| From: | "Jim Yarker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> |
| Subject: | should be required reading for the Birkenstock International |
| Date: | Sun, 31 Mar 2002 16:55:00 -0500 |
[ This should be required reading for the trendy "Birkenstock International"�but it won�t be. A laudable effort nonetheless, worth more than all the spray-painted angst on Starbucks outlets and all the �anti-globalization� puppet shows put together. My sole quibble would be with the claim that Milosevic �committed the same crimes as the protesters in Seattle, Prague, Nice and Quebec. He said no to Nato, no to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and no to 'economic restructuring'.� His �crimes� were much more real, much more effective and profound in those regards, which is why he�s in the Hague, and still in jail. And most of the protestors in Seattle, etc didn�t say no to Globalization when Globalization�s airforce was wrecking the last socialist country in the Balkans. I guess the idea is to be diplomatic when dialoguing with the Movement]
Spark, issue no. 9
Imperialism and the Arrest of Milosevic
Ian Johnson,
"Milosevic is determined to keep state controls (of industry) and refuses to allow privatisation." (New York Times, 18 July 1996.)
"Milosevic failed to understand the message of the fall of the Berlin wall. While other communist politicians accepted the western model Milosevic went the other way." Washington Post, 4 August 1996.
One need look no further than the above quotations to understand the real reason why Yugoslavia was subjected to almost a decade of economic sanctions, a three month bombing blitz and unprecedented outside interference in its internal affairs.
In the eyes of imperialism Milosevic committed the same crimes as the protesters in Seattle, Prague, Nice and Quebec. He said no to Nato, no to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and no to 'economic restructuring'.
The cover story for the US and Nato's aggression was the supposed prevention of 'ethnic cleansing' and this line was supported by an onslaught of corporate media propaganda, the like of which history has seldom seen, and which the intellectual pygmies from most parties of the left uncritically accepted.
Some groups went even further and actively championed Nato's ground troops, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Yet the relationship between the United States and the KLA was clearly explained in the US Senate: "The United States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same human values and principles. Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values." Senator Joseph Lieberman (Washington Post, 28 April 1999)
Although most of the left couldn't, or didn't want to, see through the US propaganda, some bourgeois commentators did. "The scale on which the public was misled about the atrocities � and not just Nato's bombing 'successes' � threatens to be mind-boggling." (Andrew Alexander, Daily Mail, 5 November 1999)
Furthermore forensic experts sent to Kosovo to find proof of the supposed atrocities, left empty handed: "I called my people together and said 'We're finished here.' I informed my government and told them the real situation. We have become part of a semantic pirouette by the war propaganda machine, because we did not find one, not one, mass grave." (Emilio Perez Pujol, Head of the Spanish Forensic Team, attached to the International Criminal Tribunal, 12 October 1999) National endowment for democracy.
Having failed to achieve all their objectives via the 1999 bombing blitz, the United States increased their funding and training of the Yugoslav internal opposition. An opposition created by the US itself and fuelled by a decade of US-imposed economic sanctions. This funding came through the US government agency, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Founded in 1983, the NED took over functions that were once the responsibility of the CIA. Unlike the CIA however the NED receives open Congressional appropriations, as opposed to the previously covert funding, and thus their activities are quite openly documented. For instance NED programme operator Paul McCarthy revealed in his testimony to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe that the NED, in 1998, was responsible in Yugoslavia for the newspapers Nasa Borba, Vreme and Danas, the TV station Negotin, the news agency BETA, and the Belgrade station Radio B-92.
Significantly, in August 1999, the NED increased their funding to the Serbian 'youth' organisation Otpor, essentially recruiting the most reactionary layers from the ranks of the unemployed. The fruits of this strategy are outlined in the NED's own literature: "Otpor's activists played a crucial role in the street demonstrations that followed the elections and led to Milosevic's ultimate downfall on October 5."
And further. "Otpor's first major campaign was a nationwide effort to pressure the regime to arrest Slobodan Milosevic." That Otpor were following a strategy laid down by Washington was emphasised when America's Balkan envoy Richard Holbrooke admitted to the New York Times of 8 April 2001: "The arrest of Mr Milosevic resulted from American pressure."
One of the NED's functions in life is to support politicians who pursue policies favoured by Washington. And they see no harm at all in having a ready made, paid for rabble at hand to remind new Yugoslav President Kostunica and his fellow travellers just who put them in power in the first place.
It is worth noting that included among the six directors who have recently joined the board of the National Endowment for Democracy are: Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of Nato, former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, and Francis Fukuyama, author of the anti-communist diatribe, The End of History.
Just to put the icing on the cake, the National Democratic Institute, which is funded by the NED, has announced that former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will become their next president.
The arrest of Milosevic
It is important to understand that it is not only ex-President Slobodan Milosevic who has been arrested by the new US backed Belgrade regime. Many leaders who resisted Nato are now under arrest. The Yugoslav army is undergoing a purge, as are the security services and the judiciary. The offices of the Socialist Party of Serbia have been ransacked and their members arrested and beaten. As former Attorney General of the United States Ramsey Clark commented, "You won't hear about this on CNN."
The intention of all this is to destroy forever the ability of Yugoslavia to rise again and resist imperialism. Here we will content ourselves with commenting on the Milosevic arrest.
This arrest was ordered by the United States, backed by the threat of economic and political blackmail, a fact openly admitted by the new Yugoslav government.
The assault on Milosevic's home in Belgrade on the night of 31 March was carried out by forces wearing women's stockings pulled down over their faces and, contrary to Western news reports, the attackers carried no arrest warrant. Indeed, many had no identification at all and some were heard speaking English. The initial attack was repelled by the Yugoslav army unit guarding the former President. It was only after Milosevic himself instigated discussions with the Belgrade authorities and voluntarily gave himself up. that an escalation of the violence was averted.
The Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) correctly summed up these developments in their statement of 7 April: "The Socialist Party of Serbia condemns in the strictest terms the current regime's illegal, witch-hunting investigation and arrest of SPS President, Slobodan Milosevic. The Ministry of Interior employed more policemen in the siege and attempted arrest of Mr Milosevic than have been employed in the defence of southern Serbia from terrorists. These actions are a mark of shame for Serbia and Yugoslavia. Who were the masked, armed men, bearing neither official insignia nor the authorisation of a judge investigator, who attacked Mr Milosevic's residence ? This was a criminal act.
"Citizens of Serbia realise that the DOS regime did not bring false charges and stage the violent assault on Mr. Milosevic's residence in order to establish the alleged guilt of Slododan Milosevic. Rather, these actions were staged to fulfill the orders of the regime's foreign masters. Charges have been brought against Slobodan Milosevic in order to conceal the responsibility of those who ordered the aggression against, and destruction of, our country and the killing of its citizens." The US and Nato, by attempting to throw all the ills of the Balkans onto the shoulders of Milosevic, and dragging him to the misnamed War Crimes Tribunal, are trying to do two things. One, to legitimise their previous actions and two, to serve warning that this is what awaits any future Head of State that dares to oppose imperialism.
There was a story put about in the Western press after Milosevic's arrest which claimed he threatened suicide rather than be taken into detention, and further, that he threatened to kill his wife, daughter and then himself. (This was presumably after he had strangled the family's goldfish and killed the resident cat). This story is untrue, though its motives are deadly. It originated in the New York Times of 2 April 2001.
The relevant piece of the article reads: "Zarko Korac, a Serbian deputy prime minister, said this morning that Mr. Milosevic had waved his own gun during the discussion and had threatened to kill himself and his wife, Mirjana Markovic, and his daughter, Marija. Mr Kovac said Mr. Milosevic 'was in bad shape' but had finally agreed to surrender to save lives."
Two things about this story. First Zarko Korac has been appearing regularly on Western TV for the last ten years as an 'expert on Yugoslav psychology' and is very much the Americans' man. Second, Zarko Korac wasn't even present at the discussions he was describing! Banislav Ivkovic, SPS leader, who was present throughout, states, "Zarko Korac was not present. Not for a minute."
In fact, Milosevic's mood was quite the opposite to suicidal. Ivkovic goes on to explain why this suicide story was put out: "In fact, Mr Milosevic was quite calm, which is amazing given the threat to himself, his family and his supporters. Why is Mr. Korac, who was not present, telling these lies about Mr. Milosevic's actions and mood? We fear this is an effort to create public opinion which views Mr Milosevic as suicidal. Then, in the likely eventuality that the DOS-controlled, or should we say the US controlled Serbian judiciary cannot break Mr. Milosevic, thus making it impossible to stage a proper show trial, the regime will assassinate him in jail and say he committed suicide." This view is shared by reporter Jared Israel who talked at length with Milosevic just days before the former President's arrest. Israel comments: "The US Establishment has continued to finance and train KLA terrorists while they committed the vilest crimes in Kosovo, southern Serbia and Macedonia. The US supported the KLA while it drove 90% of non-Albanians from Kosovo. The US Establishment intentionally bombed civilian trains, homes, and Serbian Television, during the 1999 aggression against Yugoslavia. For such people, morality is not an issue. Murder is a practical affair: will it help us or hurt us ?"
The war crimes tribunal
The War Crimes Tribunal has issued 'indictments' against Slobodan Milosevic and other Yugoslav government leaders for alleged 'war crimes'. However, this U.N. Security Council creation is legally invalid. According to the provisions of the U.N. Charter, the Security Council has no competence whatsoever in judicial matters. The Charter determines the Council's competence in matters of international security but not in matters of criminal justice or other judicial matters. The sole authority in international judicial matters rests with the International Court of Justice and not with the mainly US-created War Crimes Tribunal/International Criminal Tribunal."
That it is illegal is beyond question, but moreover, neither is it independent or neutral.
The President of the International Progress Organisation, Dr. Hans Koechler, noted the following: "The provisions of Article 3 of the so-called 'Tribunal' identify, among others, the following practices as 'violations of the laws or customs of war': a) 'employment of poisonous weapons or other weapons calculated to cause unnecessary suffering, c) attack, or bombardment, by whatever means, of undefended towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings.' Nato's use of depleted uranium missiles and cluster bombs, Nato's attacks on villages, civilian buses etc fall clearly within the definition of 'violations of the laws or customs of war'. As long as the 'Tribunal' does not take action against those Nato politicians and military officers responsible for these grave breaches of international humanitarian law, the 'Tribunal' can only be considered as one more futile exercise in the political use of judicial procedures within the framework of a 'policy of double standards' which seems to be the essence of power politics in Nato's 'New World Order'.
That the 'Tribunal' was purely a United States political tool was emphasised when prosecutor Louise Arbour reported the decision to indict Milosevic directly to the President of the United States, two days before she announced it to the rest of the world. For her service to imperialism darling Louise was appointed judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, a lifetime appointment.
Much of the tribunal's funding has come, not surprisingly, from the US government through cash and equipment. Other notable contributors are the Rockefeller family, Time-Warner, and American billionaire financier George Soros.
It is worth noting that George Soros' foundation, the Open Society Institute, also funds the main KLA newspaper in Pristina. The 'Tribunal' also receives support from the Coalition for International Justice (CIJ). The CIJ was founded, and is funded, by George Soros. Many of the 'Tribunal's' legal staff have been supplied by, wait for it, George Soros' CIJ. Moreover, the 'Tribunal' also has provision for the obtaining of evidence by, among others, you've guessed it, George Soros' Open Society Foundation.
The 'Tribunal' has some interesting rules and procedures. Here are just a few, and no, I haven't made them up!
1. Investigation of facts can be halted on the grounds 'that an investigation would not serve the interests of justice'.
2. Arrest is allowed for any reason. It ensures that the person does not obstruct an investigation. 3. Secret trials. (The very essence of political courts).
4. Evidence may be withheld from the Defence.
5. The accused may be held in detention even when acquitted.
6. Hearsay evidence is accepted.
7. There is no jury.
8. Any witness can testify anonymously.
This then is the 'Tribunal' that issued indictments against the Yugoslav leaders. It issued indictments first, and then went looking for evidence a distant second. The complete reversal of accepted legal norms: innocent until proven guilty.
Will the 'Tribunal' find any evidence to convict the Yugoslav leaders? Of course they will. They are not going to let little things like truth and justice get in the way. They may persuade a subordinate into giving 'evidence' with vague promises of release. They may cite the 'suitcases full of cash' leaving Yugoslavia, but they will forget to tell you that it was the US who, in 1990, stopped all credit to Yugoslavia, thus making it impossible for the FRY to trade in the accepted manner, leaving cash payments as the only way they could pay for imported goods. Yes, they will find 'evidence'. It won't be true, but to establish the truth is not what the War Crimes Tribunal is for.
The end game.
The newly elected (eventually) US President Bush, our own Tony 'call me Mr President' Blair: both call the present period the end game. However this is a complete reversal of what is actually taking place. Since modern records have been kept, there has not been such a rapid decline in economic existence as has resulted from the devastation of the changeover from socialism to capitalism in the former USSR and Eastern Europe. Imperialism is manufacturing a situation today that is leaving the population of these countries with no choice but to resist. It wants control of Yugoslavia partly to gain access to the oil and gas resources of the former Soviet Union.
It needs these natural resources because, far from creating a 'new world order', it is desperately trying to stave off slump and recession. Furthermore, imperialism knows that resistance will harden, that is why it is so ruthless with the leaders of any current resistance. That is why all progressive forces should stand and work together in an anti-imperialist movement. It is in our own interests to support the Yugoslav leaders currently under attack. In the words of James Baldwin: "If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own. For if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night."
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