekeeping missions should be
continued.
Covic and Robertson also talked about the situation in Kosovo-Metohija
and the "standards before status" principle, as well as about the
country's accession to the Partnership for Peace, and continuation of
reforms in the country.
Robertson also met in Belgrade with Serbia-Montenegrin President
Svetozar Marovic, Minister of Foreign Affairs Goran Svilanovic and
Minister of Defence Boris Tadic.
=====
I PROFUGHI CREPANO DI FAME
=====
http://news.serbianunity.net/bydate/2003/December_05/6.html
Agence France-Presse, December 5, 2003
Serb refugees: Out of sight, out of mind
PANCEVO -- Dragana Vitosevic, a nine-year-old Serb
girl from Kosovo, has spent almost half her life in a
refugee centre in Pancevo, a grim industrial town near
the Serbian capital Belgrade.
She is just one of around 700,000 Serbs, those who
fled or were driven from their homes during the wars
in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo in the 1990s. Now they
make up about 10 percent of Serbia's population.
It is a burgeoning underclass which Serbia cannot
afford to support, and now even the United Nations is
looking for an "exit strategy" so it can focus on new
crises such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
"The problem is donor fatigue. Donors believe that
after eight years the humanitarian crisis is ending
here and they are turning to other hot spots," Andrej
Mahecic, spokesman for Serbia-Montenegro operations of
the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), told AFP.
He said the "trend of lower (aid) budgets will
continue," noting that the UNHCR had managed to raise
only 12.8 million dollars for its Serbia-Montenegro
operations next year compared to 18.9 million in
2003."This does not mean an end of all UNHCR aid
operations, but rather an exit strategy from the
humanitarian crisis situation," he said.
Paul Emes, the Belgrade delegation chief for the
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies, said that by the end of the year aid
distributions from the World Food Programme and the
UNHCR will have "ceased." "There is also no funding
foreseen for soup kitchens from international donors
after the end of April," he said.
The Red Cross of Serbia and Montenegro distributes
international aid to 56,000 refugees and provides food
to 12,500 others in soup kitchens every day, he said.
"The government of Serbia and Montenegro clearly
understands that these poor, vulnerable and hungry
people are its responsibility, but despite its
commitment lacks the resources to finance these
humanitarian assistance operations fully," Emes said.
"As such, there is a real risk of hunger and
increasing vulnerability. The Federation therefore
calls upon the international community to support the
government to assist its most vulnerable people."
For Dragana, there was no birthday cake or candles
when she turned nine last week in the tiny room which
she shares with her family. Crowded in by stacked beds
and a small refrigerator, there is barely enough space
for the oven where Dragana and her mother, Ankica,
prepared their favorite meal: "Kosovo pie" with cheese
and cabbage. "This is not life, this is a fight for
survival. My smile is not a smile, it is a grimace of
hopelessness," said Ankica, who worked for 25 years in
the textile industry in Kosovo before the family fled
the war there in 1999. They receive no more than 30
euros (36 dollars) per month in foreign aid, and even
that may disappear next year.
"The announced international disengagement is
premature. These people should not be forgotten," said
Vesna Milenkovic, the secretary of Serbia's Red Cross.
More than a decade since the fall of communism in
Serbia, the benefits of capitalism are not trickling
down to ordinary people. Two thirds of the population
live on less than 160 euros a month and more than one
million people are unemployed, out of a population of
10 million.
Industrial production actually fell this year,
according to government figures. Political instability
following the ouster of former Yugoslav president
Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 has stymied foreign
investment.
Analysts say the poverty and hopelessness is good news
for a new breed of nationalist politicians. Opinion
polls last week showed the ultra-nationalist Serbian
Radical Party will emerge as the strongest single
party in the country after general elections on
December 28.
Milan Skoko, a senior Red Cross official based near
Pancevo, said the wealthy nations of Western Europe
should be ashamed of the poverty in their own
backyard. "The situation is catastrophic. If the
international aid runs out of steam, people will begin
dying of hunger. It will bring shame to Europe in the
21st century," he said.
---
http://www.ifrc.org/docs/news/03/03121001/
Surviving day-to-day in Serbia
10 December 2003
by Marie-Françoise Borel in Stara Pazova
"Just give me a normal job, and I will be able to
buy a house and give my children a better future."
There is frustration, resentment and sadness in
Gojko Grubic's voice as he thinks back on the eight
years which have passed since he was forced to flee
with his parents, his wife, Mira, and their two children
from Benkovac, a village now in Croatia.
Mira, 38, was pregnant then with their third child.
They left their house, their land, their garden by
tractor on August 4, 1995, and entered Serbia on
August 12. The baby was born in Pancevo, a town just
northeast of Belgrade, ten days later.
Gojko and his family are among an estimated 700,000
people living in Serbia and Montenegro, who have
been displaced by the successive conflicts in the
region since 1991. More than 95 per cent of them are
housed in private accommodation, just like the Grubic
family.
After spending five years living in a collective
centre in Kragujevac, some 90 km south of Belgrade,
they moved to Stara Pazova, 40 km north of Belgrade,
where Gojko thought he would have a better chance of
finding a job. Nearly 40 per cent of the town's population
of 60,000 are refugees or displaced.
Gojko, 46, is a plumber by trade and his wife used
to work in a factory. Now, he scrambles for odd
plumbing jobs in private homes. Mira cleans houses
and does some laundry.
Precarious
"In a good month," Mira explains, "we are able
to make 300 euros, but we pay 75 euros in rent for the
house, plus electricity and school fees. Today,
there is enough for food, but tomorrow? We are
living day-to-day," she says. If they do not come up
with the money to pay the rent, they will be
expelled from their small house.
Survival is precarious in Serbia where, according to
the government's latest survey, published in April
2003, some 1.6 million people, out of a population
of 7.5 million, live at or just below the poverty
line equivalent to 67 euros a month. Those statistics
do not take into account the refugees and displaced people who
are considered even more vulnerable than the local
population.
The Red Cross of Serbia and Montenegro is doing its
best to provide them with the essentials for sheer
survival, providing monthly food supplies - 12 kg
wheat flour, 1 kg sugar, 1 litre oil, 1 kg beans per
person - to those over 65 years old and to children.
It also serves 42,000 meals a day to the poorest.
Such help is welcome in a country where the economy
and government resources are insufficient to meet
the needs of the poorest. But with most
international aid ending at the end of the winter,
the Red Cross will have to cut back its assistance.
Milan Skoko, Secretary of the Stara Pazova Red Cross
branch explains just how serious the situation is in
this town, which has received 23,000 refugees since
1992, most of them coming from the Krajina region in
1995: "The situation is particularly critical. A
large number of people are too young, too old or too
sick to work. And those who can work cannot find jobs. If
humanitarian aid stops, people will starve in the heart of Europe.
This conclusion is drawn from the facts, not from my
imagination.”
Return impossible
The Grubic family wants to stay in Serbia, as their
house has been burned and return is impossible for
them. They are placing their hope in their children,
and trying to put them through school so they have a
chance for a better future.
The three children are good students; the eldest,
their 19-year-old son, Ljubisa, is working towards a
diploma in technological sciences, while their
daughter, Milena, 17, is studying to be a
pharmacist. They are both in Belgrade since local schools
cannot offer them the same opportunities.
Grandfather Savo Grubic, 75, has just lost his wife.
He says, wistfully: "It’s been difficult for me, but
my life is almost over, and now I worry about my
children's and my grandchildren’s future.”
The situation is just as bad for the refugees as it
is for the local population, says Milan Skoko. “What
will the Red Cross do when we have no more food to
distribute? How will these people survive? They must
not be forgotten.”
=====
GAZPROM, LUKOIL, PHILIP MORRIS ED AMERICAN TOBACCO... TUTTI ADDOSSO
ALLE SPOGLIE DI UN PAESE
=====
Agreement on settling Serbian oil company's debt to Gazprom reached
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
11/11/331868.html
Lukoil acquires Beopetrol fuel chain
http://www.serbia.sr.gov.yu/cgi-bin/printpage.cgi?filename=/news/2003-
09/26/
331152.html
Philip Morris and British American Tobacco Enter the Serbian Market (by
Dusan Kosanovic)
http://www.balkantimes.com/
default3.asp?lang=english&page=process_print&article_id=20730
Da: ICDSM Italia
Data: Lun 15 Dic 2003 14:26:30 Europe/Rome
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Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] Propaganda System Number One: From Diem and
Arbenz to Milosevic
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/HER312A.html
Propaganda System Number One:
From Diem and Arbenz to Milosevic
by Edward S. Herman
Propaganda, Politics, Power ISSN 1741-0754 Volume 1: 15-28 ~ 9 December
2003
www.globalresearch.ca 15 December 2003
The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/HER312A.html
The way in which the mainstream media have handled the turning of
Milosevic over to the Hague Tribunal once again reinforces my belief
that the United States is not only number one in military power but
also in the effectiveness of its propaganda system, which is vastly
superior to any past or present state-managed system. The main
characteristic of the U.S. model is that, while offering diversity on
many subjects, on core issues--like "free trade" and the need for a
huge "defense" establishment--and on the occasions when the corporate
and political establishment needs their service--as in legitimating
George W. Bush's presidency in the wake of an electoral coup d'etat, or
supporting the "sanctions of mass destruction" on Iraq--the media can
be relied on to expound and propagandize what would be called a "party
line" if done in China. They do sometimes depart from the official
position as regards tactics, arguing, for example, that the government
is not attacking the enemy with sufficient ferocity (Iraq and
Yugoslavia), or that the cost of the enterprise is perhaps excessive
(the Vietnam war, from 1968), but that the enemy is truly evil and the
national cause meritorious is never debatable. The debates over tactics
helpfully obscure the agreement on ends.
A further important feature of the U.S. system is that this propaganda
service is provided without government censorship or coercion, by self-
censorship alone, with the truth of the propaganda line internalized by
the numerous media participants. This internalization of belief makes
it possible for media personnel to be enthusiastic spokespersons in
pushing the party line, thereby giving it a naturalness that is lacking
in crude systems of government-enforced propaganda.
A third feature of the system is that the party lines are regularly
supported by non-governmental and self-proclaimed "non-partisan"
thinktanks like the American Enterprise Institute and Independent
International Commission on Kosovo, non-governmental organizations like
the Open Society Institute and Human Rights Watch, and assorted
ex-leftists and liberal and left journals that on particular subjects
"see the light." These organizations are commonly funded by interests
(and governments) with an axe to grind, and they serve those interests,
but the media feature them as non-partisan and give special attention
to the ex-leftists and dissidents who now see the light. This helps
firm up the consensus and further marginalizes those still in darkness.
A final feature of the U.S. system is that it works so well that a
sizable fraction of the public doesn't recognize the media's propaganda
role, and accepts the media's own self-image as independent, adversary,
truth-seeking, and helping the public to "assert meaningful control
over the political process" (former Supreme Court Justice Lewis
Powell). This public bamboozlement is aided by the facts that the media
are fairly numerous, are not government controlled, have many true
believers among their editors and journalists (the second
characteristic), are supported by NGOs and elements of the "left" (the
third feature), and regularly proclaim their independence and squabble
furiously with government and among themselves. Even those who doubt
the media's claims of truth-seeking are often carried along, or
confused, by the force and self-assurance of the participants in this
great propaganda machine.
Party Line Consensus
An important operational characteristic of the system, which
facilitates general adherence to the party line without overt coercion,
is the assurance and speed with which the line is established as a
consensus truth, so that deviations and dissent quickly take on the
appearance of foolishness or pathology, as well as suspiciously
unpatriotic behavior. Noam Chomsky and I found that the very asking of
questions about the numerous fabrications, ideological role, and
absence of any beneficial effects for the victims in the anti-Khmer
Rouge propaganda campaign of 1975-1979 was unacceptable, and was
treated almost without exception as "apologetics for Pol Pot."
That "free trade" is beneficial and in the "national interest" whereas
"protectionism" is hurtful and a creature of "special interests" is a
consensus party line of the mainstream media today that profoundly
biases their treatment of trade agreements and protests against
corporate globalization at Seattle, Washington, D.C., Quebec City, and
Genoa (see Herman, "NAFTA, Mexican Meltdown, and the Propaganda
System," chapter 14 in Myth of the Liberal Media; Rachel Coen, "For
Press, Magenta Hair and Nose Rings Defined Protests," EXTRA!
[July-August 2000]; FAIR, "Action Alert: Police Violence in Genoa--Par
for the Course? Media complacency helps normalize assaults on
demonstrators," July 26, 2001).
The consensus around a party line is very quickly established in
dealing with international crises. Once an enemy is demonized-from Ho
Chi Minh in Vietnam and Jacobo Guzman Arbenz in Guatemala in the early
1950s to Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s and up to today-the media
display a form of hysteria that helps mobilize the public in support of
whatever forms of violence the government wishes to carry out. They
become a virtual propaganda arm of the government, joining with it in
the common fight against "another Hitler." Under these conditions
remarkable structures of disinformation can be built,
institutionalized, and remain parts of historic memory even in the face
of ex post confutations, which are kept out of sight.
Let me give a few short illustrations before showing how this
exceptional propaganda service applies to the Milosevic/Tribunal case.
Red Threat as Party Line: Vietnam and Guatemala
In the Cold War years, propaganda service and mobilization of the
public was commonly framed around the Red Threat. This general
demonization of the target produced the requisite hysteria and media
identification with "us" and complete loss of critical capability. When
the U.S.-imported puppet to South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, won a
plebiscite in 1954 with over 99 percent of the votes, an outcome that
would elicit much sarcasm if realized in an enemy state, this was not
news here. And from then onward, U.S. support of a government
admittedly lacking an indigenous constituency, relying on state terror
and U.S. financial and military aid, was treated in the mainstream
media as entirely reasonable and just.
The self-deception and patriotic biases internalized by media personnel
were displayed in their 100 percent inability, from 1954 to today, to
call the U.S. intervention and ultimate direct invasion of Vietnam
either an "invasion" or "aggression." It was also beautifully
illustrated in James Reston's Orwellian statement of 1965 that the
United States, which from beginning to almost the very end believed it
could impose its preferred rulers by virtue of its superior military
power, was in Vietnam to establish the "principle...that no state shall
use military force or the threat of military force to achieve its
political objectives."
Another remarkable case of propaganda service occurred as the United
States destabilized Guatemala's democratic government in the years
1950-1953 and then removed it by means of a U.S.-organized "contra"
invasion in 1954. U.S. hostility began when this government passed a
law in 1947 allowing the organization of unions, and active
destabilization followed and accelerated upon its attempt to engage in
moderate land reforms, partly at the expense of the United Fruit
Company. From 1947 the search was on for "communists" to explain the
reformist policies and to rationalize the hostile intervention. The
U.S. mainstream media became completely hysterical over this Red Threat
from 1950 onward, very worried that Arbenz would not allow elections to
take place in 1951--this same media had not been bothered by the Ubico
dictatorship, 1931-44, and was entirely unconcerned with the absence of
democracy from 1954 onward--and featured a stream of alarming reports
on Red influence in that country and an alleged "reign of terror."
There were endless headlines in the New York Times like "Soviet Agents
Plotting to Ruin Unity, Defenses of America" (June 22, 1950);
"Guatemalan Reds Seek Full Power" (May 21, 1952); "How Communists Won
Control of Guatemala" (March 1, 1953), and even The Nation ran a sleazy
putdown of the democratic government under attack (March 18, 1950).
This was all hysterical nonsense--even Court historian Ronald
Schneider, after reviewing the documents seized from the Reds in
Guatemala, concluded that the Reds had never controlled Guatemala, and
that the Soviet Union "made no significant or even material investment
in the Arbenz regime" and paid little attention to Central America--but
it was effective in making the overthrow of an elected government
acceptable to the U.S. public. And the media's propaganda service was
completed by their long cover-up of the hugely undemocratic aftermath
of the successful termination of the brief democratic experiment (on
the history of this propaganda campaign, Edward Herman, "Returning
Guatemala to the Fold," in Gary Rawnsley, ed., Cold-War Propaganda in
the 1950s [Macmillan, 1999]; more broadly, Piero Gleijeses, Shattered
Hope [Princeton, 1991]). No government-managed propaganda system could
have done a better job of mobilizing the public on the basis of
systematic disinformation; and the achievement here is especially
impressive given the fact that it was all done with the aim and effect
of ending a liberal democracy by violence and installing a terror state.
Bulgarian Connection
Another illustration of outstanding, even remarkable, propaganda
service, and one pertinent to the ongoing Milosevic-Tribunal drama
because it involved a judicial proceeding, was the "Bulgarian
Connection." The Reagan administration had been anxious to demonize the
Soviet Union in the early and mid-1980s, and the assassination attempt
against Pope John Paul II in May 1981, provided an opportunity to pin
the attempt on the KGB and their Bulgarian client. The Turkish fascist,
Mehmet Ali Agca, who had shot the Pope, had spent time in Bulgaria
(along with ten other countries). After 17 months in prison in Italy,
and after numerous visits by secret service, judicial, and papal
personnel, who had admittedly offered him inducements to "confess," he
claimed that he was on the Bulgarian-KGB payroll, had cased the joint
with Bulgarian officials in Rome, and had visited one of them in his
apartment. Although the case was laughably implausible, the U.S.
mainstream media bought it with enthusiasm, and failed to acknowledge
their gullibility and propaganda role even after CIA professionals told
congress during the CIA confirmation hearings on Robert Gates in 1991
that they knew the Connection was false because, among other reasons,
they had penetrated the Bulgarian secret services.
A very important feature of the media's treatment of the Bulgarian
Connection, very similar to that which they apply now to the Hague
Tribunal in its pursuit of Milosevic, was their pretense that the
Italian judiciary, police and political system were only seekers after
truth and justice, even a bit fearful of finding the Bulgarians guilty.
The New York Times even editorialized that the Reaganites were aghast
at the implications of a Soviet involvement in the assassination
attempt ("recoiled from the devastating implication that Bulgaria's
agents were bound to have acted only on a signal from Moscow," Oct. 30,
1984), a propaganda lie confuted by the CIA professionals in 1991, who
explained that their own doubts were overruled by the Reaganite leaders
of the CIA who insisted on pushing the Connection as true. The
Bulgarian Connection can be well explained by the exceptional
corruption of the Italian system and the service of this manufactured
connection to the Cold Warriors serving the Italian state (and their
U.S. parent). This explanation was expressed often in the Italian media
during the 1980s, but not in the U.S. mainstream media where, with only
insignificant exceptions, the propaganda line functioned without a
hitch. (See Herman and Brodhead, Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian
Connection, chap. 7.)
Hague Tribunal: Serving Us, So No Awkward Questions, Please!
In the case of the Hague Tribunal also, the mainstream media portray it
as a presumably unbiased judicial body seeking justice with an even
hand, despite the massive evidence that it is a political and
propaganda arm of the United States and other NATO powers. Its ultimate
propaganda service was performed in May, 1999, when the prosecutor of
the International Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY),
Louise Arbour, announced the indictment of Yugoslav president Milosevic
and four associates for war crimes. This was done, hastily, at a time
when NATO was increasingly targeting the civilian infrastructure of
Yugoslavia in order to hasten that country's surrender. NATO needed
this public relations support as a cover for its own war crimes-- the
Sixth Convention of Nuremberg prohibits and makes a war crime the
targeting of civilian facilities not based on "military necessity"--and
the ICTY provided it, with the indictment quickly greeted by Albright
and James Rubin as justifying NATO's bombing policy.
To my knowledge the U.S. mainstream media have never once suggested
that this indictment servicing the NATO war discredited the Tribunal as
an independent judicial body. The New York Times's Steven Erlanger even
explained to Terry Gross that this indictment displayed Arbour's
independence, as she was allegedly fearful that Milosevic would escape
punishment in a political deal if she didn't move quickly! (Fresh Air,
National Public Radio, July 12, 2001). Erlanger was not alone in
offering this imbecile analysis, which not only failed to recognize the
indictment's service to NATO's immediate policy needs, but also ignored
other evidence of Arbour's and the Tribunal's deference to U.S. and
NATO desires.
The media also failed to raise any questions about Arbour's statement
of May 24, 1999, that although people are "entitled to the presumption
of innocence until they are convicted," she was issuing the indictment
because "the evidence...raises serious questions about their
suitability to be guarantors of any deal, let alone a peace
agreement"--that is, she found them guilty before they were convicted
and thought that on this basis she should interfere with any possible
political settlement.
On the other hand, Arbour and her successor Carla Del Ponte have never
found allies of the NATO powers or the NATO powers themselves worthy of
indictment, even when they did exactly the same things for which the
NATO targets were indictable. Thus, Serb leader Milan Martic was
indicted for launching a rocket cluster-bomb attack on military targets
in Zagreb in May 1995, with the very use of cluster bombs cited by the
Tribunal as showing the aim of "terrorizing the civilians of Zagreb."
But NATO's cluster-bomb raids on Nis on May 7, 1999, far from any
military target, and the 48-hour Croat army shelling of civilian
targets in the city of Knim during the August 1995 Croat Operation
Storm, produced no indictments. Operation Storm, supported by U.S.
officials and helped by U.S.-related professional advisers, resulted in
large-
scale expulsions and the killing of many Serb civilians, but neither
Croat leader Tudjman nor the supportive U.S. officials were indicted,
and Croat military officials also escaped indictment till Del Ponte
recently claimed several in an effort to show her "balance" in the
context of the bringing of Milosevic to The Hague. This double
standard, which makes a mockery of justice, has been of absolutely no
interest to the U.S. mainstream media; and in his long session with
Terry Gross on July 12, when asked "What Americans might be brought to
stand trial before an international court?," Steven Erlanger failed to
come up with a single name for any actions in the Balkans (and Gross
did not follow up on his non-response).
Under pressure to address NATO's wartime activities, which had resulted
in the deaths of many Serb civilians--estimates run from 500 to
3,000--Tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte issued a report in June
2000, that declared NATO not guilty. But the document supporting this
conclusion was not based on any investigation by the Tribunal, and it
openly acknowledged a heavy dependence on NATO sources, asserting "that
the NATO and NATO countries press statements are generally reliable and
that explanations have been honestly given." Canadian legal scholar and
expert on the Tribunal, Michael Mandel, asks: "Can you imagine how many
indictments would have been issued against the Serb leadership if the
Prosecutor had stopped at the FRY press releases?" But this remarkable
Del Ponte report was of no interest to the mainstream media.
Also of no interest to the media is the fact that the Tribunal has been
described by John Laughland in the Times (London) as "a rogue court
with rigged rules" (June 17, 1999). As normal practice it violates
virtually every standard of due process: it fails to separate
prosecution and judge; it does not accord the right to bail or a speedy
trial; it has no clear definition of burden of proof required for a
conviction; it has no independent appeal body; it allows a defendant to
be tried twice for the same crime; suspects can be held for 90 days
without trial; confessions are presumed to be free and voluntary unless
the contrary is established by the prisoner; and witnesses can testify
anonymously, with hearsay evidence admissible. These points are almost
never mentioned in the U.S. mainstream media or considered relevant to
the legitimacy of the Tribunal or the likelihood that Milosevic will
get a fair trial.
The Tribunal's biased performance follows from the fact that it was
organized by the United States and its close allies, is funded by them
and staffed with their approval, and depends on them for information
and other support. The Tribunal's charter requirements that its
expenses shall be provided in the UN general budget (Article 32), and
that the Prosecutor shall act independently and not take instructions
from any government (Article 16), have been systematically ignored.
Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, former president of the Hague Tribunal--before
that a director, and now "Special Counsel to the Chairman on Human
Rights," of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., a notorious human
rights violator working in Irian Jaya with the cooperation of the
Indonesian army--stated in 1999 that Tribunal personnel regard
Madeleine Albright as the "mother of the tribunal." NATO PR man Jamie
Shea pointed out in a May 17, 1999 press conference in Brussels that
Arbour will investigate "because we will allow her to;" that the NATO
countries are the ones "that have provided the finance to set up the
Tribunal;" that they are the ones who do the leg work "and have been
detaining indicted war criminals"; and that when she "looks at the
facts she will be indicting people of Yugoslav nationality" and not
folks from NATO.
But neither this open admission that the NATO powers controlled the
Tribunal, nor the evidence of serious abuses of the judicial process
that has characterized its work, have been of interest to the
mainstream media. As with the prosecution of the Bulgarian Connection,
the Hague Tribunal is servicing the U.S. government and its aims, and
the media therefore regard any bias or political service as reasonable
and take them as givens. Because of their internalized belief that
their country is good and would only support justice, the media can't
even imagine that any conflict of interest exists. This is deep bias.
Also, no questions come up in this context as to why there are no
tribunals for Suharto, Wiranto (the Indonesian general in charge of the
destruction of East Timor in 1999), or Ariel Sharon. These are our
allies, even if major state terrorists, who received and still receive
our support, so that in a well-managed propaganda system the failure to
mention their exclusion from a system of global enforcement of the new
ethical order opposed to ethnic cleansing and human rights violations
is entirely appropriate.
Disinformation as Consensus History: Milosevic and the Balkans
From the time the U.S. government decided to target Milosevic and the
Serbs as the root of Balkan evil in the early 1990s, the U.S.
propaganda system began its work of demonization of the target,
enhanced atrocities management, and the necessary rewriting of history.
The integration of government needs and media service was essentially
complete, and was beautifully symbolized by the marriage during the
crisis years of State Department PR chief James Rubin and Christiane
Amanpour, CNN's main reporter on the Kosovo war, whose reports could
have come from Rubin himself. More recently, in connection with
Milosevic's transfer to the Hague, Amanpour entertained Richard
Holbrooke on the subject, and the two, speaking as old comrades-in-arms
congratulated one another on a joint success, just as a
policy-enforcing official might express mutual congratulations with a
PR officer (Holbrooke applauded Amanpour's "fantastic coverage of the
war throughout the last decade" [CNN Live At Daybreak, June 29, 2001]).
It should be noted that Holbrooke visited Zagreb two days before
Croatia launched Operation Storm in August 1995, almost certainly
talking over and giving U.S. approval to the imminent military
operation, reminiscent of Henry Kissinger's visit to Jakarta just
before Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in September 1975. As
Operation Storm involved a major program of killings and expulsions,
with killings greatly in excess of the numbers attributed to Milosevic
in the Tribunal indictment of May 22, 1999, an excellent case can be
made that Holbrooke should be being tried for war crimes. We may also
be sure that Christiane Amanpour's "fantastic coverage" of the wars in
Yugoslavia did not deal with Operation Storm or mention Holbrooke's and
the U.S. role in that butchery and massive ethnic cleansing.
As NATO prepared to go to war, which began on March 24, 1999, the media
followed the official lead in focusing heavily on Serb atrocities in
Kosovo, with great and indignant attention to the Racak massacre of
January 15, 1999. The failure of the Rambouillet Conference they blamed
on Serb intransigence, again following the official line. During the
78-day bombing war the media focused even more intensively on
atrocities (Serb, not NATO), and passed along the official estimates of
100,000 Kosovo Albanian murders (U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen),
and other estimates, smaller and larger. They also accepted the claim
that the Serb violence that followed the bombing would have taken place
anyway, by plan, so that the bombing, instead of causing the escalated
violence was justified by its occurrence ex post.
In the post-bombing era a number of developments have occurred that
have challenged the official line. But the mainstream media have not
let them disturb the institutionalized untruths. Let me list some of
these and describe the media's mode of deflection.
1. RACAK MASSACRE. The only pre-bombing act of Serb violence listed in
the Tribunal indictment of Milosevic on May 22, 1999, was an alleged
massacre of Albanians by the Serbs at Racak on January 15, 1999. The
Serbs had carried out this action with invited OSCE representatives
(and AP photographers) on the scene, but on the following day, after
KLA reoccupation of the village, some 40 to 45 bodies were on display
for the U.S.-OSCE official William Walker and the media. The
authenticity of this massacre, which follows a long pattern of
convenient but contrived atrocities to meet a PR need--well described
in George Bogdanich's and Martin Lettmayer's brilliant film "The
Avoidable War"--was immediately challenged by journalists in France and
Germany, but no doubts whatever showed up in the U.S. media. Christophe
Chatelet of Le Monde was in Racak the day of the "massacre," and left
at dusk, as did the OSCE observers and Serb police, without witnessing
any massacre. The AP photographers and on-the-scene OSCE
representatives have never been available for corroboration or denial,
and the forensic report of the Finnish team that examined the bodies at
the behest of the OSCE has never been made public. The issue is still
contested, but a very strong case can be made that the Racak "massacre"
was a staged event (see, Chatelet, in Le Monde, Jan. 19, 1999;
Professor Dusan Dunjic [a Serb medical participant in the autopsies],
"The (Ab)use of Forensic Medicine," ; J. Raino, et al., "Independent
forensic autopsies in an armed conflict: investigation of the victims
from Racak, Kosovo," Forensic Science International 116 [2001], 171-85).
But the strong challenging evidence has been effectively blacked out in
the U.S. mainstream media, and the "massacre" is taken as an
established and unquestioned truth (e.g., Amanpour and Carol Lin, CNN
Live at Daybreak, July 3, 2001; Steven Erlanger in his July 12
interview with Terry Gross). Why didn't the Serb army remove the
incriminating bodies, as the propaganda machine claimed then and now
that they were doing as a matter of policy directed from above? As in
the case of the analyses and evidence in the 1980s that Agca might have
been coached to implicate the Bulgarians and KGB, the U.S. mainstream
media refuse to burden a useful party line with inconvenient questions
and facts.
Also, while giving heavy, uncritical and indignant attention to Racak,
the media have never allowed the far larger and unambiguous massacre of
civilians at Liquica in East Timor on April 6, 1999--three months after
Racak--to reach public consciousness. This was a massacre by the U.S.
ally Indonesia, U.S. officials did not feature it, and the media
therefore served national policy by giving it short shrift.
2. U.S. AND NATO OPPOSITION TO SERB "ETHNIC CLEANSING" AND "GENOCIDE"
AS THE BASIS OF THE NATO BOMBING. The official and media propaganda
line is that the United States and NATO powers were deeply upset by
Serb violence in Kosovo and eventually went to war to stop it. But
there are problems with this view. For one thing, evidence has turned
up showing that Washington, through its own agencies or hired
mercenaries, actually aided and trained the KLA prior to the bombing,
and in this and other ways encouraged them in provocations that
stimulated Serb violence (Peter Beaumont et al., "CIA's bastard army
ran riot in Balkans," The Observer [London], March 11, 2001). The
postwar publication by the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, General Report:
Kosovo Aftermath, noted that "Under the influence of the Kosovo
Verification Mission the level of Serbian repression eased off" in late
1998, but "on the other hand, there was a lack of effective measures to
curb the UCK [KLA]" which had an interest in "worsening the situation."
In short, U.S. policy before the bombing encouraged violence in Kosovo.
The evidence for this has been made public abroad, but it has not yet
surfaced in the U.S. mainstream media.
A second problem is that NATO supplied greatly inflated estimates of
Serb killings and expulsions in Kosovo, quite obviously trying to
prepare the ground for bombing. The claim that Serbian policy
constituted "ethnic cleansing" and even "genocide" has long been
confuted by OSCE, State Department, and human rights groups' findings
of limited and targeted Serb violence, and by disclosure of an internal
German Foreign Office report that even denies the appropriateness of
the use of "ethnic cleansing" to describe Serb behavior ["Important
Internal Documents from Germany's Foreign Office,"]. These contesting
points of evidence, even though coming from establishment sources, are
not only off the screen for the mainstream media, they are ignored and
the old lies are repeated by Christopher Hitchens in The Nation ("Body
Count in Kosovo," June 11, 2001) and Bogdan Denitch in In These Times
("Citizen of a Lost Country," May 14, 2001).
A third problem is: how could this humanitarian motive be driving
Clinton and Blair in Kosovo when they had both actively supported
Turkey's far larger- scale ethnic cleansing of Kurds throughout the
1990s? The mainstream media dealt with this and similar problems by not
letting the issue be raised.
3. NATO REASONABLENESS, SERB INTRANSIGENCE AT RAMBOUILLET. On the
question of negotiations versus the use of force, the official line has
been that the NATO powers made reasonable negotiating offers to the
Serbs, trying to get "Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians to come to a
compromise" (Tim Judah), but that the Serb refusal to negotiate led to
the bombing war. This line was demonstrated to be false when it was
disclosed that NATO had inserted a proviso demanding full occupation by
NATO of all of Yugoslavia, admitted by a State Department official to
have been a deliberate "raising of the bar" to allow bombing (George
Kenney, "Rolling Thunder: The Rerun," The Nation, June 14, 1999). This
disclosure has been comprehensively suppressed in the mainstream media,
allowing the propaganda lie to be repeated today (Judah's repetition of
the lie was on June 29, 2001).
4. SERB GENOCIDE BY PLAN DURING THE NATO BOMBING. Three big lies
expounded during the NATO bombing war were that (1) the Serbs were
killing vast numbers; (2) they were doing this and expelling still
larger numbers in a process of "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide;" and
(3) that they had planned mass killing and expulsions anyway, so that
these could not be attributed to the bombing war or the kind of
fighting and atrocities characteristic of a brutal civil war. It is now
clear that while large numbers did flee, this included at least an
equal proportion of Serbs, and that many fled without forcible
expulsion; and it is also clear that while there were brutal killings,
these fell far short of the 10,000-500,000 claimed by NATO. It is also
now on the record that NATO and the KLA were engaged in joint military
actions during the bombing war, and that expulsions were concentrated
in areas of KLA strong support, pointing to a military logic to Serb
actions (Daniel Pearl and Robert Block, "War in Kosovo Was Cruel,
Bitter, Savage; Genocide It Wasn't," Wall Street Journal, Dec. 31,
1999). The claim that the Serbs intended to do this anyway has never
been supported by any evidence.
In Guatemala after 1947 the search was on for communists; in Kosovo
during and after the bombing war the search was on for dead bodies
(whereas there was no interest in or search for dead bodies in East
Timor after the Indonesian massacres of 1999, in accord with the same
propaganda service). The bodies found in Kosovo received great
publicity, but the fact that this immense effort yielded only 3-4000
bodies from all causes and on all sides, and the fact that it fell far
short of the NATO-media propaganda claims during the bombing war, has
received minimal attention. However, with Milosevic now transferred to
The Hague, and a fresh demand arising for bodies whose deaths can be
attributed to him, once again the media are coming through with fresh
claims of bodies transferred from Kosovo under the villain's direction.
5. WAR A SUCCESS, REFUGEES RETURNED TO KOSOVO. But the refugees were
produced by the NATO bombing policy itself, and they returned to a
shattered country. Furthermore, after the NATO war there was a REAL
ethnic cleansing--in percentage terms the "largest in the Balkan wars"
according to Transnational Foundation for Peace director Jan
Oberg--with some 330,000 Serbs, Roma, Jews, Turks and others driven out
of Kosovo, while some 3,000 people were killed and disappeared.
However, as this has taken place under NATO auspices, the mainstream
media, insofar as they mention the real ethnic cleansing at all, have
treated it as a semi-approved "vengeance." But they have mainly dealt
with the subject, as they did the post-Arbenz REAL terrorism, by eye
aversion.
6. MILOSEVIC AS THE SOURCE OF BALKAN CONFLICT. In virtually all
mainstream accounts, it was "Milosevic's murderous decade" (Nordland
and Gutman in Newsweek, July 9, 2001), Milosevic who "set Yugoslavia to
unraveling" (Roger Cohen, New York Times, July 1, 2001), "the man who
had terrorized the turbulent Balkans for a decade" (Time, April 9,
2001). The wars were a "catastrophe that Slobodan Milosevic unleashed"
(Tim Judah, The Times [London], June 29, 2001). This is comic book
history, that follows the standard demonization process, and is refuted
by every serious historian dealing with the area (Susan Woodward,
Robert Hayden, David Chandler, Lenard Cohen, Raymond Kent, Steven L.
Burg and Paul S. Shoup).
Serious history takes into account, among other matters: (1) the fact
that long before 1990 Yugoslavia had persistent "deep regional and
ethnic cleavages," with Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo "all areas of high
ethnic fragmentation" (Lenard Cohen and Paul Warwick, Political
Cohesion in a Fragile Mosaic), whose suppression required a strong
federal state; (2) the effects of the Yugoslav economic crisis, dating
back to 1982, and the IMF/World Bank imposition of deflationary
policies on Yugoslavia in the late 1980s, and their consequences; (3)
the post-Soviet collapse ending of Western support for the Yugoslav
federal state, and German and Austrian collaboration in encouraging the
Croatian and Slovenian secession from Yugoslavia without any democratic
vote and without any settlement on the status of the large Serb
minorities; (4) the West's and Western Badinter Commission's refusal to
allow threatened ethnic minorities to withdraw from the new secession
states; (5) the U.S. and Western encouragement of the Muslims in
Bosnia-Herzegovina to hold out for unity under their control in the
face of Serb and Croatian fears and opposition; (6) the U.S. and NATO
support of Croatia and its massive ethnic cleansing of Serbs in Krajina.
The media rarely mention these extremely important external,
NATO-inspired causes of ethnic cleansing, or the fact that Milosevic
supported many diplomatic initiatives such as the Owen-Vance and
Owen-Stoltenberg plans, both unsuccessful because of U.S. encouragement
of the Muslims to hold out for more. Heavy German and U.S.
responsibility for the breakup of Yugoslavia; the NATO governments'
help in the arming of Slovenia, Croatia, the Bosnian Muslims, and the
KLA; and the U.S. sabotaging of efforts at negotiated settlements in
the early 1990s, are all well documented in Bogdanich's and Lettmayer's
"The Avoidable War." The film was shown on the History Channel on April
16, but has otherwise been ignored in Propaganda System Number One for
good reason: it not only shows dominant NATO responsibility for the
Balkan disaster, it makes the mainstream media's supportive propaganda
role crystal clear.
7. MILOSEVIC'S NATIONALIST SPEECHES OF 1987 AND 1989. It is now rote
"history" that in April 1987 Milosevic "endorsed a Serbian nationalist
agenda" at Polje in Kosovo, and did the same there on June 28, 1989--
supposedly heralding his project of Greater Serbia and the coming wars
to achieve it. People like Roger Cohen and Steven Erlanger who cite
these as "inciting Serb passions" almost surely never bothered to read
them (nor did Joe Knowles, who mentions Milosevic's "infamous" speech
of June 28 in In These Times [Aug.6, 2001]). In both speeches,
Milosevic actually warns against the dangers of nationalism, and while
he promises to protect Serbs, he is clearly speaking of the citizens of
the Republic of Serbia, not ethnic Serbs; and he describes "Yugoslavia"
as "a multinational community...[that] can survive only under the
conditions of full equality for all nations that live in it" (June 28,
1989).
8. MILOSEVIC AS DICTATOR. The June 28, 2001 amended indictment of
Milosevic notes that he was "elected" president of Serbia on May 8,
1989, was elected again "in multi-party elections" held in December
1990, was "reelected" in December 1992, was "elected president of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" on July 15, 1997, and was defeated and
ousted from power in an election in September 2000. But as Milosevic is
on the U.S. hit list, he is referred to repeatedly in the media as a
"dictator," a word they were extremely reluctant to apply to Suharto
during his 32 years as a prized U.S. client. The designation of
dictator created a problem for the media because they also found, and
continue to find, the Serb populace guilty as "willing executioners"
who were properly punished by bombing and who need to acknowledge their
guilt. How a people suffering under a dictatorship and
dictator-controlled media could be guilty of crimes committed elsewhere
is unexplained, but in the U.S. mainstream media the contradiction
remains unchallenged.
9. THE DICTATOR AS RESPONSIBLE KILLER. In Manufacturing Consent Chomsky
and I showed how in the case of the murder of Jerzy Popieuszko in
communist Poland the media repeatedly sought to prove that the leaders
of Poland knew about and were responsible for the killing, whereas in
cases where our own leaders or clients are involved, the media are not
interested in high level knowledge and responsibility. It was therefore
a foregone conclusion that the media would jump on every claim that
Milosevic was behind the deaths in the Balkan wars, and as the Tribunal
has to confront the need for such proof to convict the demon, the media
are working this terrain with vigor. Some of the alleged new evidence
is clearly being leaked from the Tribunal itself (e.g., Bob Graham and
Tom Walker, "Milosevic Ordered Hiding of Bodies," Sunday Times
[London], July 8, 2001), a form of propaganda once again revealing that
it is not a judicial body but a political instrument. This evidence,
which cites the very words used by the dictator in Belgrade in March
1999 instructing his subordinates to commit crimes ("all civilians
killed in Kosovo have to be moved to places where they will not be
discovered," in ibid.), has the odor of NATO-bloc disinformation and
should be treated with the utmost scepticism. And we may be sure the
media will never ask why, with this instruction, "45 bodies" were left
on the ground in Racak for the convenience of William Walker and other
NATO propagandists.
Concluding Note
The U.S. propaganda system is at the peak of its powers in the early
years of the 21st century, riding the wave of capitalism's triumph,
U.S. global hegemony, and the confidence and effective service of the
increasingly concentrated and commercialized mainstream media. It is a
model propaganda system, its slippages and imperfections adding to its
power, given its assured service in times of need. And as described
above, in such times its ability to ignore inconvenient facts, swallow
disinformation, and work the public over with propaganda can easily
compete with--even surpass--anything found in totalitarian systems.
---
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© Copyright E HERMAN 2003 For fair use only/ pour usage équitable
seulement.
==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
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email: icdsm-italia@...
Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC
Data: Lun 15 Dic 2003 14:26:30 Europe/Rome
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Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] Propaganda System Number One: From Diem and
Arbenz to Milosevic
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/HER312A.html
Propaganda System Number One:
From Diem and Arbenz to Milosevic
by Edward S. Herman
Propaganda, Politics, Power ISSN 1741-0754 Volume 1: 15-28 ~ 9 December
2003
www.globalresearch.ca 15 December 2003
The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/HER312A.html
The way in which the mainstream media have handled the turning of
Milosevic over to the Hague Tribunal once again reinforces my belief
that the United States is not only number one in military power but
also in the effectiveness of its propaganda system, which is vastly
superior to any past or present state-managed system. The main
characteristic of the U.S. model is that, while offering diversity on
many subjects, on core issues--like "free trade" and the need for a
huge "defense" establishment--and on the occasions when the corporate
and political establishment needs their service--as in legitimating
George W. Bush's presidency in the wake of an electoral coup d'etat, or
supporting the "sanctions of mass destruction" on Iraq--the media can
be relied on to expound and propagandize what would be called a "party
line" if done in China. They do sometimes depart from the official
position as regards tactics, arguing, for example, that the government
is not attacking the enemy with sufficient ferocity (Iraq and
Yugoslavia), or that the cost of the enterprise is perhaps excessive
(the Vietnam war, from 1968), but that the enemy is truly evil and the
national cause meritorious is never debatable. The debates over tactics
helpfully obscure the agreement on ends.
A further important feature of the U.S. system is that this propaganda
service is provided without government censorship or coercion, by self-
censorship alone, with the truth of the propaganda line internalized by
the numerous media participants. This internalization of belief makes
it possible for media personnel to be enthusiastic spokespersons in
pushing the party line, thereby giving it a naturalness that is lacking
in crude systems of government-enforced propaganda.
A third feature of the system is that the party lines are regularly
supported by non-governmental and self-proclaimed "non-partisan"
thinktanks like the American Enterprise Institute and Independent
International Commission on Kosovo, non-governmental organizations like
the Open Society Institute and Human Rights Watch, and assorted
ex-leftists and liberal and left journals that on particular subjects
"see the light." These organizations are commonly funded by interests
(and governments) with an axe to grind, and they serve those interests,
but the media feature them as non-partisan and give special attention
to the ex-leftists and dissidents who now see the light. This helps
firm up the consensus and further marginalizes those still in darkness.
A final feature of the U.S. system is that it works so well that a
sizable fraction of the public doesn't recognize the media's propaganda
role, and accepts the media's own self-image as independent, adversary,
truth-seeking, and helping the public to "assert meaningful control
over the political process" (former Supreme Court Justice Lewis
Powell). This public bamboozlement is aided by the facts that the media
are fairly numerous, are not government controlled, have many true
believers among their editors and journalists (the second
characteristic), are supported by NGOs and elements of the "left" (the
third feature), and regularly proclaim their independence and squabble
furiously with government and among themselves. Even those who doubt
the media's claims of truth-seeking are often carried along, or
confused, by the force and self-assurance of the participants in this
great propaganda machine.
Party Line Consensus
An important operational characteristic of the system, which
facilitates general adherence to the party line without overt coercion,
is the assurance and speed with which the line is established as a
consensus truth, so that deviations and dissent quickly take on the
appearance of foolishness or pathology, as well as suspiciously
unpatriotic behavior. Noam Chomsky and I found that the very asking of
questions about the numerous fabrications, ideological role, and
absence of any beneficial effects for the victims in the anti-Khmer
Rouge propaganda campaign of 1975-1979 was unacceptable, and was
treated almost without exception as "apologetics for Pol Pot."
That "free trade" is beneficial and in the "national interest" whereas
"protectionism" is hurtful and a creature of "special interests" is a
consensus party line of the mainstream media today that profoundly
biases their treatment of trade agreements and protests against
corporate globalization at Seattle, Washington, D.C., Quebec City, and
Genoa (see Herman, "NAFTA, Mexican Meltdown, and the Propaganda
System," chapter 14 in Myth of the Liberal Media; Rachel Coen, "For
Press, Magenta Hair and Nose Rings Defined Protests," EXTRA!
[July-August 2000]; FAIR, "Action Alert: Police Violence in Genoa--Par
for the Course? Media complacency helps normalize assaults on
demonstrators," July 26, 2001).
The consensus around a party line is very quickly established in
dealing with international crises. Once an enemy is demonized-from Ho
Chi Minh in Vietnam and Jacobo Guzman Arbenz in Guatemala in the early
1950s to Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s and up to today-the media
display a form of hysteria that helps mobilize the public in support of
whatever forms of violence the government wishes to carry out. They
become a virtual propaganda arm of the government, joining with it in
the common fight against "another Hitler." Under these conditions
remarkable structures of disinformation can be built,
institutionalized, and remain parts of historic memory even in the face
of ex post confutations, which are kept out of sight.
Let me give a few short illustrations before showing how this
exceptional propaganda service applies to the Milosevic/Tribunal case.
Red Threat as Party Line: Vietnam and Guatemala
In the Cold War years, propaganda service and mobilization of the
public was commonly framed around the Red Threat. This general
demonization of the target produced the requisite hysteria and media
identification with "us" and complete loss of critical capability. When
the U.S.-imported puppet to South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, won a
plebiscite in 1954 with over 99 percent of the votes, an outcome that
would elicit much sarcasm if realized in an enemy state, this was not
news here. And from then onward, U.S. support of a government
admittedly lacking an indigenous constituency, relying on state terror
and U.S. financial and military aid, was treated in the mainstream
media as entirely reasonable and just.
The self-deception and patriotic biases internalized by media personnel
were displayed in their 100 percent inability, from 1954 to today, to
call the U.S. intervention and ultimate direct invasion of Vietnam
either an "invasion" or "aggression." It was also beautifully
illustrated in James Reston's Orwellian statement of 1965 that the
United States, which from beginning to almost the very end believed it
could impose its preferred rulers by virtue of its superior military
power, was in Vietnam to establish the "principle...that no state shall
use military force or the threat of military force to achieve its
political objectives."
Another remarkable case of propaganda service occurred as the United
States destabilized Guatemala's democratic government in the years
1950-1953 and then removed it by means of a U.S.-organized "contra"
invasion in 1954. U.S. hostility began when this government passed a
law in 1947 allowing the organization of unions, and active
destabilization followed and accelerated upon its attempt to engage in
moderate land reforms, partly at the expense of the United Fruit
Company. From 1947 the search was on for "communists" to explain the
reformist policies and to rationalize the hostile intervention. The
U.S. mainstream media became completely hysterical over this Red Threat
from 1950 onward, very worried that Arbenz would not allow elections to
take place in 1951--this same media had not been bothered by the Ubico
dictatorship, 1931-44, and was entirely unconcerned with the absence of
democracy from 1954 onward--and featured a stream of alarming reports
on Red influence in that country and an alleged "reign of terror."
There were endless headlines in the New York Times like "Soviet Agents
Plotting to Ruin Unity, Defenses of America" (June 22, 1950);
"Guatemalan Reds Seek Full Power" (May 21, 1952); "How Communists Won
Control of Guatemala" (March 1, 1953), and even The Nation ran a sleazy
putdown of the democratic government under attack (March 18, 1950).
This was all hysterical nonsense--even Court historian Ronald
Schneider, after reviewing the documents seized from the Reds in
Guatemala, concluded that the Reds had never controlled Guatemala, and
that the Soviet Union "made no significant or even material investment
in the Arbenz regime" and paid little attention to Central America--but
it was effective in making the overthrow of an elected government
acceptable to the U.S. public. And the media's propaganda service was
completed by their long cover-up of the hugely undemocratic aftermath
of the successful termination of the brief democratic experiment (on
the history of this propaganda campaign, Edward Herman, "Returning
Guatemala to the Fold," in Gary Rawnsley, ed., Cold-War Propaganda in
the 1950s [Macmillan, 1999]; more broadly, Piero Gleijeses, Shattered
Hope [Princeton, 1991]). No government-managed propaganda system could
have done a better job of mobilizing the public on the basis of
systematic disinformation; and the achievement here is especially
impressive given the fact that it was all done with the aim and effect
of ending a liberal democracy by violence and installing a terror state.
Bulgarian Connection
Another illustration of outstanding, even remarkable, propaganda
service, and one pertinent to the ongoing Milosevic-Tribunal drama
because it involved a judicial proceeding, was the "Bulgarian
Connection." The Reagan administration had been anxious to demonize the
Soviet Union in the early and mid-1980s, and the assassination attempt
against Pope John Paul II in May 1981, provided an opportunity to pin
the attempt on the KGB and their Bulgarian client. The Turkish fascist,
Mehmet Ali Agca, who had shot the Pope, had spent time in Bulgaria
(along with ten other countries). After 17 months in prison in Italy,
and after numerous visits by secret service, judicial, and papal
personnel, who had admittedly offered him inducements to "confess," he
claimed that he was on the Bulgarian-KGB payroll, had cased the joint
with Bulgarian officials in Rome, and had visited one of them in his
apartment. Although the case was laughably implausible, the U.S.
mainstream media bought it with enthusiasm, and failed to acknowledge
their gullibility and propaganda role even after CIA professionals told
congress during the CIA confirmation hearings on Robert Gates in 1991
that they knew the Connection was false because, among other reasons,
they had penetrated the Bulgarian secret services.
A very important feature of the media's treatment of the Bulgarian
Connection, very similar to that which they apply now to the Hague
Tribunal in its pursuit of Milosevic, was their pretense that the
Italian judiciary, police and political system were only seekers after
truth and justice, even a bit fearful of finding the Bulgarians guilty.
The New York Times even editorialized that the Reaganites were aghast
at the implications of a Soviet involvement in the assassination
attempt ("recoiled from the devastating implication that Bulgaria's
agents were bound to have acted only on a signal from Moscow," Oct. 30,
1984), a propaganda lie confuted by the CIA professionals in 1991, who
explained that their own doubts were overruled by the Reaganite leaders
of the CIA who insisted on pushing the Connection as true. The
Bulgarian Connection can be well explained by the exceptional
corruption of the Italian system and the service of this manufactured
connection to the Cold Warriors serving the Italian state (and their
U.S. parent). This explanation was expressed often in the Italian media
during the 1980s, but not in the U.S. mainstream media where, with only
insignificant exceptions, the propaganda line functioned without a
hitch. (See Herman and Brodhead, Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian
Connection, chap. 7.)
Hague Tribunal: Serving Us, So No Awkward Questions, Please!
In the case of the Hague Tribunal also, the mainstream media portray it
as a presumably unbiased judicial body seeking justice with an even
hand, despite the massive evidence that it is a political and
propaganda arm of the United States and other NATO powers. Its ultimate
propaganda service was performed in May, 1999, when the prosecutor of
the International Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY),
Louise Arbour, announced the indictment of Yugoslav president Milosevic
and four associates for war crimes. This was done, hastily, at a time
when NATO was increasingly targeting the civilian infrastructure of
Yugoslavia in order to hasten that country's surrender. NATO needed
this public relations support as a cover for its own war crimes-- the
Sixth Convention of Nuremberg prohibits and makes a war crime the
targeting of civilian facilities not based on "military necessity"--and
the ICTY provided it, with the indictment quickly greeted by Albright
and James Rubin as justifying NATO's bombing policy.
To my knowledge the U.S. mainstream media have never once suggested
that this indictment servicing the NATO war discredited the Tribunal as
an independent judicial body. The New York Times's Steven Erlanger even
explained to Terry Gross that this indictment displayed Arbour's
independence, as she was allegedly fearful that Milosevic would escape
punishment in a political deal if she didn't move quickly! (Fresh Air,
National Public Radio, July 12, 2001). Erlanger was not alone in
offering this imbecile analysis, which not only failed to recognize the
indictment's service to NATO's immediate policy needs, but also ignored
other evidence of Arbour's and the Tribunal's deference to U.S. and
NATO desires.
The media also failed to raise any questions about Arbour's statement
of May 24, 1999, that although people are "entitled to the presumption
of innocence until they are convicted," she was issuing the indictment
because "the evidence...raises serious questions about their
suitability to be guarantors of any deal, let alone a peace
agreement"--that is, she found them guilty before they were convicted
and thought that on this basis she should interfere with any possible
political settlement.
On the other hand, Arbour and her successor Carla Del Ponte have never
found allies of the NATO powers or the NATO powers themselves worthy of
indictment, even when they did exactly the same things for which the
NATO targets were indictable. Thus, Serb leader Milan Martic was
indicted for launching a rocket cluster-bomb attack on military targets
in Zagreb in May 1995, with the very use of cluster bombs cited by the
Tribunal as showing the aim of "terrorizing the civilians of Zagreb."
But NATO's cluster-bomb raids on Nis on May 7, 1999, far from any
military target, and the 48-hour Croat army shelling of civilian
targets in the city of Knim during the August 1995 Croat Operation
Storm, produced no indictments. Operation Storm, supported by U.S.
officials and helped by U.S.-related professional advisers, resulted in
large-
scale expulsions and the killing of many Serb civilians, but neither
Croat leader Tudjman nor the supportive U.S. officials were indicted,
and Croat military officials also escaped indictment till Del Ponte
recently claimed several in an effort to show her "balance" in the
context of the bringing of Milosevic to The Hague. This double
standard, which makes a mockery of justice, has been of absolutely no
interest to the U.S. mainstream media; and in his long session with
Terry Gross on July 12, when asked "What Americans might be brought to
stand trial before an international court?," Steven Erlanger failed to
come up with a single name for any actions in the Balkans (and Gross
did not follow up on his non-response).
Under pressure to address NATO's wartime activities, which had resulted
in the deaths of many Serb civilians--estimates run from 500 to
3,000--Tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte issued a report in June
2000, that declared NATO not guilty. But the document supporting this
conclusion was not based on any investigation by the Tribunal, and it
openly acknowledged a heavy dependence on NATO sources, asserting "that
the NATO and NATO countries press statements are generally reliable and
that explanations have been honestly given." Canadian legal scholar and
expert on the Tribunal, Michael Mandel, asks: "Can you imagine how many
indictments would have been issued against the Serb leadership if the
Prosecutor had stopped at the FRY press releases?" But this remarkable
Del Ponte report was of no interest to the mainstream media.
Also of no interest to the media is the fact that the Tribunal has been
described by John Laughland in the Times (London) as "a rogue court
with rigged rules" (June 17, 1999). As normal practice it violates
virtually every standard of due process: it fails to separate
prosecution and judge; it does not accord the right to bail or a speedy
trial; it has no clear definition of burden of proof required for a
conviction; it has no independent appeal body; it allows a defendant to
be tried twice for the same crime; suspects can be held for 90 days
without trial; confessions are presumed to be free and voluntary unless
the contrary is established by the prisoner; and witnesses can testify
anonymously, with hearsay evidence admissible. These points are almost
never mentioned in the U.S. mainstream media or considered relevant to
the legitimacy of the Tribunal or the likelihood that Milosevic will
get a fair trial.
The Tribunal's biased performance follows from the fact that it was
organized by the United States and its close allies, is funded by them
and staffed with their approval, and depends on them for information
and other support. The Tribunal's charter requirements that its
expenses shall be provided in the UN general budget (Article 32), and
that the Prosecutor shall act independently and not take instructions
from any government (Article 16), have been systematically ignored.
Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, former president of the Hague Tribunal--before
that a director, and now "Special Counsel to the Chairman on Human
Rights," of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., a notorious human
rights violator working in Irian Jaya with the cooperation of the
Indonesian army--stated in 1999 that Tribunal personnel regard
Madeleine Albright as the "mother of the tribunal." NATO PR man Jamie
Shea pointed out in a May 17, 1999 press conference in Brussels that
Arbour will investigate "because we will allow her to;" that the NATO
countries are the ones "that have provided the finance to set up the
Tribunal;" that they are the ones who do the leg work "and have been
detaining indicted war criminals"; and that when she "looks at the
facts she will be indicting people of Yugoslav nationality" and not
folks from NATO.
But neither this open admission that the NATO powers controlled the
Tribunal, nor the evidence of serious abuses of the judicial process
that has characterized its work, have been of interest to the
mainstream media. As with the prosecution of the Bulgarian Connection,
the Hague Tribunal is servicing the U.S. government and its aims, and
the media therefore regard any bias or political service as reasonable
and take them as givens. Because of their internalized belief that
their country is good and would only support justice, the media can't
even imagine that any conflict of interest exists. This is deep bias.
Also, no questions come up in this context as to why there are no
tribunals for Suharto, Wiranto (the Indonesian general in charge of the
destruction of East Timor in 1999), or Ariel Sharon. These are our
allies, even if major state terrorists, who received and still receive
our support, so that in a well-managed propaganda system the failure to
mention their exclusion from a system of global enforcement of the new
ethical order opposed to ethnic cleansing and human rights violations
is entirely appropriate.
Disinformation as Consensus History: Milosevic and the Balkans
From the time the U.S. government decided to target Milosevic and the
Serbs as the root of Balkan evil in the early 1990s, the U.S.
propaganda system began its work of demonization of the target,
enhanced atrocities management, and the necessary rewriting of history.
The integration of government needs and media service was essentially
complete, and was beautifully symbolized by the marriage during the
crisis years of State Department PR chief James Rubin and Christiane
Amanpour, CNN's main reporter on the Kosovo war, whose reports could
have come from Rubin himself. More recently, in connection with
Milosevic's transfer to the Hague, Amanpour entertained Richard
Holbrooke on the subject, and the two, speaking as old comrades-in-arms
congratulated one another on a joint success, just as a
policy-enforcing official might express mutual congratulations with a
PR officer (Holbrooke applauded Amanpour's "fantastic coverage of the
war throughout the last decade" [CNN Live At Daybreak, June 29, 2001]).
It should be noted that Holbrooke visited Zagreb two days before
Croatia launched Operation Storm in August 1995, almost certainly
talking over and giving U.S. approval to the imminent military
operation, reminiscent of Henry Kissinger's visit to Jakarta just
before Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in September 1975. As
Operation Storm involved a major program of killings and expulsions,
with killings greatly in excess of the numbers attributed to Milosevic
in the Tribunal indictment of May 22, 1999, an excellent case can be
made that Holbrooke should be being tried for war crimes. We may also
be sure that Christiane Amanpour's "fantastic coverage" of the wars in
Yugoslavia did not deal with Operation Storm or mention Holbrooke's and
the U.S. role in that butchery and massive ethnic cleansing.
As NATO prepared to go to war, which began on March 24, 1999, the media
followed the official lead in focusing heavily on Serb atrocities in
Kosovo, with great and indignant attention to the Racak massacre of
January 15, 1999. The failure of the Rambouillet Conference they blamed
on Serb intransigence, again following the official line. During the
78-day bombing war the media focused even more intensively on
atrocities (Serb, not NATO), and passed along the official estimates of
100,000 Kosovo Albanian murders (U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen),
and other estimates, smaller and larger. They also accepted the claim
that the Serb violence that followed the bombing would have taken place
anyway, by plan, so that the bombing, instead of causing the escalated
violence was justified by its occurrence ex post.
In the post-bombing era a number of developments have occurred that
have challenged the official line. But the mainstream media have not
let them disturb the institutionalized untruths. Let me list some of
these and describe the media's mode of deflection.
1. RACAK MASSACRE. The only pre-bombing act of Serb violence listed in
the Tribunal indictment of Milosevic on May 22, 1999, was an alleged
massacre of Albanians by the Serbs at Racak on January 15, 1999. The
Serbs had carried out this action with invited OSCE representatives
(and AP photographers) on the scene, but on the following day, after
KLA reoccupation of the village, some 40 to 45 bodies were on display
for the U.S.-OSCE official William Walker and the media. The
authenticity of this massacre, which follows a long pattern of
convenient but contrived atrocities to meet a PR need--well described
in George Bogdanich's and Martin Lettmayer's brilliant film "The
Avoidable War"--was immediately challenged by journalists in France and
Germany, but no doubts whatever showed up in the U.S. media. Christophe
Chatelet of Le Monde was in Racak the day of the "massacre," and left
at dusk, as did the OSCE observers and Serb police, without witnessing
any massacre. The AP photographers and on-the-scene OSCE
representatives have never been available for corroboration or denial,
and the forensic report of the Finnish team that examined the bodies at
the behest of the OSCE has never been made public. The issue is still
contested, but a very strong case can be made that the Racak "massacre"
was a staged event (see, Chatelet, in Le Monde, Jan. 19, 1999;
Professor Dusan Dunjic [a Serb medical participant in the autopsies],
"The (Ab)use of Forensic Medicine," ; J. Raino, et al., "Independent
forensic autopsies in an armed conflict: investigation of the victims
from Racak, Kosovo," Forensic Science International 116 [2001], 171-85).
But the strong challenging evidence has been effectively blacked out in
the U.S. mainstream media, and the "massacre" is taken as an
established and unquestioned truth (e.g., Amanpour and Carol Lin, CNN
Live at Daybreak, July 3, 2001; Steven Erlanger in his July 12
interview with Terry Gross). Why didn't the Serb army remove the
incriminating bodies, as the propaganda machine claimed then and now
that they were doing as a matter of policy directed from above? As in
the case of the analyses and evidence in the 1980s that Agca might have
been coached to implicate the Bulgarians and KGB, the U.S. mainstream
media refuse to burden a useful party line with inconvenient questions
and facts.
Also, while giving heavy, uncritical and indignant attention to Racak,
the media have never allowed the far larger and unambiguous massacre of
civilians at Liquica in East Timor on April 6, 1999--three months after
Racak--to reach public consciousness. This was a massacre by the U.S.
ally Indonesia, U.S. officials did not feature it, and the media
therefore served national policy by giving it short shrift.
2. U.S. AND NATO OPPOSITION TO SERB "ETHNIC CLEANSING" AND "GENOCIDE"
AS THE BASIS OF THE NATO BOMBING. The official and media propaganda
line is that the United States and NATO powers were deeply upset by
Serb violence in Kosovo and eventually went to war to stop it. But
there are problems with this view. For one thing, evidence has turned
up showing that Washington, through its own agencies or hired
mercenaries, actually aided and trained the KLA prior to the bombing,
and in this and other ways encouraged them in provocations that
stimulated Serb violence (Peter Beaumont et al., "CIA's bastard army
ran riot in Balkans," The Observer [London], March 11, 2001). The
postwar publication by the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, General Report:
Kosovo Aftermath, noted that "Under the influence of the Kosovo
Verification Mission the level of Serbian repression eased off" in late
1998, but "on the other hand, there was a lack of effective measures to
curb the UCK [KLA]" which had an interest in "worsening the situation."
In short, U.S. policy before the bombing encouraged violence in Kosovo.
The evidence for this has been made public abroad, but it has not yet
surfaced in the U.S. mainstream media.
A second problem is that NATO supplied greatly inflated estimates of
Serb killings and expulsions in Kosovo, quite obviously trying to
prepare the ground for bombing. The claim that Serbian policy
constituted "ethnic cleansing" and even "genocide" has long been
confuted by OSCE, State Department, and human rights groups' findings
of limited and targeted Serb violence, and by disclosure of an internal
German Foreign Office report that even denies the appropriateness of
the use of "ethnic cleansing" to describe Serb behavior ["Important
Internal Documents from Germany's Foreign Office,"]. These contesting
points of evidence, even though coming from establishment sources, are
not only off the screen for the mainstream media, they are ignored and
the old lies are repeated by Christopher Hitchens in The Nation ("Body
Count in Kosovo," June 11, 2001) and Bogdan Denitch in In These Times
("Citizen of a Lost Country," May 14, 2001).
A third problem is: how could this humanitarian motive be driving
Clinton and Blair in Kosovo when they had both actively supported
Turkey's far larger- scale ethnic cleansing of Kurds throughout the
1990s? The mainstream media dealt with this and similar problems by not
letting the issue be raised.
3. NATO REASONABLENESS, SERB INTRANSIGENCE AT RAMBOUILLET. On the
question of negotiations versus the use of force, the official line has
been that the NATO powers made reasonable negotiating offers to the
Serbs, trying to get "Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians to come to a
compromise" (Tim Judah), but that the Serb refusal to negotiate led to
the bombing war. This line was demonstrated to be false when it was
disclosed that NATO had inserted a proviso demanding full occupation by
NATO of all of Yugoslavia, admitted by a State Department official to
have been a deliberate "raising of the bar" to allow bombing (George
Kenney, "Rolling Thunder: The Rerun," The Nation, June 14, 1999). This
disclosure has been comprehensively suppressed in the mainstream media,
allowing the propaganda lie to be repeated today (Judah's repetition of
the lie was on June 29, 2001).
4. SERB GENOCIDE BY PLAN DURING THE NATO BOMBING. Three big lies
expounded during the NATO bombing war were that (1) the Serbs were
killing vast numbers; (2) they were doing this and expelling still
larger numbers in a process of "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide;" and
(3) that they had planned mass killing and expulsions anyway, so that
these could not be attributed to the bombing war or the kind of
fighting and atrocities characteristic of a brutal civil war. It is now
clear that while large numbers did flee, this included at least an
equal proportion of Serbs, and that many fled without forcible
expulsion; and it is also clear that while there were brutal killings,
these fell far short of the 10,000-500,000 claimed by NATO. It is also
now on the record that NATO and the KLA were engaged in joint military
actions during the bombing war, and that expulsions were concentrated
in areas of KLA strong support, pointing to a military logic to Serb
actions (Daniel Pearl and Robert Block, "War in Kosovo Was Cruel,
Bitter, Savage; Genocide It Wasn't," Wall Street Journal, Dec. 31,
1999). The claim that the Serbs intended to do this anyway has never
been supported by any evidence.
In Guatemala after 1947 the search was on for communists; in Kosovo
during and after the bombing war the search was on for dead bodies
(whereas there was no interest in or search for dead bodies in East
Timor after the Indonesian massacres of 1999, in accord with the same
propaganda service). The bodies found in Kosovo received great
publicity, but the fact that this immense effort yielded only 3-4000
bodies from all causes and on all sides, and the fact that it fell far
short of the NATO-media propaganda claims during the bombing war, has
received minimal attention. However, with Milosevic now transferred to
The Hague, and a fresh demand arising for bodies whose deaths can be
attributed to him, once again the media are coming through with fresh
claims of bodies transferred from Kosovo under the villain's direction.
5. WAR A SUCCESS, REFUGEES RETURNED TO KOSOVO. But the refugees were
produced by the NATO bombing policy itself, and they returned to a
shattered country. Furthermore, after the NATO war there was a REAL
ethnic cleansing--in percentage terms the "largest in the Balkan wars"
according to Transnational Foundation for Peace director Jan
Oberg--with some 330,000 Serbs, Roma, Jews, Turks and others driven out
of Kosovo, while some 3,000 people were killed and disappeared.
However, as this has taken place under NATO auspices, the mainstream
media, insofar as they mention the real ethnic cleansing at all, have
treated it as a semi-approved "vengeance." But they have mainly dealt
with the subject, as they did the post-Arbenz REAL terrorism, by eye
aversion.
6. MILOSEVIC AS THE SOURCE OF BALKAN CONFLICT. In virtually all
mainstream accounts, it was "Milosevic's murderous decade" (Nordland
and Gutman in Newsweek, July 9, 2001), Milosevic who "set Yugoslavia to
unraveling" (Roger Cohen, New York Times, July 1, 2001), "the man who
had terrorized the turbulent Balkans for a decade" (Time, April 9,
2001). The wars were a "catastrophe that Slobodan Milosevic unleashed"
(Tim Judah, The Times [London], June 29, 2001). This is comic book
history, that follows the standard demonization process, and is refuted
by every serious historian dealing with the area (Susan Woodward,
Robert Hayden, David Chandler, Lenard Cohen, Raymond Kent, Steven L.
Burg and Paul S. Shoup).
Serious history takes into account, among other matters: (1) the fact
that long before 1990 Yugoslavia had persistent "deep regional and
ethnic cleavages," with Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo "all areas of high
ethnic fragmentation" (Lenard Cohen and Paul Warwick, Political
Cohesion in a Fragile Mosaic), whose suppression required a strong
federal state; (2) the effects of the Yugoslav economic crisis, dating
back to 1982, and the IMF/World Bank imposition of deflationary
policies on Yugoslavia in the late 1980s, and their consequences; (3)
the post-Soviet collapse ending of Western support for the Yugoslav
federal state, and German and Austrian collaboration in encouraging the
Croatian and Slovenian secession from Yugoslavia without any democratic
vote and without any settlement on the status of the large Serb
minorities; (4) the West's and Western Badinter Commission's refusal to
allow threatened ethnic minorities to withdraw from the new secession
states; (5) the U.S. and Western encouragement of the Muslims in
Bosnia-Herzegovina to hold out for unity under their control in the
face of Serb and Croatian fears and opposition; (6) the U.S. and NATO
support of Croatia and its massive ethnic cleansing of Serbs in Krajina.
The media rarely mention these extremely important external,
NATO-inspired causes of ethnic cleansing, or the fact that Milosevic
supported many diplomatic initiatives such as the Owen-Vance and
Owen-Stoltenberg plans, both unsuccessful because of U.S. encouragement
of the Muslims to hold out for more. Heavy German and U.S.
responsibility for the breakup of Yugoslavia; the NATO governments'
help in the arming of Slovenia, Croatia, the Bosnian Muslims, and the
KLA; and the U.S. sabotaging of efforts at negotiated settlements in
the early 1990s, are all well documented in Bogdanich's and Lettmayer's
"The Avoidable War." The film was shown on the History Channel on April
16, but has otherwise been ignored in Propaganda System Number One for
good reason: it not only shows dominant NATO responsibility for the
Balkan disaster, it makes the mainstream media's supportive propaganda
role crystal clear.
7. MILOSEVIC'S NATIONALIST SPEECHES OF 1987 AND 1989. It is now rote
"history" that in April 1987 Milosevic "endorsed a Serbian nationalist
agenda" at Polje in Kosovo, and did the same there on June 28, 1989--
supposedly heralding his project of Greater Serbia and the coming wars
to achieve it. People like Roger Cohen and Steven Erlanger who cite
these as "inciting Serb passions" almost surely never bothered to read
them (nor did Joe Knowles, who mentions Milosevic's "infamous" speech
of June 28 in In These Times [Aug.6, 2001]). In both speeches,
Milosevic actually warns against the dangers of nationalism, and while
he promises to protect Serbs, he is clearly speaking of the citizens of
the Republic of Serbia, not ethnic Serbs; and he describes "Yugoslavia"
as "a multinational community...[that] can survive only under the
conditions of full equality for all nations that live in it" (June 28,
1989).
8. MILOSEVIC AS DICTATOR. The June 28, 2001 amended indictment of
Milosevic notes that he was "elected" president of Serbia on May 8,
1989, was elected again "in multi-party elections" held in December
1990, was "reelected" in December 1992, was "elected president of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" on July 15, 1997, and was defeated and
ousted from power in an election in September 2000. But as Milosevic is
on the U.S. hit list, he is referred to repeatedly in the media as a
"dictator," a word they were extremely reluctant to apply to Suharto
during his 32 years as a prized U.S. client. The designation of
dictator created a problem for the media because they also found, and
continue to find, the Serb populace guilty as "willing executioners"
who were properly punished by bombing and who need to acknowledge their
guilt. How a people suffering under a dictatorship and
dictator-controlled media could be guilty of crimes committed elsewhere
is unexplained, but in the U.S. mainstream media the contradiction
remains unchallenged.
9. THE DICTATOR AS RESPONSIBLE KILLER. In Manufacturing Consent Chomsky
and I showed how in the case of the murder of Jerzy Popieuszko in
communist Poland the media repeatedly sought to prove that the leaders
of Poland knew about and were responsible for the killing, whereas in
cases where our own leaders or clients are involved, the media are not
interested in high level knowledge and responsibility. It was therefore
a foregone conclusion that the media would jump on every claim that
Milosevic was behind the deaths in the Balkan wars, and as the Tribunal
has to confront the need for such proof to convict the demon, the media
are working this terrain with vigor. Some of the alleged new evidence
is clearly being leaked from the Tribunal itself (e.g., Bob Graham and
Tom Walker, "Milosevic Ordered Hiding of Bodies," Sunday Times
[London], July 8, 2001), a form of propaganda once again revealing that
it is not a judicial body but a political instrument. This evidence,
which cites the very words used by the dictator in Belgrade in March
1999 instructing his subordinates to commit crimes ("all civilians
killed in Kosovo have to be moved to places where they will not be
discovered," in ibid.), has the odor of NATO-bloc disinformation and
should be treated with the utmost scepticism. And we may be sure the
media will never ask why, with this instruction, "45 bodies" were left
on the ground in Racak for the convenience of William Walker and other
NATO propagandists.
Concluding Note
The U.S. propaganda system is at the peak of its powers in the early
years of the 21st century, riding the wave of capitalism's triumph,
U.S. global hegemony, and the confidence and effective service of the
increasingly concentrated and commercialized mainstream media. It is a
model propaganda system, its slippages and imperfections adding to its
power, given its assured service in times of need. And as described
above, in such times its ability to ignore inconvenient facts, swallow
disinformation, and work the public over with propaganda can easily
compete with--even surpass--anything found in totalitarian systems.
---
The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca
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Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC
Da: ICDSM Italia
Data: Lun 15 Dic 2003 14:21:46 Europe/Rome
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Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] Political Trial, Political Testimony, Political
Pressure
The Deposition Will not be Televised:
Wesley Clark's Testimony in the Milosevic Trial
The right to a fair and public trial, the cornerstone of criminal
justice, has been under attack since September 11th, 2001. The protean
war on terrorism has led to a growing culture of judicial opacity and
has had the effect of increasing the public's tolerance of closed
proceedings, in the name of State security and national interests.
Yet not only in the US-- or at Guantanamo Bay-- have the courthouse
doors been slamming shut, and the workings of justice shielded from
public view. At the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY), the public and the media are often invited to step
out of the public gallery for confidential portions of proceedings. The
defendant's right to a public trial[1]-- and the public's right to
measure whether justice is truly carried out independently and
impartially-- is infringed upon by security considerations with
alarming frequency, particularly in the case of Slobodan Milosevic. To
exclude the public from even a fraction of such a historically
important trial, before a Tribunal created by the Security Council of
the United Nations[2]-- ostensibly to establish truth[3],
reconciliation[4] and peace[5]-- would seem to defeat the purpose. How
can a UN body disregard UN human rights instruments and General
Assembly resolutions which elevate the right to a public trial to the
gold standard in the protection of human rights? The fact that the ICTY
was created for political considerations provides some insight into the
question. Madeleine Albright was described as "the mother of the
Tribunal" by its past President[6], and Madam Secretary also lent her
name to the so-called "humanitarian" war in Kosovo[7].
Political Trial, Political Testimony, Political Pressure
Any doubt as to the political nature of the ICTY has been put to rest
following the imposition by the US government of bafflingly stringent
conditions for the upcoming testimony, on December 15th and 16th, of US
presidential candidate Wesley Clark for the Prosecution in the
Milosevic case[8]. The American government has succeeded in requiring
that General Clark's testimony be held in the absence of the public or
press, and has obtained the right to delay the transmission of the
testimony for 48 hours, in what the ICTY had called a "temporary closed
session." The delayed transmission is designed to permit the US
government to "review the transcript and make representations as to
whether evidence given in open session (sic) should be redacted in
order to protect the national interests of the US". This process will
engender a further delay, as the Chamber considers US requests for
censorship of the public record, in keeping with the legally nebulous
concept of US "national interests".
But what could General Clark have to tell the Security Council
Tribunal that he hasn't said in an interview, written in an op-ed, or
detailed in one of his two self-congratulatory tomes on the art of war?
More importantly, what could he possibly say against the interests of
President Slobodan Milosevic that would require the imposition by the
US of stringent conditions to protect its "legitimate national
interests"?
Could it be that Wesley Clark is a vulnerable witness? In the context
of the ongoing-- and apparently endless-- "war on terrorism", might the
US government wish to prevent questions being asked about General
Clark's role[9]-- and that of his government[10]-- in providing
military, financial and political support to the KLA[11], whose
well-documented links to Al-Qaeda[12] now threaten to throw intolerable
light on the effects of US foreign policy in the Balkans?
The ICTY has already agreed that seven paragraphs of Clark's full
statement will be placed under seal, inaccessible to the public. The US
government, which has obtained the right to have two representatives
present in the courtroom for General Clark's testimony--in contrast to
the public, who are entitled to no representative whatsoever-- may
request that further evidence be given in private session.
Public Trial?
In other words, while Wesley Clark--a public figure, US presidential
candidate and former Supreme Commander of NATO during its bombing of
Yugoslavia-- testifies at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic--the trial of
the century-- the public and media will be shut out. For 48 hours, the
public will wait for the US government to decide what it believes the
media can be trusted to report, and what must be cut from the public
record, in the name of "national interests". During the invasion of
Iraq, embedded journalists obtained information in a timelier manner.
And upon what basis will the Chamber decide whether or not to grant US
requests to cut evidence from the public record? Isn't the concept of
"national interest" a somewhat subjective, political notion, making the
adjudication of its content and applicability next to impossible? A
foreign government-- the sole superpower-- imposes conditions on the
testimony of a retired general and presidential candidate against the
former president of the nation bombed under the orders of the witness.
The conditions of the testimony violate internationally recognized
rights to public trials. The conditions violate the rights of the
accused, the media, and the public. That a court of law -- much less an
international tribunal purportedly designed to uphold human rights and
bring an end to the culture of impunity-- would accept such outrageous
conditions is unthinkable, unless this is a political, rather than
judicial process.
The public nature of the judicial process is vital to any democracy:
public access to open justice ensures fair trials. Only if justice is
accessible can the people form an opinion as to whether trials conform
to national and international standards[13]. Public access to criminal
proceedings protects defendants from malicious, abusive, or political
prosecutions, carried out in secret, far from public scrutiny. In the
context of the Milosevic trial, these considerations apply with greater
urgency still, given the political nature of the Tribunal, the
proceedings, as well as the financial and institutional support
received by the ICTY from certain governments and individuals[14],
whose preoccupations and interests are at odds with the requirements of
justice as envisaged by international and domestic standards.
"National interests" trump cross-examination
Slobodan Milosevic's right to cross-examine Wesley Clark has also been
severely curtailed-- contrary to the rights set out by the ICTY's Rules
of Procedure and recognized in all adversarial systems of law. He will
not be entitled to question General Clark on matters of credibility, an
outrageous restriction in light of the fact that Clark, a US
presidential candidate, has recently acknowledged that the 78-day
bombing campaign against Yugoslavia by NATO-- a campaign for which he
was directly responsible-- was carried out in "technical" violation of
international law[15].
Questions of credibility inevitably arise with respect to a witness
testifying about Mr. Milosevic's intent and good faith as a negotiator.
In such a case, the defence would be entitled to question the sincerity
of the witness, one who ordered the bombing of the RTS television
studios in Belgrade[16], just as a link-up was being established for an
interview with Larry King on CNN[17]. One could ask about the bombing
of a passenger train, and in particular, about the less than forthright
justification provided by the witness, publicly, for that incident of
"collateral damage"[18]. In particular, Clark could be asked why he
stated to the press that the train’s speed was such that the missiles’
trajectories could not be altered, using altered videotape
footage—shown at three times the normal speed—to support his
justification for these civilian deaths. General Clark's incredible
explanations for the bombing of the Chinese embassy— one of which
was : « I had another call that said, "Whoops. It looks like the
embassy was moved »[19] would also constitute appropriate lines of
cross-examination.
It is presently unknown to the public if Clark will even be questioned
with respect to the bombing campaign. If his statement does not cover
NATO's attack on Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic will not be entitled to
raise it at all, as the conditions obtained by the US government limit
questions asked to the content of Clark's statement[20]. The ICTY has
allowed Mr Milosevic to "seek to have the scope of examination expanded
by prior agreement of the US government"[21]. This delegation of
judicial authority by the Trial Chamber to the US government would be
comical if it were not such a striking manifestation of this
institution's incapacity to act judicially. Why can't President
Milosevic apply to the judges to request a wider scope of
cross-examination? When did the US government replace the judges on the
bench? No legal explanation or authority is provided by the ICTY's
decision to justify such an incredible measure. It is simply an
admission that this institution cannot adjudicate the facts or apply
the law with the independence and impartiality required by
international legal authority as well as its own statute, which
provides that "The Trial Chambers shall ensure that a trial is fair and
expeditious and that proceedings are conducted in accordance with the
rules of procedure and evidence, with full respect for the rights of
the accused and due regard for the protection of victims and
witnesses"[22].
The Rules of the ICTY also set out that "all proceedings before a Trial
Chamber, other than deliberations of the Chamber, shall be held in
public, unless otherwise provided."[23] Exceptions to this rule do not
include the imposition, by a foreign government, of closed sessions and
censorship of the public record, based on "national interests"[24],
even when that foreign governement is an indispensable financial
contributor to the Tribunal.[25]
"National interests"
What are "national interests", anyway? One could be forgiven for
concluding that they could mean anything. The law is silent as to the
definition of this notion. The concept of "national security" however,
has been studied and defined as a legal concept. In particular, the
question of whether and when the public can be deprived of access to
information in the name of national security was the object of an
important international legal conference held in Johannesburg in 1995,
at which the "Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of
Expression and Access to Information", were adopted. The meeting was
convened by Article 19, the International Centre Against Censorship,
and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies of the University of
Witwatersrand, South Africa[26].
A restriction to open justice, on the ground of "national
security"--and not "national interest"-- a concept which would appear
to protect less urgent concerns--is not, according to Principle 2 of
the Johannesburg Principles "legitimate unless its genuine purpose and
demonstrable effect is to protect a country's existence or its
territorial integrity against the use or threat of force, or its
capacity to respond to the threat or use of force, whether from an
external source, such as a military threat, or an internal source, such
as incitement to overthrow the government."
Did the US government argue that the very existence or territorial
integrity of the United States of America would be emperiled by Wesley
Clark's public testimony? It is unkown whether they did or not, because
the application made by the US government to require these
conditions--without which conditions they would not permit Wesley Clark
to testify at all-- was confidential. The hearing was confidential. And
the confidential decision setting out these conditions--released to the
public over two weeks after being handed down--fails to offer any
indication of which "national interests" were invoked by the United
States government to justify such sweeping measures of secrecy.
The Johannesburg Principles also set out what would not constitute a
legitimate restriction to a public trial on the basis of national
security:
"In particular, a restriction sought to be justified on the ground of
national security is not legitimate if its genuine purpose or
demonstrable effect is to protect interests unrelated to national
security, including, for example, to protect a government from
embarrassment or exposure of wrongdoing, or to conceal information
about the functioning of its public institutions, or to entrench a
particular ideology, or to suppress industrial unrest."[27]
Clearly, the fact that the ICTY would accept the imposition by the US
of conditions which egregiously violate one of the most fundamental
principles of international law--public trials-- without a public case
ever having being made to justify such an unprecedented restriction,
should thoroughly dispell any myths about the fairness of these
proceedings.
Consider, in addition, that Wesley Clark is very much a public figure,
he is running for President of the United States, and accordingly, his
testimony should be subject to public scrutiny. And note that General
Clark, retired, testifies against Slobodan Milosevic in interviews
almost every day-- and frequently engages in derisive imitations of him
which mock his Slavic-accented English[28]. Could it be that the ICTY
is protecting the US "national interest" in the public and media by not
hearing Slobodan Milosevic effectively cross-examine Wesley Clark?
The US governement has succeeded in insulating Clark's testimony from
public scrutiny in the name of "national interests". But why stop at
General Clark? And why would other NATO countries fail to seize this
opportunity to testify as accusers without having to bear the
consequences of a transparent process? This precedent will no doubt be
invoked to protect other American officials[29] from the strains of
public trials, and in turn, serve to further secure US impunity under
international law. US impunity is already well-established, considering
the American governement's refusal to submit to the jurisdiction of the
International Criminal Court for fear of "political prosecutions"[30].
Such a concern, when viewed in light of the massive US contribution to
both ad hoc Security Council tribunals, the ICTY and ICTR-- from which
one may presume that the US has culled evidence of unfounded,
politically-motivated prosecutions[31]--elevates disingenuity to
dizzying heights.
Conflict of interest?
The right to a fair and public trial is the right to a fair and public
trial before an independent and impartial tribunal. Every international
legal instrument recognizes this basic principle[32].
Wesley Clark will presumably be testifying about his role as NATO
Supreme Commander. The US is a NATO country--arguably the NATO country.
As Wesley Clark put it: "we're the leaders of NATO, we set up NATO,
it's our organization."[33] The ICTY is in a difficult position to act
as an independent judicial body, because NATO has stated that "it is
one" with the Tribunal. NATO spokesman Jamie Shea, on May 16th
1999, told the press that when "Justice Arbour starts her
investigation, she will because we allow her to. (…) NATO countries are
those who have provided the finance to set up the Tribunal, we are
amongst the majority financiers (…)so let me assure that we and the
Tribunal are all one on this, we want to see war criminals brought to
justice and I am certain that when Justice Arbour goes to Kosovo and
looks at the facts she will be indicting people of Yugoslav
nationality(…)"[34]
It is difficult to imagine a more damning admisssion. By stating that
its constituent countries are the Tribunal's major financiers, NATO is
in essence claiming to pay the salaries of the judges and prosecutor of
the ICTY. And that statement is somewhat inconsistent with the
requirements of institutional independence and impartiality for a
criminal trial. And when NATO's former Supreme Commander,-- a board
member of George Soros' International Crisis Group, alongside Canadian
Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour[35] -- is given an opportunity to
testify in the absence of the press because this is a condition imposed
by the United States -- any appearance of justice, beyond the cosmetic
trappings of judges' robes, and the ritual incantions "all rise" and
"be seated" (although who will be there to rise and be seated?) vanish
in a puff of smoke.
Tiphaine Dickson
© 2003
(Tiphaine Dickson criminal lawyer based Montréal. She acted as lead
defence counsel in one of the first ad hoc genocide prosecutions before
the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, in Arusha, Tanzania.)
[1]Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights states:
"In the determination of any criminal charge against him, or of his
rights and obligations in a suit at law, everyone shall be entitled to
a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial
tribunal established by law..."
Paragraph 106 of the Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to
Paragraph 2 of Security Council Resolution 808 (1993),(S/25704),
recognized the application of international legal safeguards to the
ICTY:
"It is axiomatic that the International Tribunal must fully respect
internationally recognized standards regarding the rights of the
accused at all stages of its proceedings. In the view of the
Secretary-General, such internationally recognized standards are, in
particular, contained in article 14 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights."
[2]United Nations Security Council Resolution 827 (1993).
[3]"Speaking during the debate on the resolution that committed the
U.N. Security Council to the creation of the ICTY, Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright asserted that "[t]his will be no victor's tribunal.
The only victor that will prevail in this endeavour is the truth.",
Remarks of ICTY President Theodor Meron, October 7th, 2003, before the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, (CSCE), Washington,
http://www.csce.gov/witness.cfm?briefing_id=269&testimony_id=437
[4]"The role of the Tribunal cannot be over emphasized. Far from being
a vehicle for revenge, it is a tool for promoting reconciliation and
restoring true peace." First Annual Report of the ICTY, (A/49/342 -
S/1994/1007) submitted by former ICTY President Judge Gabrielle Kirk
McDonald.
[5]"the Security Council stated in Resolution 808 (1993) that it was
convinced that in the particular circumstances of the former
Yugoslavia, the establishment of an international tribunal would bring
about the achievement of the aim of putting an end to such crimes and
of taking effective measures to bring to justice the persons
responsible for them, and would contribute to the restoration and
maintenance of peace." Paragraph 26 of the Report of the
Secretary-General Pursuant to Paragraph 2 of Security Council
Resolution 808 (1993), Presented 3 May 1993 (S/25704). Security Council
Resolution 827 adopted this reasoning as a justification to establish
the ICTY.
[6]Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, first President of the ICTY, made
this statement at an awards ceremony held at the U.S. Supreme Court
on April 5th, 1999: "[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.’" Quoted in
Prosecute NATO, George Szamuely, New York Press,
http://www.balkanpeace.org/library/fa_2000/jan/fa250100.html.
[7]See Online Newshour, June 10th 1999:
JIM LEHRER: Does it bother you when people called it Madeleine's war?
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I had... it had never occurred to me that
anybody would call a war after me, but it doesn't bother me at all that
people know that I believed, as did President Clinton, that this was a
situation that could not go on.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/jan-june99/albright_6-10.html
[8]"Decision on Prosecution's Application for a Witness Pursuant to
Rule 70 (B)", Prosecutor v. Milosevic, IT-02-54-T, 30 October 2003,
Confidential, released November 16th, 2003.
[9]As military aide to Richard Holbrooke during the 1995 Dayton Peace
Accords, as Director for Strategic Plans and Policy within the Joint
Chiefs of Staff from 1994 to 1997, and as Supreme Allied Commander of
NATO from 1997 to 2000.
[10]Brendan O'Neill, "How We Trained Al-Qa'eda", The Spectator,
November 22nd, 2003,
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?2003-09-13&id=3499#articletop.
[11]Id., Craig Pyesjosh Meyer and William C. Rempe, "Terrorists Use
Bosnia as Base and Sanctuary", Los Angeles Times, October 7, 2001;
Michel Chossudovsky, "Regime Rotation in America: Wesley Clark, Osama
bin Laden and the 2004 Presidential Elections", Center for Research on
Globalization, October 22nd, 2003,
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO310B.html.
[12] Cliff Kincaid, "Wesley Clark's Ties To Muslim Terrorists",
Accuracy in Media, September 17, 2003; Brendan O'Neill, "How We Trained
Al-Qa'eda", The Spectator, November 22nd, 2003,
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?2003-09-13&id=3499#articletop;
Craig Pyesjosh Meyer and William C. Rempe, "Terrorists Use Bosnia as
Base and Sanctuary", Los Angeles Times, October 7, 2001; Michel
Chossudovsky, "Regime Rotation in America: Wesley Clark, Osama bin
Laden and the 2004 Presidential Elections", Center for Research on
Globalization, October 22nd, 2003,
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO310B.html; Nikolaos Stavrou,
"Balkan Branches of the Terror Network?", Washington Times, October 21,
2001; George Szamuely, "Home-Grown Terrorism", New York Press, December
28, 1999.
[13]Amnesty International, Fair Trials Manual,
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/fairtrial/indxftm_b.htm#14
[14]Although the ICTY's Statute provides that the Tribunal is to be
financed by the regular budget of the UN, which constitutes a safeguard
against the violation of judicial independence, the Tribunal has
received donations from governments, including the US, as well as
private foundations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation. See paragraph
16 of the First Annual Report by the President of the ICTY,
http://www.un.org/icty/rappannu-e/1994/index.htm. The ICTY has also
received donations from George Soros as well as corporations. Of
interest is the "private" financing of exhumations, for the Office of
the Prosecutor: " Funding for mass grave exhumations in the former
Yugoslavia is not part of the Tribunal's regular budget but comes
primarily from PHR (Physicians for Human Rights-ed.). That organisation
acts as a conduit for funding from IGOs and NGOs to the Tribunals for
the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. To date, a number of foundations,
including the US-based John Merck, Rockefeller and Soros (Open Society
Institute) Foundations, and the Dutch organisation Novib, have made
donations of cash, equipment and personnel." See
http://www.un.org/icty/BL/08art1e.htm.
[15]"Meet the Press", November 16th, 2003,
http://www.msnbc.com/news/994273.asp; Peter J. Boyer, "General Clark's
Battles", The New Yorker, November 17th, 2003.
[16]Reporters sans frontières, November 2000 Report, "Serbian
Broadcasting: Chronicle of Martyrdom Foretold",
http://www.rsf.org/rsf/uk/html/europe/rapport/serbie_rts.html. Both
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have concluded that the
bombing of RTS-- which killed 16 people-- was carried out in violation
of international law, id.
[17]Robert Fisk, "Taken In By the NATO Line," The Independent, July 2,
1999.
[18]"NATO used speeded-up film to excuse civilian deaths in Kosovo:
newspaper", AFP, January 6, 2001: " (…) US General Wesley Clark,
shortly afterwards showed two videotapes of the train appearing to be
traveling fast on the bridge, and said it had then been impossible to
alter the missiles' trajectories. The Frankfurt newspaper said the two
videotapes were both shown at three times normal speed. A spokesman for
NATO'S military command in Mons, Belgium, acknowledged in a telephone
interview with AFP that those images had been altered by "a technical
problem." The footage, recorded by a camera installed in the warhead of
one of the missiles that destroyed the bridge and train were altered
during the process of being copied for screening, said the spokesman.
He said NATO was aware of the problem since last October but did not
consider it "useful" to disclose it."
[19]"About five in the morning, I had another call that said, "Whoops.
It looks like the embassy was moved." Interview, General Wesley Clark,
Frontline, PBS,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kosovo/interviews/
clark.html
[20]ICTY Decision, supra.
[21]Id.
[22]ICTY Statute, Article 20, paragraph 1.
[23]Id., paragraph 4.
[24]Rules 70 and 79 of the ICTY Rules of Procedure and Evidence
exhaustively set out permissible exceptions to the requirement of
public hearings.
[25]The President of the ICTY, Judge Theodor Meron, stated the
following, last October 7th, before the Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in Washington: "As you know, the United
States took a leading role in the creation of the ICTY and remains a
staunch supporter. The U.S.'s financial contribution accounts for
approximately a quarter of the Tribunal's annual budget of
approximately $ 120 million."
http://www.csce.gov/witness.cfm?briefing_id=269&testimony_id=437
[26]http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/excep/johannesburg.html
[27]Johannesburg Principles, Principle 2 (B).
[28]N.R. Kleinfield, "General Clark on the Hustings: Complexity and
Contradiction", New York Times, November 23rd, 2003,
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/politics/campaigns/23CLAR.html; Seth
Rogovoy, "A General for President?", September 13th, 2003, The Atlantic
Monthly, Tom Junod, "The General", August 2003, Esquire.
[29] Christopher Marquis, "US Seeks Safeguards on Diplomats Testifying
at Milosevic Trial", New York Times, June 13th, 2002 Global Policy
Forum- International
Justice,http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/tribunals/2002/
0613mil.htm
[30] US Department of State, International Information Programs, "U.S.
Restates Objections to International Criminal Court U.S. statement to
General Assembly Sixth Committee", October 14th, 2002:
"In a speech to the General Assembly's sixth committee, which deals
with legal matters, Nicholas Rostow explained the U.S. position on the
court. "The United States is concerned about the danger of politically
motivated prosecutions," Rostow said. "Examples of investigations or
prosecutions based on political agenda, not evidence and neutral
prosecutorial judgement abound. The structure of the ICC makes such
unacceptable proceedings possible."
http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/usandun/02101615.htm
[31]Id.
[32]Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 10; International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 14; European Convention
on Human Rights, Article 6; African Charter of Rights, Articles 7 (d)
and 26; American Convention, Article 8(1); Basic Principles on the
Independence of the Judiciary. According to the UN Human Rights
Committee, the right to be tried before an independent tribunal "is an
absolute right that may suffer no exception": González del Río v. Peru,
(263/1987), 28 October 1992, Report of the HRC, vol. II, (A/48/40),
1993, paragraph 20.
[33]June 20, 2001, Uncommon Knowledge, Transcript 606: Waging Modern
War, www.uncoommonknowledge.org/01-02/606.html
[34]Press Conference, 16 May 1999.
www.nato.int/kosovo/press/p990516b.htm
[35]http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/home/index.cfm?id=1139&l=1
---
The Hague, 15 September 2003
8:00 a.m. Demonstrations in front of the Tribunal
9:00 a.m. ICDSM Press Conference at Bel Air Hotel
ICDSM lawyer Tiphaine Dickson will give a statement
and answer questions of the press
---
SLOBODA urgently needs your donation.
Please find the detailed instructions at:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/pomoc.htm
To join or help this struggle, visit:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/ (Sloboda/Freedom association)
http://www.icdsm.org/ (the international committee to defend Slobodan
Milosevic)
http://www.free-slobo.de/ (German section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsm-us.org/ (US section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsmireland.org/ (ICDSM Ireland)
http://www.wpc-in.org/ (world peace council)
http://www.geocities.com/b_antinato/ (Balkan antiNATO center)
==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
email: icdsm-italia@...
Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC
Data: Lun 15 Dic 2003 14:21:46 Europe/Rome
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Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] Political Trial, Political Testimony, Political
Pressure
The Deposition Will not be Televised:
Wesley Clark's Testimony in the Milosevic Trial
The right to a fair and public trial, the cornerstone of criminal
justice, has been under attack since September 11th, 2001. The protean
war on terrorism has led to a growing culture of judicial opacity and
has had the effect of increasing the public's tolerance of closed
proceedings, in the name of State security and national interests.
Yet not only in the US-- or at Guantanamo Bay-- have the courthouse
doors been slamming shut, and the workings of justice shielded from
public view. At the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY), the public and the media are often invited to step
out of the public gallery for confidential portions of proceedings. The
defendant's right to a public trial[1]-- and the public's right to
measure whether justice is truly carried out independently and
impartially-- is infringed upon by security considerations with
alarming frequency, particularly in the case of Slobodan Milosevic. To
exclude the public from even a fraction of such a historically
important trial, before a Tribunal created by the Security Council of
the United Nations[2]-- ostensibly to establish truth[3],
reconciliation[4] and peace[5]-- would seem to defeat the purpose. How
can a UN body disregard UN human rights instruments and General
Assembly resolutions which elevate the right to a public trial to the
gold standard in the protection of human rights? The fact that the ICTY
was created for political considerations provides some insight into the
question. Madeleine Albright was described as "the mother of the
Tribunal" by its past President[6], and Madam Secretary also lent her
name to the so-called "humanitarian" war in Kosovo[7].
Political Trial, Political Testimony, Political Pressure
Any doubt as to the political nature of the ICTY has been put to rest
following the imposition by the US government of bafflingly stringent
conditions for the upcoming testimony, on December 15th and 16th, of US
presidential candidate Wesley Clark for the Prosecution in the
Milosevic case[8]. The American government has succeeded in requiring
that General Clark's testimony be held in the absence of the public or
press, and has obtained the right to delay the transmission of the
testimony for 48 hours, in what the ICTY had called a "temporary closed
session." The delayed transmission is designed to permit the US
government to "review the transcript and make representations as to
whether evidence given in open session (sic) should be redacted in
order to protect the national interests of the US". This process will
engender a further delay, as the Chamber considers US requests for
censorship of the public record, in keeping with the legally nebulous
concept of US "national interests".
But what could General Clark have to tell the Security Council
Tribunal that he hasn't said in an interview, written in an op-ed, or
detailed in one of his two self-congratulatory tomes on the art of war?
More importantly, what could he possibly say against the interests of
President Slobodan Milosevic that would require the imposition by the
US of stringent conditions to protect its "legitimate national
interests"?
Could it be that Wesley Clark is a vulnerable witness? In the context
of the ongoing-- and apparently endless-- "war on terrorism", might the
US government wish to prevent questions being asked about General
Clark's role[9]-- and that of his government[10]-- in providing
military, financial and political support to the KLA[11], whose
well-documented links to Al-Qaeda[12] now threaten to throw intolerable
light on the effects of US foreign policy in the Balkans?
The ICTY has already agreed that seven paragraphs of Clark's full
statement will be placed under seal, inaccessible to the public. The US
government, which has obtained the right to have two representatives
present in the courtroom for General Clark's testimony--in contrast to
the public, who are entitled to no representative whatsoever-- may
request that further evidence be given in private session.
Public Trial?
In other words, while Wesley Clark--a public figure, US presidential
candidate and former Supreme Commander of NATO during its bombing of
Yugoslavia-- testifies at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic--the trial of
the century-- the public and media will be shut out. For 48 hours, the
public will wait for the US government to decide what it believes the
media can be trusted to report, and what must be cut from the public
record, in the name of "national interests". During the invasion of
Iraq, embedded journalists obtained information in a timelier manner.
And upon what basis will the Chamber decide whether or not to grant US
requests to cut evidence from the public record? Isn't the concept of
"national interest" a somewhat subjective, political notion, making the
adjudication of its content and applicability next to impossible? A
foreign government-- the sole superpower-- imposes conditions on the
testimony of a retired general and presidential candidate against the
former president of the nation bombed under the orders of the witness.
The conditions of the testimony violate internationally recognized
rights to public trials. The conditions violate the rights of the
accused, the media, and the public. That a court of law -- much less an
international tribunal purportedly designed to uphold human rights and
bring an end to the culture of impunity-- would accept such outrageous
conditions is unthinkable, unless this is a political, rather than
judicial process.
The public nature of the judicial process is vital to any democracy:
public access to open justice ensures fair trials. Only if justice is
accessible can the people form an opinion as to whether trials conform
to national and international standards[13]. Public access to criminal
proceedings protects defendants from malicious, abusive, or political
prosecutions, carried out in secret, far from public scrutiny. In the
context of the Milosevic trial, these considerations apply with greater
urgency still, given the political nature of the Tribunal, the
proceedings, as well as the financial and institutional support
received by the ICTY from certain governments and individuals[14],
whose preoccupations and interests are at odds with the requirements of
justice as envisaged by international and domestic standards.
"National interests" trump cross-examination
Slobodan Milosevic's right to cross-examine Wesley Clark has also been
severely curtailed-- contrary to the rights set out by the ICTY's Rules
of Procedure and recognized in all adversarial systems of law. He will
not be entitled to question General Clark on matters of credibility, an
outrageous restriction in light of the fact that Clark, a US
presidential candidate, has recently acknowledged that the 78-day
bombing campaign against Yugoslavia by NATO-- a campaign for which he
was directly responsible-- was carried out in "technical" violation of
international law[15].
Questions of credibility inevitably arise with respect to a witness
testifying about Mr. Milosevic's intent and good faith as a negotiator.
In such a case, the defence would be entitled to question the sincerity
of the witness, one who ordered the bombing of the RTS television
studios in Belgrade[16], just as a link-up was being established for an
interview with Larry King on CNN[17]. One could ask about the bombing
of a passenger train, and in particular, about the less than forthright
justification provided by the witness, publicly, for that incident of
"collateral damage"[18]. In particular, Clark could be asked why he
stated to the press that the train’s speed was such that the missiles’
trajectories could not be altered, using altered videotape
footage—shown at three times the normal speed—to support his
justification for these civilian deaths. General Clark's incredible
explanations for the bombing of the Chinese embassy— one of which
was : « I had another call that said, "Whoops. It looks like the
embassy was moved »[19] would also constitute appropriate lines of
cross-examination.
It is presently unknown to the public if Clark will even be questioned
with respect to the bombing campaign. If his statement does not cover
NATO's attack on Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic will not be entitled to
raise it at all, as the conditions obtained by the US government limit
questions asked to the content of Clark's statement[20]. The ICTY has
allowed Mr Milosevic to "seek to have the scope of examination expanded
by prior agreement of the US government"[21]. This delegation of
judicial authority by the Trial Chamber to the US government would be
comical if it were not such a striking manifestation of this
institution's incapacity to act judicially. Why can't President
Milosevic apply to the judges to request a wider scope of
cross-examination? When did the US government replace the judges on the
bench? No legal explanation or authority is provided by the ICTY's
decision to justify such an incredible measure. It is simply an
admission that this institution cannot adjudicate the facts or apply
the law with the independence and impartiality required by
international legal authority as well as its own statute, which
provides that "The Trial Chambers shall ensure that a trial is fair and
expeditious and that proceedings are conducted in accordance with the
rules of procedure and evidence, with full respect for the rights of
the accused and due regard for the protection of victims and
witnesses"[22].
The Rules of the ICTY also set out that "all proceedings before a Trial
Chamber, other than deliberations of the Chamber, shall be held in
public, unless otherwise provided."[23] Exceptions to this rule do not
include the imposition, by a foreign government, of closed sessions and
censorship of the public record, based on "national interests"[24],
even when that foreign governement is an indispensable financial
contributor to the Tribunal.[25]
"National interests"
What are "national interests", anyway? One could be forgiven for
concluding that they could mean anything. The law is silent as to the
definition of this notion. The concept of "national security" however,
has been studied and defined as a legal concept. In particular, the
question of whether and when the public can be deprived of access to
information in the name of national security was the object of an
important international legal conference held in Johannesburg in 1995,
at which the "Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of
Expression and Access to Information", were adopted. The meeting was
convened by Article 19, the International Centre Against Censorship,
and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies of the University of
Witwatersrand, South Africa[26].
A restriction to open justice, on the ground of "national
security"--and not "national interest"-- a concept which would appear
to protect less urgent concerns--is not, according to Principle 2 of
the Johannesburg Principles "legitimate unless its genuine purpose and
demonstrable effect is to protect a country's existence or its
territorial integrity against the use or threat of force, or its
capacity to respond to the threat or use of force, whether from an
external source, such as a military threat, or an internal source, such
as incitement to overthrow the government."
Did the US government argue that the very existence or territorial
integrity of the United States of America would be emperiled by Wesley
Clark's public testimony? It is unkown whether they did or not, because
the application made by the US government to require these
conditions--without which conditions they would not permit Wesley Clark
to testify at all-- was confidential. The hearing was confidential. And
the confidential decision setting out these conditions--released to the
public over two weeks after being handed down--fails to offer any
indication of which "national interests" were invoked by the United
States government to justify such sweeping measures of secrecy.
The Johannesburg Principles also set out what would not constitute a
legitimate restriction to a public trial on the basis of national
security:
"In particular, a restriction sought to be justified on the ground of
national security is not legitimate if its genuine purpose or
demonstrable effect is to protect interests unrelated to national
security, including, for example, to protect a government from
embarrassment or exposure of wrongdoing, or to conceal information
about the functioning of its public institutions, or to entrench a
particular ideology, or to suppress industrial unrest."[27]
Clearly, the fact that the ICTY would accept the imposition by the US
of conditions which egregiously violate one of the most fundamental
principles of international law--public trials-- without a public case
ever having being made to justify such an unprecedented restriction,
should thoroughly dispell any myths about the fairness of these
proceedings.
Consider, in addition, that Wesley Clark is very much a public figure,
he is running for President of the United States, and accordingly, his
testimony should be subject to public scrutiny. And note that General
Clark, retired, testifies against Slobodan Milosevic in interviews
almost every day-- and frequently engages in derisive imitations of him
which mock his Slavic-accented English[28]. Could it be that the ICTY
is protecting the US "national interest" in the public and media by not
hearing Slobodan Milosevic effectively cross-examine Wesley Clark?
The US governement has succeeded in insulating Clark's testimony from
public scrutiny in the name of "national interests". But why stop at
General Clark? And why would other NATO countries fail to seize this
opportunity to testify as accusers without having to bear the
consequences of a transparent process? This precedent will no doubt be
invoked to protect other American officials[29] from the strains of
public trials, and in turn, serve to further secure US impunity under
international law. US impunity is already well-established, considering
the American governement's refusal to submit to the jurisdiction of the
International Criminal Court for fear of "political prosecutions"[30].
Such a concern, when viewed in light of the massive US contribution to
both ad hoc Security Council tribunals, the ICTY and ICTR-- from which
one may presume that the US has culled evidence of unfounded,
politically-motivated prosecutions[31]--elevates disingenuity to
dizzying heights.
Conflict of interest?
The right to a fair and public trial is the right to a fair and public
trial before an independent and impartial tribunal. Every international
legal instrument recognizes this basic principle[32].
Wesley Clark will presumably be testifying about his role as NATO
Supreme Commander. The US is a NATO country--arguably the NATO country.
As Wesley Clark put it: "we're the leaders of NATO, we set up NATO,
it's our organization."[33] The ICTY is in a difficult position to act
as an independent judicial body, because NATO has stated that "it is
one" with the Tribunal. NATO spokesman Jamie Shea, on May 16th
1999, told the press that when "Justice Arbour starts her
investigation, she will because we allow her to. (…) NATO countries are
those who have provided the finance to set up the Tribunal, we are
amongst the majority financiers (…)so let me assure that we and the
Tribunal are all one on this, we want to see war criminals brought to
justice and I am certain that when Justice Arbour goes to Kosovo and
looks at the facts she will be indicting people of Yugoslav
nationality(…)"[34]
It is difficult to imagine a more damning admisssion. By stating that
its constituent countries are the Tribunal's major financiers, NATO is
in essence claiming to pay the salaries of the judges and prosecutor of
the ICTY. And that statement is somewhat inconsistent with the
requirements of institutional independence and impartiality for a
criminal trial. And when NATO's former Supreme Commander,-- a board
member of George Soros' International Crisis Group, alongside Canadian
Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour[35] -- is given an opportunity to
testify in the absence of the press because this is a condition imposed
by the United States -- any appearance of justice, beyond the cosmetic
trappings of judges' robes, and the ritual incantions "all rise" and
"be seated" (although who will be there to rise and be seated?) vanish
in a puff of smoke.
Tiphaine Dickson
© 2003
(Tiphaine Dickson criminal lawyer based Montréal. She acted as lead
defence counsel in one of the first ad hoc genocide prosecutions before
the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, in Arusha, Tanzania.)
[1]Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights states:
"In the determination of any criminal charge against him, or of his
rights and obligations in a suit at law, everyone shall be entitled to
a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial
tribunal established by law..."
Paragraph 106 of the Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to
Paragraph 2 of Security Council Resolution 808 (1993),(S/25704),
recognized the application of international legal safeguards to the
ICTY:
"It is axiomatic that the International Tribunal must fully respect
internationally recognized standards regarding the rights of the
accused at all stages of its proceedings. In the view of the
Secretary-General, such internationally recognized standards are, in
particular, contained in article 14 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights."
[2]United Nations Security Council Resolution 827 (1993).
[3]"Speaking during the debate on the resolution that committed the
U.N. Security Council to the creation of the ICTY, Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright asserted that "[t]his will be no victor's tribunal.
The only victor that will prevail in this endeavour is the truth.",
Remarks of ICTY President Theodor Meron, October 7th, 2003, before the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, (CSCE), Washington,
http://www.csce.gov/witness.cfm?briefing_id=269&testimony_id=437
[4]"The role of the Tribunal cannot be over emphasized. Far from being
a vehicle for revenge, it is a tool for promoting reconciliation and
restoring true peace." First Annual Report of the ICTY, (A/49/342 -
S/1994/1007) submitted by former ICTY President Judge Gabrielle Kirk
McDonald.
[5]"the Security Council stated in Resolution 808 (1993) that it was
convinced that in the particular circumstances of the former
Yugoslavia, the establishment of an international tribunal would bring
about the achievement of the aim of putting an end to such crimes and
of taking effective measures to bring to justice the persons
responsible for them, and would contribute to the restoration and
maintenance of peace." Paragraph 26 of the Report of the
Secretary-General Pursuant to Paragraph 2 of Security Council
Resolution 808 (1993), Presented 3 May 1993 (S/25704). Security Council
Resolution 827 adopted this reasoning as a justification to establish
the ICTY.
[6]Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, first President of the ICTY, made
this statement at an awards ceremony held at the U.S. Supreme Court
on April 5th, 1999: "[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.’" Quoted in
Prosecute NATO, George Szamuely, New York Press,
http://www.balkanpeace.org/library/fa_2000/jan/fa250100.html.
[7]See Online Newshour, June 10th 1999:
JIM LEHRER: Does it bother you when people called it Madeleine's war?
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I had... it had never occurred to me that
anybody would call a war after me, but it doesn't bother me at all that
people know that I believed, as did President Clinton, that this was a
situation that could not go on.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/jan-june99/albright_6-10.html
[8]"Decision on Prosecution's Application for a Witness Pursuant to
Rule 70 (B)", Prosecutor v. Milosevic, IT-02-54-T, 30 October 2003,
Confidential, released November 16th, 2003.
[9]As military aide to Richard Holbrooke during the 1995 Dayton Peace
Accords, as Director for Strategic Plans and Policy within the Joint
Chiefs of Staff from 1994 to 1997, and as Supreme Allied Commander of
NATO from 1997 to 2000.
[10]Brendan O'Neill, "How We Trained Al-Qa'eda", The Spectator,
November 22nd, 2003,
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?2003-09-13&id=3499#articletop.
[11]Id., Craig Pyesjosh Meyer and William C. Rempe, "Terrorists Use
Bosnia as Base and Sanctuary", Los Angeles Times, October 7, 2001;
Michel Chossudovsky, "Regime Rotation in America: Wesley Clark, Osama
bin Laden and the 2004 Presidential Elections", Center for Research on
Globalization, October 22nd, 2003,
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO310B.html.
[12] Cliff Kincaid, "Wesley Clark's Ties To Muslim Terrorists",
Accuracy in Media, September 17, 2003; Brendan O'Neill, "How We Trained
Al-Qa'eda", The Spectator, November 22nd, 2003,
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?2003-09-13&id=3499#articletop;
Craig Pyesjosh Meyer and William C. Rempe, "Terrorists Use Bosnia as
Base and Sanctuary", Los Angeles Times, October 7, 2001; Michel
Chossudovsky, "Regime Rotation in America: Wesley Clark, Osama bin
Laden and the 2004 Presidential Elections", Center for Research on
Globalization, October 22nd, 2003,
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO310B.html; Nikolaos Stavrou,
"Balkan Branches of the Terror Network?", Washington Times, October 21,
2001; George Szamuely, "Home-Grown Terrorism", New York Press, December
28, 1999.
[13]Amnesty International, Fair Trials Manual,
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/fairtrial/indxftm_b.htm#14
[14]Although the ICTY's Statute provides that the Tribunal is to be
financed by the regular budget of the UN, which constitutes a safeguard
against the violation of judicial independence, the Tribunal has
received donations from governments, including the US, as well as
private foundations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation. See paragraph
16 of the First Annual Report by the President of the ICTY,
http://www.un.org/icty/rappannu-e/1994/index.htm. The ICTY has also
received donations from George Soros as well as corporations. Of
interest is the "private" financing of exhumations, for the Office of
the Prosecutor: " Funding for mass grave exhumations in the former
Yugoslavia is not part of the Tribunal's regular budget but comes
primarily from PHR (Physicians for Human Rights-ed.). That organisation
acts as a conduit for funding from IGOs and NGOs to the Tribunals for
the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. To date, a number of foundations,
including the US-based John Merck, Rockefeller and Soros (Open Society
Institute) Foundations, and the Dutch organisation Novib, have made
donations of cash, equipment and personnel." See
http://www.un.org/icty/BL/08art1e.htm.
[15]"Meet the Press", November 16th, 2003,
http://www.msnbc.com/news/994273.asp; Peter J. Boyer, "General Clark's
Battles", The New Yorker, November 17th, 2003.
[16]Reporters sans frontières, November 2000 Report, "Serbian
Broadcasting: Chronicle of Martyrdom Foretold",
http://www.rsf.org/rsf/uk/html/europe/rapport/serbie_rts.html. Both
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have concluded that the
bombing of RTS-- which killed 16 people-- was carried out in violation
of international law, id.
[17]Robert Fisk, "Taken In By the NATO Line," The Independent, July 2,
1999.
[18]"NATO used speeded-up film to excuse civilian deaths in Kosovo:
newspaper", AFP, January 6, 2001: " (…) US General Wesley Clark,
shortly afterwards showed two videotapes of the train appearing to be
traveling fast on the bridge, and said it had then been impossible to
alter the missiles' trajectories. The Frankfurt newspaper said the two
videotapes were both shown at three times normal speed. A spokesman for
NATO'S military command in Mons, Belgium, acknowledged in a telephone
interview with AFP that those images had been altered by "a technical
problem." The footage, recorded by a camera installed in the warhead of
one of the missiles that destroyed the bridge and train were altered
during the process of being copied for screening, said the spokesman.
He said NATO was aware of the problem since last October but did not
consider it "useful" to disclose it."
[19]"About five in the morning, I had another call that said, "Whoops.
It looks like the embassy was moved." Interview, General Wesley Clark,
Frontline, PBS,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kosovo/interviews/
clark.html
[20]ICTY Decision, supra.
[21]Id.
[22]ICTY Statute, Article 20, paragraph 1.
[23]Id., paragraph 4.
[24]Rules 70 and 79 of the ICTY Rules of Procedure and Evidence
exhaustively set out permissible exceptions to the requirement of
public hearings.
[25]The President of the ICTY, Judge Theodor Meron, stated the
following, last October 7th, before the Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in Washington: "As you know, the United
States took a leading role in the creation of the ICTY and remains a
staunch supporter. The U.S.'s financial contribution accounts for
approximately a quarter of the Tribunal's annual budget of
approximately $ 120 million."
http://www.csce.gov/witness.cfm?briefing_id=269&testimony_id=437
[26]http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/excep/johannesburg.html
[27]Johannesburg Principles, Principle 2 (B).
[28]N.R. Kleinfield, "General Clark on the Hustings: Complexity and
Contradiction", New York Times, November 23rd, 2003,
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/politics/campaigns/23CLAR.html; Seth
Rogovoy, "A General for President?", September 13th, 2003, The Atlantic
Monthly, Tom Junod, "The General", August 2003, Esquire.
[29] Christopher Marquis, "US Seeks Safeguards on Diplomats Testifying
at Milosevic Trial", New York Times, June 13th, 2002 Global Policy
Forum- International
Justice,http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/tribunals/2002/
0613mil.htm
[30] US Department of State, International Information Programs, "U.S.
Restates Objections to International Criminal Court U.S. statement to
General Assembly Sixth Committee", October 14th, 2002:
"In a speech to the General Assembly's sixth committee, which deals
with legal matters, Nicholas Rostow explained the U.S. position on the
court. "The United States is concerned about the danger of politically
motivated prosecutions," Rostow said. "Examples of investigations or
prosecutions based on political agenda, not evidence and neutral
prosecutorial judgement abound. The structure of the ICC makes such
unacceptable proceedings possible."
http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/usandun/02101615.htm
[31]Id.
[32]Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 10; International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 14; European Convention
on Human Rights, Article 6; African Charter of Rights, Articles 7 (d)
and 26; American Convention, Article 8(1); Basic Principles on the
Independence of the Judiciary. According to the UN Human Rights
Committee, the right to be tried before an independent tribunal "is an
absolute right that may suffer no exception": González del Río v. Peru,
(263/1987), 28 October 1992, Report of the HRC, vol. II, (A/48/40),
1993, paragraph 20.
[33]June 20, 2001, Uncommon Knowledge, Transcript 606: Waging Modern
War, www.uncoommonknowledge.org/01-02/606.html
[34]Press Conference, 16 May 1999.
www.nato.int/kosovo/press/p990516b.htm
[35]http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/home/index.cfm?id=1139&l=1
---
The Hague, 15 September 2003
8:00 a.m. Demonstrations in front of the Tribunal
9:00 a.m. ICDSM Press Conference at Bel Air Hotel
ICDSM lawyer Tiphaine Dickson will give a statement
and answer questions of the press
---
SLOBODA urgently needs your donation.
Please find the detailed instructions at:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/pomoc.htm
To join or help this struggle, visit:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/ (Sloboda/Freedom association)
http://www.icdsm.org/ (the international committee to defend Slobodan
Milosevic)
http://www.free-slobo.de/ (German section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsm-us.org/ (US section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsmireland.org/ (ICDSM Ireland)
http://www.wpc-in.org/ (world peace council)
http://www.geocities.com/b_antinato/ (Balkan antiNATO center)
==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
email: icdsm-italia@...
Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC
Da: ICDSM Italia
Data: Lun 15 Dic 2003 14:18:53 Europe/Rome
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Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] Un vero criminale di guerra all'Aia - come
testimone anziche' come accusato !!!
WESLEY CLARK: ex comandante della NATO, responsabile di centinaia morti
civili nella primavera 1999.
Un vero criminale di guerra e' oggi all'Aia - ma come testimone, per
una seduta SEGRETA del "Tribunale", anziche' come accusato. Vergogna!
Contemporaneamente, l'ex segretario della NATO Solana, corresponsabile
di quel crimine, si reca in visita di cortesia dalle sue vittime...
La seguente documentazione ci e' stata inviata da Vladimir Krsljanin
della associazione SLOBODA (Belgrado)
=========
The Hague, 15 September 2003
8:00 a.m. Demonstrations in front of the Tribunal
9:00 a.m. ICDSM Press Conference at Bel Air Hotel
ICDSM lawyer Tiphaine Dickson will give a statement
and answer questions of the press
=========
EU Official Announcement
Brussels, 12 December 2003
S0254/03
Javier SOLANA,
EU High Representative for the CFSP, will visit Skopje and Belgrade15
December 2003
Javier SOLANA, EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and
Security Policy, will visit Skopje and Belgrade on Monday, 15 December
2003.
In Skopje, Mr Solana will participate in the ceremony marking the
termination of the EU Military Operation CONCORDIA and the launch of
the EU Police Mission PROXIMA. The EU High Representative will also
meet with the President of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
MrBoris Trajkovski,and the Prime Minister, Mr Branko Crvenkovski.
Later on the same day, in Belgrade, Mr Solana will meet with the
President of Serbia and Montenegro, Mr Svetozar Marovic, the Serbian
Prime Minister, Mr Zoran Zivkovic, and Serbia and Montenegro's Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Mr Goran Svilanovic and Minister of Defence, Mr
Boris Tadic. The EU High Representative will also meet with other
members of the government of Serbia, as well as with leaders of the
political parties, ahead of the Parliamentary elections of 28 December.
---
Former NATO commander in Hague for testimony | 19:29 | B92 Reuters
==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
email: icdsm-italia@...
Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC
L'utilizzo, da parte tua, di Yahoo! Gruppi è soggetto alle
http://it.docs.yahoo.com/info/utos.html
Data: Lun 15 Dic 2003 14:18:53 Europe/Rome
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Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] Un vero criminale di guerra all'Aia - come
testimone anziche' come accusato !!!
WESLEY CLARK: ex comandante della NATO, responsabile di centinaia morti
civili nella primavera 1999.
Un vero criminale di guerra e' oggi all'Aia - ma come testimone, per
una seduta SEGRETA del "Tribunale", anziche' come accusato. Vergogna!
Contemporaneamente, l'ex segretario della NATO Solana, corresponsabile
di quel crimine, si reca in visita di cortesia dalle sue vittime...
La seguente documentazione ci e' stata inviata da Vladimir Krsljanin
della associazione SLOBODA (Belgrado)
=========
The Hague, 15 September 2003
8:00 a.m. Demonstrations in front of the Tribunal
9:00 a.m. ICDSM Press Conference at Bel Air Hotel
ICDSM lawyer Tiphaine Dickson will give a statement
and answer questions of the press
=========
EU Official Announcement
Brussels, 12 December 2003
S0254/03
Javier SOLANA,
EU High Representative for the CFSP, will visit Skopje and Belgrade15
December 2003
Javier SOLANA, EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and
Security Policy, will visit Skopje and Belgrade on Monday, 15 December
2003.
In Skopje, Mr Solana will participate in the ceremony marking the
termination of the EU Military Operation CONCORDIA and the launch of
the EU Police Mission PROXIMA. The EU High Representative will also
meet with the President of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
MrBoris Trajkovski,and the Prime Minister, Mr Branko Crvenkovski.
Later on the same day, in Belgrade, Mr Solana will meet with the
President of Serbia and Montenegro, Mr Svetozar Marovic, the Serbian
Prime Minister, Mr Zoran Zivkovic, and Serbia and Montenegro's Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Mr Goran Svilanovic and Minister of Defence, Mr
Boris Tadic. The EU High Representative will also meet with other
members of the government of Serbia, as well as with leaders of the
political parties, ahead of the Parliamentary elections of 28 December.
---
Former NATO commander in Hague for testimony | 19:29 | B92 Reuters
==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
email: icdsm-italia@...
Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC
L'utilizzo, da parte tua, di Yahoo! Gruppi è soggetto alle
http://it.docs.yahoo.com/info/utos.html
TIPICO ESEMPIO DI "FAIR TRIAL" PER GRANDI DITTATORI
ROMANIA: SPARITI DA ARCHIVI DOCUMENTI PROCESSO CEAUSESCU
(ANSA) - BUCAREST, 12 DIC - I documenti del processo all'ex dittatore
comunista Nicolae Ceausescu e di sua moglie Elena, fucilati durante la
rivoluzione del dicembre 1989, sono spariti dagli archivi del Tribunale
militare di Bucarest.
Lo hanno annunciato a Bucarest ufficiali del Tribunale militare della
capitale romena, i quali hanno informato che negli archivi sono
scomparse le due copie della sentenza definitiva e del verbale con il
quale si certificava che la sentenza era stata eseguita.
Il processo Ceausescu e' uno dei piu' controversi atti di giustizia
nella storia della Romania moderna. Negli ultimi anni, molti giudici
hanno rilevato numerose illegalita' commesse durante il processo. Fra
queste, il fatto che l'allora leader del Fronte della salvezza
nazionale (Fsn) e attuale presidente della Repubblica, Ion Iliescu, non
aveva il diritto di dare l'ordine della creazione del Tribunale
militare straordinario, davanti al quale si svolse poi il processo
contro la coppia Ceausescu. L'Fsn era la prima forza politica
democratica costituita sin dai primi giorni della rivoluzione
anti-comunista.
Il processo Ceausescu si svolse nella base dell'esercito di Targoviste
il 25 dicembre 1989. Il procuratore militare Dan Voinea aveva chiesto
al Tribunale militare straordinario di condannare l'ex dittatore e sua
moglie per genocidio. Tra le imputazioni figuravano accuse di aver
minato i poteri dello stato romeno con azioni armate contro i
manifestanti anticomunisti, di aver minato l'economia nazionale e di
aver cercato di lasciare il paese per entrare in possesso di un milione
di dollari depositato negli anni in varie banche estere.
Tutte le accuse erano scritte nella requisitoria finale, ma anche
questo documento e' sparito dagli archivi del Tribunale militare di
Bucarest. La condanna a morte fu pronunciata alla fine di un rapido
processo. I coniugi avrebbero potuto presentare ricorso contro la
sentenza tramite l'avvocato loro assegnato, Nichi Teodorescu, ma l'ex
dittatore - che non riconosceva la legalita' del Tribunale militare
straordinario e dell'intero processo - rifiuto' questa possibilita' e
la sentenza divenne percio' definitiva.
La condanna a morte fu eseguita subito e i due furono fucilati. Il
Tribunale militare di Bucarest ha rifiutato di dare alla stampa
particolari sulla scomparsa dei documenti, ma ha assicurato che i
documenti stessi saranno rifatti in base alle testimonianze dei giudici
presenti al processo. Il procuratore militare Vionea, pero' - che
rappresentava l'accusa nel processo Ceausescu - si suicido' nei primi
mesi del 1990. (ANSA). COR-RED
12/12/2003 15:45
ROMANIA: SPARITI DA ARCHIVI DOCUMENTI PROCESSO CEAUSESCU
(ANSA) - BUCAREST, 12 DIC - I documenti del processo all'ex dittatore
comunista Nicolae Ceausescu e di sua moglie Elena, fucilati durante la
rivoluzione del dicembre 1989, sono spariti dagli archivi del Tribunale
militare di Bucarest.
Lo hanno annunciato a Bucarest ufficiali del Tribunale militare della
capitale romena, i quali hanno informato che negli archivi sono
scomparse le due copie della sentenza definitiva e del verbale con il
quale si certificava che la sentenza era stata eseguita.
Il processo Ceausescu e' uno dei piu' controversi atti di giustizia
nella storia della Romania moderna. Negli ultimi anni, molti giudici
hanno rilevato numerose illegalita' commesse durante il processo. Fra
queste, il fatto che l'allora leader del Fronte della salvezza
nazionale (Fsn) e attuale presidente della Repubblica, Ion Iliescu, non
aveva il diritto di dare l'ordine della creazione del Tribunale
militare straordinario, davanti al quale si svolse poi il processo
contro la coppia Ceausescu. L'Fsn era la prima forza politica
democratica costituita sin dai primi giorni della rivoluzione
anti-comunista.
Il processo Ceausescu si svolse nella base dell'esercito di Targoviste
il 25 dicembre 1989. Il procuratore militare Dan Voinea aveva chiesto
al Tribunale militare straordinario di condannare l'ex dittatore e sua
moglie per genocidio. Tra le imputazioni figuravano accuse di aver
minato i poteri dello stato romeno con azioni armate contro i
manifestanti anticomunisti, di aver minato l'economia nazionale e di
aver cercato di lasciare il paese per entrare in possesso di un milione
di dollari depositato negli anni in varie banche estere.
Tutte le accuse erano scritte nella requisitoria finale, ma anche
questo documento e' sparito dagli archivi del Tribunale militare di
Bucarest. La condanna a morte fu pronunciata alla fine di un rapido
processo. I coniugi avrebbero potuto presentare ricorso contro la
sentenza tramite l'avvocato loro assegnato, Nichi Teodorescu, ma l'ex
dittatore - che non riconosceva la legalita' del Tribunale militare
straordinario e dell'intero processo - rifiuto' questa possibilita' e
la sentenza divenne percio' definitiva.
La condanna a morte fu eseguita subito e i due furono fucilati. Il
Tribunale militare di Bucarest ha rifiutato di dare alla stampa
particolari sulla scomparsa dei documenti, ma ha assicurato che i
documenti stessi saranno rifatti in base alle testimonianze dei giudici
presenti al processo. Il procuratore militare Vionea, pero' - che
rappresentava l'accusa nel processo Ceausescu - si suicido' nei primi
mesi del 1990. (ANSA). COR-RED
12/12/2003 15:45
QUANDO IL SERVILISMO NON PAGA:
LA SERBIAMONTENEGRO NON PARTECIPERA' ALLA SPARTIZIONE DELLE SPOGLIE
DELL'IRAQ.
B92 Focus, December 2003.
Serbia-Montenegro limited to subcontractor role in Iraq reconstruction
No contracts for Serbia-Montenegro in Iraq | December 12, 2003.
Serbia is out in the cold, along with Germany, France, Russia and
other countries which did not support the US war in Iraq. Despite the
assurances of Prime Minsiter Zoran Zivkovic that negotiations are under
way with one major contractor, there appears to be little hope of Serb
companies finding a share of the massive funds to be poured into Iraq's
reconstruction.
WASHINGTON, BELGRADE, December 11 – Serbia Montenegro is not on the US
list of countries whose companies are eligible for primary contracts in
Iraq reconstruction projects worth almost nineteen billion dollars.
Only countries which supported the US military intervention in Iraq are
eligible for contracts. This leaves Serbia-Montenegro out in the cold,
along with states such as Germany, France and Russia.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan today reacted sharply to the ban,
describing it as unfortunate and calling for the rebuilding of
international consensus.
“I would not characterise this decision as unifying,” he said.
At home, federal Defence Minister Boris Tadic has played down the
situation, saying that it was because Belgrade was not taking part in
peacekeeping missions.
“So those who call for us not to participate in peace operations often
don’t understand that this is sometimes a condition for being involved
in the economic reconstruction of a country and making money and
protecting your economic interests in those countries.
“This is why all European countries, virtually all of them, take part
in peace operations because they are fighting for their economic
interests. We have huge assets in Iraq, the country owes a lot,” said
Tadic.
Despite the limited list of those who can sign reconstruction
contracts, those primary contractors are free to subcontract in other
countries, including Serbia-Montenegro.
What negotiations?
Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic, after a meeting with US
Secretary of State Colin Powell in late July, said that he had received
support for Serbian companies to be involved in the reconstruction of
Iraq.
He told media at the time that negotiations were underway with the
Bechtel company which had a major reconstruction contract. Zivkovic
said that the Serbian negotiators had been welcomed and that a final
response was expected.
Asked today whether that response had yet arrived, the prime minister
refused to comment.
But Bechtel’s Iraq representative, Francis Canavan, said today that
there had been no negotiations.
“These were not negotiations about work, they were meetings to provide
information only on the process that we have in place to solicit bids
for contracts and to find subcontractors,” he told B92.
“No Serbian companies are registered in our database,” said Canavan.
Risky contracts
Local businessmen say there’s no rush for contracts, because it will be
another one or two years before the Iraqi market is sufficiently stable
for reconstruction to go into full swing.
One local economist, Milan Kovacevic, says that any effort put into
securing contracts in Iraq would be worthwhile.
“There will certainly be risky projects in Iraq, but this should not
discourage companies from attempts to approach the Iraqi market again,”
he said.
After a series of delays, the Pentagon is to publish the final call for
tenders for Iraq reconstruction jobs by December 19 and announce the
successful bids in early February.
There has already been severe criticism of the way in which the US
awards contracts in Iraq.
In October, US lobby group the Centre for Public Integrity claimed that
most of the companies which had so far won contracts had given more
money to George W. Bush’s election campaign than to any other campaign
in the previous ten years.
The centre’s report also drew attention to extensive links between the
companies and the US government and military.
It claimed that more than sixty per cent of them employed people who
had worked for previous US governments, members of Congress or the US
army.
In his introduction to the report, the director of the Centre for
Public Integrity, Charles Lewis, said that the contracting process in
Iraq and Afghanistan was surrounded by “a stench of political
favouritism and cronyism”.
LA SERBIAMONTENEGRO NON PARTECIPERA' ALLA SPARTIZIONE DELLE SPOGLIE
DELL'IRAQ.
B92 Focus, December 2003.
Serbia-Montenegro limited to subcontractor role in Iraq reconstruction
No contracts for Serbia-Montenegro in Iraq | December 12, 2003.
Serbia is out in the cold, along with Germany, France, Russia and
other countries which did not support the US war in Iraq. Despite the
assurances of Prime Minsiter Zoran Zivkovic that negotiations are under
way with one major contractor, there appears to be little hope of Serb
companies finding a share of the massive funds to be poured into Iraq's
reconstruction.
WASHINGTON, BELGRADE, December 11 – Serbia Montenegro is not on the US
list of countries whose companies are eligible for primary contracts in
Iraq reconstruction projects worth almost nineteen billion dollars.
Only countries which supported the US military intervention in Iraq are
eligible for contracts. This leaves Serbia-Montenegro out in the cold,
along with states such as Germany, France and Russia.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan today reacted sharply to the ban,
describing it as unfortunate and calling for the rebuilding of
international consensus.
“I would not characterise this decision as unifying,” he said.
At home, federal Defence Minister Boris Tadic has played down the
situation, saying that it was because Belgrade was not taking part in
peacekeeping missions.
“So those who call for us not to participate in peace operations often
don’t understand that this is sometimes a condition for being involved
in the economic reconstruction of a country and making money and
protecting your economic interests in those countries.
“This is why all European countries, virtually all of them, take part
in peace operations because they are fighting for their economic
interests. We have huge assets in Iraq, the country owes a lot,” said
Tadic.
Despite the limited list of those who can sign reconstruction
contracts, those primary contractors are free to subcontract in other
countries, including Serbia-Montenegro.
What negotiations?
Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic, after a meeting with US
Secretary of State Colin Powell in late July, said that he had received
support for Serbian companies to be involved in the reconstruction of
Iraq.
He told media at the time that negotiations were underway with the
Bechtel company which had a major reconstruction contract. Zivkovic
said that the Serbian negotiators had been welcomed and that a final
response was expected.
Asked today whether that response had yet arrived, the prime minister
refused to comment.
But Bechtel’s Iraq representative, Francis Canavan, said today that
there had been no negotiations.
“These were not negotiations about work, they were meetings to provide
information only on the process that we have in place to solicit bids
for contracts and to find subcontractors,” he told B92.
“No Serbian companies are registered in our database,” said Canavan.
Risky contracts
Local businessmen say there’s no rush for contracts, because it will be
another one or two years before the Iraqi market is sufficiently stable
for reconstruction to go into full swing.
One local economist, Milan Kovacevic, says that any effort put into
securing contracts in Iraq would be worthwhile.
“There will certainly be risky projects in Iraq, but this should not
discourage companies from attempts to approach the Iraqi market again,”
he said.
After a series of delays, the Pentagon is to publish the final call for
tenders for Iraq reconstruction jobs by December 19 and announce the
successful bids in early February.
There has already been severe criticism of the way in which the US
awards contracts in Iraq.
In October, US lobby group the Centre for Public Integrity claimed that
most of the companies which had so far won contracts had given more
money to George W. Bush’s election campaign than to any other campaign
in the previous ten years.
The centre’s report also drew attention to extensive links between the
companies and the US government and military.
It claimed that more than sixty per cent of them employed people who
had worked for previous US governments, members of Congress or the US
army.
In his introduction to the report, the director of the Centre for
Public Integrity, Charles Lewis, said that the contracting process in
Iraq and Afghanistan was surrounded by “a stench of political
favouritism and cronyism”.
http://www.forumcontrolaguerra.org/
Il testo dell’appello coi primi firmatari si trova sul sito :
www.forumcontrolaguerra.org
Per adesioni e comunicazioni : adesioni@...
(specificando di indicare la città, l'indirizzo email e la "qualifica")
Tutte le informazioni relative alle iniziative del Forum verranno rese
note sul sito e comunicate direttamente agli aderenti all’indirizzo di
posta elettronica che essi ci segnaleranno con la loro adesione.
---
Il primo incontro nazionale di tutti gli aderenti all’appello si terrà
domenica 11 gennaio 2004, dalle ore 11.00 alle 16.00, a Milano. Il
luogo verrà comunicato al più presto.
---
Forum contro la guerra
Ritirare i militari italiani dall’Iraq,
fermare la "guerra preventiva",
rimuovere le radici del sistema di guerra
Appello / base di discussione
1)La "guerra preventiva" condotta dagli Stati Uniti contro
l’Iraq (e ripetutamente minacciata contro altri Paesi), ha
dimostrato con evidenza crescente di avere alle spalle
interessi economici, geopolitici e strategici che
contrappongono la superpotenza americana e i suoi più stretti
alleati al resto del mondo, a gran parte dell'opinione pubblica
e a molte potenze fino a ieri "partner" nella NATO.
Il tentativo di riscrivere con la guerra la mappa del Medio
Oriente, la geografia del petrolio e l'insieme delle relazioni
internazionali, è un ricatto inaccettabile.
2)La società civile, nella quasi totalità dei Paesi del mondo,
ha detto chiaramente no alla logica della guerra preventiva e
permanente. Lo ha fatto, anche nel nostro Paese, riempiendo le
piazze, rispondendo no alla guerra - senza se e senza ma - in tutti i
sondaggi, corredando intere città con le bandiere della pace,
con la decisiva partecipazione dei lavoratori a questa lotta :
condizione imprescindibile per accrescerne la forza e
qualificarne i contenuti.
3)La concessione dell'uso delle basi militari USA e NATO, dei
corridoi di sorvolo, della rete di trasporto per le forze
armate statunitensi, è stata giustamente contestata sui binari,
nei porti, davanti alle basi militari e in Parlamento.
Se oltre l'80% degli italiani si è opposto alla guerra, questo
governo e questo parlamento non avevano e non hanno la
legittimità morale e politica per rendere l'Italia complice di
aggressioni militari contro altri Paesi.
La Costituzione (art.11), che va difesa con intransigenza,
"ripudia" sempre e comunque il ricorso alla guerra come mezzo
di risoluzione delle controversie internazionali. Altrettanto
recita la Carta delle Nazioni Unite e lo stesso principio dovrà
ispirare qualsiasi ipotesi di Costituzione europea.
4)Nascondersi dietro il rispetto degli impegni internazionali
dell'Italia non è credibile per nessun governo e nessuna
maggioranza parlamentare. E' l'intera struttura degli
automatismi, dei vincoli e dei condizionamenti alla nostra
sovranità connessi all'adesione alla NATO che va rivista
radicalmente. Non é più accettabile che un paese venga coinvolto
in una guerra sulla base di trattati siglati cinquanta anni fa e mai
verificati democraticamente.
Lo smantellamento delle basi militari che ospitano armi
nucleari, bombe, aviogetti statunitensi , deve costituire un
obiettivo prioritario della "politica" ed un significativo
passaggio di qualità dell'ampio e unitario movimento che si
oppone alla guerra in Italia, in Europa, nel mondo.
5)In una realtà internazionale in cui, dal Medio Oriente
all'Asia, dall’Africa all’America Latina, guerre e tensioni
sono tornate a dominare, si delinea il rischio di una nuova e
devastante corsa agli armamenti, foriera a sua volta di un
perverso mercato delle armi.
Le spese militari americane sono superiori di tre volte
rispetto a quelle di tutti i paesi dell’Unione europea messi
insieme. Sarebbe tragico se, per riequilibrare questa
differenza ed affermare la propria autonomia, l'Ue inseguisse
gli Stati Uniti sulla strada del riarmo e dell'aumento delle
spese militari.
Una nuova corsa agli armamenti non è la strada giusta per la
prospettiva di un mondo multipolare, non più dominato dalla
supremazia della superpotenza statunitense. Tale prospettiva va
perseguita con una linea di disarmo progressivo e bilanciato,
di riequilibrio al ribasso, che tuteli la sicurezza di ognuno e
punti a un Trattato internazionale per la effettiva messa al
bando di tutte le armi di sterminio, a partire da quelle
nucleari.
Questo può e deve diventare un obiettivo primario e permanente
del movimento mondiale per la pace, nella convergenza di
popoli, governi e confessioni religiose che comprendono la
quasi totalità del genere umano.
6)Dire con forza no alla guerra, "senza se e senza ma",
significa non solo tenere l'Italia fuori dalla guerra e le basi
militari USA e NATO fuori dall’Italia – a cominciare dal ritiro
dei militari italiani coinvolti in operazioni belliche .
Significa anche creare le condizioni per una trasformazione
democratica e sociale che, mettendo al bando la guerra, cominci
anche ad indicare una alternativa di società tesa ad impedire
che l’umanità sia nuovamente vittima delle guerre e della
competizione globale tra le maggiori potenze capitaliste.
A tal fine crediamo utile la costruzione di un Forum permanente
che, nell’ambito del più generale movimento unitario contro la
guerra - e nella solidarietà coi popoli minacciati dalla
crescente aggressività della politica statunitense -
contribuisca al confronto e all’iniziativa su queste
problematiche.
Primi firmatari
Piergiovanni ALLEVA (docente universitario, Consulta giuridica
CGIL); Antonio AMOROSO (coordinatore nazionale Cub-Trasporti);
Michele Anelli (gruppo musicale Groovers); Pietro ANTONINI (RdB
Trasporti); Marino BADIALE (matematico, Comitato scienziate/i
contro la guerra); Angelo BARACCA (docente universitario,
Comitato scienziate/i contro la guerra); Stefano BENNI
(scrittore); Vincenzo BRANDI (ricercatore ENEA); Pino CACUCCI
(scrittore); Nino CALOGERO ( segretario confederale della
Camera del Lavoro di Gioia Tauro); Luciano CANFORA (docente
universitario); Armando Casaroli (gruppo musicale Mirafiori Kids);
Antonio Catalfamo (scrittore); Andrea CATONE (presidente
Associazione Most za Beograd); Mariella CAU (coordinatrice
Comitato sardo "Gettiamo le basi"); padre Angelo CAVAGNA ( Presidente
GAVCI) ; Gianmario CAZZANIGA (docente universitario); Paolo
CENTO (deputato al Parlamento); Stefano CHIARINI (giornalista);
Nicola CIPOLLA (presidente CEPES Palermo); Roberto COCEVARI (presidente
Ass. Italia-Vietnam Milano); Luigi CORTESI (direttore di
"Giano"); Alessandro CURZI (direttore di "Liberazione");
Michele D’APUZZO (coordinatore nazionale Sulta); Ferruccio
Danini (direttivo nazionale CGIL); Raffaele DE GRADA (critico
d’arte); Vezio DE LUCIA (urbanista); Claudio DEL BELLO (docente
universitario, direttore edizioni Odradek); Tommaso DI
FRANCESCO (caposervizi esteri de "Il Manifesto"); Manlio
DINUCCI (giornalista); Valerio EVANGELISTI (scrittore); Paolo
fara (gruppo musicale Mirafiori Kids); Massimiliano Ferraro
(gruppo musicale Groovers); Roberto FORESTI (presidente Ass.
Italia-Cuba); Fabio FRATI (coordinatore nazionale Sulta); don
Andrea GALLO (sacerdote); Mario GEYMONAT (docente universitario);
Enrico GIARMOLEO ( RSU Fiom-Cgil Officine Meccaniche
calabresi); Roberto GIUDICI (responsabile esteri Fiom Milano);
Alfiero GRANDI (deputato, direttivo nazionale Ds); Dino GRECO
(segretario generale Camera del Lavoro Brescia); Fulvio
GRIMALDI (giornalista); Margherita HACK (scienziata -
astronoma); Raniero LA VALLE (giornalista); Giancarlo LannutTi
(giornalista); Pierpaolo LEONARDI (coordinatore nazionale Cub);
Domenico LOSURDO (docente universitario); Carlo LUCARELLI
(scrittore); Riccardo LUCCIO (docente universitario); Edoardo
MAGNONE (chimico, Comitato scienziate/i contro la guerra);
Lucio MANISCO (europarlamentare); Franco MARENCO (fisico);
Emilio MARTINES (Ricercatore CNR); Federico MARTINO (docente
universitario); Andrea MARTOCCHIA (astrofisico); Giorgio MELE (sinistra
Ds); Marco MEZZETTI ( gruppo musicale Ratoblanco); Fabio
MINAZZI (docente universitario); Adalberto MINUCCI (direttore
responsabile di "Avvenimenti"); Evasio Muraro (gruppo musicale
Groovers); Carlo MUSCETTA (critico letterario); Giorgio NEBBIA
(docente universitario); Nerio NESI (vice-presidente
Associazione "Socrate"); Raffaele NOGARO (vescovo di Caserta);
Diego NOVELLI (direttore editoriale di "Avvenimenti"); Gianni
PAGLIARINI ( Segretario nazionale FP- CGIL); Emidia PAPI
(coordinamento nazionale RdB); Vittorio PAROLA (direzione DS-
Socialismo 2000); Giovanni PESCE (medaglia d’oro Resistenza);
Luciano PETTINARI (direttivo nazionale Ds, Socialismo 2000);
Giuseppe PRESTIPINO (docente universitario); Domenico
PROVENZANO (coordinatore nazionale RdB Pubblico Impiego); Francesca
PUTINI (coordinatrice nazionale Cub-Trasporti); Massimo RAFFAELI
(critico letterario); Alessandra RICCIO (co-direttrice di
"LatinoAmerica"); Gianni RINALDINI (segretario generale Fiom); Rossano
ROSSI ( Segretario CGIL-Toscana); Mauro SALIZZONI (medico
chirurgo); Cesare SALVI (senatore, Socialismo 2000); Edoardo
SANGUINETTI (poeta); Enzo SANTARELLI (storico); Giuseppina
SANTORELLI (coordinatrice nazionale Cub-Trasporti); Gianni
Sappa (gruppo musicale Mirafiori Kids); Maurizio SCARPA
(segretario nazionale Filcams-Cgil); Flaviano Sciarpa (gruppo musicale
Mirafiori Kids); Sandro e Marino SEVERINI ( gruppo musicale
Gang); Vincenzo SINISCALCHI (coordinatore nazionale Sulta);
Andrea SPADONI (coordinatore nazionale Cub-Trasporti); Osvaldo
SQUASSINA ( Segretario generale FIOM Brescia); Giancarlo
STRAINI ( segretario nazionale FILCEA-CGIL); Pino TAGLIAZUCCHI
(direttore "Notizie internazionali" Fiom-Cgil); Sergio TANZARELLA
(docente universitario); Stefano TASSINARI (scrittore); Piergiorgio
TIBONI (coordinatore nazionale Cub); Fabrizio TOMASELLI
(coordinatore nazionale Sulta); Luciano VASAPOLLO (docente
universitario); Alex ZANOTELLI (Pax Christi); Maurizio ZIPPONI
(segretario generale Fiom-Cgil Milano); Massimo ZUCCHETTI (docente
universitario);
Il testo dell’appello coi primi firmatari si trova sul sito :
www.forumcontrolaguerra.org
Per adesioni e comunicazioni : adesioni@...
Tutte le informazioni relative alle iniziative del Forum
verranno rese note sul sito e comunicate direttamente agli
aderenti all’indirizzo di posta elettronica che essi ci
segnaleranno con la loro adesione. Si raccomanda pertanto la
massima precisione nella comunicazione del proprio recapito di
posta elettronica.
Il primo incontro nazionale di tutti gli aderenti all’appello
si terrà domenica 11 gennaio 2004, dalle ore 11.00 alle 16.00,
a Milano. Il luogo verrà comunicato al più presto.
Il testo dell’appello coi primi firmatari si trova sul sito :
www.forumcontrolaguerra.org
Per adesioni e comunicazioni : adesioni@...
(specificando di indicare la città, l'indirizzo email e la "qualifica")
Tutte le informazioni relative alle iniziative del Forum verranno rese
note sul sito e comunicate direttamente agli aderenti all’indirizzo di
posta elettronica che essi ci segnaleranno con la loro adesione.
---
Il primo incontro nazionale di tutti gli aderenti all’appello si terrà
domenica 11 gennaio 2004, dalle ore 11.00 alle 16.00, a Milano. Il
luogo verrà comunicato al più presto.
---
Forum contro la guerra
Ritirare i militari italiani dall’Iraq,
fermare la "guerra preventiva",
rimuovere le radici del sistema di guerra
Appello / base di discussione
1)La "guerra preventiva" condotta dagli Stati Uniti contro
l’Iraq (e ripetutamente minacciata contro altri Paesi), ha
dimostrato con evidenza crescente di avere alle spalle
interessi economici, geopolitici e strategici che
contrappongono la superpotenza americana e i suoi più stretti
alleati al resto del mondo, a gran parte dell'opinione pubblica
e a molte potenze fino a ieri "partner" nella NATO.
Il tentativo di riscrivere con la guerra la mappa del Medio
Oriente, la geografia del petrolio e l'insieme delle relazioni
internazionali, è un ricatto inaccettabile.
2)La società civile, nella quasi totalità dei Paesi del mondo,
ha detto chiaramente no alla logica della guerra preventiva e
permanente. Lo ha fatto, anche nel nostro Paese, riempiendo le
piazze, rispondendo no alla guerra - senza se e senza ma - in tutti i
sondaggi, corredando intere città con le bandiere della pace,
con la decisiva partecipazione dei lavoratori a questa lotta :
condizione imprescindibile per accrescerne la forza e
qualificarne i contenuti.
3)La concessione dell'uso delle basi militari USA e NATO, dei
corridoi di sorvolo, della rete di trasporto per le forze
armate statunitensi, è stata giustamente contestata sui binari,
nei porti, davanti alle basi militari e in Parlamento.
Se oltre l'80% degli italiani si è opposto alla guerra, questo
governo e questo parlamento non avevano e non hanno la
legittimità morale e politica per rendere l'Italia complice di
aggressioni militari contro altri Paesi.
La Costituzione (art.11), che va difesa con intransigenza,
"ripudia" sempre e comunque il ricorso alla guerra come mezzo
di risoluzione delle controversie internazionali. Altrettanto
recita la Carta delle Nazioni Unite e lo stesso principio dovrà
ispirare qualsiasi ipotesi di Costituzione europea.
4)Nascondersi dietro il rispetto degli impegni internazionali
dell'Italia non è credibile per nessun governo e nessuna
maggioranza parlamentare. E' l'intera struttura degli
automatismi, dei vincoli e dei condizionamenti alla nostra
sovranità connessi all'adesione alla NATO che va rivista
radicalmente. Non é più accettabile che un paese venga coinvolto
in una guerra sulla base di trattati siglati cinquanta anni fa e mai
verificati democraticamente.
Lo smantellamento delle basi militari che ospitano armi
nucleari, bombe, aviogetti statunitensi , deve costituire un
obiettivo prioritario della "politica" ed un significativo
passaggio di qualità dell'ampio e unitario movimento che si
oppone alla guerra in Italia, in Europa, nel mondo.
5)In una realtà internazionale in cui, dal Medio Oriente
all'Asia, dall’Africa all’America Latina, guerre e tensioni
sono tornate a dominare, si delinea il rischio di una nuova e
devastante corsa agli armamenti, foriera a sua volta di un
perverso mercato delle armi.
Le spese militari americane sono superiori di tre volte
rispetto a quelle di tutti i paesi dell’Unione europea messi
insieme. Sarebbe tragico se, per riequilibrare questa
differenza ed affermare la propria autonomia, l'Ue inseguisse
gli Stati Uniti sulla strada del riarmo e dell'aumento delle
spese militari.
Una nuova corsa agli armamenti non è la strada giusta per la
prospettiva di un mondo multipolare, non più dominato dalla
supremazia della superpotenza statunitense. Tale prospettiva va
perseguita con una linea di disarmo progressivo e bilanciato,
di riequilibrio al ribasso, che tuteli la sicurezza di ognuno e
punti a un Trattato internazionale per la effettiva messa al
bando di tutte le armi di sterminio, a partire da quelle
nucleari.
Questo può e deve diventare un obiettivo primario e permanente
del movimento mondiale per la pace, nella convergenza di
popoli, governi e confessioni religiose che comprendono la
quasi totalità del genere umano.
6)Dire con forza no alla guerra, "senza se e senza ma",
significa non solo tenere l'Italia fuori dalla guerra e le basi
militari USA e NATO fuori dall’Italia – a cominciare dal ritiro
dei militari italiani coinvolti in operazioni belliche .
Significa anche creare le condizioni per una trasformazione
democratica e sociale che, mettendo al bando la guerra, cominci
anche ad indicare una alternativa di società tesa ad impedire
che l’umanità sia nuovamente vittima delle guerre e della
competizione globale tra le maggiori potenze capitaliste.
A tal fine crediamo utile la costruzione di un Forum permanente
che, nell’ambito del più generale movimento unitario contro la
guerra - e nella solidarietà coi popoli minacciati dalla
crescente aggressività della politica statunitense -
contribuisca al confronto e all’iniziativa su queste
problematiche.
Primi firmatari
Piergiovanni ALLEVA (docente universitario, Consulta giuridica
CGIL); Antonio AMOROSO (coordinatore nazionale Cub-Trasporti);
Michele Anelli (gruppo musicale Groovers); Pietro ANTONINI (RdB
Trasporti); Marino BADIALE (matematico, Comitato scienziate/i
contro la guerra); Angelo BARACCA (docente universitario,
Comitato scienziate/i contro la guerra); Stefano BENNI
(scrittore); Vincenzo BRANDI (ricercatore ENEA); Pino CACUCCI
(scrittore); Nino CALOGERO ( segretario confederale della
Camera del Lavoro di Gioia Tauro); Luciano CANFORA (docente
universitario); Armando Casaroli (gruppo musicale Mirafiori Kids);
Antonio Catalfamo (scrittore); Andrea CATONE (presidente
Associazione Most za Beograd); Mariella CAU (coordinatrice
Comitato sardo "Gettiamo le basi"); padre Angelo CAVAGNA ( Presidente
GAVCI) ; Gianmario CAZZANIGA (docente universitario); Paolo
CENTO (deputato al Parlamento); Stefano CHIARINI (giornalista);
Nicola CIPOLLA (presidente CEPES Palermo); Roberto COCEVARI (presidente
Ass. Italia-Vietnam Milano); Luigi CORTESI (direttore di
"Giano"); Alessandro CURZI (direttore di "Liberazione");
Michele D’APUZZO (coordinatore nazionale Sulta); Ferruccio
Danini (direttivo nazionale CGIL); Raffaele DE GRADA (critico
d’arte); Vezio DE LUCIA (urbanista); Claudio DEL BELLO (docente
universitario, direttore edizioni Odradek); Tommaso DI
FRANCESCO (caposervizi esteri de "Il Manifesto"); Manlio
DINUCCI (giornalista); Valerio EVANGELISTI (scrittore); Paolo
fara (gruppo musicale Mirafiori Kids); Massimiliano Ferraro
(gruppo musicale Groovers); Roberto FORESTI (presidente Ass.
Italia-Cuba); Fabio FRATI (coordinatore nazionale Sulta); don
Andrea GALLO (sacerdote); Mario GEYMONAT (docente universitario);
Enrico GIARMOLEO ( RSU Fiom-Cgil Officine Meccaniche
calabresi); Roberto GIUDICI (responsabile esteri Fiom Milano);
Alfiero GRANDI (deputato, direttivo nazionale Ds); Dino GRECO
(segretario generale Camera del Lavoro Brescia); Fulvio
GRIMALDI (giornalista); Margherita HACK (scienziata -
astronoma); Raniero LA VALLE (giornalista); Giancarlo LannutTi
(giornalista); Pierpaolo LEONARDI (coordinatore nazionale Cub);
Domenico LOSURDO (docente universitario); Carlo LUCARELLI
(scrittore); Riccardo LUCCIO (docente universitario); Edoardo
MAGNONE (chimico, Comitato scienziate/i contro la guerra);
Lucio MANISCO (europarlamentare); Franco MARENCO (fisico);
Emilio MARTINES (Ricercatore CNR); Federico MARTINO (docente
universitario); Andrea MARTOCCHIA (astrofisico); Giorgio MELE (sinistra
Ds); Marco MEZZETTI ( gruppo musicale Ratoblanco); Fabio
MINAZZI (docente universitario); Adalberto MINUCCI (direttore
responsabile di "Avvenimenti"); Evasio Muraro (gruppo musicale
Groovers); Carlo MUSCETTA (critico letterario); Giorgio NEBBIA
(docente universitario); Nerio NESI (vice-presidente
Associazione "Socrate"); Raffaele NOGARO (vescovo di Caserta);
Diego NOVELLI (direttore editoriale di "Avvenimenti"); Gianni
PAGLIARINI ( Segretario nazionale FP- CGIL); Emidia PAPI
(coordinamento nazionale RdB); Vittorio PAROLA (direzione DS-
Socialismo 2000); Giovanni PESCE (medaglia d’oro Resistenza);
Luciano PETTINARI (direttivo nazionale Ds, Socialismo 2000);
Giuseppe PRESTIPINO (docente universitario); Domenico
PROVENZANO (coordinatore nazionale RdB Pubblico Impiego); Francesca
PUTINI (coordinatrice nazionale Cub-Trasporti); Massimo RAFFAELI
(critico letterario); Alessandra RICCIO (co-direttrice di
"LatinoAmerica"); Gianni RINALDINI (segretario generale Fiom); Rossano
ROSSI ( Segretario CGIL-Toscana); Mauro SALIZZONI (medico
chirurgo); Cesare SALVI (senatore, Socialismo 2000); Edoardo
SANGUINETTI (poeta); Enzo SANTARELLI (storico); Giuseppina
SANTORELLI (coordinatrice nazionale Cub-Trasporti); Gianni
Sappa (gruppo musicale Mirafiori Kids); Maurizio SCARPA
(segretario nazionale Filcams-Cgil); Flaviano Sciarpa (gruppo musicale
Mirafiori Kids); Sandro e Marino SEVERINI ( gruppo musicale
Gang); Vincenzo SINISCALCHI (coordinatore nazionale Sulta);
Andrea SPADONI (coordinatore nazionale Cub-Trasporti); Osvaldo
SQUASSINA ( Segretario generale FIOM Brescia); Giancarlo
STRAINI ( segretario nazionale FILCEA-CGIL); Pino TAGLIAZUCCHI
(direttore "Notizie internazionali" Fiom-Cgil); Sergio TANZARELLA
(docente universitario); Stefano TASSINARI (scrittore); Piergiorgio
TIBONI (coordinatore nazionale Cub); Fabrizio TOMASELLI
(coordinatore nazionale Sulta); Luciano VASAPOLLO (docente
universitario); Alex ZANOTELLI (Pax Christi); Maurizio ZIPPONI
(segretario generale Fiom-Cgil Milano); Massimo ZUCCHETTI (docente
universitario);
Il testo dell’appello coi primi firmatari si trova sul sito :
www.forumcontrolaguerra.org
Per adesioni e comunicazioni : adesioni@...
Tutte le informazioni relative alle iniziative del Forum
verranno rese note sul sito e comunicate direttamente agli
aderenti all’indirizzo di posta elettronica che essi ci
segnaleranno con la loro adesione. Si raccomanda pertanto la
massima precisione nella comunicazione del proprio recapito di
posta elettronica.
Il primo incontro nazionale di tutti gli aderenti all’appello
si terrà domenica 11 gennaio 2004, dalle ore 11.00 alle 16.00,
a Milano. Il luogo verrà comunicato al più presto.
THE FINAL ENEMY / IL NEMICO ULTIMO
Il Partito Radicale Transnazionale di Marco Pannella, Emma Bonino ed
Adriano Sofri ha pubblicato sul suo sito internet i dettagli del piano
di guerra alla Cina, compresa una mappa che mostra come sara'
ristrutturata l'area ex-cinese dopo lo sterminio umanitario:
http://www.radicalparty.org/uighur/mappafinale.gif
Il Partito Radicale Transnazionale si batte da anni per lo squartamento
delle realta' statuali sovrane che tuttora con grande impudenza
intralciano la espansione del capitale monopolistico occidentale (es.
Jugoslavia, Russia, Cina): per questo il Partito Radicale
Transnazionale appoggia tutte le rivendicazioni di segno nazionalitario
(es. Cecenia), bigotto-reazionario (es. Tibet) e nazista (es. Croazia)
utili allo scopo.
(a cura di Italo Slavo)
Il Partito Radicale Transnazionale di Marco Pannella, Emma Bonino ed
Adriano Sofri ha pubblicato sul suo sito internet i dettagli del piano
di guerra alla Cina, compresa una mappa che mostra come sara'
ristrutturata l'area ex-cinese dopo lo sterminio umanitario:
http://www.radicalparty.org/uighur/mappafinale.gif
Il Partito Radicale Transnazionale si batte da anni per lo squartamento
delle realta' statuali sovrane che tuttora con grande impudenza
intralciano la espansione del capitale monopolistico occidentale (es.
Jugoslavia, Russia, Cina): per questo il Partito Radicale
Transnazionale appoggia tutte le rivendicazioni di segno nazionalitario
(es. Cecenia), bigotto-reazionario (es. Tibet) e nazista (es. Croazia)
utili allo scopo.
(a cura di Italo Slavo)
Da: ICDSM Italia
Data: Sab 13 Dic 2003 21:23:29 Europe/Rome
A: Ova adresa el. pošte je zaštićena od spambotova. Omogućite JavaScript da biste je videli.
Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] URGENT - President Milosevic cut from all
contacts and visits
From: "Vladimir Krsljanin"
Subject: Sloboda/ICDSM: URGENT - President Milosevic cut from all
contacts and visits 2 days before Wesley Clark testimony and 16 days
before Serbian elections!
www.icdsm.org
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE TO DEFEND SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC
Sofia - New York - Moscow - Belgrade, 12 December 2003
URGENT!
ICTY/US/NATO Criminal Attack on Truth, Freedom, Judiciary, Human
Rights and Free Democratic Will of the Serbian People
President Milosevic Cut from All Contacts with the Outside World; War
Criminal Wesley Clark to Testify in Secrecy; Total US Takeover of ICTY;
According to the Polls, the Opposition Will Win the Serbian Elections;
Demonstrations at The Hague and ICDSM Press Conferences in The Hague
and New York
PROTEST IMMEDIATELY!
ADDRESS ICTY, UN, GOVERNMENTS!
Today, recently US-imposed “Deputy Registrar” of ICTY David Tolbert,
who effectively runs the Registry in presence of alive Hans Holthuis
(The Netherlands), the Registrar, have made an illegal decision to ban
all phone contacts and visits of President Milosevic with any person,
except “his immediate family” and “recognized legal representatives (if
any)”. A similar decision was made today in the case of Dr Vojislav
Seselj. Alleged reason: Serbian elections!
http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/trialc/decision-e/031211.htm
Sloboda has already challenged illegal grounds for such restrictions in
its letter to Tolbert’s imminent boss, also recently appointed ICTY
President Theodor Meron (USA). In spite he was obliged, Meron never
responded to the Sloboda motion.
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/engleski/request.html
This is happening when polls and media reports show clear advantage of
the opposition forces in the pre-election campaign in Serbia. Major
event of this campaign was, of course, the fact that the left-patriotic
ticket of the Socialist Party of Serbia is led by President Milosevic.
His address to the Head Committee of SPS produced and is still
producing a major impact on the people. So the reaction of the ICTY,
the major weapon of the occupation of Serbia is an expected expression
of fear.
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/engleski/SMelections.htm
Anyhow, this illegal and outrageous sign of desperation of war
criminals’ puppets at The Hague, must not be tolerated!
This is happening just two days before “the testimony” of the convicted
(by the Belgrade District Court) war criminal general Wesley Clark. The
conditions (full secrecy and possibility that US government redacts the
transcript!) for his testimony imposed by US Government is a completely
open admission that ICTY has no independence and that it is run neither
by its “judges” nor by the UN Security Council, but by the US
Government.
http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/2003/p802-e.htm
http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/2003/PA149-e.htm
(note that the ICTY is putting President Milosevic into total
isolation, advertising (!) at the same time, phone number of the
General Clark’s PR representative! The number is:+ 44 7974 982591)
What do they have to hide? The dirtiest part of the contemporary
American history – the role of Clinton/Albright/Clark clique in
building Al Qaeda, KLA and World terrorism; worst, cruelest and
merciless war crimes in Yugoslavia.
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO310B.html
Wesley Clark has to start his two-days “testimony” on Monday, 15
December 2003 at 9 a.m. in the ICTY at The Hague.
Since 8 a.m. a demonstrations will be held in front of the Tribunal.
Same morning, at 9 a.m. an ICDSM press conference will take part in the
nearby Bel Air hotel. ICDSM attorney, Ms. Tiphaine Dickson
(Quebec/Canada) will appear. Read a call for these events below.
A press conference is also expected to take place on 16 December in New
York or Washington.
Let us not allow that ideals of the Peoples of the World, which founded
UN organization be insulted by war criminals who use ICTY as a cover!
React immediately and address your appeals to ICTY, UN, your
governments and the public!
Take part in the planed protest actions and organize your own!
Vladimir Krsljanin,
on behalf of Sloboda and ICDSM
----------
Address of the Tribunal:
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
Churchillplein 1
2517JW The Hague
Netherlands
Fax: +31 70 512 8637
The other useful contacts one can find at:
http://www.icdsm.org/addresses.htm
-----------
Appendices
1. ICTY: Decision to ban all phone contacts and visits to President
Milosevic
2. ICTY: Press Release on phone contacts and visits ban
3. ICTY: Press Release on conditions of Wesley Clark’s testimony
4. ICTY: Press Advisory on Wesley Clark’s testimony
5. ICDSM: Demonstrations and the Press Conference at The Hague
-------------
1. ICTY: Decision to ban all phone contacts and visits to President
Milosevic
Case No. IT-02-54
Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosevic
DECISION
THE DEPUTY REGISTRAR,
CONSIDERINGResolution 827 of 25 May 1993 ("Resolution 827"), the
Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United
Nations decided to " […] establish an international tribunal for the
sole purpose of prosecuting persons responsible for serious violations
of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the
former Yugoslavia […]" to "[…] contribute to the restoration of peace
and to this end to adopt the Statute of the International Tribunal"
("Tribunal");
CONSIDERINGthe Statute of the Tribunal adopted by the aforesaid
Security Council Resolution on 25 May 1993, as subsequently amended;
CONSIDERINGthe "Rules Governing the Detention of Persons Awaiting Trial
or Appeal before the Tribunal or otherwise Detained on the Authority of
the Tribunal" ("Rules of Detention") as adopted by the Tribunal on 5
May 1994, as subsequently amended;
CONSIDERINGRule 2 of the Rules of Detention which provides that the
United Nations "shall retain the ultimate responsibility and liability
for all aspects of detention pursuant to these Rules of Detention" and
that all detainees shall be "subject to the sole jurisdiction of the
Tribunal at all times that they are so detained, even though physically
absent from the detention unit, until final release or transfer to
another institution";
CONSIDERINGthat whilst the Rules of Detention ensure the continued
application and protection of individual rights of persons in
detention, the application of its provisions relating to communication
and visits also require that the interests of the administration of
justice and the purposes of the Tribunal’s Statute be considered;
CONSIDERING THEREFOREthat the Rules of Detention envisage that a
balanced weighing of a detainee’s individual rights with that of the
institutional duties and obligations of the Tribunal may be called for
in certain situations where conflicting interests become apparent;
RECALLINGthat by Resolution 827, the Security Council expressed "its
grave alarm of continuing reports of widespread and flagrant violations
of international humanitarian law occurring within the territory of the
former Yugoslavia and especially in the Republic of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, including reports of mass killings, massive, organized,
and systematic detention and rape of women, and the continuance of the
practice of‘ethnic cleansing’, including for the acquisition and
holding of territory" and determined "to put and end to such crimes and
to take effective measures to bring to justice the persons who are
responsible for them";
RECALLINGALSO that by Resolution 827, the Security Council determined
that the establishment of the Tribunal and the prosecution of persons
responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law
would contribute to the restoration and maintenance of peace in the
former Yugoslavia;
NOTINGthat Article 29 of the Statute of the Tribunal require States to
"co-operate with the International Tribunal in the investigation and
prosecution of persons accused of committing violations of
international humanitarian law";
NOTINGthat Mr. Slobodan Milosevic (the "Accused") is presently being
tried at the Tribunal for acts allegedly committed while he held high
political office in the former Yugoslavia;
NOTINGthat the Accused is a candidate in Serbian parliamentary
elections scheduled to be held on 28 December 2003;
NOTING PARTICULARLYthat the Commanding Officer of the United Nations
Detention Unit ("Detention Unit") has received reports that the Accused
has recently made statements to his political party and supporters,
using communication facilities provided by the Detention Unit and with
the intention of having these statements subsequently being reported in
the media1;
CONSIDERINGthat Rule 63(B) of the Rules of Detention provides that
"[t]he Registrar may refuse to allow a person to visit a detainee if he
has reason to believe that the purpose of the visit is to obtain
information which may be subsequently reported to the media" in
accordance with the proper administration of justice and that it
follows from this Rule and the principle on which it is founded, that
communication between a detainee and others may be prohibited if there
are reasons to believe that such communications would lead to a
detainee’s statements appearing in the media, particularly if the
effect of such statements is to undermine the Tribunal’s mandate to
assist in the restoration and maintenance of peace in the former
Yugoslavia;
CONSIDERINGthat the Accused has, as noted above, previously either
directly contacted the media or has used his privilege to communicate
with others who have in turn provided messages through the media in
contradiction of the Rules of Detention, which have resulted in a
widespread media attention and coverage of the fact that an indictee
for genocide, crimes against humanity and war-crimes such as the
Accused is facilitating, with ease, the ongoing Serbian parliamentary
elections campaign;
CONSIDERINGthat the facilities provided by the Detention Unit are
intended for the well- being of the Accused and not for purposes that
frustrate the Tribunal’s function to assist in establishing peace and
security in the former Yugoslavia and that the fact that a detainee at
the Detention Unit has communicated with the aid of facilities provided
by the Detention Unit to participate in an ongoing Serbian
parliamentary elections campaign is such an occasion that is likely to
frustrate the Tribunal’s mandate;
CONSIDERINGthat in balancing between the rights and entitlements to
communication and visits of the Accused with that of the Tribunal to
effectively perform its mandate and functions, the particular
circumstances of the detainee necessitates the imposition of measures
which are imperative for the avoidance of potentially deleterious media
coverage resulting from unrestricted communication entitlements and
visits for the time being;
DECIDESpursuant to Rules 60 and 63 of the Rules of Detention, for a
period of thirty (30) days following this Decision, which decision
shall then be reviewed, to:
(i) Prohibit communication, via telephone between the Accused with any
person(s) (particularly with the media), such prohibition shall not
apply to telephone communication with his immediate family, legal
counsel (where applicable), diplomatic or consular representatives on
condition that this facility shall not be used in any manner to contact
the media;
(ii) All authorised telephone conversations, except for communications
with recognised legal representatives (if any) and diplomatic or
consular representatives, shall be monitored, in accordance with
current Detention Unit practices;
(iii) Prohibit all visits between the Accused with any person(s)
(particularly with the media), such prohibition shall not apply to
visits with his immediate family, legal counsel (where applicable),
diplomatic or consular representatives;
(iv) All authorised visits shall be supervised by the Commanding
Officer of the Detention Unit or an official he designates.
(v) The aforesaid restrictions will not apply to written communications
wherein the current practices shall be maintained and the Detention
Unit’s regulations concerning the import and export of mail shall be
adhered to.
David Tolbert
Deputy Registrar
Dated this eleventh day of December 2003
At The Hague
The Netherlands
-----
1. The Commanding Officer of the Detention Unit confirmed that a speech
made by Mr. Slobodan Milošević from his cell at the Detention Unit was
broadcast on 3 Dec 2003 and subsequently reported in the newspapers.
------------
2. ICTY: Press Release on phone contacts and visits ban
Press Release . Communiqué de presse
(Exclusively for the use of the media. Not an official document)
REGISTRY
GREFFE
The Hague, 12 December 2003
JL/P.I.S./810e
REGISTRY IMPOSES COMMUNICATION RESTRICTIONS ON DETAINEES WITH REGARD TO
POLITICAL CAMPAIGNING IN THE MEDIA FROM THE TRIBUNAL’S DETENTION UNIT
On 11 December 2003, the Deputy Registrar of the Tribunal, David
Tolbert, issued two Decisions concerning the rights of detainees in the
Tribunal’s Detention Unit to use communications privileges for the
purpose of political campaigning in the media. The Decisions were
specifically taken with a view to two Accused, Slobodan Milosevic and
Vojislav Seselj. Both Accused were notified today, 12 December 2003.
Before issuing the Decisions, the Deputy Registrar took into account,
among other things, the following:
· Rule 2 of the Rules of Detention, which provides that the
United Nations "shall retain the ultimate responsibility and liability
for all aspects of detention";
· that the Accused are candidates in the Serbian parliamentary
elections scheduled to be held on 28 December 2003;
· that the Commanding Officer of the United Nations Detention
Unit has received reports that the Accused had recently made statements
to their political parties and supporters, using communication
facilities provided by the Detention Unit and with the intention of
having these statements subsequently being reported in the media;
· that Rule 63(B) of the Rules of Detention provides that "[t]he
Registrar may refuse to allow a person to visit a detainee if he has
reason to believe that the purpose of the visit is to obtain
information which may be subsequently reported to the media" in
accordance with the proper administration of justice and that it
follows from this Rule and the principle on which it is founded, that
communication between a detainee and others may be prohibited if there
are reasons to believe that such communications would lead to a
detainee’s statements appearing in the media, particularly if the
effect of such statements is to undermine the Tribunal’s mandate to
assist in the restoration and maintenance of peace in the former
Yugoslavia;
· that the facilities provided by the Detention Unit are
intended for the well-being of the Accused and not for purposes that
frustrate the Tribunal’s function to assist in establishing peace and
security in the former Yugoslavia and that the fact that a detainee at
the Detention Unit has communicated with the aid of facilities provided
by the Detention Unit to participate in an ongoing Serbian
parliamentary election campaign is such an occasion that is likely to
frustrate the Tribunal’s mandate;
The Deputy Registrar decided, pursuant to Rules 60 and 63 of the Rules
of Detention, for a period of 30 days following the Decisions, to:
i. "Prohibit communication, via telephone between the Accused with any
person(s) (particularly with the media), such prohibition shall not
apply to telephone communication with his immediate family, legal
counsel (where applicable), diplomatic or consular representatives on
condition that this facility shall not be used in any manner to contact
the media;
ii. All authorised telephone conversations, except for communications
with recognised legal representatives (if any) and diplomatic or
consular representatives, shall be monitored;
iii. Prohibit all visits between the Accused with any person(s)
(particularly with the media), such prohibition shall not apply to
visits with his immediate family, legal counsel (where applicable),
diplomatic or consular representatives;
iv. All authorised visits shall be supervised at the discretion of the
Commanding Officer of the Detention Unit or an official he designates."
*****
See full texts of the Decisions by the Deputy Registrar (Milosevic Case
: http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/trialc/decision-e/031211.htm
Seselj Case :
http://www.un.org/icty/seselj/trialc/decision-e/031211.htm)
---------------
3. ICTY: Press Release on conditions of Wesley Clark’s testimony
Press Release . Communiqué de presse
(Exclusively for the use of the media. Not an official document)
TRIAL CHAMBER
CHAMBRE DE 1ÉRE INSTANCE
The Hague, 19 November 2003
JL/P.I.S./802-e
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK TO TESTIFY IN THE MILOSEVIC TRIAL ON 15 AND 16
DECEMBER 2003
NO PUBLIC ACCESS ON THOSE DATES
RECORDING OF TESTIMONY TO BE MADE PUBLIC AFTER 48 HOURS
On 17 November 2003, Trial Chamber III issued an Order for General
Wesley Clark to testify in the Milosevic trial on 15 December 2003 and
to be available to complete his testimony the following day.
The Trial Chamber also made public an earlier confidential Decision,
dated 30 October 2003, setting out the conditions under which General
Clark is to give his testimony. In this Decision, the Trial Chamber
granted the addition of General Clark to the Prosecution’s witness
list, as well as extensive protective measures imposed by the
Government of the United States of America (US Government) under Rule
70 of the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure and Evidence (RPE).
Background:
The US Government has agreed to allow General Clark to testify in the
Milosevic trial pursuant to Rule 70 of the RPE and as such, it is
entitled to seek certain protective measures with respect to his
testimony. These protective measures were requested through the Office
of the Prosecutor.
The Trial Chamber is bound by an Appeals Chamber Decision (Prosecutor
v. Milosevic, "Decision on the Interpretation and Application of Rule
70" of 23 October, 2002) which grants the information provider (US
Government) a right to impose certain conditions upon the testimony of
a witness provided by it under Rule 70 of the RPE.
The protective measures requested by the US Government are sought to
protect its national interests and the Trial Chamber has granted these
protective measures on this basis.
On 30 October 2003 The Trial Chamber ordered as follows:
1. "General Wesley Clark ("the witness") may be added to the
Prosecution witness list;
2. the witness’s testimony shall be treated as information provided
pursuant to and protected by Rule 70 (C) and (D);
3. two representatives of the US Government may be present in court
during the testimony of the witness;
4. the evidence of the witness shall be given in open session subject
to the protective measures set out below;
5. the evidence contained in paragraphs 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67 and 85
of the summary attached to the Motion as ex parte Annex A may be given
in private session in order to protect the national interests of the US
and request may be made for additional evidence to be so given on the
same ground;
6. the public gallery be closed during the course of the witness’s
testimony;
7. the broadcast of the testimony be delayed for a period of 48 hours
to enable the US Government to review the transcript and make
representations as to whether evidence given in open session should be
redacted in order to protect the national interests of the US, and
shall be delayed for a period thereafter to enable the Trial Chamber to
consider and determine any redactions requested, and, if ordered, for
the redactions to be made to the tape of the testimony prior to its
release;
8. the scope of examination-in-chief and cross-examination of the
witness be limited to the content of the summary attached to the Motion
as ex parte Annex A;
9. The Accused or Amici Curiae may seek to have the scope of
examination expanded by prior agreement of the US Government (obtained
directly from that Government or through the representation of the
Office of the Prosecutor), once the summary of the evidence-in-chief to
be given is disclosed to them; and
10. The Prosecution shall disclose the summary contained in ex parte
Annex A forthwith".
An advisory alerting journalists to the media arrangements that will be
in place for them to view recordings of General Clark’s testimony after
16 December 2003 will be issued in due course.
*****
------------
4. ICTY: Press Advisory on Wesley Clark’s testimony
Press Advisory . Avis pour information
(Exclusively for the use of the media. Not an official document)
The Hague, 11 December 2003
CVO/P.I.S./PA149
MEDIA ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE TESTIMONY OF GENERAL WESLEY CLARK
No Public Access to Milosevic Trial on 15 and 16 December During
Testimony of General Wesley Clark
Please be reminded that following an Order from Trial Chamber III
issued on 17 November 2003 (see Press Release 802e) there will be no
public access to Courtroom I in the Milosevic trial on 15 and 16
December 2003 for the testimony of General Wesley Clark. The broadcast
of the testimony of General Clark will be delayed and shown on Friday
19 December 2003 starting at 9.00 a.m.
However as other proceedings will be ongoing the following rules will
apply:
• Cameras or photographers will not be allowed into the Tribunal
building;
• All interviews on camera are to be conducted outside of the Tribunal
building;
• Media without cameras will be given access to the lobby of the
Tribunal where they can make use of the media rooms.
The usual security procedures will apply:
All individuals entering the building are subject to security checks of
their person and belongings. No one will be permitted access to the
building without complying fully with the requirements of the
Tribunal's security officers. All members of the press have to present
their press card and photographic identification.
Public Broadcast of the Testimony of General Clark on Friday 19
December 2003
Please be advised that on Friday 19 December 2003 at 9 a.m. the
testimony given by General Wesley Clark on 15 and 16 December 2003 will
be publicly broadcast. Please note that the testimony will be broadcast
with the normal courtroom breaks (after every 1½hours there will be a
10 minute break).
Media coming to the Tribunal can view the broadcast from inside the
ICTY building:
• On the screens in the public gallery of Courtroom I (in English,
French and BCS available through headphones).
• On the large screen in the press briefing room of the Tribunal (in
English language only).
Media wishing to record the proceedings from inside the ICTY building
can do this by:
• Contacting the Press Office of the Tribunal
• Linking up to the feeds in either the audio room (XLR balanced
cables needed) or the video feed room (composite video feed). There are
12 feeds available, this may necessitate media assisting each other and
"piggybacking".
Outside the ICTY building:
• Uplink vans can connect to the break-out box outside of the
building. Please note that there are five feeds currently available. An
additional break-out box will be added if weather conditions permit
adding an extra 10 feeds.
Media unable to come to the Tribunal will be able to:
• Log on to the ICTY website at: www.un.org/icty to view the
testimony. On the homepage go to Courtroom I, Real Player and click on
the language you require.
• Contacting the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), who will be
broadcasting the testimony directly to its members and on request.
E.B.U. Eurovision:
Contact: Piotr Azia
Tel: +41.22.717.28.46 or 50
E-mail: azia@...
Radio representatives can contact E.B.U. Radio News for assistance.
Transcripts of General Clark’s testimony will also be made available on
ICTY website.
Contact Details for General Clark’s Public Relations Staff
Media wishing to contact General Clark’s public relations staff over
the 15 and 16 December 2003 can reach them on the following number: +
44 7974 982591.
For further information please do not hesitate to call the Press Office:
+31 (70) 512-5343 or 512-5356
*****
----------
5. ICDSM: Demonstrations and the Press Conference at The Hague
Yugoslavia Tribunal under complete control of the U.S.
War criminal Gen. Wesley Clark as prosecution witness!
Emergency Call for Protest!!!!!!
On Dec. 15 Wesley Clark will appear before the tribunal in The Hague
(ICTY) as a prosecution witness in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic!
For his role inside NATO, which under his command beginning on March 24,
1999, waged a 78-day bombing campaign, the current U.S. presidential
candidate was once tried and convicted in Belgrade for war crimes.
Now he presents himself as a "witness for the prosecution," which
appears quite striking when one considers how and to what extent the USA
dominates the tribunal. They finally carried it out!
More clearly than ever before now the direct influence of the U.S.
regime comes to the surface. It is the U.S. that literally dictated to
the tribunal the terms under which Wesley Clark will testify. Following
the direct conditions from Washington no public and no media will be
allowed inside. The only people who will observe the proceedings will be
two representatives of the U.S. government. And not only this: the U.S.
government has the authority to decide which parts of the testimony will
remain secret. The other parts will be presented to the U.S. government,
which will then have a time period of 48 hours to censor also this
part!!!
There are thus many reasons to protest before The Hague Tribunal on Dec.
15:
Protest! Protest against the dictatorship of imperialism! Protest
against
the attack on international law! Protest against the attempt to punish
the Yugoslav people for resistance against neo-colonialism! Protest
against the appearance of Wesley Clark – the butcher of children and
main executor of the criminal destruction of Serbia and Yugoslavia!
As the trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 15 at 9 a.m., the New Communist
Party of the Netherlands in cooperation with the Dutch ICDSM and
representatives of Serbian diaspora has organized a demonstration from
8 a.m. in front of
the tribunal building. Join the demonstration!
At the end there will be at 9 a.m. a press conference of the
International Committee for the Defense of Slobodan Molosevic (ICDSM) in
the Hotel Bel Air next to the tribunal. The Canadian lawyer for ICDSM,
Ms. Tiphaine
Dickson, will give a press statement and answer the media's questions.
All media representatives are welcome to hear the truth!
www.icdsm.org
www.sloboda.org.yu
----------------
SLOBODA urgently needs your donation.
Please find the detailed instructions at:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/pomoc.htm
To join or help this struggle, visit:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/ (Sloboda/Freedom association)
http://www.icdsm.org/ (the international committee to defend Slobodan
Milosevic)
http://www.free-slobo.de/ (German section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsm-us.org/ (US section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsmireland.org/ (ICDSM Ireland)
http://www.wpc-in.org/ (world peace council)
http://www.geocities.com/b_antinato/ (Balkan antiNATO center)
Data: Sab 13 Dic 2003 21:23:29 Europe/Rome
A: Ova adresa el. pošte je zaštićena od spambotova. Omogućite JavaScript da biste je videli.
Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] URGENT - President Milosevic cut from all
contacts and visits
From: "Vladimir Krsljanin"
Subject: Sloboda/ICDSM: URGENT - President Milosevic cut from all
contacts and visits 2 days before Wesley Clark testimony and 16 days
before Serbian elections!
www.icdsm.org
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE TO DEFEND SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC
Sofia - New York - Moscow - Belgrade, 12 December 2003
URGENT!
ICTY/US/NATO Criminal Attack on Truth, Freedom, Judiciary, Human
Rights and Free Democratic Will of the Serbian People
President Milosevic Cut from All Contacts with the Outside World; War
Criminal Wesley Clark to Testify in Secrecy; Total US Takeover of ICTY;
According to the Polls, the Opposition Will Win the Serbian Elections;
Demonstrations at The Hague and ICDSM Press Conferences in The Hague
and New York
PROTEST IMMEDIATELY!
ADDRESS ICTY, UN, GOVERNMENTS!
Today, recently US-imposed “Deputy Registrar” of ICTY David Tolbert,
who effectively runs the Registry in presence of alive Hans Holthuis
(The Netherlands), the Registrar, have made an illegal decision to ban
all phone contacts and visits of President Milosevic with any person,
except “his immediate family” and “recognized legal representatives (if
any)”. A similar decision was made today in the case of Dr Vojislav
Seselj. Alleged reason: Serbian elections!
http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/trialc/decision-e/031211.htm
Sloboda has already challenged illegal grounds for such restrictions in
its letter to Tolbert’s imminent boss, also recently appointed ICTY
President Theodor Meron (USA). In spite he was obliged, Meron never
responded to the Sloboda motion.
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/engleski/request.html
This is happening when polls and media reports show clear advantage of
the opposition forces in the pre-election campaign in Serbia. Major
event of this campaign was, of course, the fact that the left-patriotic
ticket of the Socialist Party of Serbia is led by President Milosevic.
His address to the Head Committee of SPS produced and is still
producing a major impact on the people. So the reaction of the ICTY,
the major weapon of the occupation of Serbia is an expected expression
of fear.
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/engleski/SMelections.htm
Anyhow, this illegal and outrageous sign of desperation of war
criminals’ puppets at The Hague, must not be tolerated!
This is happening just two days before “the testimony” of the convicted
(by the Belgrade District Court) war criminal general Wesley Clark. The
conditions (full secrecy and possibility that US government redacts the
transcript!) for his testimony imposed by US Government is a completely
open admission that ICTY has no independence and that it is run neither
by its “judges” nor by the UN Security Council, but by the US
Government.
http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/2003/p802-e.htm
http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/2003/PA149-e.htm
(note that the ICTY is putting President Milosevic into total
isolation, advertising (!) at the same time, phone number of the
General Clark’s PR representative! The number is:+ 44 7974 982591)
What do they have to hide? The dirtiest part of the contemporary
American history – the role of Clinton/Albright/Clark clique in
building Al Qaeda, KLA and World terrorism; worst, cruelest and
merciless war crimes in Yugoslavia.
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO310B.html
Wesley Clark has to start his two-days “testimony” on Monday, 15
December 2003 at 9 a.m. in the ICTY at The Hague.
Since 8 a.m. a demonstrations will be held in front of the Tribunal.
Same morning, at 9 a.m. an ICDSM press conference will take part in the
nearby Bel Air hotel. ICDSM attorney, Ms. Tiphaine Dickson
(Quebec/Canada) will appear. Read a call for these events below.
A press conference is also expected to take place on 16 December in New
York or Washington.
Let us not allow that ideals of the Peoples of the World, which founded
UN organization be insulted by war criminals who use ICTY as a cover!
React immediately and address your appeals to ICTY, UN, your
governments and the public!
Take part in the planed protest actions and organize your own!
Vladimir Krsljanin,
on behalf of Sloboda and ICDSM
----------
Address of the Tribunal:
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
Churchillplein 1
2517JW The Hague
Netherlands
Fax: +31 70 512 8637
The other useful contacts one can find at:
http://www.icdsm.org/addresses.htm
-----------
Appendices
1. ICTY: Decision to ban all phone contacts and visits to President
Milosevic
2. ICTY: Press Release on phone contacts and visits ban
3. ICTY: Press Release on conditions of Wesley Clark’s testimony
4. ICTY: Press Advisory on Wesley Clark’s testimony
5. ICDSM: Demonstrations and the Press Conference at The Hague
-------------
1. ICTY: Decision to ban all phone contacts and visits to President
Milosevic
Case No. IT-02-54
Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosevic
DECISION
THE DEPUTY REGISTRAR,
CONSIDERINGResolution 827 of 25 May 1993 ("Resolution 827"), the
Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United
Nations decided to " […] establish an international tribunal for the
sole purpose of prosecuting persons responsible for serious violations
of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the
former Yugoslavia […]" to "[…] contribute to the restoration of peace
and to this end to adopt the Statute of the International Tribunal"
("Tribunal");
CONSIDERINGthe Statute of the Tribunal adopted by the aforesaid
Security Council Resolution on 25 May 1993, as subsequently amended;
CONSIDERINGthe "Rules Governing the Detention of Persons Awaiting Trial
or Appeal before the Tribunal or otherwise Detained on the Authority of
the Tribunal" ("Rules of Detention") as adopted by the Tribunal on 5
May 1994, as subsequently amended;
CONSIDERINGRule 2 of the Rules of Detention which provides that the
United Nations "shall retain the ultimate responsibility and liability
for all aspects of detention pursuant to these Rules of Detention" and
that all detainees shall be "subject to the sole jurisdiction of the
Tribunal at all times that they are so detained, even though physically
absent from the detention unit, until final release or transfer to
another institution";
CONSIDERINGthat whilst the Rules of Detention ensure the continued
application and protection of individual rights of persons in
detention, the application of its provisions relating to communication
and visits also require that the interests of the administration of
justice and the purposes of the Tribunal’s Statute be considered;
CONSIDERING THEREFOREthat the Rules of Detention envisage that a
balanced weighing of a detainee’s individual rights with that of the
institutional duties and obligations of the Tribunal may be called for
in certain situations where conflicting interests become apparent;
RECALLINGthat by Resolution 827, the Security Council expressed "its
grave alarm of continuing reports of widespread and flagrant violations
of international humanitarian law occurring within the territory of the
former Yugoslavia and especially in the Republic of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, including reports of mass killings, massive, organized,
and systematic detention and rape of women, and the continuance of the
practice of‘ethnic cleansing’, including for the acquisition and
holding of territory" and determined "to put and end to such crimes and
to take effective measures to bring to justice the persons who are
responsible for them";
RECALLINGALSO that by Resolution 827, the Security Council determined
that the establishment of the Tribunal and the prosecution of persons
responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law
would contribute to the restoration and maintenance of peace in the
former Yugoslavia;
NOTINGthat Article 29 of the Statute of the Tribunal require States to
"co-operate with the International Tribunal in the investigation and
prosecution of persons accused of committing violations of
international humanitarian law";
NOTINGthat Mr. Slobodan Milosevic (the "Accused") is presently being
tried at the Tribunal for acts allegedly committed while he held high
political office in the former Yugoslavia;
NOTINGthat the Accused is a candidate in Serbian parliamentary
elections scheduled to be held on 28 December 2003;
NOTING PARTICULARLYthat the Commanding Officer of the United Nations
Detention Unit ("Detention Unit") has received reports that the Accused
has recently made statements to his political party and supporters,
using communication facilities provided by the Detention Unit and with
the intention of having these statements subsequently being reported in
the media1;
CONSIDERINGthat Rule 63(B) of the Rules of Detention provides that
"[t]he Registrar may refuse to allow a person to visit a detainee if he
has reason to believe that the purpose of the visit is to obtain
information which may be subsequently reported to the media" in
accordance with the proper administration of justice and that it
follows from this Rule and the principle on which it is founded, that
communication between a detainee and others may be prohibited if there
are reasons to believe that such communications would lead to a
detainee’s statements appearing in the media, particularly if the
effect of such statements is to undermine the Tribunal’s mandate to
assist in the restoration and maintenance of peace in the former
Yugoslavia;
CONSIDERINGthat the Accused has, as noted above, previously either
directly contacted the media or has used his privilege to communicate
with others who have in turn provided messages through the media in
contradiction of the Rules of Detention, which have resulted in a
widespread media attention and coverage of the fact that an indictee
for genocide, crimes against humanity and war-crimes such as the
Accused is facilitating, with ease, the ongoing Serbian parliamentary
elections campaign;
CONSIDERINGthat the facilities provided by the Detention Unit are
intended for the well- being of the Accused and not for purposes that
frustrate the Tribunal’s function to assist in establishing peace and
security in the former Yugoslavia and that the fact that a detainee at
the Detention Unit has communicated with the aid of facilities provided
by the Detention Unit to participate in an ongoing Serbian
parliamentary elections campaign is such an occasion that is likely to
frustrate the Tribunal’s mandate;
CONSIDERINGthat in balancing between the rights and entitlements to
communication and visits of the Accused with that of the Tribunal to
effectively perform its mandate and functions, the particular
circumstances of the detainee necessitates the imposition of measures
which are imperative for the avoidance of potentially deleterious media
coverage resulting from unrestricted communication entitlements and
visits for the time being;
DECIDESpursuant to Rules 60 and 63 of the Rules of Detention, for a
period of thirty (30) days following this Decision, which decision
shall then be reviewed, to:
(i) Prohibit communication, via telephone between the Accused with any
person(s) (particularly with the media), such prohibition shall not
apply to telephone communication with his immediate family, legal
counsel (where applicable), diplomatic or consular representatives on
condition that this facility shall not be used in any manner to contact
the media;
(ii) All authorised telephone conversations, except for communications
with recognised legal representatives (if any) and diplomatic or
consular representatives, shall be monitored, in accordance with
current Detention Unit practices;
(iii) Prohibit all visits between the Accused with any person(s)
(particularly with the media), such prohibition shall not apply to
visits with his immediate family, legal counsel (where applicable),
diplomatic or consular representatives;
(iv) All authorised visits shall be supervised by the Commanding
Officer of the Detention Unit or an official he designates.
(v) The aforesaid restrictions will not apply to written communications
wherein the current practices shall be maintained and the Detention
Unit’s regulations concerning the import and export of mail shall be
adhered to.
David Tolbert
Deputy Registrar
Dated this eleventh day of December 2003
At The Hague
The Netherlands
-----
1. The Commanding Officer of the Detention Unit confirmed that a speech
made by Mr. Slobodan Milošević from his cell at the Detention Unit was
broadcast on 3 Dec 2003 and subsequently reported in the newspapers.
------------
2. ICTY: Press Release on phone contacts and visits ban
Press Release . Communiqué de presse
(Exclusively for the use of the media. Not an official document)
REGISTRY
GREFFE
The Hague, 12 December 2003
JL/P.I.S./810e
REGISTRY IMPOSES COMMUNICATION RESTRICTIONS ON DETAINEES WITH REGARD TO
POLITICAL CAMPAIGNING IN THE MEDIA FROM THE TRIBUNAL’S DETENTION UNIT
On 11 December 2003, the Deputy Registrar of the Tribunal, David
Tolbert, issued two Decisions concerning the rights of detainees in the
Tribunal’s Detention Unit to use communications privileges for the
purpose of political campaigning in the media. The Decisions were
specifically taken with a view to two Accused, Slobodan Milosevic and
Vojislav Seselj. Both Accused were notified today, 12 December 2003.
Before issuing the Decisions, the Deputy Registrar took into account,
among other things, the following:
· Rule 2 of the Rules of Detention, which provides that the
United Nations "shall retain the ultimate responsibility and liability
for all aspects of detention";
· that the Accused are candidates in the Serbian parliamentary
elections scheduled to be held on 28 December 2003;
· that the Commanding Officer of the United Nations Detention
Unit has received reports that the Accused had recently made statements
to their political parties and supporters, using communication
facilities provided by the Detention Unit and with the intention of
having these statements subsequently being reported in the media;
· that Rule 63(B) of the Rules of Detention provides that "[t]he
Registrar may refuse to allow a person to visit a detainee if he has
reason to believe that the purpose of the visit is to obtain
information which may be subsequently reported to the media" in
accordance with the proper administration of justice and that it
follows from this Rule and the principle on which it is founded, that
communication between a detainee and others may be prohibited if there
are reasons to believe that such communications would lead to a
detainee’s statements appearing in the media, particularly if the
effect of such statements is to undermine the Tribunal’s mandate to
assist in the restoration and maintenance of peace in the former
Yugoslavia;
· that the facilities provided by the Detention Unit are
intended for the well-being of the Accused and not for purposes that
frustrate the Tribunal’s function to assist in establishing peace and
security in the former Yugoslavia and that the fact that a detainee at
the Detention Unit has communicated with the aid of facilities provided
by the Detention Unit to participate in an ongoing Serbian
parliamentary election campaign is such an occasion that is likely to
frustrate the Tribunal’s mandate;
The Deputy Registrar decided, pursuant to Rules 60 and 63 of the Rules
of Detention, for a period of 30 days following the Decisions, to:
i. "Prohibit communication, via telephone between the Accused with any
person(s) (particularly with the media), such prohibition shall not
apply to telephone communication with his immediate family, legal
counsel (where applicable), diplomatic or consular representatives on
condition that this facility shall not be used in any manner to contact
the media;
ii. All authorised telephone conversations, except for communications
with recognised legal representatives (if any) and diplomatic or
consular representatives, shall be monitored;
iii. Prohibit all visits between the Accused with any person(s)
(particularly with the media), such prohibition shall not apply to
visits with his immediate family, legal counsel (where applicable),
diplomatic or consular representatives;
iv. All authorised visits shall be supervised at the discretion of the
Commanding Officer of the Detention Unit or an official he designates."
*****
See full texts of the Decisions by the Deputy Registrar (Milosevic Case
: http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/trialc/decision-e/031211.htm
Seselj Case :
http://www.un.org/icty/seselj/trialc/decision-e/031211.htm)
---------------
3. ICTY: Press Release on conditions of Wesley Clark’s testimony
Press Release . Communiqué de presse
(Exclusively for the use of the media. Not an official document)
TRIAL CHAMBER
CHAMBRE DE 1ÉRE INSTANCE
The Hague, 19 November 2003
JL/P.I.S./802-e
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK TO TESTIFY IN THE MILOSEVIC TRIAL ON 15 AND 16
DECEMBER 2003
NO PUBLIC ACCESS ON THOSE DATES
RECORDING OF TESTIMONY TO BE MADE PUBLIC AFTER 48 HOURS
On 17 November 2003, Trial Chamber III issued an Order for General
Wesley Clark to testify in the Milosevic trial on 15 December 2003 and
to be available to complete his testimony the following day.
The Trial Chamber also made public an earlier confidential Decision,
dated 30 October 2003, setting out the conditions under which General
Clark is to give his testimony. In this Decision, the Trial Chamber
granted the addition of General Clark to the Prosecution’s witness
list, as well as extensive protective measures imposed by the
Government of the United States of America (US Government) under Rule
70 of the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure and Evidence (RPE).
Background:
The US Government has agreed to allow General Clark to testify in the
Milosevic trial pursuant to Rule 70 of the RPE and as such, it is
entitled to seek certain protective measures with respect to his
testimony. These protective measures were requested through the Office
of the Prosecutor.
The Trial Chamber is bound by an Appeals Chamber Decision (Prosecutor
v. Milosevic, "Decision on the Interpretation and Application of Rule
70" of 23 October, 2002) which grants the information provider (US
Government) a right to impose certain conditions upon the testimony of
a witness provided by it under Rule 70 of the RPE.
The protective measures requested by the US Government are sought to
protect its national interests and the Trial Chamber has granted these
protective measures on this basis.
On 30 October 2003 The Trial Chamber ordered as follows:
1. "General Wesley Clark ("the witness") may be added to the
Prosecution witness list;
2. the witness’s testimony shall be treated as information provided
pursuant to and protected by Rule 70 (C) and (D);
3. two representatives of the US Government may be present in court
during the testimony of the witness;
4. the evidence of the witness shall be given in open session subject
to the protective measures set out below;
5. the evidence contained in paragraphs 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67 and 85
of the summary attached to the Motion as ex parte Annex A may be given
in private session in order to protect the national interests of the US
and request may be made for additional evidence to be so given on the
same ground;
6. the public gallery be closed during the course of the witness’s
testimony;
7. the broadcast of the testimony be delayed for a period of 48 hours
to enable the US Government to review the transcript and make
representations as to whether evidence given in open session should be
redacted in order to protect the national interests of the US, and
shall be delayed for a period thereafter to enable the Trial Chamber to
consider and determine any redactions requested, and, if ordered, for
the redactions to be made to the tape of the testimony prior to its
release;
8. the scope of examination-in-chief and cross-examination of the
witness be limited to the content of the summary attached to the Motion
as ex parte Annex A;
9. The Accused or Amici Curiae may seek to have the scope of
examination expanded by prior agreement of the US Government (obtained
directly from that Government or through the representation of the
Office of the Prosecutor), once the summary of the evidence-in-chief to
be given is disclosed to them; and
10. The Prosecution shall disclose the summary contained in ex parte
Annex A forthwith".
An advisory alerting journalists to the media arrangements that will be
in place for them to view recordings of General Clark’s testimony after
16 December 2003 will be issued in due course.
*****
------------
4. ICTY: Press Advisory on Wesley Clark’s testimony
Press Advisory . Avis pour information
(Exclusively for the use of the media. Not an official document)
The Hague, 11 December 2003
CVO/P.I.S./PA149
MEDIA ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE TESTIMONY OF GENERAL WESLEY CLARK
No Public Access to Milosevic Trial on 15 and 16 December During
Testimony of General Wesley Clark
Please be reminded that following an Order from Trial Chamber III
issued on 17 November 2003 (see Press Release 802e) there will be no
public access to Courtroom I in the Milosevic trial on 15 and 16
December 2003 for the testimony of General Wesley Clark. The broadcast
of the testimony of General Clark will be delayed and shown on Friday
19 December 2003 starting at 9.00 a.m.
However as other proceedings will be ongoing the following rules will
apply:
• Cameras or photographers will not be allowed into the Tribunal
building;
• All interviews on camera are to be conducted outside of the Tribunal
building;
• Media without cameras will be given access to the lobby of the
Tribunal where they can make use of the media rooms.
The usual security procedures will apply:
All individuals entering the building are subject to security checks of
their person and belongings. No one will be permitted access to the
building without complying fully with the requirements of the
Tribunal's security officers. All members of the press have to present
their press card and photographic identification.
Public Broadcast of the Testimony of General Clark on Friday 19
December 2003
Please be advised that on Friday 19 December 2003 at 9 a.m. the
testimony given by General Wesley Clark on 15 and 16 December 2003 will
be publicly broadcast. Please note that the testimony will be broadcast
with the normal courtroom breaks (after every 1½hours there will be a
10 minute break).
Media coming to the Tribunal can view the broadcast from inside the
ICTY building:
• On the screens in the public gallery of Courtroom I (in English,
French and BCS available through headphones).
• On the large screen in the press briefing room of the Tribunal (in
English language only).
Media wishing to record the proceedings from inside the ICTY building
can do this by:
• Contacting the Press Office of the Tribunal
• Linking up to the feeds in either the audio room (XLR balanced
cables needed) or the video feed room (composite video feed). There are
12 feeds available, this may necessitate media assisting each other and
"piggybacking".
Outside the ICTY building:
• Uplink vans can connect to the break-out box outside of the
building. Please note that there are five feeds currently available. An
additional break-out box will be added if weather conditions permit
adding an extra 10 feeds.
Media unable to come to the Tribunal will be able to:
• Log on to the ICTY website at: www.un.org/icty to view the
testimony. On the homepage go to Courtroom I, Real Player and click on
the language you require.
• Contacting the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), who will be
broadcasting the testimony directly to its members and on request.
E.B.U. Eurovision:
Contact: Piotr Azia
Tel: +41.22.717.28.46 or 50
E-mail: azia@...
Radio representatives can contact E.B.U. Radio News for assistance.
Transcripts of General Clark’s testimony will also be made available on
ICTY website.
Contact Details for General Clark’s Public Relations Staff
Media wishing to contact General Clark’s public relations staff over
the 15 and 16 December 2003 can reach them on the following number: +
44 7974 982591.
For further information please do not hesitate to call the Press Office:
+31 (70) 512-5343 or 512-5356
*****
----------
5. ICDSM: Demonstrations and the Press Conference at The Hague
Yugoslavia Tribunal under complete control of the U.S.
War criminal Gen. Wesley Clark as prosecution witness!
Emergency Call for Protest!!!!!!
On Dec. 15 Wesley Clark will appear before the tribunal in The Hague
(ICTY) as a prosecution witness in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic!
For his role inside NATO, which under his command beginning on March 24,
1999, waged a 78-day bombing campaign, the current U.S. presidential
candidate was once tried and convicted in Belgrade for war crimes.
Now he presents himself as a "witness for the prosecution," which
appears quite striking when one considers how and to what extent the USA
dominates the tribunal. They finally carried it out!
More clearly than ever before now the direct influence of the U.S.
regime comes to the surface. It is the U.S. that literally dictated to
the tribunal the terms under which Wesley Clark will testify. Following
the direct conditions from Washington no public and no media will be
allowed inside. The only people who will observe the proceedings will be
two representatives of the U.S. government. And not only this: the U.S.
government has the authority to decide which parts of the testimony will
remain secret. The other parts will be presented to the U.S. government,
which will then have a time period of 48 hours to censor also this
part!!!
There are thus many reasons to protest before The Hague Tribunal on Dec.
15:
Protest! Protest against the dictatorship of imperialism! Protest
against
the attack on international law! Protest against the attempt to punish
the Yugoslav people for resistance against neo-colonialism! Protest
against the appearance of Wesley Clark – the butcher of children and
main executor of the criminal destruction of Serbia and Yugoslavia!
As the trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 15 at 9 a.m., the New Communist
Party of the Netherlands in cooperation with the Dutch ICDSM and
representatives of Serbian diaspora has organized a demonstration from
8 a.m. in front of
the tribunal building. Join the demonstration!
At the end there will be at 9 a.m. a press conference of the
International Committee for the Defense of Slobodan Molosevic (ICDSM) in
the Hotel Bel Air next to the tribunal. The Canadian lawyer for ICDSM,
Ms. Tiphaine
Dickson, will give a press statement and answer the media's questions.
All media representatives are welcome to hear the truth!
www.icdsm.org
www.sloboda.org.yu
----------------
SLOBODA urgently needs your donation.
Please find the detailed instructions at:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/pomoc.htm
To join or help this struggle, visit:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/ (Sloboda/Freedom association)
http://www.icdsm.org/ (the international committee to defend Slobodan
Milosevic)
http://www.free-slobo.de/ (German section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsm-us.org/ (US section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsmireland.org/ (ICDSM Ireland)
http://www.wpc-in.org/ (world peace council)
http://www.geocities.com/b_antinato/ (Balkan antiNATO center)
Le ong italiane, tra pornografia del dolore e nuovo umanitarismo
Sabato 29 novembre si è tenuto a Lucca il convegno "Dove va l’aiuto
umanitario? Ascesa e crisi dell’aiuto umanitario tra ambiguità e
solidarietà". Molte le organizzazioni non governative italiane
presenti. A parlare di sé.
Sintesi a cura di Andrea Rossini, Osservatorio sui Balcani.
Dove va l’aiuto umanitario? Nell’epoca delle organizzazioni non
governative (ong) “embedded”, cioè al seguito delle truppe nelle guerre
– per l’appunto – “umanitarie”, è questa la impegnativa domanda che ICS
(Consorzio Italiano di Solidarietà), Provincia di Lucca e Scuola per la
Pace hanno posto al mondo della cooperazione italiano. Al centro del
dibattito la crisi – finanziaria e di legittimità – delle ong, e le
relazioni pericolose venutesi a creare tra politica, media, militari e
interventi umanitari. Punto di partenza della discussione – come
affermato nel documento introduttivo di Giulio Marcon, presidente di
ICS - la ricerca di un nuovo fondamento etico e politico dell’operare,
di un nuovo codice di condotta che abbia la autonomia come principio
guida, la affermazione di un intervento che sappia sempre coniugare il
legame tra effetti e cause delle crisi nelle quali le ong si trovano ad
operare.
Il convegno di Lucca riprende un dibattito avviato due anni or sono da
Osservatorio Balcani (v. Dieci anni di cooperazione con il sud est
Europa: bilancio, critiche, prospettive), arricchito in questa nuova
fase dagli elementi introdotti dopo il Kosovo dalle crisi in
Afghanistan e Iraq. Sabato a Lucca sono intervenuti in molti, proviamo
ad articolare una sintesi della discussione attorno ai punti che hanno
attraversato tutti gli interventi dei relatori.
Indipendenza
Indipendenza (Carlo Garbagnati, Emergency) politica e finanziaria
coincidono, ma l’autofinanziamento è possibile solo quando i media
accendono i riflettori su di una data situazione. Sul campo, la
indipendenza si ottiene solo con la opposizione alla guerra. In caso
contrario sei per uno dei due contendenti. L’aiuto umanitario (Raffaele
Salinari, Terre des Hommes)è entrato in crisi non per la perdita di
indipendenza, ma perchè è entrato in crisi il diritto internazionale,
sotto il fuoco incrociato di nuova destra Usa e terrorismo. Le
convenzioni internazionali non sono più applicate, e chi cerca di
praticare l’aiuto umanitario risulta schiacciato. Negli ultimi dieci
anni (Loris de Filippi, Medici Senza Frontiere Italia) ci sono stati
tre tipi di crisi: quelle in cui la comunità internazionale è
intervenuta; quella nella quali è stata coinvolta; quelle dalle quali
si è astenuta. Quante ong sono intervenute in questi anni in crisi del
terzo tipo, come in Cecenia o in Algeria? Neutralità ed indipendenza
devono essere criteri che guidano anche la valutazione delle aree in
cui intervenire. L’indipendenza si persegue (Toni Vaux, Oxfam, autore
de “L’altruista egoista”) ponendo un limite ai fondi che si ricevono da
un governo (max 30%); avendo principi chiari, sulla base dei quali
prendere le decisioni rispetto alle proposte dei donatori; mantenendo
la imparzialità tra le parti in conflitto. Imparzialità non significa
neutralità o distacco, ma essere dalla parte delle vittime e non
intervenire solamente dove ci sono i soldi. Tra ong e ditte private i
confini si stanno assottigliando: entrambi sono “contractors” di
governi. La crisi delle ong (Paolo Dieci, Cisp) è dovuta alla
sovraesposizione mediatica e politica, e alla assunzione di compiti
impropri. La nostra legittimità (Giorgio Cardone, Ics) non consiste
nella capacità di raccogliere fondi o nell’essere in televisione, ma
nella onestà intellettuale nostra e dei nostri dirigenti, nell’essere
forse meno presenti nei vari Paesi in giro per il mondo e più presenti
nel nostro. Non è sufficiente raccogliere aiuti in forma privata per
affermare la propria indipendenza (Carlo Malavolti, Cospe): i fondi –
privati o pubblici – sono sempre condizionati, e si raccolgono
solamente su argomenti di attualità. E’ necessaria invece una battaglia
perché i fondi pubblici siano gestiti democraticamente. Tutte le
raccolte fondi (Fabio Alberti, Un ponte per)sono orientate dalla
televisione.
Neutralità o politica
Le ong sono portatrici di progetti politici. Per la neutralità c’è la
Croce Rossa (Fabio Alberti, Un ponte per). Rivendichiamo il nostro
operare tra nord e sud del mondo, che ha favorito la nascita di
movimenti ed esperienze come quella di Porto Alegre. Chi in Iraq non ha
accettato di cooperare con le forze militari non lo ha fatto per una
pretesa neutralità, ma perché con gli occupati contro gli occupanti. Le
ong devono essere neutrali (David Rieff, giornalista, autore de “Il
paradosso umanitario”), che legittimità hanno per fare politica? Se non
c’è neutralità non può esserci aiuto umanitario, può esserci
qualcos’altro. Dobbiamo chiederci perché oggi in Iraq (Joe Washington,
Università di Pisa) le ong sono diventate target. Noi non siamo né
neutrali né imparziali (Eugenio Melandri, Campagna Chiama l’Africa),
lavoriamo nel nostro settore con un progetto globale di cambiamento.
Basta con gli aiuti e basta (Carlo Malavolti, Cospe), bisogna fare
chiarezza tra emergenza e cooperazione. Noi facciamo parte del Cocis,
gruppo di ong intenzionate a rimanere aderenti ad un concetto di
cooperazione come fatto politico, modo di stabilire relazioni
internazionali che comprenda la volontà di cambiare, siamo contro
approcci assistenziali che non si sforzino di avviare processi endogeni
che affrontino le cause dei problemi.
Le risorse umane e il fascino delle ong
Le ong si comportano al proprio interno secondo le stesse modalità che
affermano di voler combattere (Gianni Rufini, Fields). I problemi non
sono solo fuori ma anche dentro (Edoardo). Da 10 anni cerco di far
capire a chi me lo chiede che non sono un volontario (Giorgio Cardone,
Ics), ma che questa attività per me è un lavoro. La competizione sul
campo tra le ong per accaparrare fondi è oscena (Angela Mackay,
Fields). Bisogna fare qualcosa di buono ma anche in condizioni buone
dal punto di vista delle risorse umane, avere un buon management,
salari e un ambiente professionale, mantenendo attenzione alla
questione di genere. Sono più di 3000 (Gianluca Antonelli – Vis,
Volontari per lo Sviluppo) gli studenti che oggi in Italia seguono
masters e corsi di laurea sulla cooperazione allo sviluppo. Il nostro
settore è al centro dell’attenzione. Cosa faranno tutte queste persone
dopo l’università? [Voce dal pubblico: niente.] Per una posizione
all’interno di Amnesty (Marco Bertotto, Amnesty Italia, Ics) abbiamo
ricevuto in questi giorni più di 800 curriculum di persone che
provengono anche dal profit e sono pronti a vedere ridotto il proprio
stipendio attuale anche dei 2/3.
Dove va l’aiuto umanitario?
Dove ci sono i soldi (Gianluca Antonelli, Vis).
Lo stato delle cose
Il nuovo umanitarianesimo deve essere più legato alle esperienze locali
e al tempo stesso più assertivo sul piano politico generale,
sull’esempio di associazioni come Greenpeace. Il sistema
dell’intervento umanitario (Claudio Bazzocchi, autore de “La
balcanizzazione dello sviluppo") per come si è venuto configurando
negli ultimi anni ha avuto come obiettivo quello di porre fine alla
sovranità degli Stati e di rendere l’aiuto pubblico allo sviluppo uno
strumento per imporre piani di aggiustamento strutturale, sostituendo
ad una società civile “luogo dove le classi subalterne creano gli
strumenti per trasformare la situazione” una asfittica “classe media
dell’aiuto umanitario”. Le crisi non vanno interpretate unicamente come
prodotto di un deficit di sviluppo e ricchezza, laddove le nuove guerre
possono essere lette come progetti politici e sociali per resistere
alla globalizzazione e affermare un nuovo comunitarismo. Le ong hanno
avuto una grande responsabilità in quanto agenti del neoliberismo e
delle privatizzazioni, anche noi abbiamo contribuito a distruggere
quelle società. I poveri (Tony Vaux) e le donne lavoratrici dei Paesi
nei quali ci troviamo ad operare hanno comportamenti guidati da analisi
più scientifiche delle nostre. Senza le ong (Gianni Rufini, Fields)
staremmo ancora a parlare di apartheid, di mine antiuomo o di Tribunale
Penale Internazionale. Oggi però le ong hanno perso la parola, sono
affogate nei progettifici. Dobbiamo tornare a chiederci perché siamo
nati e al tempo stesso produrre metodologie nuove e creative.
Comunicazione, ricerca
Le ong devono dotarsi di strumenti di analisi adeguati per poter agire
nei contesti delle nuove guerre, cui partecipano non solo gli eserciti
ma anche la gente, e nelle quali la povertà gioca un ruolo fondamentale
(Tony Vaux). L’unica comunicazione che sembra funzionare (Andrea Segre,
Ics, Unità di Comunicazione Creativa) è quella che alimenta lo
spettacolo, la pornografia del dolore o la compassione sui bambini,
mente l’elemento critico deve essere la distanza: dobbiamo ridurre la
distanza tra coloro i cui racconti raccogliamo e gli spettatori,
coinvolgendo i primi nel racconto come autori e dando la parola
(“attiva”) ai secondi, rompendo un meccanismo di spot che prevede come
unico strumento di relazione il dono. In un mercato della comunicazione
occupato da poche grandi ong, noi siamo incapaci di agire(Marco
Bertotto, Amnesty Italia, Ics), così come siamo incapaci di fare
politica e lobby seriamente, uscendo dalla mera affermazione di slogans.
E’ Giulio Marcon, alla fine, a sottolineare come il disordine del
dibattito rifletta la situazione del mondo della cooperazione oggi:
“Siamo parte del movimento contro la globalizzazione neoliberista e in
certi momenti ne siamo (o rischiamo di esserne) strumenti. Scopo della
giornata era anche quello di far emergere questo problema. Tenendo a
mente tuttavia che in Italia esistono oggi circa 1450 gruppi e
associazioni che fanno solidarietà internazionale e che non hanno
niente a che vedere né con il business né con il parastato. Questi sono
il nostro riferimento.” Proprio una rappresentante di questi gruppi
(Laura Cocci, Lodi per Mostar) aveva preso la parola nella parte finale
di una discussione quasi completamente maschile: “Siamo nati durante il
conflitto in ex Yugoslavia per creare ponti di pace e solidarietà tra
comunità locali: mi sento estranea a questo dibattito, noi non ci
sentiamo in crisi e continuiamo con le nostre attività come in passato.”
Il circo umanitario è tale anche perché sia gli spettatori che, in
qualche modo, gli attori, tendono a costruire un immaginario unico e
indistinto di persone e gruppi occupati a “fare del bene”. Il convegno
di Lucca ha contribuito su questo a fare chiarezza, presentando uno
scenario ancora molto diversificato tra ong “embedded”, chi si occupa
di emergenza e chi di sviluppo o di relazioni tra comunità. Sul campo,
tuttavia, le recenti crisi internazionali tendono sempre più ad
affermare un modello unico, per ciò stesso ambiguo, di aiuto
umanitario, basato sulla emergenza, lontano dalle istanze della
cooperazione allo sviluppo modello anni ’60 e ’70 – peraltro già in
crisi - che recava nel proprio dna un chiaro progetto di trasformazione
del mondo, o dalle nuove forme di cooperazione decentrata affermatesi
nei Balcani. Con questo modello unico dovrà confrontarsi in futuro in
maniera sempre più stringente il mondo della cooperazione. Partendo
dalla ricerca e affermazione di un linguaggio e di forme di
comunicazione nuove. Lontane dalla pornografia del dolore. E anche da
categorie ormai inutilizzabili. Come quella dell’umanitario.
» Fonte: © Osservatorio sui Balcani
www.osservatoriobalcani.org
NEWSLETTER SETTIMANALE DELL'OSSERVATORIO SUI BALCANI n. 48/2003
Sabato 29 novembre si è tenuto a Lucca il convegno "Dove va l’aiuto
umanitario? Ascesa e crisi dell’aiuto umanitario tra ambiguità e
solidarietà". Molte le organizzazioni non governative italiane
presenti. A parlare di sé.
Sintesi a cura di Andrea Rossini, Osservatorio sui Balcani.
Dove va l’aiuto umanitario? Nell’epoca delle organizzazioni non
governative (ong) “embedded”, cioè al seguito delle truppe nelle guerre
– per l’appunto – “umanitarie”, è questa la impegnativa domanda che ICS
(Consorzio Italiano di Solidarietà), Provincia di Lucca e Scuola per la
Pace hanno posto al mondo della cooperazione italiano. Al centro del
dibattito la crisi – finanziaria e di legittimità – delle ong, e le
relazioni pericolose venutesi a creare tra politica, media, militari e
interventi umanitari. Punto di partenza della discussione – come
affermato nel documento introduttivo di Giulio Marcon, presidente di
ICS - la ricerca di un nuovo fondamento etico e politico dell’operare,
di un nuovo codice di condotta che abbia la autonomia come principio
guida, la affermazione di un intervento che sappia sempre coniugare il
legame tra effetti e cause delle crisi nelle quali le ong si trovano ad
operare.
Il convegno di Lucca riprende un dibattito avviato due anni or sono da
Osservatorio Balcani (v. Dieci anni di cooperazione con il sud est
Europa: bilancio, critiche, prospettive), arricchito in questa nuova
fase dagli elementi introdotti dopo il Kosovo dalle crisi in
Afghanistan e Iraq. Sabato a Lucca sono intervenuti in molti, proviamo
ad articolare una sintesi della discussione attorno ai punti che hanno
attraversato tutti gli interventi dei relatori.
Indipendenza
Indipendenza (Carlo Garbagnati, Emergency) politica e finanziaria
coincidono, ma l’autofinanziamento è possibile solo quando i media
accendono i riflettori su di una data situazione. Sul campo, la
indipendenza si ottiene solo con la opposizione alla guerra. In caso
contrario sei per uno dei due contendenti. L’aiuto umanitario (Raffaele
Salinari, Terre des Hommes)è entrato in crisi non per la perdita di
indipendenza, ma perchè è entrato in crisi il diritto internazionale,
sotto il fuoco incrociato di nuova destra Usa e terrorismo. Le
convenzioni internazionali non sono più applicate, e chi cerca di
praticare l’aiuto umanitario risulta schiacciato. Negli ultimi dieci
anni (Loris de Filippi, Medici Senza Frontiere Italia) ci sono stati
tre tipi di crisi: quelle in cui la comunità internazionale è
intervenuta; quella nella quali è stata coinvolta; quelle dalle quali
si è astenuta. Quante ong sono intervenute in questi anni in crisi del
terzo tipo, come in Cecenia o in Algeria? Neutralità ed indipendenza
devono essere criteri che guidano anche la valutazione delle aree in
cui intervenire. L’indipendenza si persegue (Toni Vaux, Oxfam, autore
de “L’altruista egoista”) ponendo un limite ai fondi che si ricevono da
un governo (max 30%); avendo principi chiari, sulla base dei quali
prendere le decisioni rispetto alle proposte dei donatori; mantenendo
la imparzialità tra le parti in conflitto. Imparzialità non significa
neutralità o distacco, ma essere dalla parte delle vittime e non
intervenire solamente dove ci sono i soldi. Tra ong e ditte private i
confini si stanno assottigliando: entrambi sono “contractors” di
governi. La crisi delle ong (Paolo Dieci, Cisp) è dovuta alla
sovraesposizione mediatica e politica, e alla assunzione di compiti
impropri. La nostra legittimità (Giorgio Cardone, Ics) non consiste
nella capacità di raccogliere fondi o nell’essere in televisione, ma
nella onestà intellettuale nostra e dei nostri dirigenti, nell’essere
forse meno presenti nei vari Paesi in giro per il mondo e più presenti
nel nostro. Non è sufficiente raccogliere aiuti in forma privata per
affermare la propria indipendenza (Carlo Malavolti, Cospe): i fondi –
privati o pubblici – sono sempre condizionati, e si raccolgono
solamente su argomenti di attualità. E’ necessaria invece una battaglia
perché i fondi pubblici siano gestiti democraticamente. Tutte le
raccolte fondi (Fabio Alberti, Un ponte per)sono orientate dalla
televisione.
Neutralità o politica
Le ong sono portatrici di progetti politici. Per la neutralità c’è la
Croce Rossa (Fabio Alberti, Un ponte per). Rivendichiamo il nostro
operare tra nord e sud del mondo, che ha favorito la nascita di
movimenti ed esperienze come quella di Porto Alegre. Chi in Iraq non ha
accettato di cooperare con le forze militari non lo ha fatto per una
pretesa neutralità, ma perché con gli occupati contro gli occupanti. Le
ong devono essere neutrali (David Rieff, giornalista, autore de “Il
paradosso umanitario”), che legittimità hanno per fare politica? Se non
c’è neutralità non può esserci aiuto umanitario, può esserci
qualcos’altro. Dobbiamo chiederci perché oggi in Iraq (Joe Washington,
Università di Pisa) le ong sono diventate target. Noi non siamo né
neutrali né imparziali (Eugenio Melandri, Campagna Chiama l’Africa),
lavoriamo nel nostro settore con un progetto globale di cambiamento.
Basta con gli aiuti e basta (Carlo Malavolti, Cospe), bisogna fare
chiarezza tra emergenza e cooperazione. Noi facciamo parte del Cocis,
gruppo di ong intenzionate a rimanere aderenti ad un concetto di
cooperazione come fatto politico, modo di stabilire relazioni
internazionali che comprenda la volontà di cambiare, siamo contro
approcci assistenziali che non si sforzino di avviare processi endogeni
che affrontino le cause dei problemi.
Le risorse umane e il fascino delle ong
Le ong si comportano al proprio interno secondo le stesse modalità che
affermano di voler combattere (Gianni Rufini, Fields). I problemi non
sono solo fuori ma anche dentro (Edoardo). Da 10 anni cerco di far
capire a chi me lo chiede che non sono un volontario (Giorgio Cardone,
Ics), ma che questa attività per me è un lavoro. La competizione sul
campo tra le ong per accaparrare fondi è oscena (Angela Mackay,
Fields). Bisogna fare qualcosa di buono ma anche in condizioni buone
dal punto di vista delle risorse umane, avere un buon management,
salari e un ambiente professionale, mantenendo attenzione alla
questione di genere. Sono più di 3000 (Gianluca Antonelli – Vis,
Volontari per lo Sviluppo) gli studenti che oggi in Italia seguono
masters e corsi di laurea sulla cooperazione allo sviluppo. Il nostro
settore è al centro dell’attenzione. Cosa faranno tutte queste persone
dopo l’università? [Voce dal pubblico: niente.] Per una posizione
all’interno di Amnesty (Marco Bertotto, Amnesty Italia, Ics) abbiamo
ricevuto in questi giorni più di 800 curriculum di persone che
provengono anche dal profit e sono pronti a vedere ridotto il proprio
stipendio attuale anche dei 2/3.
Dove va l’aiuto umanitario?
Dove ci sono i soldi (Gianluca Antonelli, Vis).
Lo stato delle cose
Il nuovo umanitarianesimo deve essere più legato alle esperienze locali
e al tempo stesso più assertivo sul piano politico generale,
sull’esempio di associazioni come Greenpeace. Il sistema
dell’intervento umanitario (Claudio Bazzocchi, autore de “La
balcanizzazione dello sviluppo") per come si è venuto configurando
negli ultimi anni ha avuto come obiettivo quello di porre fine alla
sovranità degli Stati e di rendere l’aiuto pubblico allo sviluppo uno
strumento per imporre piani di aggiustamento strutturale, sostituendo
ad una società civile “luogo dove le classi subalterne creano gli
strumenti per trasformare la situazione” una asfittica “classe media
dell’aiuto umanitario”. Le crisi non vanno interpretate unicamente come
prodotto di un deficit di sviluppo e ricchezza, laddove le nuove guerre
possono essere lette come progetti politici e sociali per resistere
alla globalizzazione e affermare un nuovo comunitarismo. Le ong hanno
avuto una grande responsabilità in quanto agenti del neoliberismo e
delle privatizzazioni, anche noi abbiamo contribuito a distruggere
quelle società. I poveri (Tony Vaux) e le donne lavoratrici dei Paesi
nei quali ci troviamo ad operare hanno comportamenti guidati da analisi
più scientifiche delle nostre. Senza le ong (Gianni Rufini, Fields)
staremmo ancora a parlare di apartheid, di mine antiuomo o di Tribunale
Penale Internazionale. Oggi però le ong hanno perso la parola, sono
affogate nei progettifici. Dobbiamo tornare a chiederci perché siamo
nati e al tempo stesso produrre metodologie nuove e creative.
Comunicazione, ricerca
Le ong devono dotarsi di strumenti di analisi adeguati per poter agire
nei contesti delle nuove guerre, cui partecipano non solo gli eserciti
ma anche la gente, e nelle quali la povertà gioca un ruolo fondamentale
(Tony Vaux). L’unica comunicazione che sembra funzionare (Andrea Segre,
Ics, Unità di Comunicazione Creativa) è quella che alimenta lo
spettacolo, la pornografia del dolore o la compassione sui bambini,
mente l’elemento critico deve essere la distanza: dobbiamo ridurre la
distanza tra coloro i cui racconti raccogliamo e gli spettatori,
coinvolgendo i primi nel racconto come autori e dando la parola
(“attiva”) ai secondi, rompendo un meccanismo di spot che prevede come
unico strumento di relazione il dono. In un mercato della comunicazione
occupato da poche grandi ong, noi siamo incapaci di agire(Marco
Bertotto, Amnesty Italia, Ics), così come siamo incapaci di fare
politica e lobby seriamente, uscendo dalla mera affermazione di slogans.
E’ Giulio Marcon, alla fine, a sottolineare come il disordine del
dibattito rifletta la situazione del mondo della cooperazione oggi:
“Siamo parte del movimento contro la globalizzazione neoliberista e in
certi momenti ne siamo (o rischiamo di esserne) strumenti. Scopo della
giornata era anche quello di far emergere questo problema. Tenendo a
mente tuttavia che in Italia esistono oggi circa 1450 gruppi e
associazioni che fanno solidarietà internazionale e che non hanno
niente a che vedere né con il business né con il parastato. Questi sono
il nostro riferimento.” Proprio una rappresentante di questi gruppi
(Laura Cocci, Lodi per Mostar) aveva preso la parola nella parte finale
di una discussione quasi completamente maschile: “Siamo nati durante il
conflitto in ex Yugoslavia per creare ponti di pace e solidarietà tra
comunità locali: mi sento estranea a questo dibattito, noi non ci
sentiamo in crisi e continuiamo con le nostre attività come in passato.”
Il circo umanitario è tale anche perché sia gli spettatori che, in
qualche modo, gli attori, tendono a costruire un immaginario unico e
indistinto di persone e gruppi occupati a “fare del bene”. Il convegno
di Lucca ha contribuito su questo a fare chiarezza, presentando uno
scenario ancora molto diversificato tra ong “embedded”, chi si occupa
di emergenza e chi di sviluppo o di relazioni tra comunità. Sul campo,
tuttavia, le recenti crisi internazionali tendono sempre più ad
affermare un modello unico, per ciò stesso ambiguo, di aiuto
umanitario, basato sulla emergenza, lontano dalle istanze della
cooperazione allo sviluppo modello anni ’60 e ’70 – peraltro già in
crisi - che recava nel proprio dna un chiaro progetto di trasformazione
del mondo, o dalle nuove forme di cooperazione decentrata affermatesi
nei Balcani. Con questo modello unico dovrà confrontarsi in futuro in
maniera sempre più stringente il mondo della cooperazione. Partendo
dalla ricerca e affermazione di un linguaggio e di forme di
comunicazione nuove. Lontane dalla pornografia del dolore. E anche da
categorie ormai inutilizzabili. Come quella dell’umanitario.
» Fonte: © Osservatorio sui Balcani
www.osservatoriobalcani.org
NEWSLETTER SETTIMANALE DELL'OSSERVATORIO SUI BALCANI n. 48/2003
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