-Caveat Lector- --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "halva_gr" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: This is what I wrote about Milosevic almost a year ago (August 2001):
The newspapers in early August were reporting a development that many may have found puzzling. When former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark paid his third visit to Milosevic at Scheveningen prison in Holland, the prison authorities themselves announced that the meeting was conducted without the presence of any third person, even a guard. The International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), it was explained, "hopes to persuade the former Yugoslav president to appoint a defence counsel, since �..it will be better for the accused to have legal support in such a complex case as his own." Milosevic does not desire to appoint a defence counsel, as he refuses to recognize the legality of the Court. Now whatever the motives for the non-presence of a third person at the Ramsey Clark discussions with Milosevic, the face that the Court is beginning to show to the world is not that of an institution whose number one aim in life is to convict Slobodan Milosevic of crimes against humanity. It is beginning to act as if it is primarily interested in establishing its own credibility. Perhaps it is worth quoting the Greek journalist Konstantine Kallergis, who as early as 8th July was writing the following: "Essentially the Court embodies both the idealism of the protagonists of an international political legality higher than that of states and the cynicism of those who created it as a means of facilitating and legitimating a certain policy." (In other words, Madeleine Allbright, the proudly designated "mother of the Tribunal" W.H.) "How can the predominance of one or the other be tested?" continues Kallergis. "By acquitting Slobodan Milosevic. Recently the del Ponte side has consistently been leaking to the press the picture of a very flawed prosecution case. Perhaps they are doing it to pressure for the arrest of Karadzic and Mladic. Perhaps it merely reflects a reality. But in either case an acquittal of Milosevic through lack of evidence, as unreal as this may seem, in fact would be one of the greatest possible humiliations for `the West' and at the same time the greatest vindication of the Court itself, which would have achieved what is most important for it: its own independence." In the category of "protagonists of an international political legality higher than states" are people like veteran German Social Democrat and key promoter of Ostpolitik Egon Bahr, who publicly denounced the kidnapping of Milosevic and his dispatch to the Hague, calling it "a mistake": "We Germans have lived since 1945 with the justified accusation that the German people were unable, alone, to get rid of Hitler. The result of this inability was the Nuremberg Trials. But unlike the German people, the Serbs were able, alone, to overthrow Milosevic. The Serbs have demonstrated their democratic maturity. The West should have rewarded this and said: "Congratulations. Now put him on trial! And after that we'll see. My wish would not be to see the Yugoslav people treated with contempt. Something like that is not right." Of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Bahr says this: "In the era of globalization we need international rules which will be respected by the states which participate in their formulation and place them above their own national legislature. But this is not going to happen for as long as the United States refuse to hand over American citizens to international courts." Does this mean that after the acquittal of Milosevic postulated by Kallergis we can expect to see the ICTY putting Clinton and General Wesley Clark on trial for war crimes in Yugoslavia, along with Blair, Cook, Javier Solana, etc.? That is incredible. But what is going to happen when the public perceives that the Court is more interested in establishing its own credentials than in convicting Milosevic? Perhaps this court is not merely the embodiment of a search for globalized (and politicized) justice but also a trap, designed by supposed "protagonists of an international political legality higher than states" to catch the cynics "who created it as a means of facilitating a certain policy". There are many aspects of the day-to-day running of the Court that contradict accepted principles of jurisprudence. Defendants can be seized under "sealed warrants" and held in detention indefinitely. There is no protection against self-incrimination and no protection against double-jeopardy. Prosecutors can appeal an acquittal and insist on the continued detention of a defendant who has been acquitted. There is no jury and no independent appeals body. The Court has the right to set its own rules on procedure and evidence. Prosecutors can withhold vital information from the defence. Defendants cannot confront their accusers. Prosecution witnesses have the right not to answer questions they do not want to answer. They do not even have to appear in court and face defense counsel. They can just give a deposition before a court officer. Their identity may be concealed. In short, the more one looks at this court, the less it looks like a court and the more like a provocation. Flashback At the time of NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia I wrote a piece called "Ostpolitik-Westpolitik" in which I tried to give an explanation for the bloodthirstiness of the German (and other European) Greens who were supporting the bombing, particularly their leaders such as Joschka Fischer and Daniel Cohn-Bendit. I explained that the Greens had come into existence at a time when under Social Democratic Chancellor Helmut Schmidt Germany was pursuing policies of active collaboration with the Communist leaderships of the Warsaw Pact states, ultimately embracing even figures as controversial as General Jaruzelski, scourge of Solidarnosc. Schmidt's open support for Jaruzelski had provoked an uproar, exposing a gaping hole in the German party system. Given that the Social Democrats were collaborating with the Eastern European Communists, there was an obvious need for a "more radical" party, to the Left of the Communists, whose rejection of Communism would derive not from the traditional anti-Communist reflexes of the Christian Democrats and their CSU partners (which was unconvincing to many residents of Eastern Europe) but from something more intellectual. In the overall geopolitical logic of Ostpolitik's proclaimed "Wandel durch Annaeherung" (political change through getting closer), the role of the Greens was to reassure and make friends with dissident Eastern European intellectuals, reform Communists, people whose discontent with the Communist system stemmed from genuine social and ecological concerns, not from Cold War politics or anti-Communist ideology. When in 1989 the government of Hungary was persuaded, with the assistance of Bavarian bank loans, to open its borders with Austria, the stage was set for the next phase of Ostpolitik: "Wandel durch Auflehnung" (political change through rejection). Within weeks, floods of East German refugees were streaming over the border. Mass demonstrations broke out in Eastern Germany. East German leader Erich Honecker resigned and in November the wall came down. The West German mask of friendship with the Communists came off. The undiminished hostility underneath was a great shock to many. The Greens too were thrown into confusion. Alarmed at the prospect of mass emigration into Western Germany, both out of demographic considerations in the West and concern for democratic reforms in the East, they clung to "two Germany" policies long after they had been shown to be utopian. German reunification followed in 1990 and in the Federal elections of that year, the Greens were annihilated, with the West German party failing to return a single parliamentarian. In the 1980s the Green political programme had centred on nuclear disarmament and the abolition of nuclear power stations. During the early 90s period in the wilderness, these issues were put on the back burner and their place taken by a new emphasis on anti-racism. At first the main focus of the campaigns was on the treatment of foreigners in former East Germany, then came the war in Chechnya, providing another target, the Russians. But with the unfolding of political crisis and civil war in Yugoslavia, the most significant receptacle for the Greens' anti-racism and anti-nationalism now came into focus: Slobodan Milosevic, at that time President of Serbia. In "Ostpolitik-Westpolitik" I postulated that the Greens' anti-Serb reading of the Yugoslavian crisis opened a new chapter in German geopolitics which could be called "Westpolitik". Just as the Greens had formerly penetrated the ranks of reform Communists, dissident intellectuals and the traditionally Moscow-dominated peace movements, so they now wormed their way into NATO, transforming themselves into the most uncompromising champions of aggressive NATO policies in the Balkans. If "Wandel durch Annaeherung" in the East meant getting closer to peace-loving social-reformers, in the West it meant snuggling up to militarists and warmongers. Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer is an archetypal snuggler of this kind, but the same "Leftist as baddie" pattern is of course still to be seen in today's ruling duo in Yugoslavia's: the traditionalist monarchist Kostunica, and the ex-Frankfurt School Marxist Djindjic, with the latter playing bad cop. Kostunica and Djindjic of course have totally opposite views on the ICTY and the prospective International Criminal Court, with Kostunica still claiming to be opposed and Djindjic frankly for. The question The question which now arises is this: is a "Wandel durch Auflehnung" on the cards, not for the Empire of the East but for the Empire of the West? (This was written about a month before 9/11) I would say there are signs that it is. Not only is the media beginning to adopt a different tone towards Milosevic. Christopher Hitchens, another very mean ex-Leftist foe of Milosevic, a Westpolitiker without even being a German, would like to see Henry Kissinger put on trial as a war criminal. The French, too, with their current revival of May 68 in the form of the anti-globalization movement, also seem to be accomplices in the shaping of a Western "Wandel durch Auflehnung". Germans have long-standing hidden historical grudges, not only about the "victors' justice" of the Nuremberg Trials, as disingenuously hinted by Bahr, but also about the post WWI Treaty of Versailles, which recognized the right to national self-determination of all the German-speaking countries' neighbours but not of the Germans themselves. It is a story which presents many similarities to that of the Serbs. In Europe, the quasi-American nationalism of "the international community" has now, under a "humanitarian" guise, adopted the cause of Albanian nationalism as its own. The quasi- German nationalism of the new Europe will never ever speak in its own name. It must play the protector of some "oppressed" group. Can the Serbs be that group? Egon Bahr gives the impression of wanting to be their patron. For conservative Germans it is also useful of course to be able to say to Leftists: "You see � you are no better than we are." I don't think we have to take sides in the judicial aspect of the globalization vs national sovereignty dispute. Nevertheless, whatever differentiations come to light I think we should try to exploit them, in the interests of promoting a citizens' Europe operating within a defensible framework of international law. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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