In second appearance at The Hague
Milosevic challenges NATO's court
By John
Catalinotto
Slobodan Milosevic turned his second court appearance on
Aug. 30 into a direct political and legal challenge to the
authority of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia (ICTY). The anti-imperialist movement considers this
tribunal NATO's court in The Hague.
The motions he presented not only raise a legal challenge to
the legitimacy of the ICTY but they expose the criminal actions
of NATO and also of the U.S. government in destabilizing and
then waging war on the peoples of Yugoslavia, especially in the
republic of Serbia.
In the short statement to the public that the judges
allowed, Milosevic exposed the unfavorable conditions the
tribunal has imposed on him. These include preventing private
consultations with attorneys who are advising him, recording
his conversations with his family, including his two-year-old
grandson, and keeping him isolated from the media.
The court, as if to underline its own illegitimacy and its
bias against the accused, refused to allow President Milosevic
to read his challenge before the public. This made it even
easier for the pro-NATO media to continue to repeat all the
anti-Milosevic and anti-Serb lies that they had spread over the
past 10 years.
"Why am I isolated from the press?" he asked. "Each day,
they print lies about me, and I can't respond. If the
journalists want to know the truth, no one has any reason to be
afraid of the truth. You are not a tribunal, you are a
political tool."
Just as in early July at his first court appearance, the
presiding judge pushed a button that turned off Milosevic's
microphone at this point.
The ICTY was originally set up by U.S. initiative in May
1993 under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council.
Funds from NATO countries and from private sources provide its
financial underpinning. Its targets are solely those who reside
in the former Yugoslavia, the great majority of them Serbs.
Under pressure from NATO during its 79-day bombing assault
on Yugoslavia, the ICTY brought the original charges against
President Milosevic. At that time--in May 1999--he was leading
the Yugoslav resistance to NATO's invasion of and bombing of
Yugoslavia.
In the court Aug. 30, the current chief prosecutor of the
ICTY, Carla del Ponte, asked for an additional two months to
prepare the case against Milosevic.
The Yugoslav leader noted ironically that "two and a half
years after having falsely accused me, you're still not
ready."
Belgian journalist and Balkans expert Michel Collon noted
that the public is completely separated from the judges by a
wall of glass. "The three judges in their red robes, the six
prosecutors in black and their clerks seem to float by as if in
an aquarium. It was toward the public that Milosevic most often
looked, wearing a dark suit, a blue, white and red tie--the
colors of his country's flag--and with a firm expression on his
face that otherwise seemed fatigued by the conditions of his
detention: camera surveillance, no privacy, lights on 24 hours
a day in his small cell."
Reports from Belgrade agree that by standing up to NATO and
its court, Milosevic and his Socialist Party of Serbia are
steadily gaining stature with the Serbian population. This is
especially true as conditions of life deteriorate under the
pro-West regime.
Milosevic's defense
President Milosevic has announced that he will defend
himself, which seems to have aroused the anger of the court as
well as the barbs of the media. But he has the right, in
preparing his defense, to seek legal counsel, which has been
offered by many progressive attorneys from different countries
as well as from Yugoslavia.
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general and an expert in
international law, was the first attorney to win from the ICTY
the right to hold more than a fleeting meeting with the former
Yugoslav president.
In three successive days in July, Clark and Milosevic
discussed motions that could challenge the ICTY's legitimacy.
As a result of work arising from these discussions, President
Milosevic was able to prepare motions to submit to the ICTY,
which he did on Aug. 30.
It was these motions that the judge refused to allow
Milosevic to read to the court and the public. In the
concluding section of the 5,200-word document, published by the
Socialist Party of Serbia and distributed via the Internet,
Milosevic said:
"The United States engaged in a decade-long effort, aided by
several European countries, to break up and destroy the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, causing the secession (remember the
American Civil War) of German-oriented Slovenia and Croatia
with 500,000 Serbs purged from its borders. Then Bosnia was
pried away from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and
segregated into an unnatural three region religious apartheid,
Muslim, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian.
"Now Macedonia is in turmoil, nearing civil war from
U.S.-stimulated and supported terrorist organization KLA
[Kosovo Liberation Army] aggression. Thus Yugoslavia became
former, losing half of its population and wealth and leaving
only Serbia and Montenegro. Kosovo and Metohia, an historically
precious part of Serbia, remains occupied by NATO forces after
79 days of aerial bombardment in 1999.
"U.S.-led aerial assaults inflicted billions in damages on
civilian facilities, killed thousands of civilians throughout
Serbia in the name of NATO. Thereafter the United States and
NATO watched as 330,000 Serbs were forced out of Kosovo and
Metohia and many hundreds were murdered. Violent efforts to
remove all Serbs from Kosovo and Metohia continue. And the KLA
has been empowered to attack Macedonia.
"The ICTY was created at the insistence of the United
States, which had stimulated violence and secession in
republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Macedonia, and attempted division and conflict in the Serbian
province of Kosovo and Metohia and in three municipalities in
the south of Serbia and throughout the former six
Republics.
"The U.S. intends to persecute and demonize leaders who
together with the people by defending freedom and by resisting
aggression of NATO war machinery, had defied its will, and at
the same time make the people seem savage. Madeleine Albright,
while U.S. Ambassador to the UN, was the driving force for
creation of the ICTY.
"The U.S. Ambassador to the Tribunal, David Scheffer,
concedes the ICTY is 'supported, financed, staffed and provided
information' primarily by the United States."
Readers with Internet access can find the full document on
the International Action Center web site at
www.iacenter.org.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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