Milosevic's Death: A Political Assassination blamed on the Victim
by Sara Flounders
March 16, 2006
International Action Center
Email this article to a friend
Print this article
In the summer of 2004 I met with former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic
in Scheveningen prison when I was approved as a defense witness. Before I could
get in, I had to pass four totally separate check points, unable to take in
anything but papers. Each level of security was more rigid than the one before.
No one who has met with President Milosevic over the past four years would
believe he would risk killing himself rather than finishing his trial. And no
one who visited Scheveningen in The Hague would believe the outlandish claims
that somehow he was able to smuggle in un-prescribed medications on a regular
basis. They would instead suspect that the authorities were desperately trying
to cover up their own crimes.
My role as witness was based on my trip to Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999,
during the 78-day U.S./NATO bombing. I visited bombed schools, hospitals,
heating plants and market places, recording the harm done to civilians. In
addition, I had written since 1993 on the behind-the-scenes U.S. role in the
strangulation and forced dismemberment of Yugoslavia.
Even after my name was accepted as a defense witness, it was a complicated and
lengthy procedure to make the visit. Though all was approved on the day of the
visit, it still took four hours to get through the checkpoints into the special
unit inside the prison where the defendants for the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) were kept totally segregated from
general population and closely monitored.
Scheveningen prison is a maximum-security high-tech facility. Milosevic and
other indicted prisoners are housed in a special prison unit within the larger
prison. This section is spread over four floors with 12 cells each. The unit is
specially patrolled by United Nations guards. Cameras are everywhere. Every
movement of the prisoners is monitored and controlled. When the president was
first placed in his cell, lights were kept on 24 hours a day and every motion
was monitored.
WHERE DID RIFAMPICIN COME FROM?
Now the Dutch authorities claim that Milosevic was taking a rare,
difficult-to-acquire antibiotic used to treat leprosy or tuberculosis that has
the unique ability to counteract the medicine he was taking to control his high
blood pressure. How did this medicine, rifampicin, get into Milosevic's system?
He was held in a maximum security prison in triple lock down in a special
contained unit within a larger Dutch prison once used by the Nazis to detain
Dutch resistance fighters.
When rifampicin was found last Jan. 12 in Milosevic's blood, the ICTY kept the
report of the blood tests secret, even from Milosevic and his doctors, who were
complaining that something terribly wrong was damaging the defendant's health.
While the prisoner and his defense committee and assistant lawyers were
demanding health information, the ICTY officials sat on this report. If ICTY
officials responsible for Milosevic's health really believed he was sneaking
toxic medications into the prison, why hadn't they publicized this report much
earlier?
DELAYS HURT MILOSEVIC
Equally outlandish are the claims that Milosevic staged his illness to delay
the trial. The prosecution delayed the trial, first by adding charges against
the president regarding Croatia and Bosnia when they realized they had no
war-crimes case on the original Kosovo charges, then by bringing hundreds of
witnesses to generate 500,000 pages of prosecution testimony from February 2002
to February 2004.
Each time Milosevic was too sick to continue in court, the prosecution moved to
impose counsel and to take away the prisoner's right to present his own
defense. Milosevic was determined to use the trial as a platform to defend not
only himself but the people of Yugoslavia, and to indict the U.S., Germany and
the NATO powers for their role in the criminal destruction of his country. He
welcomed the trial as the only platform where he could make the historical
record. In his words to the court he constantly described why, despite his bad
health, he was determined to continue.
When I met Milosevic it was in the special room that was the only place where
the ICTY allowed him to work or have the court papers to prepare for his
defense. Whenever his blood pressure rose and he was unable to continue the
court sessions, he was also barred from any access to his defense materials.
During each step of the trial Milosevic's cardiovascular problems, especially
his high blood pressure had resulted in several delays in the trial. At each
step the ICTY officials tried to use the issue of his health in constant
efforts to deny him the right to conduct his own defense. Neither the illness
nor the delays helped his defense.
The ICTY charged that Milosevic was secretly medicating himself and avoiding
taking prescribed medicines. Milosevic answered this charge himself for the
court record on Sept. 1, 2004: "You probably don't know the practice in your
own Detention Unit. I take my medication in the presence of guards. I'm given
them. I take them in the presence of the guard, and the guard writes down in
the book the exact time when I ingested those medicines."
Despite the life-threatening cardiovascular risk raised in every dispute with
the prosecution, tribunal officials refused even to secure regular check-ups of
the president's health condition. They also denied access for months to
specialists who were willing to come to Scheveningen, delaying his care.
The president's own explanation of his problem was more consistent and credible
than the ICTY's. In a letter addressed to the Russian Embassy two days before
he died, Milosevic writes that he has taken no antibiotics in more than four
years. He asks why the medical report on the discovery of rifampicin was kept
secret from him for almost two months. He writes that he believes that "active
steps are being taken to destroy my health." He warns that he is sure he is
being poisoned and that his life is in danger.
A POLITICAL TRIBUNAL
The ICTY's handling of President Milosevic's death has been like its handling
of the entire trial: an attempt to blame the victim for the crime.
The ICTY is not a real international court, with the ability to try any accused
war criminal. It is a political court set up by the UN Security Council at the
insistence of Secretary of State Madeline Albright in 1993 in violation of the
UN Charter. Its scope is limited to trying the peoples of the former Yugoslavia
and the vast majority of prisoners are Serbs. It is a propaganda apparatus and
internment camp for political prisoners disguised as an unbiased court. It aims
to punish the victims for the crimes committed against them and to absolve the
imperialist powers who invaded, bombed, dismembered and forced the
privatization of the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia.
When Milosevic discussed the trial with me, his scope of historical knowledge,
his energy despite his illness, cut through my own jet-lag and fatigue from the
four-hour entrance hurdle and allowed us to finish the interview with
enthusiasm for the next step of the tribunal.
Now the world is asked to believe that Milosevic is responsible for his own
death. It is a scenario so incredibly complex, an elaborate suicide story that
is as improbable as the charges he was facing. The bought-and-paid-for
corporate media is accepting and propagating the story of his death in the same
servile fashion they accepted the very existence of this illegal court and the
justification for the destruction of Yugoslavia.
Milosevic is now gone. But his summation answering two years of the prosecution
case and his opening defense speech live on. He has left a ringing indictment
of U.S. and European big-power intervention in the Balkans in a historic
document in an "I accuse" format. His speech, which contains extensive
documentation and factual detail, has been published in Serbian, Greek, French,
Russian and English. This response, "The Defense Speaks-for History and the
Future," (IAC 2006) will stand long after the tawdry war propaganda has
collapsed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of
the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on
Globalization.
To become a Member of Global Research
The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca grants
permission to cross-post original Global Research articles in their entirety,
or any portions thereof, on community internet sites, as long as the text &
title are not modified. The source must be acknowledged and an active URL
hyperlink address to the original CRG article must be indicated. The author's
copyright note must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles
in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: [EMAIL
PROTECTED]
www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such
material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an
effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social
issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who
have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational
purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair
use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.
To express your opinion on this article, join the discussion at Global
Research's News and Discussion Forum
For media inquiries: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
© Copyright Sara Flounders, International Action Center, 2006
The url address of this article is:
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=FLO20060316&articleId=2108
Serbian News Network - SNN
[email protected]
http://www.antic.org/
