Socialists call rally to defend Milosevic [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

[Jim Yarker]

STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ListBot Sponsor Send a link to this article ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 21, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- As Belgrade threatens extradition Socialists call rally to defend Milosevic By John Catalinotto The anti-socialist regime in Belgrade, which owes its authority to the NATO imperialists, has begun a new offensive to try to extradite former President Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague. Yugoslav laws forbid such an action. Regime spokespeople have admitted they are pressing for Milosevic's extradition in the hope of winning acceptance into Western-controlled trade and banking organizations. Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia and allied organizations have announced a mass mobilization for June 16 to protest the extradition attempt. The SPS says that Milosevic's life is in danger. Imprisoned since March 31, he is receiving inadequate treatment for a blood-pressure condition. On June 5 Milosevic's attorney, Toma Fila, accused the regime of "murdering Milosevic in prison." He predicted that since the courts have been unable to prove any of the charges against the former president, "they'll probably start inventing new charges." The United States and other NATO powers have targeted Milosevic because he is a symbol of Yugoslav resistance to their domination. He was president in 1999 when the small Balkan country stood up to 78 days of bombing from the giant NATO military bloc. The NATO powers managed to push him out of office last fall by intervening with threats and bribes in a national election and then fomenting a coup. Using the leverage of loans and aid, they forced the new regime to arrest Milosevic on trumped-up charges on March 31. Yugoslavia's justice minister said June 8 that his government, known as the DOS, would cooperate with the United Nations war crimes tribunal--even if a new law isn't passed. "Yugoslavia must accept this cooperation if it does not want to be banished from the international community,'' said Momcilo Grubac. International friends and supporters of an independent Yugoslavia are meeting in Belgrade the weekend of June 16 to strengthen solidarity work with the SPS and Milosevic. Many believe this is a concrete way to help the Yugoslav workers, who have suffered a severe decline in their standard of living since the DOS coalition of President Vojislav Kostunica and Premier Zoran Djindjic consolidated its rule. Ramsey Clark backs Milosevic defense Among the supporters of legality in Yugoslavia is Ramsey Clark, founder of the International Action Center and former U.S. attorney general. Clark recently agreed to serve as a vice-chair of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic. The ICDSM was founded in Berlin last March 24. Clark has enormous prestige in Yugoslavia, even among opponents of Milosevic, for his courageous stand alongside the Yugoslav people during the bombing in 1999. Workers World spoke with IAC West Coast Coordinator Gloria La Riva, who accompanied Clark on his two trips to Belgrade in the spring of 1999. "It is important," said La Riva, "for the world anti-war movement to defend Milosevic and prevent his trial before the ICTY court--really a NATO creation--in The Hague for phony war-crimes charges. This is just another attempt of the aggressors to write the history of that war and blame the victim." Referring to the political leaders in the United States, Britain and Germany at the time of the war, La Riva said, "We in the IAC and allies around the world have shown in our popular war-crimes tribunals that the real war criminals were Clinton, Blair, Albright, Schroeder, Fischer and the generals and paid liars in the media who worked to promote and execute the war against Yugoslavia. "Looking at the new, chaotic situation that NATO has allowed its KLA clients to create in Macedonia," La Riva continued, "you can see how phony the anti-Milosevic and anti-Serb propaganda campaign was in 1998 and 1999. Milosevic's Serb and Yugoslav forces were treated by NATO spokespeople and by the media as beasts when they fought in Kosovo against the right-wing U.S. clients known as the KLA. "Now the Macedonian government is forced to wage war against the KLA--a war in which civilians are also suffering. But there is no such Western media campaign today against Macedonia--because the government has allowed its territory to be occupied by U.S. troops for years. "U.S./NATO aggression brought neither freedom nor stability to the Balkans, but a new war. Part of exposing that aggression is defending Milosevic against the kangaroo court in The Hague." - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. Web: http://www.workers.org)   To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]