International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia

By Christopher Black

Christopher Black is a well known Canadian lawyer who concludes that the "lCTY is itself a crime against peace, as its main purpose is to justify war... this is not a judicial body worthy of any international respect but a kangaroo court, a bogus court, with a political purpose, serving very powerful and identifiable masters "

The indictment of Slobodan Milosevic for the alleged war crimes raises important questions about the impartiality and, also ultimately, the purpose of the International Criminal Tribunal. For many centuries, the independence of judicial bodies has been considered one of the fundamental precepts of the question of justice. As Lord Hewart stated in 1924, it is "...of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done." It also has been said that there is nothing more important than public administration of justice. But in the case of the International Criminal Tribunal a compelling argument can be made that private justice has replaced public justice, that even the appearance of fundamental justice has been replaced by an open contempt for justice.

Farmers on tractors were targeted plus animals in the fields.

It is clear that at the beginning the American, British, French and German interests were behind the creation of the Tribunal and worked behind the scenes in order to help create it. They first considered doing so in regards to Iraq and Saddam Hussein, during the Gulf War. The idea apparently originated with the United States Department of the Army, which fact alone should tell you something about its true purpose. The rhetoric used to justify such a body to the general public was of course heavily seasoned with concerns for "human rights" the "dignity of the individual", genocide" and "democracy".

However, they had a problem. It was generally agreed that no such tribunal could be created without the mechanism of a treaty which had to be ratified by all those affected by it. There was no time to create such a treaty with respect to Hussein so other methods were used to put pressure on the Iraqi government. But between 1991 and 1993, the use of an international criminal court as a means of affecting policy was to be created by the members of the Security Council, instead of a signed treaty, it was pushed by those four countries. A draft treaty to create a truly international criminal court, one which applied to all states, the last in a long list of attempts dating way back to the 1890's, was put together. But its ratification has not taken place as several important world powers and particularly the United States, refused to sign it for fear of being caught in its web. For thirty years the United States has tried to block such a treaty. It opposes universal jurisdiction and it opposes an independent prosecutor. It wants any prosecutions to go through the Security Council, which is subject to its right of a veto. In fact, Jesse Helms, the rabid conservative US senator, said that such a treaty, if presented to a US Congress for ratification, would be "dead on arrival". It would seem that the treaty is itself nothing more than a window dressing to satisfy the general public that the nations of the world really care about human rights and war crimes in order to complement the rhetoric about it. For without ratification by the major powers it is a dead letter. The United States remains stubborn in its opposition to this treaty, but then it has more to worry about than most countries.

Take a look at these photographs! Mangled bodies, private homes, schools, cultural centers were targeted. The documented photo evidence shall be used to sentence the war criminals responsible. Humanity cannot let these crimes go unpunished!

The body of Milica Stojanovic killed by a cluster bomb in the village of Ljubiste

Bodies pulled from the debris of house #27, on Vuk Karafzic St. in the town of Aleksinac.

Bodies of an adult and child killed on a farmer's field.

The next opportunity to try this experiment was on Yugoslavia. In order to accelerate the break up of that country into quasi-independent colonies, principally of Germany and USA, it was necessary to discredit its leadership. An effective propaganda weapon in such an exercise is of course a tribunal with an international character which the public will accept as a neutral instrument of justice but which is controlled for political ends.

The Tribunal was created by the UN Security Council in the Resolution 808 and 827 in 1993. Both resolutions stated that the situation in Bosnia at that time constituted a threat to international peace and security and that a tribunal to prosecute war criminals would help to restore peace. It all sounds very nice until one realizes that there was no basis for the characterization of the situation in Bosnia as a threat to international peace. It was a civil war (partly controlled by the very same countries which wanted to control such a tribunal). But the members of the Security Council had to characterize it that way, otherwise the members of the Security Council had no justification to act. The setup for this UN characterization was Resolution 688 in 1991 which the Security Council stated... that disregard for human rights constitutes a threat to international security and can no longer be treated as an internal matter. This reinterpretation, this revision of the UN Charter, which in fact undermines the very basis of the Charter itself, was forcefully advocated by the German right-wing Foreign Minister Genscher in many speeches he gave to the German parliament and to the Canadian parliament in Ottawa and by the British, French and of course American ministers, in the speeches and memorandums to each other.

Chapter VII of the UN Charter requires that that there has to be a threat to peace or an act of aggression before the Security Council can make use of its special powers that are set out in that Chapter. It meant a threat to international peace not to national peace. In that document there is nothing mentioned of all of this, just a vague reference of the collapse of the socialist bloc and the imperative to establish a new world order. The Chapter of the UN states that the UN cannot authorize any intervention that is within the domestic jurisdiction of any state. It is now a fact that the permanent members of the UN Security Council (USA, England, France, Russia and also China) hold an opposite view to that of the UN Charter. Russia and China voted for the creation of the International Tribunal in return for promises of economic consideration and with a view in future to control the smaller states within their own spheres of interest.

In light of these facts the Security Council's authority to create such a tribunal is in my view more than questionable. That it was created is to be credited to Madeleine Albright, who used some effective persuasion with the Russian and Chinese members to vote for the creation of this Tribunal.

Yugoslavia thus became the first experiment in using the quasi-judicial international body to attack the principles of sovereignty. As the Americans have learned so well in the past, the best way to get your people behind you as you proceed to break up another country, economically and militarily, is to get them to hate all those in power in that country. The Serb leadership was targeted, and then transformed into caricatures of evil. There were many comparisons to Hitler, a comparison used with surprising frequency by the United States against a long list of nations it has attacked in the last 50 years. Hussein was compared to Hitler, also declared a madman, all at the same time.

The Tribunal was the creation of these particular governments.

In a Statement to the Secretary General of the United Nations at that time, Mr. Boutros-Boutros Ghali on January 21,1994 by Antonio Cassese, which stated the following: "The political and diplomatic response (to the Balkans conflict) takes into account the exigencies and the tempo of the international community. The military response will come at an appropriate time." In other words, the Tribunal considered a political response. He went on to state, "Our Tribunal will not be simply 'window dressing' but a decisive step in the construction of a new World Order".

Residential homes such as these were bombed in city of Cuprija.

We often hear the referral to Madeleine Albright as "Mother of the Tribunal"... then Bill Clinton is the "Father". Louise Arbor, the appointed Prosecutor, reported to Bill Clinton two days before a public announcement was made that the Tribunal has indicted Milosevic as a war criminal, which is a very blatant violation of her so-called "independence". Albright and Arbor both have stated that they rely on NATO for support, financing and investigations, whose governments have a great interest in the undermining of the Yugoslav leadership.

This "impartial" Tribunal has received substantial funds from individual states, private foundations and also corporations in violation of Article 32 of the UN Charter. Most of the money has come directly from the US government, such as cash donations, logistics, computers and staff.

That same year (i996) the Open Society Institute, established and funded by the billionaire George Soros, to bring "openness" to the former Eastern Bloc countries, gave hundreds of thousands, plus the money from the Rockefeller family, through their Rockefeller Foundation plus corporations like Time-Warner, Discovery Products and others. It is also important to know the facts that Mr. Soros funds the Albanian KLA newspaper in Pristina.

The Tribunal also received huge funds from the USA's Institute for Peace and its Outreach Project... this Institute for Peace was established already in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan and all of its Board of Directors is appointed by the President of the United States. Besides, funding is also done by the American Bar Association, which is promoting the replacement of the Socialist legal system with that of free market ones.

The new Prosecutor of the International Tribunal, Carla Del Porte, on September 30, 1999 thanked the director of the US FBI for assisting the Tribunal. Of course this Tribunal shall not investigate or prosecute the crimes committed by NATO or the war crimes committed by such as Clinton, Schroeder, Chirac, Blair, Chretien etc! Why not?

We speculate correctly when we consider that the last prosecutor, the Canadian Louis Arbor-who was asked to investigate the NATO leaders for their war crimes, accepted a job from one of them, the Prime Minister of Canada. Jean Chretien made her a member of the Supreme Court of Canada, a great lifetime appointment as her earned reward for handing down the indictment against Milosevic, despite any lack of evidence. This lack of evidence was even confirmed by the Spanish and also the Canadian RCMP officers who recently returned from Kosovo where they found not a shred of evidence to indict Milosevic!

Any "prisoners" that this Tribunal gets into their hands are considered guilty first... the arrest is automatic and this Tribunal has its very own jails and prosecutors. There is absolutely no bail. The rules that this Tribal has installed would be thrown out from a law court in any country's civil and even criminal case.

Perhaps the most dangerous rule of this US supported Tribunal is the Rule 92 that states that any "war criminals" they catch, all the confessions shall be presumed to be free and voluntary unless the contrary is established (by the prisoner). Just think - presumed to be free and voluntary after 90 days at the mercy of the military police and prosecutors? Almost every other court in the world presumes the opposite or, because of the very notorious unreliability of confessions made in police custody they are moving to prohibit their use entirely. The present Tribunal goes back to the days of the State Chamber and the justice of the 13th century.

There is even a section which permits the NGO organizations and supporters of this Tribunal, such as those sponsored by Soros, to give their own version of "evidence" in order to gain a conviction!

No citizen of the world would consider themselves fairly tried by such a Tribunal or under such laws!

Will Slobodan Milosevic receive a fair trial if he is taken? Will the leaders of NATO ever be investigated or indicted for war crimes committed in the brutal attack on all the civilian population of Yugoslavia, as my colleagues in Canada, South and Central America, Spain, Norway, Greece, Britain, the United States have requested? As the English say… the proof is in the pudding. Our requests to this Tribunal have met with empty words and no action. We made the request in order to bring to the attention to the world of the world crimes committed by NATO. We believe that we have succeeded in that. If we have not succeeded in bringing to justice the war criminals of NATO, it is because we have exposed the political nature of this Tribunal instead. It is all of us to act on this knowledge.

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