Da piu' di due anni Milosevic, prigioniero in un ex carcere nazista, subisce un processo-farsa, che viene gestito da una istituzione illegittima e nel quale tutti i diritti e le procedure giuridiche standard sono quotidianamente calpestati. Sono state finora accumulate 33mila pagine di verbali del dibattimento, che testimoniano quanto sopra ma soprattutto testimoniano del fallimento totale della "Pubblica Accusa", che non riesce a dimostrare alcuno dei capi di imputazione, nonostante siano stati convocati sinora circa 300 "testimoni" nell'aula dell'Aia.
D'altra parte, i responsabili di crimini di guerra ben documentati, come quelli commessi dalla NATO nella primavera del 1999, godono evidentemente di una garanzia di impunita' da parte dello stesso "tribunale", visto che quest'ultimo si e' ostinatamente rifiutato di aprire alcun procedimento a loro carico, in spregio alle richieste formali ed alla documentazione pervenuta.
Ciononostante, e nonostante le dimissioni dello stesso giudice May, che ha addotto "motivi di salute" per gettare la spugna, le cancellerie occidentali impongono che il "processo" continui, e che esso abbia l'esito che e' stato scritto gia' prima dell'inizio della farsa: Milosevic dovra' svolgere la funzione di capro espiatorio - non piu' solo mediaticamente, ma anche formalmente - dell'efferato squartamento della Jugoslavia, che dura oramai da 13 anni e non si puo' dire, purtroppo, sia ancora terminato.
Intellettuali ed artisti di molti paesi diversi -- tra i quali il maggiore drammaturgo inglese vivente, Harold Pinter, ed il piu' grande scrittore di lingua tedesca contemporaneo, Peter Handke -- hanno percio' diffuso un appello, che riportiamo di seguito, rivolto a tutte le persone oneste, perche' si uniscano alla nostra battaglia per la liberazione di Milosevic, lo scioglimento dell'illegittimo "tribunale" dell'Aia, e per una vera indagine e condanna dei crimini di guerra commessi in tutti questi anni contro la Jugoslavia ed i suoi abitanti.
(A cura di ICDSM-Italia)
For over two years now, Slobodan Milosevic has been on trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia - a Security Council institution of dubious legality - charged with 66 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Over 500,000 pages of documents and 5000 videocassettes have been filed as evidence by the Prosecution. There have been some 300 trial days. More than 300 witnesses have testified. The trial transcript is near 33,000 pages. Yet after all this time and effort, the Prosecution has failed to present significant or compelling evidence of any criminal act or intention of President Milosevic.
In fact, it has been revealed that some prosecution witnesses have been coerced to lie under oath, others have committed perjury. Former NATO commander Wesley Clark, was allowed, in violation of the principle of an open trial, to give testimony in private, with Washington able to apply for removal of any parts of his evidence from the public record they deemed to be against US interests.
President Milosevic was indicted during the 78 day continuous bombardment of Yugoslavia by US-led NATO forces, which used cluster bombs and depleted uranium, attempted to assassinate Milosevic by bombing his residence, killed thousands of civilians and caused billions of dollars of damage to the country's infrastructure. This illegal act of undeclared war is in clear violation of the NATO Charter, the UN Charter, and International Law. Yet neither Wesley Clark, nor the leaders of NATO countries have been indicted for the crimes of which Slobodan Milosevic is accused.
The proceedings of the ICTY against Slobodan Milosevic, as a large and growing number of international jurists has publicly stated, respect neither the principles nor even the appearance of justice. According to Ramsey Clark, the former Attorney-General of the United States, "the spectacle of this huge onslaught by an enormous prosecution support team with vast resources pitted against a single man, defending himself, cut off from all effective assistance, his supporters under attack everywhere and his health slipping away from the constant strain, portrays the essence of unfairness, of persecution". And now that presiding judge Richard May has resigned his position for unspecified health reasons, it appears inevitable, the issue prejudged, that the trial will nevertheless continue, in spite of the virtual impossibility that a new judge will be able to come to grips with the mountain of evidence presented so far.
If justice is not just, if prosecution is persecution, if international law is flaunted in order to "enforce international law", we are indeed now living in the dystopian world of George Orwell's 1984. The neighborhood bully has decided the world is his back yard. The implications of this egregious use of "power politics" go beyond the unjust trial of Slobodan Milosevic: the "new world order" now being implemented is simply inhuman and intolerable. What can be done to change this cruel and criminal state of affairs?
Let us remember that it was not long ago that 15 million people marched on the same day in a gesture of international solidarity to say no to the Bush junta's illegal war on Iraq. Now is the time for another such gesture. For if this trial continues, the only triumphs will be those of travesty over justice, power over principle, disinformation over truth. And many feel that the sum total of these acts constitutes state terrorism perpetrated on a virtually defenseless country and its legally elected president.
As artists, our work is to broaden our horizons, to become more human and to share that humanity. And to create. Destruction is intolerable to us. It is intolerable that courts be used to justify the killing of civilians, the destruction of a sovereign nation, and the demonization and imprisonment of that nation's leader. Let us now create a massive demonstration of our humanity. Now is the time to make ourselves heard loud and clear, once again, by publicly denouncing this injustice. We urge you to join your efforts to those of the International Committee for the Defense of Slobodan Milosevic.
Robert Dickson, poet (winner of the Governor General's award for French
poetry 2002), Canada
Harold Pinter, playwright, UK
Peter Handke, writer,
Austria/France
Alexander Zinoviev, writer, philosopher, Russian Federation
Valeri Ganichev, writer (President of the Writers' Union of Russia),
Russian Federation
Vyacheslav Klykov, sculptor (President of the
International Fund for Slavonic Literacy and Culture), Russian Federation
Dimitri Analis, poet, Greece/France
Valentin Rasputin, novelist, Russian
Federation
Fulvio Grimaldi, filmmaker, journalist, Italy
Vladimir Kostrov,
poet (winner of Tyutchev and Bunin awards), Russian Federation
Nadja
Tesich, novelist, Yugoslavia/US
Milos Raickovich, composer, Yugoslavia/US
Mick Collins, screenwriter, US/France
John Steppling, screenwriter,
playwright, US/Poland
John Goodrich, playwright, US
March-April 2004
Montreal-New York-Moscow-Paris
If you are an artist and you want to add your name to this Public Appeal, please send and e-mail to slobodavk@yubc.net or to info@idcsm-us.org .