Thus Milosevic victimized NATO. NATO was forced to murder 16
innocent civilians and made to weather two hours of bad publicity.
Indeed, the entire 11-week bombing campaign was a war crime
perpetrated by Milosevic. By refusing to accept the US ultimatum at
Rambouillet, he provoked the bombing of Yugoslavia. Every hospital
destroyed, every housing estate reduced to rubble, every bridge
crashing into the Danube, every petrochemical plant going up in
flames was Milosevic’s war crime – not NATO’s. Most horrifying of
all, NATO – that repository of all that is finest, most honorable
and decent in men’ hearts – was "smeared." The Serbs must be made to
pay for this violation of the global moral order. The current
dispute between the regime in Belgrade and Carla del Ponte as to who
gets to put Milosevic on trial first is largely a sideshow. We know
the outcome already. Indeed, the outgoing Clinton Administration had
already suggested a solution. Milosevic does not have to be shipped
off to The Hague. He can be put on trial in Belgrade, but the
prosecutors will be from The Hague. After his inevitable conviction
of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Yugoslav courts can
try him. The prosecutors will be representatives of the new regime
who clearly have their own reasons for wanting to purge Yugoslavia
of every vestige of the pre-Kostunica/Djindjic era. The trials will,
of course, be a mockery of justice. Is there anyone in the world who
seriously doubts how del Ponte’s "court" will rule? Is there anyone
who doubts the outcome of the Yugoslav domestic trials? Milosevic
will be convicted of every crime under the sun from "vote stealing"
to embezzlement to double parking and spitting on the sidewalk.
The fairness of the trial Milosevic can expect at The Hague
is to be gauged from the fact that the Court had indicted him on the
basis of a few interviews with Kosovo Albanian refugees. Yet Louise
Arbour, del Ponte’s predecessor, knew immediately that Milosevic was
personally responsible for any atrocities that may have been
committed. The flimsiness of the evidence against him was evident
from the beginning, as NATO repeatedly revised downwards its
estimates of Kosovo Albanian casualties. Just the other day, OSCE
investigators were forced to acknowledge that they had found no
evidence to substantiate an NPR report that Yugoslav forces had
burned the bodies of 1500 Albanians in the Trepca blast furnace as
they were pulling out of Kosovo.
The fairness of the trial Milosevic can expect from the
Belgrade authorities is to be gauged from the remarks of Interior
Minister Zoran Zivkovic. "Milosevic’s place is in jail," he
declared, "It would be just for him to stand trial here because he
committed all those crimes here…. Our prosecutor should accept The
Hague’s indictment, add the local charges, and trigger the
proceedings in front of our courts…. The war crimes definitely
existed…and there is no dilemma who is responsible: Milosevic as the
former supreme commander." Milosevic has not even been charged with
anything yet. But we already know that "his place is in jail."
During his recent visit to Washington, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran
Djindjic announced that an investigation into Milosevic’s activities
would start "within a few days." The former leader will be put on
trial "in two weeks." "His place is in jail," even though there has
as yet been no "investigation." One would have thought an
investigation into the activities of a man who ruled a country for
over a decade is likely to be extremely complicated. Sifting through
and amassing evidence would surely be immensely time-consuming. Yet,
according to Djindjic, it should take no more than "two weeks."
Carla del Ponte for one was not buying any of this. "We cannot wait
for years" for the outcome of domestic legal proceedings, she
thundered, "For crimes against humanity… Milosevic will stand trial
in The Hague. For other [crimes] he may answer in Belgrade." Note
the casual and repeated references to "crimes" before even any
evidence has even been collected, let alone presented before any
court of law.
But then today’s courts of law have very little to do with
law or with justice. Courts of law are simply the mechanism for
enforcing the US-led New World Order. These courts have nothing to
do with establishing individual responsibility or criminal intent.
They serve to intimidate, to punish, to provide a fig leaf of
legitimacy for the raw assertion of power. The issue is no longer
whether people are to be tried in domestic or international courts.
What matters is that the "judicial process" be directed against
officials of countries who refused to accept US diktats. The Hague
Tribunal has no right to put anyone on trial. According to
international law, nations can only cede their sovereignty
voluntarily. Yet the Tribunal was imposed by order of the UN
Security Council. There is therefore no reason whatsoever for the
states of the former Yugoslavia to cooperate with del Ponte. By
accepting the Tribunal’s jurisdiction, by repeatedly promising full
cooperation with it, by accepting the term "war crimes" to describe
Serb resistance to NATO aggression, the new regime in Belgrade has
effectively declared that Serbia is now the vassal state of others.
By insisting on putting Milosevic on trial the Belgrade
regime is not asserting any kind of independence. The US Government
does not care two hoots whether Milosevic goes to prison in The
Hague or in Belgrade. What is important is that the man who defied
the will of NATO be publicly humiliated, that the Serbs enact a
script prepared in Washington. By convicting Milosevic of "war
crimes" and corruption the Serbs would thereby be acknowledging
their own guilt in asserting their "nationalism." They would be
acknowledging their crimes just as NATO had asserted all along. And
they would be acknowledging the justice of NATO’s cause. The "good"
NATO was up against the "evil" Milosevic. The trial and imprisonment
of Milosevic would serve as lesson to anyone else who would seek to
defy the will of the West.
A Russian official Pavel Borodin sits in prison in New York.
He is state secretary of the Russia-Belarus Union. He is wanted for
questioning in Switzerland about an alleged crime committed in
Moscow. The crime – kickback payments by Swiss companies to win a
contract to refurbish the Kremlin – is hardly the most serious. The
Russian authorities say there is no evidence of crime. The Swiss
claim they know better. And the US Government will have us believe
that it is simply following international law in holding Borodin
without bail pending a Swiss request for extradition. Borodin is
being denied bail even though the Russian Ambassador, Yuri V.
Ushakov, had assured the court that Borodin would be prepared to
wear an electronic monitor on his ankle and even to pay for a
federal agent to watch him around the clock. Ushakov promised that,
if released, Borodin would make all his court dates. Yet the US
Government treats the Russian Ambassador as if he were
representative of some Godforsaken banana republic. Once again, the
United States is using a spurious judicial procedure to intimidate
other countries. Anyone can be arrested anywhere at any time and
held indefinitely, on the basis of warrants that are kept secret.
Speaking of Godforsaken banana republics, the del Ponte
Tribunal is not the only international court meting out "justice" as
defined by the United States. There is also something called the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Its Chief Prosecutor is
also Carla del Ponte. It too operates on the basis of secret
indictments and international kidnappings. Where the Hague Tribunal
mainly targets the Serbs, the Rwanda Tribunal goes after the Hutus,
deemed to be the villains of the Rwanda civil war. The United States
threw its weight behind the Tutsis in Rwanda, and particularly their
leader Paul Kagame, and decided that only Hutus committed war
crimes. The Tutsis, like the Moslems of Bosnia, were victims. Again
the UN Security Council established the Rwanda Tribunal, with the UN
General Assembly having no say in the matter. A UN tribunal is
especially odd in this case, since it is claiming jurisdiction over
a civil war. The Tribunal concerns itself exclusively with crimes
committed in 1994. It resolutely ignores pre-1994 Tutsi crimes
against Hutus as well as the Tutsi massacres of Hutus in Eastern
Congo since 1994.
Meanwhile, the new rulers of the Philippines, having
overthrown a popularly-elected President last month amidst much
congratulation from the Bush Administration and the IMF, are
promising to put on trial former leader Joseph Estrada ("a drunken,
womanizing, film star who was kicked out of high school for
brawling," in the horrified words of The Economist.) There
was a constitutional way to remove Estrada – by impeachment. It
failed. However, rather than wait for an election, the military,
aligned with the mob and the business elites, seized power. Estrada
was popular among the poor and had challenged the dominance of the
elites that have run the Philippines into the ground. He is likely
to be charged with plundering the economy – a crime potentially
punishable by death. Corruption charges are extremely nebulous. They
are always trotted out, since people believe them so readily.
Stories of billions salted away in secret Swiss bank accounts are as
much a staple of the media as tales of evil dictators torturing
little children for the fun of it.
In a recent
article in The Times, Simon Jenkins wrote: "I cheered
when I heard that a Chilean judge had ordered the arrest of General
Pinochet. I cheered not because I regard the general as a villain
(although I do). I cheered because the judge was Chilean, the court
Chilean and the crimes Chilean. A nation is never so mature as when
it holds its own past to account." Now, Jenkins is a sensible
fellow, but in his desperate attempts not to wander off too far from
mainstream opinion, he concedes almost everything to his opponents.
He knows perfectly well that the Chileans would never have dreamt of
putting Pinochet on trial had they not been put pressured to do so
by the "international government." Jenkins would never dream of
applying the same standards to British or American leaders. After
all, he is not calling for the arrest of Clinton or Blair on war
crimes charges. Would he be in favor of Margaret Thatcher standing
trial for the sinking of the Argentine ship, the Belgrano, during
the Falklands war in 1982 in which 700 sailors died? Would he favor
putting former Prime Minister Edward Heath – like Pinochet 85 years
old – on trial for the death of 13 demonstrators in Northern Ireland
in January 1972? Would he favor putting Henry Kissinger on trial for
the deaths of civilians in Vietnam? Would he favor putting Janet
Reno on trial for the murders at Waco? Of course not. Jenkins
accepts the same double standards of our imperial masters. Trials
are for lesser species, the means by which obstreperous nations make
themselves acceptable to the rulers of the New World
Order.
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