Madam Justice Louise Arbour, Prosecutor ...
Dickey Hard %=========> - - $$$$$$$
The Honourable Madam Justice Louise Arbour,
Prosecutor,
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia,
Churchillplein 1, 2501 EW,
The Hague,
Netherlands
SENT BY COURIER AND ELECTRONIC MAIL
July 26, 1999
Dear Madam Justice Arbour:
Re William J. Clinton et al.
According to press reports, investigators for your
Tribunal have been uncovering shocking evidence
of war crimes in Kosovo. The list of reported
massacres of civilians, including children, appears
to grow longer and more hideous with each day of
NATO's occupation.
As you are no doubt aware, NATO leaders have
been using this evidence to justify their bombing
campaign of Yugoslavia. We find the chronological
logic of this claim impossible to accept, since the
atrocities now being reported and cited in
justification of the attack all happened after the
bombing started on March 24. Furthermore,
nobody seems to doubt that they were provoked
by the bombing itself, even if, putting NATO's case
at its strongest, the attack only provided an excuse
for the massacre of ethnic Albanians left
defenceless by the withdrawal of the international
monitors. But there were doubtless a combination
of factors involved in crimes against civilians in
Kosovo -- the extent and nature of which, of
course, remain to be established -- including
predictably brutal anti-guerilla war tactics aimed at
rooting out KLA fighters, as well as revenge for the
massive bombing of Serbian civilians by the KLA's
NATO allies. And we know that civilians died from
NATO's own bombs (along the Prizren-Djavkovica
road on April 15 and in Korisa on May 15 for two
admitted examples).
The point we want to make is that, whatever the
explanation, most of these crimes would not have
been committed and most of the victims would be
alive today if not for NATO's bombing. Nothing
remotely like this had occurred in the three years
of civil conflict that preceded the war, and nobody
is saying anything like it would have occurred but
for NATO's belligerence.
This means that, far from these crimes making
NATO leaders feel justified, they should be
weighing heavily on their consciences. These
crimes should, in fact, be added to the terrible
costs of NATO's bombing, along with the loss of
life and limb by thousands of Serb civilians
(including children), the billions of dollars of
property and infrastructure damage, and the
environmental disaster now spreading through the
region from the bombing of chemical plants and
the damage to the ozone layer, as well as the
leftover effects of depleted uranium and cluster
bombs. To this must also be added the revenge
killing, looting and "ethnic cleansing" being
perpetrated against Serbs in Kosovo since the
entry of NATO forces.
Naturally this doesn't excuse the Serb leadership
from their responsibility for the crimes in Kosovo.
But neither can it permit NATO leaders to wash
their own hands of responsibility for NATO's
undeniable and unforgiveable contribution to the
tragedy, especially since NATO's adventure in
Kosovo was not just wrongful and harmful; it was,
as we and many others have submitted to you,
clearly illegal and, indeed, criminal.
That is why, when we met in the Hague last month,
we were at pains to point out how critical a
moment this is for the "anti-impunity" movement
that you have been championing throughout your
tenure. Charging the war's victors, and not only its
losers, would be a watershed in international
criminal law. It would inspire the world with a
concrete demonstration that no one is above the
law, not even the leaders of the world's most
powerful countries. On the other hand, a failure to
act notwithstanding the clear requirements of the
law and the evidence would deal a mortal blow to
the credibility of international law. It would show it
to be nothing more than an instrument of the
powerful countries -- a modern version of "might is
right."
Unfortunately, as you know, many doubts have
already been raised about the impartiality of your
Tribunal. In the early days of the conflict, after a
formal and, in our view, justified complaint against
NATO leaders had been laid before it by members
of the Faculty of Law of Belgrade University, you
appeared at a press conference with one of the
accused, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook,
who made a great show of handing you a dossier
of Serbian war crimes. In early May, you
appeared at another press conference with US
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, by that time
herself the subject of two formal complaints of war
crimes over the targeting of civilians in Yugoslavia.
Albright publicly announced at that time that the US
was the major provider of funds for the Tribunal
and that it had pledged even more money to it.
Within two weeks, indictments had been issued
against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic
and four other Serb leaders, in what, with the
greatest respect, might reasonably have seemed
to an impartial observer to be a very indecent
haste -- one dictated not by the needs of justice
(which surely could have waited), but by NATO
pressure in the face of flagging popular support for
its war effort. And, of course, this flagging popular
support was due precisely to the mounting civilian
casualties that NATO leaders defined as "collateral
damage" and the law defines as war crimes.
And now, after the bombing has stopped, with 185
member states in the United Nations, your Tribunal
appears to have trusted only investigators from a
few of the 19 NATO countries, led by the FBI and
Scotland Yard, for the sensitive job of investigating
war crimes in Kosovo. We cannot help thinking that
this is a terrible mistake. NATO investigators,
whose governments are themselves the subject of
well-grounded complaints of war crimes committed
in Kosovo and Serbia, have every incentive to
falsify and cover up the evidence in order to
protect their governments and to justify the war.
The caché of illegal cluster bombs that resulted in
the deaths of British and KLA soldiers is just one
suspicious example. Not only is there a real danger
of permanently tainting the evidence (we ask you
to imagine the effect on an ordinary criminal
investigation of sending a suspect to gather the
evidence), there is also a grave risk to the
Tribunal's reputation for impartiality and, by
extension, to the cause of international criminal
law.
As you know, last summer in Rome the US
government opposed the establishment of an
International Criminal Court with universal
jurisdiction to punish crimes against humanity.
Perhaps the US feels it has nothing to lose if the
whole idea is discredited by the experience in
Yugoslavia. But there is a lot at stake for those of
us who insist that any "New World Order" be a
democratic and law-governed one.
We trust that you share our concerns for impartial
justice and the future of international criminal law.
We therefore urge you to make every effort to
bring the NATO leaders to justice. In our respectful
submission, the Tribunal is already possessed of
more than enough evidence to meet the
established standards for prosecution. However,
as we promised you in June, we will continue to
accumulate and submit evidence in order to satisfy
you that there is really no alternative for law or
justice but to prefer indictments against these
NATO leaders.
Yours very sincerely,
Michael Mandel,
Professor,
http://www.counterpunch.org/mandel.html
--
___________________________________________________________
" ... If somebody makes it idiot proof,
Then somebody else will invent a better idiot ... "
T. Elam
*****************
Fascism starts with a sentence:
- Yes, we are primitive, but they are savages...
- Yes, we are drunks, but they are alcoholics...
- Yes, we are killing, but they are slaughtering...
D. Kish
___________________________________________________________
Jay J
Dickey Hard %=========> - - $$$$$$$ <dh...@starting-point.com> wrote in
message news:37A497FC...@starting-point.com...
Iona
narrow picture of the word, is your business. We don't need to know whether
you bin stuff you don't like or shovel it up your arse.
Jay J wrote in message <7o28vs$bk3$1...@gxsn.com>...
>Filed away in the best place no doubt....the bin.
>
>
>Dickey Hard %=========> - - $$$$$$$ <dh...@starting-point.com> wrote in
>message news:37A497FC...@starting-point.com...
Jay J
gets shoved up my arse ;-)
Iona <retu...@sender.com> wrote in message
news:37a4c...@newsread3.dircon.co.uk...
> What you do with the stuff that does not fit your carefully created and
> narrow picture of the word, is your business. We don't need to know
whether
> you bin stuff you don't like or shovel it up your arse.
> Jay J wrote in message <7o28vs$bk3$1...@gxsn.com>...
> >Filed away in the best place no doubt....the bin.
> >
> >
> >Dickey Hard %=========> - - $$$$$$$ <dh...@starting-point.com> wrote in
> >message news:37A497FC...@starting-point.com...
Andrew Campbell
Jay J <jj...@globalnet.co.uk> wrote in message news:7o2l8s$noc$1...@gxsn.com...
> Your arse maybe big enough to fit a shovel up, but I can assure you
nothing
> gets shoved up my arse ;-)
>
> Iona <retu...@sender.com> wrote in message
> news:37a4c...@newsread3.dircon.co.uk...
> > What you do with the stuff that does not fit your carefully created and
> > narrow picture of the word, is your business. We don't need to know
> whether
> > you bin stuff you don't like or shovel it up your arse.
> > Jay J wrote in message <7o28vs$bk3$1...@gxsn.com>...
> > >Filed away in the best place no doubt....the bin.
> > >
> > >
> > >Dickey Hard %=========> - - $$$$$$$ <dh...@starting-point.com> wrote in
> > >message news:37A497FC...@starting-point.com...
Jay J
something as simple as that, 4th grade must be a bitch.
Andrew Campbell <aca...@direct.ca> wrote in message
news:H3cp3.2212$j4.4...@newsgate.direct.ca...
> except for the bs and horseshit that you spew on this site
>
> Jay J <jj...@globalnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:7o2l8s$noc$1...@gxsn.com...
> > Your arse maybe big enough to fit a shovel up, but I can assure you
> nothing
> > gets shoved up my arse ;-)
> >
> > Iona <retu...@sender.com> wrote in message
> > news:37a4c...@newsread3.dircon.co.uk...
> > > What you do with the stuff that does not fit your carefully created
and
> > > narrow picture of the word, is your business. We don't need to know
> > whether
> > > you bin stuff you don't like or shovel it up your arse.
> > > Jay J wrote in message <7o28vs$bk3$1...@gxsn.com>...
> > > >Filed away in the best place no doubt....the bin.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >Dickey Hard %=========> - - $$$$$$$ <dh...@starting-point.com> wrote
in
> > > >message news:37A497FC...@starting-point.com...