-Caveat Lector- =========================== The Committee for National Solidarity Tolstojeva 34, 11000 Belgrade, YU INTERNATIONAL ACTION CENTER December 31, 1999 Statement from the IAC on the UN War Crimes Tribunals report on NATO air strikes It is only the growing international pressure to indict Bill Clinton and other NATO leaders for war crimes against the people of Yugoslavia that forced the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to announce the review of possible NATO war crimes. But don't expect any indictments of NATO leaders. The announcement to review NATO conduct is intended as a cynical white wash by a court that was established at the behest of and financed by NATO members. On Dec. 28, the chief prosecutor for the special War Crimes Tribunal based at the Hague, Carla Del Ponte, announced she would review a report on the conduct of NATO pilots and their commanders during last spring's 78-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. The United Nations Security Council set up the tribunal in 1993 at the instigation of Madeline Albright. It has depended on financial support from NATO countries to operate since then, and looks to NATO to enforce its decisions and arrest those indicted. This court has no connection to the World Court and it has no precedent in international law or in the UN Charter. The International Action Center never considered this tribunal to be an unbiased or independent court. It was created to do the bidding of the Western powers and specifically to discredit the political leadership in Yugoslavia and prepare public opinion for war. It was another instrument in the aggressive war against Yugoslavia. Most of the charges have been brought against Serbs. The indictment of President Slobodan Milosevic and other Yugoslav leaders took place while NATO bombs were raining on Pristina and other cities and towns in Kosovo, in Belgrade, Novi Sad and throughout Yugoslavia. The NATO aggressors indicted their victims for war crimes. This has some historical precedent. In the early 1940's, Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany held a sham war crimes trial for French socialist leader Leon Blum. Blum and the socialists were blamed for "starting World War II." He and millions of others were then deported to concentration camps. While none of the media accounts of Del Pontes announcement expected that she would press charges against any individual associated with NATO as a result of the report, even to raise such a possibility is a profound development. As one report said, Never has a Western leader or military figure been hauled before an international tribunal. The International Action Center on July 31 initiated an Independent Commission of Inquiry to Investigate U.S./NATO War Crimes Against the People of Yugoslavia before 700 people in New York. At that meeting, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark charged U.S.-NATO political and military leaders with 19 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace. Since July there have been dozens of similar hearings held in 10 U.S. cities and in Rome, Berlin, Oslo, Paris, Vienna, Novi Sad, Sydney and Tokyo, with the most dramatic a Peoples Tribunal on Nov. 8 in Athens, Greece before 10,000 people. Others, members of the Russian Duma and respected attorneys from Canada, Greece and Britain for example, have participated in the tribunal movement by attempting to bring evidence before the International Criminal Tribunal established by the Security Council at the Hague. They have documented NATOs war crimes and demanded that they also be investigated. Other attorneys and magistrates in at least Italy and Germany have brought charges against their own governments for violating constitutional provisions against waging an aggressive war. In addition, the mainstream media has finally published several truthful accounts of events surrounding the war that expose the NATO powers for the worst of the war crimes. These news stories confirm that it was a war of aggression and that NATO targeted civilians. These include (1) U.S. and other NATO forces provoked the war by setting terms at Rambouillet in March 1999 for NATO occupation of all of Yugoslavia that the Yugoslav Government could never accept. (Article by Robert Fisk in the British daily, The Independent, Nov. 26). (2) U.S. generals directing NATO bombing purposely struck civilian economic targets in Serbia to bring pressure on the Belgrade government to capitulate (Dana Priest in the Washington Post, Sept 19, 20, 21). (3) The cries of genocide NATO politicians used to justify the intervention had no basis in fact. U.S. officials said first that 500,000 Kosovo Albanians had been killed, then 100,000, then 40,000. Yet forensic teams from 17 nations digging in Kosovo 6 months to investigate so-called mass graves found 2,108 bodiesand these were of all nationalities and had died from all causes. (Toronto Star Nov. 4, New York Times, Nov. 10). In all, the mounting evidence against U.S.-NATO forces and growing pressure to investigate NATO for war crimes has forced the Tribunal established by the Security Council to try to at least look less like a blatant anti-Yugoslav star chamber. While we in the International Action Center have no confidence that the International Criminal Tribunal on former Yugoslavia based at The Hague will bring the U.S.-NATO war criminals to trial, we take encouragement from this additional sign of growing hostility to NATOs aggressive war. And we will proceed with our independent tribunal to try the U.S.-NATO criminals before a court of world public opinion this coming June 2000. IAC co-directors Sara Flounders and Brian Becker and Staff member John Catalinotto are available for questions on this statement. International Action Center 39 West 14th Street, Room 206 New York, NY 10011 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.iacenter.org phone: 212 633-6646 fax: Statement from the IAC on the UN War Crimes Tribunals 212 633-2889 Secretary General Mrs. Jela Jovanovic Art historian =========================== DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections 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, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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[CTRL] Statement from the IAC on the UN War Crimes Tribunals
Mrs. Jela Jovanovic, Secretary General Sun, 2 Jan 2000 08:45:19 -0800
