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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 22, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------U.S./NATO guilty of war crimes in Yugoslavia
By John Catalinotto
New York
An international panel of judges has found that U.S. and NATO political and military leaders were guilty of war crimes against Yugoslavia during and before the March 24-June 10, 1999, assault on that country.
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark was the lead prosecutor at the International Tribunal on U.S./NATO War Crimes against Yugoslavia, which met here on June 10. He urged the 500 people attending the all-day event to carry out this verdict by organizing a campaign to abolish the NATO military pact.
Ben Dupuy, a former ambassador-at-large from Haiti, the Rev. Kiyul Chung, representing the Korean movement for democracy and reunification, and auto worker Martha Grevatt, national secretary of Pride At Work, the AFL-CIO's constituency group of lesbian, gay, bi, and trans workers, read the three parts of the verdict.
A panel of 16 judges from 11 countries heard eyewitnesses and researchers who had visited Yugoslavia, renowned political and economic analysts, historians, physicists, biologists, military experts, journalists and lay researchers.
Over the past 15 months, speaking to worldwide audiences, many of these witnesses have presented a complete picture of the war NATO waged against Yugoslavia. For this tribunal, however, all limited themselves to a single area of expertise.
Together, they provided comprehensive evidence against the political and military leaders of the United States and the other NATO countries.
The judges decided that the individual testimonies taken together constructed a proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused are guilty of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Manipulation of the media
The witnesses described how NATO used the media to spread lies demonizing the Serbs and their leadership, and to prepare Western public opinion for a war. Speakers detailed the real economic and geopolitical motives of the imperialist powers of the United States and Western Europe: to seize economic control of the area, from the Balkans to the oil-rich Caspian Sea.
A pattern of similar criminal behavior by the United States, most notably in the Korean and Vietnam wars, was established.
Speakers demonstrated how Washington rigged the phony "Racak massacre" for the media and then used the so-called Rambouillet accord--in reality an ultimatum demanding military control of all Yugoslavia for NATO--to provoke the war. Taken together, this all proved a crime against peace.
They also showed that using illegal weapons, purposely choosing civilian targets, and destroying the environment and the civilian infrastructure added up to war crimes.
Expelling hundreds of thousands of people from Kosovo and Metohija, after the NATO bombing began, were crimes against humanity.
The witnesses' presentations were accompanied in many cases by slides and videotape displayed on a large screen on the stage of the auditorium at Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Manhattan. They were visible to the judges, who sat on the stage, and to the hundreds in the audience.
In addition, pictures and videotapes were on display in the hall outside the auditorium. Documentary evidence was offered in books and research papers.
The material illustrated deliberate targeting of civilians: the bombing of a Belgrade television station; the bombing of refugees; the bombing of the Chinese Embassy; the bombing of hospitals, schools, railroads and bridges; the destruction of the industrial and civil infrastructure; the use of pellet bombs and depleted uranium; damage to the environment through bombing petrochemical plants; and the tactic of repeat bombingof the same target after 10 to 15 minutes to kill and wound members of emergency rescue teams.
Many tribunals culminate in New York
The International Action Center, founded by Ramsey Clark and other activists in 1992, organized this final session of the tribunal. Similar tribunal hearings have taken place in Germany, Italy, Austria, Russia, Ukraine, Yugoslavia and Greece. In Athens last November, thousands declared U.S. President Bill Clinton a war criminal.
Some of the witnesses in New York had also participated in these European tribunals.
Representatives of the governments of Yugoslavia and Cuba made important presentations.
Ismael Guadalupe from Vieques, Puerto Rico, explained in a powerful speech that U.S. Navy bombing exercises against his small island have laid the basis for U.S./NATO aggression around the world, including in Kosovo, Yugoslavia.
The IAC registered 511 people at the event, including justices, witnesses and staff. Invited speakers, witnesses and judges came from Haiti, Spain, Turkey, Korea, Puerto Rico, India, Germany, United States, Canada, Italy, Yugoslavia, Russia, Britain, Belgium, Iraq, Greece, Austria, France and Portugal.
The U.S. government refused visas to four people from Ukraine, including three parliamentary deputies. Their message was read from the stage.
There were also representatives of the Roma people--often referred to by the derogatory term "gypsy." Shani Rifati, a Roma witness who was born in Pristina, capital of Kosovo, told how NATO occupation has led to the expulsion of 100,000 Romas. He pointed out that the verdict condemned the persecution of Roma people, the first time this has happened in any international tribunal.
Five television crews taped the entire proceedings. They included Serbian television and a three-camera crew from Australia, as well as alternate media sources in the United States such as the Peoples Video Network.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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