Justice? Or its antithesis?
by Stephen Gowans
Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, under detention at the
Hague in connection with murder, deportation and genocide charges, says
he's under drastically increased pressure to recognize the Hague
Tribunal.
In three appearances before the tribunal, Milosevic refused to plead to
the indictments against him, and refused to appoint lawyers, arguing the
tribunal, and his detention, are illegal.
And now Milosevic's Belgrade lawyer, Dragoslav Ognjanovic says that
strong spotlights have been left on all night in Milosevic's cell, a
subtle form of torture.
Why is Milosevic being deprived of sleep?
And why is the former Yugoslav president denied access to the media?
After doing an interview with American media, Milosevic was reprimanded
by Hague authorities, and warned against further breaches of rules that
prevent the former president from talking to the press.
Why won't the Hague Tribunal allow Milosevic to conduct his own defense?
And why is Milosevic's microphone cut-off when he appears before the
tribunal?
The usual reply is that Milosevic would make a mockery of the
proceedings. And if given access to the media he would have a platform
to spout nonsense. But surely, if it's nonsense he'll spout, let him.
Nonsense will be obvious for what it is, and the press will soon grow
tired of it. But another answer seems more likely: Maybe it's not
nonsense Milosevic has to speak. And maybe Milosevic's being allowed to
conduct his own defense would expose the tribunal for what it is -- a
mockery of justice.
Augusto Pinochet, dictator, murderer, goes free. Ariel Sharon, architect
of the Sabra and Shatilla massacres, ethnic cleanser, and war criminal,
presides over the commission of fresh war crimes as prime minister of
Israel. War criminals Henry Kissinger and Bill Clinton make a king's
ransom from speaking engagements. Meanwhile, we're showered with
absurdities from the US foreign policy establishment connected Human
Rights Watch about war criminals having nowhere to hide, Milosevic being
the signal case.
The hypocrisy is plain, if the case is made, but who makes the case?
People on the margins, heard by few. But what if someone like Milosevic,
who, if allowed to speak to the media, reached countless numbers? He'd
have a platform to make the case, if the tribunal's rules didn't gag
him. And maybe that's why he's gagged.
Washington and London have always been afraid of their own people
hearing the other side. During NATO's 78-day terror campaign against
Yugoslavia, Serb Radio-TV, which carried a different view of the bombing
than delivered by the complicit and tightly controlled Western press,
was deliberately bombed, a blatant war crime. British Prime Minister
Tony Blair said that Milosevic's propaganda machine had to be taken out.
What he meant was that NATO had to control the public relations agenda.
Weeks ago, US bombers took out Al Jazeera in Afghanistan, for the same
reason -- it threatened Washington's control over what the public saw
and heard and understood. Al Jazeera offered something other than the
tightly controlled and scripted US take on the war against Afghanistan.
Control the story, and you control the hearts and minds of the public.
Give people like Milosevic and the Afghans carried on Al-Jazeera a
platform, and the carefully crafted complex of lies may fall apart.
As to the nonsense about war criminals having nowhere to hide, they do.
Behind a Security Council veto, for one. And behind a compliant press,
whose deafness, dumbness and blindness owes much to Chauvinism, and the
fact that letting the White House, State Department, and Pentagon write
your copy is a good business model. Keeps cost down.
Up to now, Milosevic has been under indictment for murder and
deportation, in connection with events in Kosovo. The White House and
State Department and Pentagon, and yes, the media too, tried, and
convicted Milosevic of committing genocide in Kosovo. There were 100,000
missing and presumed dead. Then 10,000. Then forensic pathologists
turned up only 2,000 corpses, none in mass graves, their identities
(were they ethnic Albanian Kosovars?) uncertain. Then doubts arose about
the authenticity of the Racak massacre, the casus belli for terrorizing
Yugoslavia with bombs for 78 days. And then the indictment came, and
with it, no charge of genocide.
Now, in new indictments, Milosevic is charged with genocide in
connection with earlier wars in Croatia and Bosnia. It's as if the
tribunal had come up with the charge first and has worked backwards from
there. Now that we've made the charge, we'll need the evidence to make
it stick.
Genocide? In what connection has that word been uttered before? East
Timor. That genocide was carried out by a pal of Washington's, the
dictator Suharto, right under Washington's nose and with its full
approval. Nothing as insignificant as genocide was going to stand in the
way of US businesses turning handsome profits in an Indonesia known as
an "investor's paradise," "hell" being more frequently uttered by those
who have to work there. And yet there was no indictment. Earlier,
Suharato had arranged for the systematic killing of between 500,000 and
one million communists, while Washington checked off the names. No
indictment for that crime either.
Iraq. Over the last decade, US enforced sanctions of mass destruction
have killed over one million Iraqis. That's a genocide. Will the
perpetrators be held accountable? No. They wield a Security Council
veto.
The Security Council set up the Hague Tribunal, which means Security
Council members, some of which committed brazen war crimes in their
78-day terror campaign against Yugoslavia, will never be indicted,
unless you assume the tribunal's prosecutors are going to indict their
bosses who appointed them.
An International Criminal Court, which would obviate the Security
Council striking tribunals, and allow anyone to be indicted, won't do
the trick either. Washington won't agree to it, unless Americans are
given blanket immunity from prosecution, or Washington controls who's
indicted.
And it also means that war crimes, crimes against humanity, and
genocides, committed by permanent members of the Security Council and
their allies, will never be the subject of a tribunal. Handy, isn't it?
So, this is what we get as justice. Washington backs fascist elements in
Croatia and Islamists in Bosnia and Kosovo connected to Osama bin Laden,
the Yugoslav federation spins apart under the pressure of the
centrifugal forces nurtured by Security Council members, and the Serbs,
at the center of the opposition, are branded the new Nazis, and are
brought before a Security Council created tribunal to answer for crimes
against humanity by the very forces that set in motion the descent into
war and terrorism and chaos, and now, growing poverty.
Justice? How about its very antithesis?
Mr. Steve Gowans is a writer and political activist who lives in Ottawa,
Canada.
Source:
by courtesy & C 2001 Steve Gowans
by the same author:
http://www.mediamonitors.net/gowans35.html
NSP Lista isprobava demokratiju u praksi
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