War Crimes Tribunal launched
'Put U.S./NATO on trial!'
By John
Catalinotto
Groups in various NATO countries including the United States
are taking steps to expose the war crimes committed by their
governments and by NATO commanders in the war against
Yugoslavia.
While the bombing was still going on, a committee of Greek
jurists and organizations of German peace activists and
researchers raised charges that NATO had committed war
crimes--first by initiating aggression and then by purposely
bombing civilian targets. Some groups even brought such charges
before the International War Crimes Tribunal for Yugoslavia in
The Hague, Netherlands--even though this organization is widely
considered a tool of the NATO powers that supply most of its
budget and feed it information.
Now, according to a June 11 news release signed by
co-directors of the International Action Center Sara Flounders
and Brian Becker, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has
initiated an International War Crimes Tribunal. Clark is
chairperson of the International Action Center, a group that
has organized and coordinated major demonstrations protesting
the war against Yugoslavia.
Flounders told Workers World she is confident her group
"will be able to cooperate with anti-war organizations in the
NATO countries, throughout Europe and throughout the world who
would like to initiate similar activities in their own
countries and participate in joint actions to indict the NATO
leaders before the world's population."
Clark intends to hold a Commission of Inquiry July 31-Aug. 1
at the Fashion Institute of Technology campus in New York. The
commission will hold hearings to collect eyewitness evidence,
hear direct and expert testimony, and collect video footage,
photographs, documents and other evidence as part of an
investigation into crimes against peace, crimes against
humanity, and war crimes committed during the U.S./ NATO
bombing war against Yugoslavia.
The Commission of Inquiry will include international
jurists, human-rights activists, labor unionists, medical
personnel, environmental experts, rank-and-file soldiers from
NATO countries, and people who have been in Yugoslavia during
the bombing.
Clark is in the process of outlining a multi-point
indictment of the U.S. government's conduct in the war against
Yugo slavia. This indictment will serve as the basis of the
commission's work.
In 1991-1992, Clark's group carried out a similar tribunal
against U.S. and coalition war crimes committed against the
Iraqi people during the 1991 Gulf War.
Radio Yugoslavia reported on June 14 that "Ramsey Clark, one
of the world's most influential fighters for justice and
against America's bully-type policy and interventionism, said a
commission had been formed for investigating the war crimes
committed by the U.S. administration and NATO in Yugoslavia
during the illegal and brutal aggression."
Yugoslav communists
call for tribunal
The Youth Organization of the League of Yugoslav Communists
has also issued a statement charging NATO with "complete
responsibility for devastating the Yugoslavian economy and
infrastructure, for killing thousands of civilians of all
nations in order to break our will to defend ourselves, for
destabilization and economic crisis in the Balkans."
The statement demands that NATO leaders bear the "legal and
material consequences of their deeds. ... All leaders who drew
their countries into this criminal bombing campaign clearly
showed the rottenness of so-called parliamentary
democracies--although all parliaments were against using force,
their opinion had no influence on the imperialists or their mad
policies.
"It is shown again that big business runs all these
`democratic countries' through their puppets--Blair, Clinton,
Chirac, Schroeder and Co. The power and influence of big
capital in these countries qualified them as plain
dictatorships of the bourgeoisie. Until the people of
imperialistic countries take power in their hands,
imperialistic wars will be fact on our planet. ...
"The Youth League of Yugoslav Communists and the New
Communist Party of Yugoslavia demand the foundation of an
independent International Tribunal, which will have
responsibility to try NATO officials, officers and soldiers who
committed war crimes against people of Yugoslavia."
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