Violations of international laws committed by NATO
Chameleon
The collapse of countervailing military power, and the reduction of the
United Nations into an obedient organization of the United States, have now
led to the disregard for a whole slew of international laws. The US and NATO
are violating several international laws in attacking Serbia over Kosovo
which is part of a sovereign independent state. American legal specialists
have claimed that NATO actions constitute an evolving system of
international laws. The reality is that NATO is making up the laws as it
goes along to suit their convenience. The following are some of the main
violations of international laws committed by NATO.
(1) NATO actions constitute a violation of Chapter I, Article 2 (4) of the
UN Charter which states: "All Members shall refrain in their international
relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity
or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent
with the purposes of the United Nations." Chapter VII, Article 39 states:
"The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the
peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make
recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with
Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.
Efforts to justify these actions through earlier resolutions or Chapter 7 of
the Charter are acts of distortion and convenience. Article 51 of Chapter
VII states that "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent
right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs
against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken
measures necessary to maintain international peace and security." The
problem is that Yugoslavia did not attack any neighboring states outside its
sovereign borders. Instead, Yugoslavia was attacked by NATO, although no
member of NATO was attacked by Yugoslavia. The Security Council did not
sanction the use of force here. NATO bypassed the Security Council to
illegally attack Yugoslavia because of the certain veto by Russia and China.
(2) The bombing of Yugoslavia is a violation of NATO's own charter which
claims it is a defensive organization and is only committed to force if one
of its members is attacked. No member of NATO was attacked. The relevant
sections of NATO's basic purpose reads as follows: "It provides deterrence
against any form of aggression against the territory of any NATO member
state. It preserves the strategic balance within Europe." When communist
rule ended in Europe and the Warsaw Pact was dismantled, presumably these
rationales for NATO's existence also ended. An alliance usually posits an
enemy in advance, and the enemy lies outside of the alliance system. A
commonly perceived external enemy is, after all, the main reason for forging
an alliance, not for some vague eventuality that a powerful enemy may arise
in some distant future. Without an external enemy there would not be
sufficient consensus and motivation to keep the alliance together. There is
no strategic balance in Europe to keep. NATO is dominant and international
laws have become inconvenient.
No doubt, maintaining an alliance without predetermined external threats may
serve notice to non- members that the security interests of the alliance
countries will be protected. But a single military alliance without the
prevalence of countervailing military power would be perceived as a serious
threat to other states and will provoke them to seek appropriate military
counter balancing measures. Already there are moves among Russia, China and
India to forge a strategic partnership. The rationale for NATO's existence
may soon become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As such, NATO constitutes a
standing provocation to the rest of the world, an alliance in search of an
enemy, or needing to create one, in order to justify its existence. Thus
far, NATO has found its mission--as absurd as it may sound to normal people
except NATO enthusiasts--in pulverizing 8 million impoverished Serbs into
the ground through 24 hour a day aerial bombardment. Hundreds, if not
thousands of innocent Serbs have been killed. Meanwhile, it would be
dishonest to argue that a weak Russia should not feel threatened by an
expanded NATO and the attack on Serbia, a condition which the US will not
contemplate in reverse including a similar attack on Canada.
(3) The so-called Rambouillet "Agreement" (Serbia did not agree to it) is a
violation of Articles 51 and 52 of the 1980 Vienna Convention on the Law of
Treaties. Article 51 entitled "Coercion of a Representative of a State"
declares: "The expression of a State's consent to be bound by a treaty which
has been procured by the coercion of it representative through acts or
threats directed against him shall be without legal effect. Article 52
entitled "Coercion of a State by the Threat or Use of Force"reads: "A treaty
is void if its conclusion has been procured by the threat or use of force in
violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of
the United Nations."
First Serbia was threatened with force in order to coerce it to sign the
Rambouillet "Agreement," and when that failed Serbia and its entire
population was subjected to massive terror bombing in order to bring about
submission to NATO diktats. The Rambouillet "Agreement" was not negotiated
with Yugoslavia but presented as a fait accompli. There were no discussions
between Serbs and Albanians. The Albanians were persuaded to sign only
because they were given to understand that once they got immediate de facto
independence, within three years it would automatically become de jure. Yet
Serbia accepted the political terms of the diktat only insisting that it
will not accept a NATO military presence in Kosovo. Indeed, the military
annex of the Rambouillet diktat was far reaching requiring that Yugoslavia
allow NATO forces unhindered access to all of its territory at no cost to
NATO. The military annex were sneaked in on the last day of the talks
without the Russian representative's knowledge. Milosevic or no Milosevic,
no state or statesman could have accepted these humiliating terms. It was a
deliberate setup to invite rejection so as to proceed with NATO bombing.
The following exchange between NATO spokesman, Jamie Shea, and a reporter is
revealing in the embarrassing terms of the "Agreement" in retrospect to the
West.
Question: The Rambouillet Accords, appendix B in particular . . . called for
the occupation of all of Yugoslavia. . . . Unrestricted passage throughout
[its] air space, territorial waters, rail, airports, roads, bridges, ports
without payment, the electromagnetic spectrum and so on. Was not the
Rambouillet accord, which [Slobodan] Milosevic refused to sign, in fact, a
desire to occupy all of Yugoslavia and not just simply Kosovo?
Jamie Shea: No, absolutely not. . . . We were looking . . . to be able to
deploy an international security force, and that means, of course, being
able to deploy the assets for that security force. . . . At the moment, all
of our predeployed elements in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
have come in by the Greek port of Thessaloniki. And for that, obviously, one
has to have an agreement with the Yugoslav government to be able to have
access to those roads, those rail systems, the air space for the business of
setting up an international security presence, and therefore NATO personnel
who may have had at the time . . . to transit temporarily through Yugoslavia
will have had to enjoy those kinds of immunities. . . .
Question: That's simply not the language, sir. It's "free and unrestricted
passage," the ability to detain people, for example, . . . and total use of
electromagnetic spectrum, sir.
Jamie Shea: I was not a negotiator at Rambouillet . . . but my
understanding, sir, is that it refers to, as you say, passage, exactly
transit. And that's the point I've made.
--
Chameleon®
http://members.tripod.com/kosovo-2000/index.htm the most comprehensive
website about the Kosovo Crisis.
Kosovo Conflict First Edition - Archives at
http://members.tripod.com/kosovo99/updated.htm
Thugs of the World are United in Pristina - Kosovo and stand for...one
VULTURE (USA) a couple of HYENAS (UK, France, Germany, Italy) and leading a
herd of SHEEP (you can figure the sheep out by yourself)