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The judge as prosecutor
Ian Johnson (Fw: DeWaarheid.nu) - 19.06.2002 10:52
THE JUDGE AS PROSECUTOR: TWO DAYS AT THE "TRIAL" OF SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC
By Ian Johnson
Leigh, Lancashire * UK
[Posted 19 June 2002]
NOTE: For audio of ´trial´ go to  http://hague.bard.edu/video.html
For transcripts, go to http://www.un.org/icty/latest/index.htm
Introduction: Ian Johnson recounts an incident that occurred while he was attending the Milosevic ´trial´ at The Hague on June 7th:
"During the morning break I met a young Dutch lad in the lobby. He was studying medicine in Vienna but was staying for the summer with his grandfather in Holland. He was curious about the Milosevic case. Of course he couldn´t find it on the television. So he´d come over to watch with his own eyes. He saw me taking notes and approached me. He wanted to see if I was thinking what he was thinking. His English was excellent. He said, "I don´t know that much about the issues, but anyone can see this isn´t a proper trial, is it? The Judge is totally against him. In fact he´s openly contemptuous of Mr. Milosevic, isn´t he? What´s going on here?"
I work as a paralegal in the UK. So for me, the perversion of justice I had just witnessed - and with a British judge presiding! - was infuriating. But here was this young Dutch lad, not in the legal profession or involved in defending Mr. Milosevic at all, but a thinking person, and he was horrified as well. He wanted to know why his country was supporting such a travesty. This is why they have stopped showing the proceedings on television. Because the people, and especially the young people, wouldn´t stand for it, would they?"
Here is Ian Johnson´s account of:
TWO DAYS AT THE "TRIAL" OF SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC
To spend one day at The Hague Tribunal is enough to confirm the worst of suspicions. What is actually taking place in the heart of ´democratic´ Europe is a show-trial so blatant, so lacking in legality, that it brings shame to those who are participating in it and to those who refuse to challenge it.
The history of the Tribunal´s formation and funding is well documented. Originally an idea that emanated from the United States Department of the Army, it was brought into being via the UN Security Council in its Resolutions 808 and 827 of 1993. Not only was this act legally invalid, being that the Security Council had no authority in judicial matters to establish such a Tribunal, but its creation also involved a reinterpretation of the UN Charter.
Canadian lawyer Christopher Black observed the following:
"...the UN is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of its members, a fundamental principle of international law and the first guarantee of the right to self-determination of the world´s peoples. If a people do not have the right of sovereignty, the right to self-determination is a sham. This principle is completely denied by the creation of the Tribunal. The UN Charter states that nothing contained in the Charter shall authorise the UN to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state. This fundamental principle, put in the Charter so that the UN could not be used by some members to bully others has also been fatally undermined by the creation of the Tribunal. The members of the Security Council, more precisely, the permanent members, now hold the opposite position, and I submit, do so for reasons connected more with imperialism not humanitarianism." (1)
The Tribunal´s funding exposes its political character. Much of it comes from the US government through cash and equipment, with other notable contributors being the Rockefeller family, Time-Warner, who own CNN and have exclusive rights to broadcast the trial, and American billionaire financier George Soros. The Soros connection is significant. The Coalition for International Justice (CIJ), founded and funded by George Soros, supplies many of the Tribunal´s legal staff. The George Soros foundation, the Open Society Institute, is one of the parties that obtain evidence for the Tribunal, and most tellingly, the Open Society Institute funds the main KLA newspaper in Pristina, a fact that has not been mentioned once by the western media.
POLITICAL BIAS IN ACTION
Even if one had no knowledge of the Tribunal´s history, a brief visit to Courtroom One of the Hague Tribunal to witness the trial of Slobodan Milosevic would immediately give cause for concern.
Unlike the practice in criminal courts The Hague court itself is involved in the laying of charges and the approval of one of the trial judges must be obtained before a charge can be laid.
This extraordinary relationship between the prosecution and judges undermines the right of the accused to a presumption of innocence. Furthermore this close relationship can be witnessed in the day to day proceedings at The Hague.
I visited the Tribunal during the first week of June 2002 and can bear witness to the various ways this hand in glove operation of prosecutor and judge appears in practice.
I heard the testimony of several prosecution witnesses during the sessions I attended.
Each witness gave their, sometimes lengthy, statements that were then elaborated on by the prosecution and on occasions involved photographs and maps. At no time during this process did the judge, Richard May, stipulate a time limit on the prosecution. Yet when it was the turn of Mr Milosevic to cross-examine the witness, Judge May would instruct that a time limit be put on proceedings. At one point, in response to protests from Mr Milosevic, Judge May arrogantly proclaimed, "We are the judges Mr Milosevic and we have judged that you will have forty-five minutes to cross-examine this witness." (7th June 2002).
Basically a cross-examination should take as long as it takes, be it ten minutes or ten hours, especially as the accused is facing the gravest charges any human being can face. But in the peculiar rules and procedures of this particular court, the trial judges will ensure that this is not the case.
Additionally, the Tribunal has been given the absolute authority to devise its own rules and procedures, an unheard of situation in any other circumstance.
When we come to the way the judges attempt to ´protect´ the prosecution witnesses from any piercing cross-examination of their statements the full political bias of the court is revealed. I understand from other reports that this is a daily occurrence, however I will limit myself here to what I personally witnessed.
On the 6th June prosecution witness Mr Buyo, a KLA commander in the Racak zone during 1999, in his testimony relating to events surrounding the alleged Racak ´massacre´, initially claimed that Serbian security forces had opened fire first.
However, later in his testimony when explaining the KLA´s actions, he testified that his own forces had merely fired warning shots into the air so as to alert their colleagues of the approaching Serb forces.
Mr Milosevic seized on this discrepancy and pointedly asked the witness, "Why, if it was true that the Serbian security forces had fired first, was it necessary to fire warning shots into the air?" A quite reasonable assumption one would have thought. If you are under attack there is no need for any colleague of yours to fire shots in the air warning you of an approaching enemy.
Mr Milosevic attempted to drive home the significance of this discrepancy at which point, with the witness clearly in trouble, Judge May intervened and instructed, "Move on Mr Milosevic, you have laboured this point enough. Go on to another question." Mr Buyo was off the hook.
A further witness, who admitted his brother was a member of the KLA, claimed he was an eyewitness to a ´massacre´ of civilians in his village near Bela Crkva
He testified that Serb forces had entered his peaceful village, separated the women and children from the men and proceeded to execute seventy men, women and children.
In his cross-examination (time limit imposed) Mr Milosevic asked why, if they killed seventy men, women and children so indiscriminately, would they bother separating them in the first place? After a lengthy silence from the witness Judge May interjected, "I don´t think you can expect the witness to know that."
The witness´s credibility was further undermined when he denied any knowledge of the KLA kidnapping of both Serb and Albanian residents in his village just a few weeks earlier, claiming he must have been away at the time and upon his return no villagers mentioned it to him. Up to that date the kidnapping was the biggest event to occur in his village for years, yet, as a life long resident there, he had never even heard about it.
Proceedings were taking a predictable course. It didn´t take much insight to grasp the following: A) The witnesses told a well-rehearsed story. B) If the witnesses got into difficulties during the cross-examination the Judge would intervene.
INADEQUATE WHEN CHALLENGED
This observation was further confirmed with the appearance of one Mr Ian Robert Hendrie, a member of the London Metropolitan Police who had been seconded to the OSCE and was part of the verification mission in Racak headed by William Walker.
Mr Hendrie told of his observations while he was touring the Racak ´massacre´ site, using several photographs that he had taken personally.
Under cross-examination, when asked if he toured the site alone or if somebody had showed him around, he replied that the latter was the case. "Who showed you around the site?" enquired Mr Milosevic. "I don´t know," was the astonishing response.
Here was a member of the verification team who could not verify who it was that told him about the ´massacre´ and showed him the supposed evidence. But apparently Mr. Hendrie´s testimony, dependent as it was on a guide and translator whom he could not identify, was neverthless acceptable, because Judge May impatiently instructed Mr. Milosevic to move on to another question.
However the other questions got Mr Hendrie into deeper trouble. He could not explain why his photographs showed only patches of blood and not pools as would be expected. Nor could he explain why no person´s blood had spilled onto another person´s body, which it was logical to assume would have been the case if all these bodies, densely packed together, had been killed simultaneously at this one specific place.
Enter Judge May. "The witness is not a forensic expert and cannot be expected to know these things." In other words, Mr. Hendrie´s expertise had a dual nature. It was sufficient when he was testifying against Mr. Milosevic, but woefully inadequate when he was challenged.
Comments such as this, which pepper the trial every day, might be expected from the prosecution, but from a supposedly neutral trial Judge?
When asked by the defendant if he had ever heard of the ´paraffin test´, (a test which can determine if a person had recently handled a firearm), Mr Hendrie didn´t answer but left it to Judge May to announce that, "This test has been discredited" to which Mr Milosevic added with a touch of sarcasm "But only in the USA, not in Yugoslavia."
Mr Yemeni was the last prosecution witness I observed during my June visit. In his statement he claimed to have witnessed the killing of civilians in his village in Kosovo. He claimed he was hiding in his attic from where he supposedly witnessed the ´killings´ and also overheard Yugoslav commanders communicating on mobile phones and comparing the number of dead with the number of dead at Racak. Mr Yemeni, at the age of twenty-four, was Mayor of his village.
Below I paraphrase excerpts of the cross-examination:
Mr Milosevic. "Are you a member of the KLA?"
Mr Yemeni. "No."
Mr M. "Are you a member of any political party?"
Mr Y. "Yes"
Me M. "What is your party called?"
Mr Y. "The Democratic Party"
Mr M. "Who is the leader of your party?"
Mr Y. "Mr. Thaci." [Mr Thaci was a leader of the KLA in 1999]. ***
Mr M. "When did you join this party?"
Mr Y. "I don´t know."
Mr M. "You don´t know when you joined? All right. Approximately when did you join?"
Mr Y. " I don´t know"
Judge May. "Mr Milosevic, move on, it is not relevant when he joined the party."
Mr M. "It is very relevant. However. How is it that you were Mayor of your village at such a young age? This is very unusual."
Mr Y. " I was Mayor because I represent modern civilisation, unlike the backward Serbs. Modern civilisation that we are now building in Kosovo needs leaders like myself to take them out of the backwardness that Serbs kept them in. We are building a civilisation that is modern and we need intelligent people like me."
Judge May allowed this racist diatribe to go on without comment.
Mr M. "I didn´t know I was talking to an intellectual. However, let me ask you about the conversations that you say you overheard between commanders. Where were you when you overheard these conversations?"
Mr Y "Hiding in the attic of my house."
Mr M. "And what was the position of the soldiers who were using their phones?"
Mr Y. "On the balcony of a house facing my attic window."
Mr M. "Which is how far away?"
Mr Y. "Fifteen metres."
Mr Milosevic holds up a photograph for the witness that shows the houses in question.
Mr M. "As you can see there is no balcony facing your attic. And the nearest house is more like fifty metres away. Is that right or not?"
Mr Y. "No."
Judge May. "Move on Mr. Milosevic. The witness has told you his position."
Mr M. "Very well. As there were no KLA in your village, as you say, and therefore the villagers saw no reason to flee, as you say in your statement, why then did you feel it necessary to hide in your attic?"
A lengthy silence followed. Then the witness resumed his anti-Serb rhetoric of fighting for a modern civilisation against the darkness of the Serbs. At no point did Judge May direct the witness to answer the question or attempt to stop the racist language being used by Mr Yemeni.
Mr M. "All right. When the Security Forces were in your village what was the atmosphere like?"
Mr Y. "It was frightening. The Serbs were firing their guns into the air all the time and shouting and screaming at the civilians. They were like wild men."
Mr M. "So above this frightening noise, above the firing of guns, above the shouts and the screams you were able, even from, as you insist, fifteen metres away, you were able to hear telephone conversations?"
Mr Y. "We represent a modern civilisation, that´s what intellectuals like myself are fighting for."
Mr. Milosevic repeated the question.
Judge May. "Have you many more questions for this witness Mr Milosevic?"
Mr M. "I have about forty more questions."
Judge May. "Well I am giving you ten more minutes with this witness."
Mr M. "That just shows the bias of this court as I have said previously."
Turning to the prosecution witness Mr Milosevic continued.
Mr M. "From what position did you observe the killing of the civilians?"
Mr Y. "From my attic window."
Mr M. "All the killings took place outside your attic window?"
Mr Y. "I can observe all the town from my attic. I can move around."
Mr M. "So with all this killing going on you felt secure enough, just fifteen metres away from the Security forces, to be able to move around your attic?"
Mr Y. "With all the noise no one could hear me so I was secure."
Mr M. "So the noise was so great that the Security forces could not hear you moving around, but the noise wasn´t loud enough to prevent you from listening to a telephone conversation at least fifteen metres away from your position. Is that right or not?"
Judge May. "Your time is up Mr Milosevic. Mr Yemeni, I would like to thank you for coming to give evidence to the International Tribunal and you are now free to go."
THE SCALES OF JUSTICE
As I perused Courtroom One with its judges, lawyers, secretaries and legal clerks, I realised that these people, working for this particular Tribunal, had sold their dignity and the dignity of their profession to the New World Order.
The essence of this Tribunal is summed up perfectly by lawyer Christopher Black:
"No citizen of any country in the world would consider themselves fairly tried before a court that was paid for, staffed and assisted by private citizens or corporations which had a direct stake in the outcome of the trial and who were, themselves, in practical terms, immune from that court. It is a well established principle of law that a party in a legal action, whether civil or criminal, is entitled to ask for the removal of any judge sitting on the case when there exists a reasonable apprehension of bias. In this instance, a compelling argument can be made that the bias is not only apprehended, it is real, that it is not of one judge but of the entire tribunal, that this is not a judicial body worthy of international respect but a kangaroo court, a bogus court, with a political purpose serving very powerful and identifiable masters. To be consistent with my thesis I will go further and say that as a political instrument designed to violate, to destroy the integrity and sovereignty of a country, its creation is a crime against peace under the Nuremberg Principles. Instead of resolving conflict as it claims, it is used to justify conflict, instead of creating peace, it is used to justify war and therefore is an instrument of war."
During the trial session of Friday 7th June Mr. Milosevic complained to the court that he had not as yet received a copy of the statement made by William Walker, head of the OSCE and a vital prosecution witness. Mr Walker was due in court the following Monday. Judge May said he would look into this.
The prosecution has been preparing their case for years, their witnesses are well rehearsed, hearsay evidence is accepted, as is secret testimony, and cross-examination time is restricted. Yet, as if that wasn´t enough, witness statements are withheld from the accused until a few hours beforehand, giving little time for the defence to prepare the cross-examination.
Add to this the physical and psychological conditions that Mr Milosevic and other Yugoslav prisoners are subject to. They are treated as if they have already been convicted, being kept in cells and under constant surveillance, having their mail censored, family visits restricted, any communication with their families to be at their own expense, and restrictions on what they can see or hear on radio or television.
And, especially in the case of Mr Milosevic, a refusal to allow him to meet with the legal advisors of his choice. Several prisoners have already died while in custody and to the shame of organisations such as Amnesty International, no investigation into these deaths has been forthcoming.
Despite all this Mr Milosevic is bravely using the Tribunal as his battleground to defend his people and his country and expose the real culprits for the wars and break-up of the Balkans, Nato and the International Monetary Fund. He stated his position very clearly in his 11th December 2001 pre-trial appearance: "I can tell you that I am proud that I commanded the armed forces of Yugoslavia..I am here as a punishment for standing up against the danger of the biggest tyranny that has threatened mankind."
The Milosevic trial is expected to last two years, yet no matter how long a trial takes, no matter how many well-rehearsed prosecution witnesses are wheeled in, if the outcome is predetermined, then it is a show trial.
The resistance shown by the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, against overwhelming odds, should serve as encouragement to all those who oppose the wars, poverty and suffering inherent in the creation of a New World Order.
Ian Johnson June 2002
Mr. Johnson can be reached by email at
***
Further Reading:
1) In ´The Other Side of the Story´, two retired Yugoslav Army generals refute the charges against Slobodan Milosevic and other Yugoslav leaders point-by-point. Their sources include Yugoslav Army documents never before available. The original source material and reasoning refutes the ´tribunal´ indictments and at the same time the narrative is informative, interesting and hard to put down. You can download the entire book at
http://www.icdsm.org/more/book.htm
Or load one chapter at a time, starting with Chapter One at
http://emperors-clothes.com/book/book1.htm
2) "An Impartial Tribunal? Really?" by Christopher Black. Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/Impartial.htm
3) ´Unjust from the Start, Part IV: Learning from the Inquisition,´ by Yugoslav law professor Kosta Cavoski is part of his series on The Hague ´tribunal.´ It can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/cavoski/c-4.htm
Prof. Cavoski´s series is a good introduction to The Hague ´tribunal.´ You could begin with Part I, "Unjust from the Start: The War Crimes Tribunal vs. General Djordje Djukic," at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/cavoski/c-1.htm
4) Attorney John Philpot wrote in asking if there was documentation of the charge that Hague Prosecutor Arbour conferred with Western regimes before indicting Pres. Milosevic. Read his letter, and the documentation at
http://emperors-clothes.com/letters/philpot.htm
5) In ´For Whom the Bell Tolls,´ editor Jared Israel warns that the injustice at The Hague is a communicable disease...Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/tolls.htm
 Website: http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/ian/day.htm
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| aanvullingen | | | Bomb emperors-clothes until Kindom Comes!!! | j. 3 - 19.06.2002 15:11
Kosovo is een ander verhaal dan Bosnie-Herzegovina. Zware kritiek heb ik op de links in dit artikel naar emperors-clothes.com, omdat ze de geschiedenis verdaaien, eenmaal een leugenaar altijd een leugenaar.
Ik heb ze al eerder aangevallen over hun rapportage 9/11 door de Jared Israel. http://www.indymedia.nl/2002/06/4674.shtml
Volgens Emperor is alles terug te voeren tot WOII, toen Servie fel verzet heeft geleverd tegen de duitskroaatse SS troepen.
Inderdaad, weinig toevallig heeft Duitsland 25 juni 1991 gezorgd vor eenzijdige erkenning van Kroatie, en hiermee de lont in het kruidvat gestoken dat Joegoslavie heet.
Maar het proces tegen Milosevic is geen rechtzaak tegen NATO, de serviers zullen daarvoor een aanklacht moeten indienen bij het ICC in Den Haag.
Het Joegaslavie Tribunaal behandeld misdaden gepleegd door
de verschillende etnische groeperingen, hierin is de EU, NATO en US geen gedaagde partij.
Milosevic, Karadic en Mladic, ik mag ze niet, zou ik in de postitie zijn geweest, had ik ze persoonlijk afgeschoten.
Karremans, Schouten, Genscher, Solana, vd Broek, Allbright enz. moeten ook berecht worden, en het proces tegen Milosevic kan daar een belangrijke bijdrage aan leveren.
Dat het westen door middel van anonieme getuigen tegen Milosevic hun aandeel in het complete conflict willen verdoezelen, dat is wel duidelijk, maar het mag niet zo zijn dat ene oorlogsmisdadiger vrijuit gaat omdat door andere partijen ook oorlogsmisdaden zijn begaan, dit zijn twee heel verschillende zaken.
Terug naar Jared Israel & Emperor, hun website over juli 1995 is een collectie van uitspraken gedaan door
Nederlandse militairen als Karremans en Schouten, om daarmee de onschuld van Servie te verdedigen, en de massaslachting in Srebrenica door Mladic te ontkennen. Wel hoe diep kan je vallen om dit incompetente zooitje tot je counterparts te rekenen?
Ik beschuldig emperor-clothes.com van servische en zionazi pro..propaganda, verdeel en heers tactiek!!!
De aangehaalde uitspraken door Jared Israel van Emperors-Clothes zijn allang achterhaald, ontmaskerd als
leugens, de ontkenning van genocide, in eerste instantie ook door kabinet Kok gebruikt.
Of is er iemand hier aanwezig die dat wil ontkennen?
Still More Evidence -
Was the Srebrenica ´Massacre´ a Hoax?
By René Grémaux and Abe de Vries
The Answer Is, ´Yes!´
by Jared Israel (4-28-00)
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/falsely.htm
3) There is no hard evidence that a massacre actually took place;
4) The western media has reported inconsistent and contradictory anti-Serb rumors as if they are all the Gospel truth;
5) Serbian observers have been falsely quoted as admitting the massacre took place;
6) And perhaps most important, Dutch military officers - that is, the UN officers who were on the scene when the Serbs took
Srebrenica in 1995 - report there was no massacre.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL Karremans, the man who terribly irritated Dutch politicians, has been promoted to the rank of
colonel. "The Muslims burned 192 villages in Eastern Bosnia," he declared guilelessly at a poorly prepared press-conference in Zagreb.
"Therefore I am saying that in this war there are no ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’." (Dutch UN officer Karremans)
If we are to believe Secretaries of State Pronk and Voorhoeve, genocide took place. Supposedly as the Serbs drove into the
city, DUTCHBAT [the Dutch Battalion] couldn’t do much more than watch impotently...
[Emperor´s Clothes note: The authors say Human Rights Watch has not been "able to trace survivors of this crime."
Thus they assume there was indeed a crime. Likewise, Human Rights Watch, whom many accuse of being a humanitarian arm
of US covert services, speaks of establishing the "scale of violation" which again assumes there have been violations.
Since the first question is "Did a massacre actually take place" and since so far the authors have demonstrated only that a)
the Dutch UN military officers who were present don´t believe it
and b) the eye witnesses are ridiculously mutually-and-self-contradictory
(if they offered such testimony in a legitimate court they would be arrested for perjury!)
Dutch military officer: "I don´t believe it."
IT IS NOTICEABLE, however, that there has been little attention to the account of Captain Schouten, although this Dutchman
was the only UN military officer in Bratunac, where he stayed for several days, at the time the alleged bloodbath took place.
Schouten, quoted in Het Parool of July 27, 1995:
"Everybody is parroting everybody, but nobody shows hard evidence. I notice that in the Netherlands people want to prove
at all costs that genocide has been committed. (...) If executions have taken place, the Serbs have been hiding it damn well.
Thus, I don’t believe any of it. The day after the collapse of Srebrenica, July 13, I arrived in Bratunac and stayed there for eight
days. I was able to go wherever I wanted to. I was granted all possible assistance; nowhere was I stopped."
Milivoje Ivanisevic, a Serbian publicist who has described the events in and around Srebrenica since 1992 in minute detail,
confirms Schouten’s story. From 6th until 16th of July, he was on the spot.
Eerder artikel over het proces tegen Milosevic op indymedia:
http://www.indymedia.nl/2002/06/4593.shtml
| | Waar gaat het over? | Harm Potze - 19.06.2002 16:53
Lijkt mij duidelijk! Het gaat erom hoe en wat het zogenaamde Joegoslavië-Tribunaal functioneerd.
Toch niet over de vete die J3 (whatever, JIII) is begonnen tegen emperor-clothes? Dat interesseert toch geen mens!!!
Lees de titel: Rechter als aanklager...
| | | j. - 19.06.2002 18:54
Toch niet over de vete die J3 (whatever, JIII) is begonnen tegen emperor-clothes? Dat interesseert toch geen mens!!!
http://www.indymedia.nl/2002/06/4749.shtml
Funny, dat is wat Slobodan Milosevic zei tegen ene H. van de Broek, zie wie nu in Schevenigen zit.
| | Belgrado, 22 maart 1999. | Harm Potze - 19.06.2002 20:28
REPLY OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA, MR. SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC TO THE MESSAGE OF THE CO-CHAIRMEN OF THE RAMBOUILLET MEETING, MINISTERS OF FRANCE AND OF GREAT BRITAIN, MESSRS HUBERT VEDRINE AND ROBIN COOK.
Gentlemen Ministers,
This is my reply to the message you have sent me. The talks in Paris, which you called adjourned, did not take place at all. The delegation of the Government of the Republic of Serbia and the representatives of the Albanian separatist and terrorist movement never met to talk. As concerns the signed "Agreement", two documents were signed in Paris.
One of the documents was signed by the representatives of all national communities from Kosovo, and these are the representatives of Kosovo. The other document was signed by the representatives of the Albanian separatist and terrorist movement, and they, of course, are not the representatives of Kosovo.
That other document, which you call the Rambouillet Agreement, however, is not the Rambouillet Agreement. For neither in Rambouillet, nor in Paris, people who came to negotiate, did not negotiate. There were no talks between them, therefore there could be no common document to be accepted or rejected.
Otherwise, the text you call the Rambouillet Agreement, was published in the Kosovo press (the Albanian paper "Koha Ditore") before the start of the Rambouillet talks. Belgrade is tolerant, but not stupid. Thanks to the stupidity of someone else, the document which should have been the result of the talks which were still to take place, was published.
Of course, we have nothing against preparing a draft document before the start of the talks. But we are strongly against not having talks at all, and being asked to sign something which could eventually be a draft agreement as an agreement, never meeting those with whom we should have agreed.
Therefore, my reply to your sentence "the agreement is on the table", is the following: Only a draft agreement could be at the table. But an empty table does not bring about an agreement. Nor can an agreement be reached only if one side of the table is filled. Those concerned with the agreement must sit at the table.
Regarding your threats with NATO military intervention, your peoples should be ashamed of them, for you prepare yourselves to use force against a small European nation, just because it protects its territory from separatism, protects its citizens from terrorism, and its historical dignity against rats who know nothing about history or dignity.
You say that large movements of our security forces are a matter of great concern. If you think they are a matter of concern for the separatists who would like to take away a part of the territory of Serbia and Yugoslavia, they, of course, should be concerned. If you have in mind some possible aggressors outside Yugoslavia, this should be a matter of concern for them, too. It is really possible for a normal person to think that somebody who is being threatened will not show the intention to defend himself.
You are, Gentlemen, Ministers of Foreign Affairs of two European countries, and as such are distinguished diplomats. In such a capacity, you have the right to mediate, to negotiate, to advocate goodwill, to strive for peace in Europe, for better relations among nations. But you do not have the right to threaten other countries and other citizens, nor to arrange life in other countries.
We stay with our strong opinion to solve the problems in Kosovo and Metohija by peaceful means, through negotiations. The fact that negotiations did not take place in Rambouillet and in Paris does not mean that we should give up negotiations. At least from our peaceful and democratic standpoint.
Slobodan Milosevic
Belgrade, 22 March 1999.
| | toevalstreffer!!! | joh. III - 20.06.2002 10:47
The Editorial Board of Emperor´s Clothes includes Jared Israel and:
Chris Black -- Legal Committee of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic.
Nico Varkevisser -- Vice-Chairman of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic
Weten we eindelijk wie die rare advocaten waren die zich bij het gerechtshof kwamen melden als zijnde de "angels of dead" het internationale comite ter verdediging van SSlobokan, en ze zijn nog onder ons ook. Behalve dat ze hun leugens posten op indymedia wereldwijd, heb ik uitgevonden dat ze waarschijnlijk de moderatoren zijn van de nieuwsgroep alt.politics.progressive.
Website: http://www.indymedia.nl/2002/06/4749.shtml
| | correctie het is misc.activism.progressive. | j. - 20.06.2002 11:06
The International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic (ICDSM), composed of thousands of persons from all over the world, aims to inform public opinion about the real events surrounding the breakup of Yugoslavia and the nature of the puppet Hague ´Tribunal.´
He will not be silenced.
To this end, the ICDSM calls a meeting, Monday, February 11, in Amsterdam
Location: Krasnapolski, St Johnsrooml II, Dam 9, Amsterdam
Time: 20.00 uur - 22.00 hour Entrance 3.00 euro
With participation of:
* Jaime Ballesteros, OSPAAAL, Spain
* Prof. Dr. Aldo Bernardini, professor of international law, Italy
* Christopher Black, attorney, Canada
* Jared Israel, Editor, The Emperor´s New Clothes, USA
* Vladimir Krsljanin, international secretary SPS, Yugoslavia
* Nico Steijnen, attorney, The Netherlands
* Jacques Verges, attorney, France
* Nico Varkevisser, editor in chief of TARGETS monthly paper
* Tiphaine Dickson, attorney, Canada
http://www.icdsm.org/more/notsilenced.htm
en dan te bedenken dat ze zichzelf als advocaten hebben opgeworpen, immers Milosevic erkent ze niet en voert z´n eigen verdediging.
| | Bron | Harm Potze - 20.06.2002 17:38
>Funny, dat is wat Slobodan Milosevic zei tegen ene H. van de Broek, zie wie nu in Schevenigen zit.
Waar en wanneer zei hij dat dan? Bronvermelding graag!
| | JOHANNES, 1 - WACKOS, 0 | j. - 20.06.2002 18:17
Bronvermelding? Is in mijn geheugen blijven hangen voor al weer heel wat jaartjes, Harm
A SERIOUS MATTER
Jared Israel, a former member of the Progressive Labor Party who carries on the tradition of the crude polemics published in Challenge, the PLP´s propaganda sheet, libels Kostunica as an agent of the West, a veritable traitor, with less convincing evidence than that presented by Vyshinsky at the Moscow Trials. He does the same thing with the young and very brave activists of Otpor, whom he similarly convicts without one shred of real evidence – or even the inclination to present any – validating from the safety of the West the lies Milosevic uses to rationalize his reign of terror. In doing so, Israel is setting up these young people for official repression – a contemptible act, if deliberate, and no less awful if done unthinkingly and unintentionally. This is a serious matter, and one that seems to be taken far to lightly by its author.
THE RED EMPRESS
Milosevic´s claim to the mantle of Serbian nationalism was never all that convincing, and as the biggest loser of Serbian territory and prestige in that nation´s history, he has become anathema to Serbian patriots who hate both him and NATO with roughly equal ardor. They also hate his crazed wife, Mirjana Markovic, who apparently model herself after Chiang Ching, Mao´s wife – and who, like Madame Mao, is also known as the "Red Empress." Mrs. Milosevic has her own political party, the Communist Left, fancies herself the reincarnation of Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin rolled into one. Serbian patriots hate not only Milosevic but the brutalized society they preside over: They hate their lives, as they stumble amid the ruins of some of the oldest cities in Europe, they hate the humiliation of Serbia, which they see as brought about as much by Milosevic and his self-serving opportunism as by the NATO powers. They wanted him out – and who can blame them?
NATO and Milosevic have a curiously symbiotic relationship: indeed, in his previous role as the mediator between Serbian nationalists in Bosnia and the NATO-crats, Milosevic has depended on them in one way or another for years. Without NATO, old Slobo and his American apologists would have no smears to throw at Kostunica. Old Slobo´s clique needs a state of war, or near-war, to maintain their increasingly authoritarian rule.
Website: http://www.antiwar.com/justin/raimondo-sp4.html
| | | 21.06.2002 01:12
"They also hate his crazed wife, Mirjana Markovic, who apparently model herself after Chiang Ching, Mao´s wife – and who, like Madame Mao, is also known as the "Red Empress." Mrs. Milosevic has her own political party, the Communist Left, fancies herself the reincarnation of Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin rolled into one.
This sounds about the same as what is said about Winnie Mandela. You have public sources for this?
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