Tribunal in Vienna
Austrian regime guilty of aiding U.S.-NATO war crimes
Special
to Workers World
On Dec. 4, the 300 participants of the Dec. 4 Vienna
Tribunal against the Austrian Regime for Aiding the NATO
Aggression found leading members of the Austrian regime
guilty.
The daylong tribunal at the Technical University in downtown
Vienna had many points in common with war crimes hearings held
in Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece and nine U.S. cities.
But the Vienna Tribunal also highlighted issues unique to
Austria. For example, that a regime can aid an aggressive war
without taking part in it directly. Also, that the European
Union's rapid-strike force also threatens to drag the Austrian
population into a war.
Speakers representing the international movement to bring
charges against U.S.-NATO leaders included Zoran Stojanovic,
professor of criminal law at Belgrade University and Ralph
Hartmann, former ambassador of the German Democratic Republic
in Belgrade. Hartmann, the author of a book about the Balkans
crisis, also represented the German Tribunal against the NATO
war.
John Catalinotto spoke as a representative of the
International Action Center. Catalinotto repeated Ramsey
Clark's earlier assertion that NATO was an aggressive military
pact and must be abolished.
IAC founder Clark's 19 charges against U.S. and other NATO
political and military leaders have been used as a model for
other tribunal hearings around the world, including the one in
Vienna.
Other international witnesses included Gordana Brun from the
Environmental Ministry of Serbia, who testified about the role
the U.S.-NATO war played in destroying the environment and its
consequences for the health and living conditions of the
peoples of the Balkans.
Cedomir Prlincevic, chairperson of the Jewish Community of
Kosovo, also testified. He explained that not only did
right-wing Kosovo Albanians drive out all
non-Albanians--including Albanians who oppose the Kosovo
Liberation Army--from Kosovo, but NATO's United-Nations
sanctioned occupation forces did nothing to stop it.
Austrian regime's guilt
The Yugoslav-Austrian Solidarity League, which had mobilized
tens of thousands in Vienna--mostly immigrants from
Yugoslavia--against the war, called for the tribunal.
Many Austrian anti-war organizations and individuals
participated, including the Austrian Peace Movement, the
Communist Party of Austria and the Revolutionary Communist
League.
A series of Austrian witnesses pointed out the specific
steps the regime had taken that made its leading members guilty
of aiding NATO's war crimes.
Austria's constitution commits the country's political
leaders to strict neutrality in any international conflict.
Jurist Walther Leeb had little difficulty showing that the
regime had violated its own basic laws through its support for
NATO's aggressive war.
In addition, in 1991 Austria, led by then-Foreign Minister
Alois Mock had quickly joined Germany in recognizing the
right-wing regimes in Slovenia and Croatian that split from
Yugoslavia. Writer Hannes Hofbauer outlined Austria's role for
the last 10 years in the destruction of Yugoslavia.
Peace researcher Wilfried Graf explained how the Rambouillet
Accord contained a military appendix that allowed NATO troops
to occupy all of Yugoslavia. As a result, the accord could only
be rejected by the Belgrade government. Washington purposely
set up this ploy to justify the start of bombing raids.
An Austrian politician, Former European Union Special
Representative Wolfgang Petritsch, delivered this ultimatum to
the Yugoslavs. In doing so, Petritsch was guilty of setting up
the provocation that launched NATO's 79-day bombing
campaign.
Others showed that the Austrian regime allowed NATO access
to its air space and transport to carry on the war.
At the end of the day, a jury of five progressive Austrians
found the Austrian regime--especially Chancellor Viktor Klima,
Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schüssel and Defense Minister
Werner Fasslabend--guilty, along with Petritsch and Mock.
After a wide-ranging discussion, the assembly seconded the
guilty verdict with only four abstentions and no contrary
votes.
European rapid-reaction force
The tribunal's guilty verdict also accused the Austrian
regime of damaging that country's neutrality and threatening
its population by working toward participation in a European
rapid-reaction force. "The European Union will be militarized,"
the jury said, "and the role of Austria in the planned
intervention army will be presented as a fait accompli."
West European political leaders have proposed a European
military force that can operate independent of NATO; that is,
of Washington. Just like NATO, however, the European
"rapid-reaction force" is aimed at imposing imperialist demands
on oppressed countries in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle
East.
The Austrian regime, without openly challenging the
country's traditional neutrality, nevertheless has indicated it
would cooperate with such a force.
The jury's statement and its importance were underlined by
the news from Helsinki, Finland on Dec. 11 that European
leaders okayed the creation of this rapid-reaction military
force, a contingent of 60,000 troops that could be operational
by 2003.
U.S. Defense Minister William Cohen has often made clear
that Washington prefers Europe to increase military spending
but keep its forces completely subservient to the Pentagon. The
Europeans should buy U.S.-made weapons and provide cannon
fodder for U.S.-led interventions, according to Cohen.
The future of the European force vis-à-vis NATO is
still uncertain. Its role will undoubtedly be a source of
conflict between Washington and the European capitals. But
there are no doubts about its oppressive class character.
U.S. anti-imperialists can only welcome the Austrian
anti-war fighters' statement that they are ready to confront
the European Union's military just as they do NATO. And U.S.
anti-war activists should likewise fight U.S. militarism and
U.S. hegemony by demanding NATO be abolished.
Anti-Serb racism
Progressives in the United States are aware of the vicious
anti-Serb agitation by the U.S. government and media last
spring. The Austrian government and media repeated the same
slanders, except that in Austria these slanders built on a long
history of anti-Slav and especially anti-Serb racism.
The Austrian ruling class had joined Germany in aggression
against Serbia in the two world wars, both of which Austria and
Germany lost. Anti-Serb racism is strong in Austrian
ruling-class ideology, just as anti-Arab racism is in the
U.S.
In addition, Yugoslavs, mostly from Serbia, are currently
the largest immigrant group in Austria. And a right-wing
politician, Jörg Haider, has raised his party's vote to 30
percent and won second place in parliament based mainly on
anti-immigrant appeals. While any analogy oversimplifies,
Haider could be called roughly the Austrian equivalent of
Patrick Buchanan, but with more success at the polls.
Left-wing media representatives at the tribunal rightly
accused the government and the big-business Austrian media of
slander against a people--the Serbs--in their war
propaganda.
It was thoroughly progressive that the anti-imperialist
forces in Austria had joined in solidarity with the Yugoslav
community to fight against the U.S.-NATO war. The group held
almost daily demonstrations, one as large as 28,000 in a city
of fewer than 2 million.
Solidarity with Mumia
When the Austrian left held a demonstration last April in
solidarity with U.S. political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal,
hundreds of people from the Yugoslav community in Vienna joined
the protest.
John Catalinotto ended his talk by describing the heroic
role of Abu-Jamal in helping build solidarity with Yugoslavia
against U.S.-NATO aggression when the well-known political
prisoner wrote a letter opposing the war last spring.
Catalinotto also praised the solidarity that immigrant
Yugoslavs in Vienna showed toward Abu-Jamal by joining the
demonstration for him.
"With that kind of international solidarity, we can build a
new and better world," Catalinotto concluded.
The following day, in Kassel, Germany, the IAC and the
Berlin tribunal movement spoke to 300 people from 100 German
peace organizations at the Kassel Peace Council. The assembly
endorsed the tribunal movement in Germany.
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