By Sara Flounders, International Action Center
In the most drastic maneuver yet to silence the truth of the U.S./NATO war on Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Sept. 2 denied former President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia the internationally recognized right to defend himself in court. This comes after the prosecution took two years presenting its side of the case. The ruling came on the very day Milosevic was finally to begin calling witnesses in his own defense.
President Milosevic vigorously presented his opening statement of his own defense in person for two days on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, immediately before the Trial Chamber decided he "is not fit enough to represent himself." He was apparently "fit enough" to perform that task.
The former president's introductory remarks set the tone for a strong indictment of the U.S., Germany and other NATO powers for their 10-year war of aggression against Yugoslavia. His defense case was expected to continue in the same manner, exposing the crimes of the imperialist powers in the Balkans.
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general and co-chair of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic (ICDSM), stated in a letter to the court:
"Under International Law, every person accused of a
crime has the right to represent himself in person in the court...
"The appearance of President Milosevic representing himself alone during
the prosecution case for over two years, nearly 300 trial days, cross
examining nearly 300 prosecution witnesses, coping with 500,000 documents,
and 30,000 pages of trial transcript, then at the very beginning of his
presentation of his own defense being silenced and lawyers he rejects
placed in charge of his destiny, speaks of injustice."
Canadian attorney and international law expert Tiphaine Dickson, who is assisting Milosevic's supporters, said:
"The prosecutor is attempting, yet again, to force President Milosevic to accept legal counsel to represent him, using his poor health as an excuse. President Milosevic has insisted that he represent himself from the onset. Within the U.S., the Supreme Court has recognized this as a right under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. To refuse to allow him this right would turn the already illegal ICTY hearings into a star-chamber proceeding."
Historically, even in past stage-managed trials where the prosecution held total control and a guilty verdict was assured beforehand, many defendants have had the right to represent themselves. Nelson Mandela facing a racist apartheid court in South Africa, Fidel Castro brought before the court of the Bastita dictatorship, or Georgi Dimirov before the Nazi court in the 1930s could speak in their defense.
Over 100 legal experts, lawyers and jurists from 17 countries signed a letter entitled, "Imposition of Counsel on Slobodan Milosevic Threatens the Future of International Law and the Life of the Defendant." This letter urges the United Nations to allow Milosevic to continue defending himself against war crimes charges.
The internationally circulated letter warns that imposing a defense lawyer against Milosevic's wishes would violate international law. It is illegal even under the statute of the Yugoslav tribunal and also under the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights.
Tiphaine Dickson, who drafted the petition, said the UN tribunal prosecuting Milosevic is trying to impose a defense counsel to strip him of a defense "that may be embarrassing" to the court.
Ramsey Clark's letter also points out that
"The very lawyers appointed by the Trial Chamber have a direct conflict of interest. They have served by appointment of the court as 'friends of the Court.' You cannot serve two masters. Having served as friend of the Court, that same counsel selected by the Court to represent President Milosevic cannot ethically serve as his counsel."
The two lawyers who have been appointed as defense council against Milosevic's express wishes are Stephen Kay and his daughter Gilian Kay Higgins. The two were appointed Amicus Curiae (friends of the court) against Milosevic's wishes in the prosecution part of the trial. In that appointed position, Stephen Kay was made very much aware of Milosevic's insistence on his legal right to conduct his own defense.
Stephan Kay has long played a highly dubious role as appointed council in earlier trials of both the Yugoslav and the Rwanda Tribunals. Where he was appointed there were convictions in the trials. His appointment also allowed the courts to establish dangerous legal precedents for other trials.
Many outrageous judicial abuses have been legitimized by the ICTY over the past 10 years. The court accepts the use of hearsay evidence, offers reduced sentences in exchange for testimony, and allows the use of anonymous witnesses and closed sessions. ICTY transcripts show pages and pages blanked out because sensitive issues have been discussed in court. "Sensitive" issues means those relating to the U.S. role.
In December 2003, when the former supreme commander of NATO, Wesley Clark, testified in the Milosevic trial, the court agreed to let the Pentagon censor its proceedings. The transcripts were not released until Washington had given its approval.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was behind this court's creation in 1993. Since then, it has been financed and organized by funds from the U.S. and Britain. Its 1,300 personnel are also overwhelmingly from Britain and the U.S.
From the very beginning the court has functioned to justify the U.S., British and NATO role in the break-up of the Yugoslav Federation.
The decision to charge President Milosevic with war crimes was made toward the end of the 78-day U.S./NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. By charging the elected Yugoslav president, the U.S./NATO forces placed increased pressure on him to capitulate rather than participate in the cease-fire negotiations or oppose the long-term U.S./NATO occupation of Kosovo.
The entire 1999 U.S. war against defenseless Yugoslavia, the bombing of every major city, the destruction of 480 schools and 33 hospitals, along with bridges, roads and the entire industrial infrastructure, was all presented by the imperialist propaganda machine as necessary to stop an alleged genocide in the Serbian province of Kosovo.
NATO officials constantly referred to "mountains of corpses" and "killing fields." In April 1999, the U.S. State Department claimed that 500,000 Kosovo Albanians had been rounded up and killed by Serbs. Other reports used the number of 100,000 feared dead.
Just as the weapons of mass destruction have never been found in Iraq, the charge of massacres, mass graves, ethnic cleansing and genocide proved to be an utter fabrication in Kosovo.
Immediately after the war, 20 forensic teams were sent to Kosovo by the International Criminal Court at The Hague from 15 NATO countries, including the U.S.. They dug all summer of 1999 at the very sites where supposed witnesses had reported mass graves.
By October 1999 they reported back to Chief Prosecutor for the Tribunal Carla Del Ponte that they had been unable to find any mass graves in Kosovo at all. They had found a total of 2,108 corpses in individual graves. How many of that number may have been killed by the NATO bombing they did not speculate.
All of this material, including the reports of NATO destruction of Yugoslav cities and the Tribunal's own forensic teams' inability to find mass graves, was to be part of Milosevic's rebuttal. The attempt to remove Milosevic as his own attorney is an admission that President Milosevic is not guilty of the war-crimes charges. It adds to the U.S. and NATO guilt in planning, executing and carrying out a 10-year war that broke up a strong and successful Yugoslav Federation into a half- dozen weak colonies and neo-colonies subservient to U.S. and Western European imperialism.
The breakup of the Yugoslav Federation meant that the many industries of Yugoslavia, including steel, auto, pharmaceuticals, chemical plants, railroads, mines, refining and processing, that had previously been owned by the whole population or by the workers in those plants have been forcibly privatized. U.S., British and German corporations now own them. Social programs, pension funds, free education and free health care have been decimated. It is this history of the crime of occupation that NATO's court is trying to silence by depriving Yugoslav President Milosevic of his right to present his own defense.
Flounders is co-director of the International Action Center. She was
scheduled to testify in the opening phase of former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic's defense at the International Criminal Tribunal for
the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague, Netherlands. Flounders had met with
President Milosevic in Scheveningen Prison at The Hague for six hours on
June 28 to help prepare testimony for the defense. Milosevic has been held
for three years at the prison. Material from a book published by the
International Action Center in 2002, Hidden Agenda: U.S./NATO Takeover of
Yugoslavia, edited by Flounders and John Catalinotto, was to be the basis
of her testimony at the trial.
Posted: September 10, 2004
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