Auf Deutsch: »Srebrenica ist Teil einer größeren Tragödie«
Radovan Karadzic wird vor UN-Tribunal wegen Völkermord angeklagt.
Serbophobie macht fairen Prozeß in Den Haag unmöglich.
Ein Gespräch mit Phillip Corwin
Von Cathrin Schütz
junge Welt (Berlin) - 31.07.2008 - www.jungewelt.de
PDF: https://www.cnj.it/documentazione/jw-2008-07-31.pdf
---
http://www.workers.org/2008/world/karadzic_0814/
U.N. official tells truth behind Bosnian Serb leader's arrest
Published Aug 11, 2008 7:17 PM
At the end of July the Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic was
taken from Belgrade and placed in the Scheveningen detention center
near The Hague, Netherlands, where the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia charged him with war crimes,
including "genocide," during the 1991-1995 civil war in Bosnia.
Those who only learn their news from the corporate media might not
realize that the ICTY was created not by the United Nations but by
NATO; that it is not an impartial court but has been directed almost
exclusively against Serbs; and that it was incapable of convicting
its most famous defendant, President Slobodan Milosevic of
Yugoslavia, who died in custody under suspicious circumstances after
demolishing the prosecution's case. They would also not learn that
German and U.S. interference in Yugoslavia, with the intention of
destroying the remaining socialist-leaning state in Eastern Europe,
had provoked and prolonged the civil war in Bosnia, leading to
thousands of additional deaths. For a different view of that
history, see: www.workers.org/2006/world/milosevic/.
Any international court that failed to put the U.S. and German
leaders on trial—those who ordered and carried out not only the 1999
war against Yugoslavia, but 10 years of aggression that finally
dismantled that multinational country—cannot be taken seriously as
an unbiased court. It is an imperialist political tool.
Below we publish excerpts from the telling remarks of U.S. citizen
Phillip Corwin, taken from an interview by Cathrin Schütz in the
German daily newspaper Junge Welt on July 31. (jungewelt.de) In the
spring and summer of 1995 Corwin was the "Civil Affairs Coordinator
and Delegate of the Special Representative for the UN Secretary
General for Bosnia and Herzegovina," and has written a book about
his experience.
Cathrin Schütz: Richard Holbrooke, Paddy Ashdown and many other
Western officials once involved with the Yugoslav crisis unanimously
call the arrest of Radovan Karadzic the capture of one of the most
brutal war criminals in contemporary history. What was your reaction
to his capture and statements like Holbrooke's: "Karadzic would have
been a good Nazi"?
Phillip Corwin: Holbrooke and Ashdown used the wars in former
Yugoslavia to advance their own careers. Phrases like "one of the
most brutal" and "good Nazi" are purely emotional, and only remind
us of the terrible biases those men held, and the crippling damage
they did as so-called diplomats. Even now, they contribute to the
Serbophobia that makes a fair trail in The Hague almost impossible.
In any criminal proceeding, the question of intent is paramount.
From my contacts with Bosnian Serb officials, including Dr.
Karadzic, I was convinced that the general intent of the Bosnian
Serb leadership was to protect Serbs, not to kill Muslims or Croats
or any other ethnic group.
CS: The main allegation is his alleged responsibility for genocide
of Bosnian Muslims in the town of Srebrenica in July 1995. At the
time Srebrenica fell to the Bosnian Serb army, you were the highest
ranking United Nations civilian official in Bosnia-Herzegovina. What
had happened?
PC: First, one has to realize that the tragedy of Srebrenica was
part of a larger tragedy. ... What happened in Srebrenica was not a
single large massacre of Muslims by Serbs, but rather a series of
very bloody attacks and counterattacks over a three-year period,
which reached a crescendo in 1995.
And the number of Muslim dead in the last battle of Srebrenica, as
BBC reporter Jonathan Rooper has pointed out, was most likely in the
hundreds, not in the thousands. Moreover, it is likely that the
number of Muslim dead was probably no more than the number of Serbs
who had been killed in Srebrenica and its environs during the
preceding years by Bosnian Commander Naser Oric and his predatory
gangs.
The exaggeration of the number of missing Bosnian Muslims shows that
the official reporting was political.
In May 1995, two months before the final battle at Srebrenica, 90
percent of the Serbs living in Western Slavonia were ethnically
cleansed by the Croatian army in "Operation Flash." A month after
Srebrenica, 200,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed from their
ancestral homes in the Krajina area of Croatia. The international
community did nothing in either case.
Srebrenica must be placed in perspective. If, indeed, 700 innocent
Muslims were massacred during the battle of Srebrenica in July 1995,
then that was a war crime and the criminals should be prosecuted.
But the difference between 700 and 8,000 is political not numerical.
CS: One media article stated that "The [Yugoslavia] Tribunal was the
child, in part, of Western governments' guilt over doing so little
to stop the war in the former Yugoslavia and its related
atrocities." Is that what you observed?
PC: I think the main reason for the destruction of Yugoslavia was
the ambition of NATO to move eastward. Although the Cold War had
ended, the Cold Warriors were still in power. Washington still felt
Russia was its biggest threat because it had so many nuclear
weapons, and Washington wanted to move up to the borders of the
former Soviet Union. ICTY was an attempt to provide a legal
framework for NATO's eastward expansion.
ICTY was not formed out of guilt. Imperialism never suffers from
guilt. ICTY was formed to continue the pressure on those in Eastern
Europe who opposed NATO expansion.
CS: Will Karadzic get a fair trial?
PC: I don't believe Dr. Karadzic can get a fair trial in The Hague.
CS: Although most of the commentators/journalists know little or
nothing about Bosnia and the Bosnian war, they all "know" that
Karadzic is a war criminal. How come?
PC: After the Vietnam War, the Pentagon knew it had to learn to
control the press. It has been very successful in doing that. During
the Yugoslav wars, the press bought the idea that NATO was
fulfilling its moral duty by opposing "Serbian racism."
-----------
Articles copyright 1995-2008 Workers World. Verbatim copying and
distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium
without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@...
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@...
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php
Radovan Karadzic wird vor UN-Tribunal wegen Völkermord angeklagt.
Serbophobie macht fairen Prozeß in Den Haag unmöglich.
Ein Gespräch mit Phillip Corwin
Von Cathrin Schütz
junge Welt (Berlin) - 31.07.2008 - www.jungewelt.de
PDF: https://www.cnj.it/documentazione/jw-2008-07-31.pdf
---
http://www.workers.org/2008/world/karadzic_0814/
U.N. official tells truth behind Bosnian Serb leader's arrest
Published Aug 11, 2008 7:17 PM
At the end of July the Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic was
taken from Belgrade and placed in the Scheveningen detention center
near The Hague, Netherlands, where the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia charged him with war crimes,
including "genocide," during the 1991-1995 civil war in Bosnia.
Those who only learn their news from the corporate media might not
realize that the ICTY was created not by the United Nations but by
NATO; that it is not an impartial court but has been directed almost
exclusively against Serbs; and that it was incapable of convicting
its most famous defendant, President Slobodan Milosevic of
Yugoslavia, who died in custody under suspicious circumstances after
demolishing the prosecution's case. They would also not learn that
German and U.S. interference in Yugoslavia, with the intention of
destroying the remaining socialist-leaning state in Eastern Europe,
had provoked and prolonged the civil war in Bosnia, leading to
thousands of additional deaths. For a different view of that
history, see: www.workers.org/2006/world/milosevic/.
Any international court that failed to put the U.S. and German
leaders on trial—those who ordered and carried out not only the 1999
war against Yugoslavia, but 10 years of aggression that finally
dismantled that multinational country—cannot be taken seriously as
an unbiased court. It is an imperialist political tool.
Below we publish excerpts from the telling remarks of U.S. citizen
Phillip Corwin, taken from an interview by Cathrin Schütz in the
German daily newspaper Junge Welt on July 31. (jungewelt.de) In the
spring and summer of 1995 Corwin was the "Civil Affairs Coordinator
and Delegate of the Special Representative for the UN Secretary
General for Bosnia and Herzegovina," and has written a book about
his experience.
Cathrin Schütz: Richard Holbrooke, Paddy Ashdown and many other
Western officials once involved with the Yugoslav crisis unanimously
call the arrest of Radovan Karadzic the capture of one of the most
brutal war criminals in contemporary history. What was your reaction
to his capture and statements like Holbrooke's: "Karadzic would have
been a good Nazi"?
Phillip Corwin: Holbrooke and Ashdown used the wars in former
Yugoslavia to advance their own careers. Phrases like "one of the
most brutal" and "good Nazi" are purely emotional, and only remind
us of the terrible biases those men held, and the crippling damage
they did as so-called diplomats. Even now, they contribute to the
Serbophobia that makes a fair trail in The Hague almost impossible.
In any criminal proceeding, the question of intent is paramount.
From my contacts with Bosnian Serb officials, including Dr.
Karadzic, I was convinced that the general intent of the Bosnian
Serb leadership was to protect Serbs, not to kill Muslims or Croats
or any other ethnic group.
CS: The main allegation is his alleged responsibility for genocide
of Bosnian Muslims in the town of Srebrenica in July 1995. At the
time Srebrenica fell to the Bosnian Serb army, you were the highest
ranking United Nations civilian official in Bosnia-Herzegovina. What
had happened?
PC: First, one has to realize that the tragedy of Srebrenica was
part of a larger tragedy. ... What happened in Srebrenica was not a
single large massacre of Muslims by Serbs, but rather a series of
very bloody attacks and counterattacks over a three-year period,
which reached a crescendo in 1995.
And the number of Muslim dead in the last battle of Srebrenica, as
BBC reporter Jonathan Rooper has pointed out, was most likely in the
hundreds, not in the thousands. Moreover, it is likely that the
number of Muslim dead was probably no more than the number of Serbs
who had been killed in Srebrenica and its environs during the
preceding years by Bosnian Commander Naser Oric and his predatory
gangs.
The exaggeration of the number of missing Bosnian Muslims shows that
the official reporting was political.
In May 1995, two months before the final battle at Srebrenica, 90
percent of the Serbs living in Western Slavonia were ethnically
cleansed by the Croatian army in "Operation Flash." A month after
Srebrenica, 200,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed from their
ancestral homes in the Krajina area of Croatia. The international
community did nothing in either case.
Srebrenica must be placed in perspective. If, indeed, 700 innocent
Muslims were massacred during the battle of Srebrenica in July 1995,
then that was a war crime and the criminals should be prosecuted.
But the difference between 700 and 8,000 is political not numerical.
CS: One media article stated that "The [Yugoslavia] Tribunal was the
child, in part, of Western governments' guilt over doing so little
to stop the war in the former Yugoslavia and its related
atrocities." Is that what you observed?
PC: I think the main reason for the destruction of Yugoslavia was
the ambition of NATO to move eastward. Although the Cold War had
ended, the Cold Warriors were still in power. Washington still felt
Russia was its biggest threat because it had so many nuclear
weapons, and Washington wanted to move up to the borders of the
former Soviet Union. ICTY was an attempt to provide a legal
framework for NATO's eastward expansion.
ICTY was not formed out of guilt. Imperialism never suffers from
guilt. ICTY was formed to continue the pressure on those in Eastern
Europe who opposed NATO expansion.
CS: Will Karadzic get a fair trial?
PC: I don't believe Dr. Karadzic can get a fair trial in The Hague.
CS: Although most of the commentators/journalists know little or
nothing about Bosnia and the Bosnian war, they all "know" that
Karadzic is a war criminal. How come?
PC: After the Vietnam War, the Pentagon knew it had to learn to
control the press. It has been very successful in doing that. During
the Yugoslav wars, the press bought the idea that NATO was
fulfilling its moral duty by opposing "Serbian racism."
-----------
Articles copyright 1995-2008 Workers World. Verbatim copying and
distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium
without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@...
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@...
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php