An interview with Michel Collon,
author of several books on NATO and Yugoslavia /
Proc?s Milosevic : juge-t-on le
pass� ou l�avenir? Interview de Michel Collon, auteur de livres sur l�Otan et la
Yougoslavie
Feb. 14, 2002
By Michel Barile
Q: You just came back from The
Hague [Netherlands]. In your opinion, is the International Criminal
Tribunal for the
Former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) respecting the law? People are beginning to pose this
question. Does such a juridical approach
seem pertinent to you?
Michel Collon. Yes. It is right to
ask if an accused person has the right to a fair trial. And if the
elementary principles of law should be
respected. In this case
[that of Milosevic], the response is manifestly "no."
This tribunal is not neutral, it
is political and it violates the law. Besides this, a great number of
people, whatever they think of Milosevic,
could ask themselves what
are the true motives of those who are directing this trial. And understand
that it involves a dangerous
precedent for all the wars
that George Bush and Company are preparing.
Q: "Not neutral," the ICTY?
Michel Collon. Not at all. Listen,
if you yourself had an ongoing conflict with an "enemy," and that enemy
was financing the tribunal,
would you accept it? Now, the ICTY is financed by the U.S. government, by
U.S. multinationals and by the multi-billionaire speculator
George Soros. He has
financed with hundreds of millions of dollars, in Yugoslavia and other
Eastern European countries, media that
attacked Milosevic and
foundations to promote capitalism. He also financed Albanian separatists.
Can you be at the same time judge
and party to the trial?
Q: You accuse the ICTY of being a political instrument. ...
Michel Collon. It isn't I who
accuse it, it's Jamie Shea, spokesperson for NATO himself. The ICTY, he
said, will not investigate
[NATO's crimes] unless we let it. Recall that the president of the
tribunal also thanked [former U.S. Secretary of State] Madeleine
Albright for her help and
characterized her as the "Mother of the tribunal." Finally, Louise Arbour,
the prosecutor who had drafted the
charges against Milosevic,
had gone a little earlier to get her instructions from [U.S. President]
Clinton and [British Prime Minister
Tony] Blair. She has taken part
in public activities with the NATO generals. She belongs to the
editorial committee of an important U.S.
conservative revue, along
with General Wesley Clark, who commanded the bombardment of Yugoslavia.
This revue, to be sure, praises
NATO.
You should know that I studied
law. It's true it was a long time ago, but all that [occurring at the
ICTY] violates the principles accepted
by all jurists. The penal code
says that one can disqualify a witness who, for example, dines with an
accused. Remember that in Belgium,
Judge Connerotte had been
removed from the case of the disappeared children because he had taken
part in a spaghetti dinner for the
association of parents.
Q: What juridical rules does the ICTY violate?
Michel Collon. It can use
anonymous witnesses. Or CIA reports as proof without informing the defense
about them. It can refuse to
admit this or that lawyer. All
practices formally forbidden by traditional codes.
Q: Milosevic introduced a suit in a Dutch court affirming that he had been kidnapped and was being held illegally. ...
Michel Collon. On this point too,
he is correct. Look at the laws prevalent all over the world
regulating extradition procedures. They
are strict: only a tribunal
can decide on the extradition of a citizen to another country. If not, you
are in a completely arbitrary situation.
Now, the Supreme Court of Belgrade
had declared the extradition of Milosevic illegal. To make sure this
decision didn't hold, the
Serbian
government led by Mr. Djindjic forced Milosevic aboard a plane. Now, the
Serb government is not even recognized
internationally-it's only
one of the sub-governments, if I could put it so, in Yugoslavia. Imagine
that the highest Belgian court refused
permission to extradite
someone, but that the Flemish government or that of Brussels carried out
the extradition nonetheless. That's
exactly what happened.
Besides, everyone knows that the Djindjic government carried out
this transfer in exchange for a reward that
the United States didn't
even pay him. We return to the justice of the U.S. Far West,
bounty-hunters and kidnappings.
Q: For you, this trial is linked to the violation of rights of the Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo?
Michel Collon. Absolutely. It's
the new style. Bush violates the rights of prisoners of war, he
installs dictatorial military tribunals. These
could judge tomorrow any
opponent or liberation movement of the Third World. The Council of Europe
has begun to follow Bush by
itself promulgating laws that could be used to hit any trade
unionist or anti-globalization demonstrator, calling them terrorists.
If we don't react, the United
States will eliminate all traces of international law. Laws disturb them.
In the 1980, the International Court
of Justice condemned
President Reagan for having mined the ports of Nicaragua with the goal of
destabilizing the leftist Sandinista
government there. What did
the U.S. do? It stopped recognizing the court! And at present when there
is talk of an International Court
that could judge war crimes
of any country, how is Bush reacting? He announces that it is out of
the question that any U.S. citizen ever
be charged for crimes he
may have committed and that the U.S. Marines would go and rescue him by
force no matter where in the
world that trial would be
taking place!
Q: What U.S. war crimes are you thinking of?
Michel Collon. For example, those
NATO committed bombing Yugoslavia. First, the UN Charter forbids recourse
to war to resolve
conflicts. Then, to bombard in 1999 Belgrade TV to silence it [16
technicians and journalists killed], is a crime pure and simple with
respect to the Geneva
Conventions. And to bombard electrical enterprises and installations to
make the population suffer is expressly
forbidden. Some 2,000
civilians were killed, often willfully marked as targets.
Q: Willfully?
Michel Collon. Exactly. The
families of the victims have begun a suit in Germany against the
bombardment of the Varvarin bridge.
There was no military target at
all, no soldier, just civilians bombed while they were crossing a
bridge. And the plane came back to
bomb a second time: 10
civilians killed, 17 seriously wounded. These are the obvious crimes that
the ICTY refuses to follow up on.
Q: Thus, you see in the trial at The Hague only the law of the stronger?
Michel Collon. Yes-the masters of
the world claim they are judging Milosevic, but refuse to judge [Chile's
General Augusto] Pinochet
or [Israel's Ariel] Sharon. The latter can illegally occupy Palestine,
practice apartheid, ethnic cleansing by steps and terror, yet he
continues to receive
billions and billions of dollars and euros, and Europe doesn't raise its
little finger.
In fact, Milsevic has been
attacked not for crimes he might have committed but because he resisted
the IMF and the multinationals that
wanted to control his country.
For me, it is the most important dimension of this trial at the
moment when Bush is threatening more and
more countries that are
"rebellious": [North] Korea, Iraq, even Iran, [guerrillas in] Colombia,
Philippines and tomorrow still others. The
goal of this trial is to
intimidate all the Third World leaders who follow a course of
resistance to the multinationals. In this trial, they are
not judging the past, but
all the resistances to come. It is a trial of intimidation.
Q: Curiously, they have begun again to treat Milosevic as a "communist."
Michel Collon. Yes, that struck me
during the sessions. [Chief Prosecutor Carla] Del Ponte began by
justifying the fact that they had
incessantly cut off
Milosevic's microphone, accusing him of transforming the trial into
a political debate. But immediately after, she and
her aide proceeded with a
political analysis (pro-Western, of course) of his orientation and of his
activity as leader. And they used the
term "communist" all over the
place to attack him with.
It is a debatable point.
Personally, like many observers, I think at starting from 1989,
Milosevic's ideas tended on the contrary to be for
introducing capitalism to
Yugoslavia, all the while hoping to "control" it.
The true discussion is over what
IMF-style capitalism has brought to Yugoslavia today? The colossal price
hikes, homes deprived of
electricity, massive loss of jobs. The DOS government's popular support
has fallen to less than 10 percent. Even President [Vojislav]
Kostunica has demanded
early elections. These NATO will evidently stop from happening.
But why have they now restarted
using the term "communist"? Clearly because Bush has begun a demonization
campaign against North
Korea and
the multinationals are dreaming of putting a definitive end to socialism
in China.
Q: You often hear the objection: "Yes, but you still have to try Milosevic."
Michel Collon. For me, if someone
has committed crimes, he should certainly be tried. And I think that in
Bosnia, terrible crimes were
committed by the militias of
the three opposing sides. Who controlled them? That's another
question. But I would like to add three
essential remarks:
1. Don't believe all that they tell you about the Serbs. The media lies have been as enormous here as during the Gulf War [of 1991].
2. I accuse the United States of
having utilized Islamic terrorists from Bin Laden's movement to break
up Yugoslavia and to divide the
peoples: In Bosnia, in
Kosovo and in Macedonia also. One cannot understand the Milosevic
case if no one answers the question: Why
did the United States
support this terrorism?
3. I agree that one must put
criminals on trial, but then on the condition that there is equal judgment
of all the participants. That includes
Clinton, Blair, [German
ex-Chancellor] Helmut Kohl and the U.S. and German secret services for
their clandestine work in Yugoslavia.
But this trial in The
Hague, it is as if Sharon is judging [Palestinian Premier Yassir] Arafat.
Q: What should be done now?
Michel Collon. Denounce the
military tribunals and the Far West justice prepared by Bush and Company
for their future wars.
Demand the dissolution of the ICTY because it is illegal. Milosevic should
be able to return to Yugoslavia and it is for the Serbian
people to resolve its own
affairs. The rich countries have no right to impose their rule on the
planet in the judicial arena, the rich
countries are not the
solution for the problems that they themselves have created.
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