A court run by wolves
NATO and the Srebrenica events
By John
Catalinotto
When rich and powerful nations sit in judgment of the poor
and powerless, it's naïve to believe they will dispense
evenhanded justice. Nowhere is this more evident than at the
NATO court--the International Criminal Tribunal on the Former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) sitting in The Hague, Netherlands.
On Aug. 2, this court found Bosnian Serb General Radislav
Krstic guilty of genocide. It sentenced him to 46 years in
prison for his role in an alleged massacre of thousands of
people in Srebrenica, Bosnia, in 1994. This is the first time
the ICTY has found a Yugoslav defendant guilty of genocide.
Before examining the guilt or innocence of an individual in
the hands of this court, it is imperative to examine the
origins of the court itself, the nations involved in the case
under study, the background of the case and see who gained by
the result.
The NATO countries set up the ICTY, with the initiative
coming from Washington. It is a remarkably biased international
court. Instead of examining potential crimes by all nations
involved, its defined mission is only to investigate alleged
crimes in the former Yugoslavia, especially the alleged crimes
of Serbs.
Later, this court's responsibility was extended to Rwanda,
and some people from other Yugoslav nationalities have appeared
before it. Still, it remains mainly a weapon to persecute
Serbs, especially those who defied NATO.
To put Krstic's alleged crime in perspective, consider that
official U.S. documents have recently been revealed confirming
that Washington delivered the names of hundreds of thousands of
Indonesian communists to the military coup regime in Jakarta,
thus participating in the massacre of between 500,000 and 1
million political activists in 1965-1966. The U.S., which is
the main force behind this NATO court, has also maintained
sanctions against Iraq since 1990 that have led to the deaths
of 1.5 million Iraqis, including half a million children.
Washington also has on its hands the blood of millions of
Koreans and Vietnamese, for whom there has been no restitution
or even apology.
A serious international tribunal could bring U.S.
politicians up on genocide charges for these crimes. That's one
reason why both the Clinton and the Bush administrations have
opposed setting up a really international tribunal to hear war
crimes charges against anyone. The ICTY tries only
Yugoslavs.
Civil war in Bosnia
The trial of General Krstic involves events during the civil
war in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995. Bosnian Serbs,
Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats made up the three major
ethnic groups. All three groups had shared power in the days of
the multinational Yugoslav socialist republic. However,
antagonisms grew among these groups as the socialist
perspective weakened in Eastern Europe. Nationalist parties
from these three groups eventually made up the three sides in
the war.
A regime in Sarajevo based on the Muslim majority declared
Bosnia's independence from Yugoslavia. Since large Croat and
Serb minorities existed inside Bosnia, this made civil war
virtually inevitable. The German and U.S. governments backed
this call for independence.
Twice Washington sabotaged international plans when it
looked as if there would be a settlement of the civil war. In
March 1992 the European Union had brokered an agreement in
Lisbon, Portugal. The so-called Vance-Owen plan was signed in
March 1993, brokered by the EU and the United Nations. In both
cases Washington undermined the accords by urging the Sarajevo
government to break with them.
Ironically, the accord that was finally signed differed
little from the Vance-Owen plan. But the U.S. government made
sure that Washington, and especially the Pentagon, was the main
player this time. It was signed in Dayton, Ohio, on Nov. 21,
1995.
Srebrenica 'massacre' used
to justify NATO bombs
Whatever happened at Srebrenica in July 1995, whoever died
there, no matter how they were killed, it was U.S. intervention
that set up the bloodletting. Yet no U.S. officials are facing
trial at the ICTY. That itself is a sign of the illegitimacy of
this court.
Srebenica, a mostly Muslim town, was patrolled by United
Nations "peacekeeping" troops and had been declared a "safe
haven" where civilians would be protected.
In fact, however, the troops of the Bosnian regime in
Sarajevo used the "safe havens" as places from which their
troops could launch attacks on the Bosnian Serb armies. When
these forces retaliated, the Bosnian regime complained to the
"peacekeepers" and demanded air strikes against their
enemies.
In early July 1995, Bosnian Serb troops pushed back the
Bosnian regime's troops and took Srebrenica after bitter
fighting. Thousands of men fled the town. Tens of thousands of
people, mostly non-combatants and children, surrendered.
At that time, the Bosnian regime accused the Bosnian Serb
army of slaughtering 7,000 to 10,000 Muslim men caught in
Srebrenica. The imperialist media repeated these charges and
used them to demonize the Serb forces.
These charges served another purpose. Dutch troops under UN
command were in Srebrenica. According to U.S. officials, these
troops failed to intervene while "genocide" was taking place.
Washington used this "failure" as an argument to justify
military intervention under NATO, which is U.S.-dominated and
unrestrained by the UN Charter.
The Pentagon began a more massive bombing of Bosnian Serb
positions and threatened to hit inside Serbia. This finally led
to the Dayton Accords and de-facto NATO occupation of
Bosnia.
Was there genocide?
A study of the Srebrenica events by investigator George
Pumphrey showed that thousands of the Muslim men had escaped
the Bosnian Serb army and made it to their own lines. In
addition, no evidence of massive killings was found for years
after the alleged event. Indeed, over 3,000 people on a Red
Cross list of the "missing" turned up on a list of voters the
following year. (See www.iacenter.org.)
None of this evidence has prevented the same media from
presenting the old tales that many thousands of people were
slaughtered. These charges have never been substantiated.
At the recent "trial" before the kangaroo court in The
Hague, anonymous witnesses-identified in court notes as
"witness R," "witness BB" and similar codes-claim they saw
Bosnian Serb forces under Gen. Krstic's command kill small
groups of prisoners. Many of these witnesses were troops from
the Bosnian forces opposing Krstic.
Krstic and his defense team were not allowed to confront
these witnesses. Everything was in the hands of the court
officers, who are beholden to NATO. Even if the stories the
witnesses told were the truth, it would only show that during a
bitter civil war illegal acts are committed. Crimes, perhaps,
but far from genocide--and committed by both sides.
Currently the most famous defendant before this court is
former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Media reports
imply that those behind the ICTY intend to bring charges
relating to Srebrenica against Milosevic, perhaps after
bringing these same charges against Bosnian Serb leaders.
U.S./NATO wants to find Milosevic and others from his
government guilty of "genocide," for its other charges are
weak.
No one should be deceived into thinking these cases have
anything to do with justice. They are weapons in NATO's arsenal
to break up Yugoslavia, whose struggle to remain sovereign and
united goes back to the magnificent resistance of the Partisans
to fascist occupation during World War II.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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