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March 12, 2006 Open letter to CBC news and public affairs programmes and CBC leadership From: Marjaleena Repo, Saskatoon [EMAIL PROTECTED] 306-244-9724 The death of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic appears to have become an occasion for the recycling of the lies and distortions that describe the media's treatment of the former Yugoslavia and its leader(s) over the last two decades. Immediately upon his death your programmes, with a report from Laura Lynch and then with an interview with Robert Austin of the Munk Centre of International Studies, as well as the report from Don Murray, filled me with deep disappointment and disgust, and a huge sigh of "Here we go again!" In a short span all the above made claims that were documentably false, that there were "concentration camps" and "mass rapes" in Yugoslavia under Milosevic's watch, and that he "murdered thousands", that he was "the Butcher of Belgrade" (or interchangeably, "the Butcher of the Balkans" and "the Butcher of Bosnia"), that he refused to step down in 2000 and was therefore deservedly deposed in a popular uprising, that it was his fault and his only that Yugoslavia ceased to exist. To add insult to injury, he has caused all kinds of problems for the so-called International War Crimes Court in the Hague by questioning the right of this NATO court to try him a court set up by countries, Canada to its eternal shame among them, that in 1999 counter to all international law, bombed Yugoslavia, killing and maiming thousands and devastating its infrastructure and insisting on his right to defend himself against the false and absurd charges. On and on it goes, one lie piled on top of another. I know, that the above is only the beginning of the barrage of scandalous disinformation that we will now be inundated with, and I only wish that SOMEONE at the CBC would be able to introduce some element of truth, objectivity and professionalism in your deliveries. Is that too much to expect from the public broadcasting? As for the false claims above and more to come, I have enclosed an item I wrote back in '99, dealing with the role of the media in its demonization of Yugoslavia and Serbia in general and its president Slobodan Milosevic in particular. Also, for your benefit, a piece by notable Canadian lawyer, Ed Greenspan, no friend of Mr. Milosevic, who refers to that fine "trial" in the Hague as a "lynching." For your information, I was one of the founding members of the Ad hoc Committee to Stop Canada's Participation in the War on Yugoslavia. This committee travelled across the country holding press conferences and public meetings with speakers listed below. As a war opponent I was invited to be an election observer at the 2000 presidential election, and was able to witness the first ballot, in which neither Milosevic nor Kostunica won outright. A second ballot was to be held but that was not allowed to take place, perhaps because it might have led to Milosevic being re-elected. With a huge amount of financial help from the U.S. , the so-called opposition groups mobilized to prevent it, in an uprising that was falsely depicted as a popular one. As I wrote back in 2000, prior to the coup d'etat: "While in Belgrade, disturbing news reached the observers. The International Herald Tribune of Sept. 20 has a front page story, titled "U.S. aids Milosevic foes: Millions allocated to a democracy program." The article states that U.S. officials have acknowledged $77 million financial "contribution" to opposition groups in Yugoslavia, from students to labour, from so-called independent media to political rock bands, and the newspaper states that "There is nothing secret or even particularly unusual about the U.S. democracy-building program in Serbia, which is closely co-ordinated with European allies and is similar to previous campaigns in pre-democratic Chile, South Africa and Eastern Europe, among other places." Washington Post (Sept. 21) further reveals that U.S. officials and corporations are also "providing a sophisticated opinion survey system, engaging for the purpose the New York firm that has done the job for Bill Clinton [Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates]" which explains the many polls that "prove" that an opposition candidate is ahead of President Milosevic and suggest vigorously that Mr. Milosevic will only win by fraud. While the Canadian and other Western media have alredy
declared the election to be "rigged" (without any evidence, of course), we
believe that the actual evidence for rigging and distorting the Yugoslavian
election results has been found in the pre-democratic countries of U.S. and the
European Union who in an wholly illegal and undemocratic fashion are interfering
in the domestic affairs of a sovereign country. This, of course, must be
condemned by all true democrats, be they individuals, organizations or
nations." Participants in the 1999 Canadian Ad Hoc Committee
were:
======= THE MEDIA AND THE DEMONIZATION OF THE SERBSby Marjaleena Repo Tuesday, March 30, 1999
The Yugoslavian government has just expelled some journalists from NATO countries from its territory. This is deplored by the media as censorship, but in some of us it has created a strange sense of relief: perhaps now there will be a ceasefire in the 10-year disinformation campaign about the Yugoslavian conflict in general and the Serbs in particular. Or at least the journalists (few actually deserve the name) have to declare that what they are talking about is unverified rumour and hearsay since they are nowhere near the scene. Up to this point they have been able to create the false impression that they have witnessed the events they report on. The Western media's relentless demonization of the Serbs of Yugoslavia has, however, produced a very predictable (and no doubt, wished-for) result: a truly genocidal assault on the Serbian people by Western military might, Canada to its eternal shame participating, breaking every relevant international covenant and treaty. The pack-journalism over the last ten years has also succeeded in hoodwinking many Canadians into thinking that what is at stake is the good-riddance of a Serbian Hitler who has attempted a "final solution" of sorts on assorted ethnic groups in Yugoslavia. A lot of well-intentioned people are cheering the bombing of yet another pariah nation into the Stone Age. With the accumulated effects of media rumour-mongering and willful disinformation, who can blame these folks for their barely controlled blood thirst? After all, because Hitler wasn't stopped in time, millions perished in concentration camps, goes the heart-felt argument. Yet the labelling of Yugoslavia's Serb leaders as Hitlers and the Serbs themselves as brutal, subhuman monsters is a familiar trick from recent history. It has been perpetuated by the various hired hands, PR firms, who have worked overtime for the various ethnic groups pushing for secession which would utterly destroy the once well-functioning, multi-ethnic Yugoslavian federation and replace it with small nation-states which ethnically cleansed themselves (Croatia, for instance, expelled between 500,000 and a million Serbs from its territory.) The media has merely carried the message of these "hidden hands" of the Balkan conflict.The world was shocked to find out that a PR firm, Hill and Knowlton, had manufactured the "incubator babies" incident in Kuwait which precipitated the Gulf War: Iraqi soldiers ripping Kuwaiti babies out of incubators in a genocidal fashion. Phony eywitnesses to this atrocity tearfully testified in front of U.S. politicians and the media, adding to public support for the subsequent bombing of Iraq and contributing hugely to the demonization of the Iraqis, leaders and citizens alike. Even Amnesty International was taken in by the falsehood, which was later exposed as such, but only after the military damage was done. Yet the shock of being duped soon wore off and gullibility returned. In no time another American PR firm, Ruder Finn, working for the Croatian and Bosnian separatists, publicly bragged that it had been able to turn world opinion against the Serbs. In April 1993 on French television, James Harff, the director of Ruder Finn, described his proudest public relations effort as having "managed to put Jewish opinion on our [Croatian and Bosnian] side." This was a "sensitive matter," he added, as "the Croatian and Bosnian past was marked by real and cruel anti-semitism. Tens of thousands of Jews perished in Croatian camps... Our challenge was to reverse this attitude and we succeeded masterfully. At the beginning of July 1992, New York Newsday came out with the article on Serb camps. We jumped at the opportunity immediately. We outwitted three big Jewish organizations.... That was a tremendous coup. When the Jewish organizations entered the game on the side of the [Muslim] Bosnians we could promptly equate the Serbs with the Nazis in the public mind. Nobody understood what was happening in Yugoslavia.... By a single move, we were able to present a simple story of good guys and bad guys which would hereafter play itself. We won by targeting the Jewish audience. Almost immediately there was a clear change of language in the press, with the use of words with high emotional content such as ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, etc, which evoke images of Nazi Germany and the gas chambers of Auschwitz. " The PR firm was piling hoax upon hoax. The famous story of Serb concentration camps was built on a photo of a gaunt man surrounded by others, staring at the viewer from behind barbed wire; surely an image to chill one to the bones. It took years before a German journalist Thomas Deichman, in an article titled "The picture that fooled the world," described how the famous photo was staged by its takers, British journalists, who were photographing the inhabitants from inside barbed wire which was protecting agricultural products and machinery from theft in a refugee and transit camp; the men stood outside of it; and at no time was there a barbed-wire fence surrounding the camp. But by that time the image had done its deed, terminally slamming the Serbs as genocidal mass murderers. There are countless other stories, all deliberately maligning the Serbs to further the ends of military intervention. These stories and photos of "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" (a la Hitler) in a civil war, in which Serbs are guilty as sin and others are their innocent victims, are repeated ad nauseam by western reporters without the slightest evidence, and have provided the ground for the public's (hopefully only temporary) acceptance of the illegal and brutal war against the sovereign nation of Yugoslavia. They continue after NATO's bombing began, unabated, with new absurdities such as the suggestion that the Serbs are really bombing themselves! Perhaps in the war crimes court there will soon be a place for journalists and PR firms who with their inflammatory reporting and fraudulent actions cause wars to begin. THE END http://www.counterpunch.org/disinfo.html =======================´This is a lynching´ "The first two minutes of the Milosevic trial told me all I needed to know. This is a lynching. Normally, lynchings are done outdoors. Here, the lynching has been brought indoors. Instead of a tree and a rope, there are May and Del Ponte. The problem with lynching is that it´s fatally flawed as a process, whether the man who gets hanged is innocent or guilty. The result is certain. A kangaroo court is one in which legal procedures are largely a show, and the action "jumps" from accusation to sentencing without due process. No matter how long a trial takes, if the result is inevitable, then it´s a show trial. The accusers might as well shoot Milosevic. At least, it doesn´t soil the process. " http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/story.html?f=/stories/20020313/320951.html NATIONAL POST, Wednesday, March 13, 2002 Edward L. Greenspan has been reading transcripts of Slobodan Milosevic´s war crimes trial. He´s come to one conclusion Edward L. Greenspan, National Post Less than two minutes into her opening statement, Carla Del Ponte, prosecutor at the International War Crimes Tribunal, said: "I bring the accused, Milosevic, before you to face the charges against him. I do so on behalf of the international community and in the name of all the member states of the United Nations, including the states of the former Yugoslavia." In effect, Del Ponte´s opening told the judges: "I have the weight and force of the world behind me. The world has seen fit to prosecute Slobodan Milosevic and the world can´t be wrong." Her calculated pronouncement was designed to give her a badge of legitimacy. But rules of fairness require that no prosecutor take advantage of their important role in the administration of justice. The judge´s response spoke even louder than Del Ponte´s words. Justice Richard May, who is definitely not a shy man when it comes to Milosevic, didn´t say a single word to the "Prosecutor for the Universe" when she uttered these words. May had a responsibility to interrupt her and say: "You´re not impressing me one bit. You´re just the prosecutor. You don´t represent the world. Don´t try to intimidate me with what the world expects me to do." I believe the reason he didn´t object to her outrageous comment is that he actually believes her. May knows what the world expects of him and this trial. Milosevic may be a thug, but even a thug is entitled to a fair trial. A justice system that is not completely free from political influence undermines all notions of justice. To treat a political court as if it were a real court is to give it a cloak of undeserved legitimacy. Perception is nine-tenths of the law. The opening statement of Del Ponte and May´s silence show that the result is a foregone conclusion. There is a famous maxim: "Justice should not only be done but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done." In the Hague, justice is manifestly and undoubtedly seen to be not done. Of all the judges in the world, why select Richard May from Britain? Why does the Tribunal need a judge from a NATO country at all, let alone as the president of the court? How can justice be seen to be done by such a court? Does Milosevic make a valid point when he says the court is nothing more than NATO aggression? When the deck is stacked or appears to be stacked from the outset, how does one obtain the appearance of justice? Fair trials are essential to civilization. The place of justice is a hallowed place, not a hollow place. In democratic legal systems where there is an unrepresented accused, the court has a duty to extend its helping hand to guide an accused in such a way that any defences are brought out with its full force and effect. Milosevic is without counsel. Whether he chose to do it on his own, whether he has a law degree (but no experience in a courtroom), the fact remains that a trial judge cannot treat an inexperienced accused as if he had counsel. If I were charged with a criminal offence, the last lawyer I would hire is Milosevic. For some reason, court watchers are giving him rave reviews as an advocate. "I give him an A"; "He´s an old pro"; "He´s a competent first-time lawyer." I was a competent first-time lawyer in 1970, but no sane person would have hired me on a murder case! Those giving him high marks are creating the illusion of a fair trial. Anybody can say, "Answer the question yes or no," but when the witness refuses, Milosevic doesn´t know what to do. For example, after pressing the first witness, Mahmut Bakalli, for a yes or no answer, the witness says: "I can´t answer your question. But what I know is you killed civilians, children. Twelve thousand civilians, including old people, women, children, pregnant women, saying all the time that you were fighting terrorism. That I know." Milosevic had no idea what to say. The witness won. Milosevic´s questions are lengthy, argumentative and often aren´t questions. He doesn´t know how to develop a point. Simply put, how ever bad Milosevic was as a leader, he is even worse as a trial lawyer. The judge´s duty is to see that an unrepresented accused is not denied a fair trial. This duty does not extend to his providing to the accused the kind of advice that counsel would provide. If he did, the judge would find himself in the difficult position of both being an advocate and impartial arbitrator at one and the same time. I am not suggesting that a trial judge is expected to become an advocate for the accused, but no judge should become the captain of the prosecution´s ship, especially where the accused is without counsel. May seems to be inadvertently proving Milosevic´s point about the trial being a charade. It is a well known principle that no judge can arbitrarily set a time limit on, or interfere with, a cross-examination. That kind of judicial interference would render the right of cross-examination an empty right. The great American jurist Learned Hand said: "Thou shalt not ration justice." Cross-examination is a right to a full, detailed, careful and complete cross-examination, if it is to have any meaning at all. To cut off a cross-examiner deprives an accused of the right to full answer and defence. Counsel has a duty to cross-examine with freedom and care and sometimes at length. Occasionally, it is a tiresome, difficult and painful task and the last thing any accused person needs is intervention by a trial judge who prevents the kind of searching inquiry which sometimes is called for. Here´s an example. One and a half hours into Milosevic´s first cross-examination, May impatiently asks: "How much longer do you think you´re going to be with this witness?" (Why would he ask this, unless he´s got a squash game to get to?) When Milosevic replies: "Probably one or two hours. My questions have to do with what the witness said yesterday. So many lies. That many lies demands a lot of questions, and that is why the court is here." May admonishes him not to make speeches and to finish the witness today. What´s the rush? It looks like May has forgotten that Milosevic is entitled to due process. Later that morning, the court says, "Mr. Milosevic, if you would get through your cross-examination by half past one, we´d be grateful." Where does the judge have to go? A trial takes as long as it takes. Later, May says, "It is now half past one. You have now been cross-examining this witness for three and a half hours. Do you have any further questions for him?" Imagine! Milosevic took up three and a half hours of May´s precious time. One would have thought May´s job is to sit and listen and not rush the unrepresented accused. May seems bored. The first witness of what is to be a lengthy trial, and the judge is putting time limits on the accused. May doesn´t even feign impartiality or, indeed, interest. He clearly reviles Milosevic. On the second day of the trial, before Milosevic began his first cross-examination of a member of the Kosovo parliament, May said: "I want to tell you about the limitations of cross-examination. ... It must not be used as a way of harassing or intimidating witnesses." Surely May has to know that in the famous trial of Oscar Wilde, Sir Edward Carson cross-examined Wilde for more than three days and did not strike oil until well into the third day. The destruction of Wilde is regarded as probably the greatest cross-examination that has ever occurred in an English-speaking courtroom. The cross-examination was rude, repetitive, offensive and unrelenting. It was an attack with no holds barred. When Carson embarked on this course, he knew that he had to succeed; if he failed, he would be forever discredited in the eyes of the jury. May must know that from time to time the value of the bullying technique cannot be denied. I don´t know why May thinks cross-examination should be free from any kind of brutality. Brutality is calculated to unnerve, confuse but ultimately to expose. Cross-examination is a duel between counsel and the witness. The only weapon the defence has is the right to ask questions. I recognize that the tribunal may get the impression the witness is being unfairly treated. But it is the cross-examiner´s right to take that risk, fatal as it may be. The first two minutes of the Milosevic trial told me all I needed to know. This is a lynching. Normally, lynchings are done outdoors. Here, the lynching has been brought indoors. Instead of a tree and a rope, there are May and Del Ponte. The problem with lynching is that it´s fatally flawed as a process, whether the man who gets hanged is innocent or guilty. The result is certain. A kangaroo court is one in which legal procedures are largely a show, and the action "jumps" from accusation to sentencing without due process. No matter how long a trial takes, if the result is inevitable, then it´s a show trial. The accusers might as well shoot Milosevic. At least, it doesn´t soil the process. Edward L. Greenspan, QC, is a Toronto lawyer.
Marjaleena Repo 201 Elm Street Saskatoon, SK S7J 0G8 (306)244-9724 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
