war crimes
TO INDICT NATO FOR WAR CRIMES AGAINST YUGOSLAVIA IAC ANNOUNCES HEARINGS ALREADY PLANNED IN 8 COUNTRIES, 25 CITIES
October 4, 1999
Speaking for the Independent Commission of Inquiry to Investigate U.S./NATO War Crimes Against the People of Yugoslavia, International Action Center co-coordinator Sara Flounders said Oct. 1 that organizations supporting her group’s initiative "were already planning to hold hearings in eight countries and 25 cities."
IAC founder—former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark—will be the key speaker at some of these hearings. Clark prepared the "complaint" against the principal NATO heads of states and militaries responsible for the war and its consequences.
"The hearings follow the work we started on July 31-Aug. 1 here in New York when 700 people attended the first hearing of the commission," said Flounders. "This initial hearing raised the charges against NATO and especially the U.S. government for instigating the war and committing other war crimes. We have now gathered a substantial amount of additional evidence to substantiate the charges, including admissions by NATO commanders that they purposely chose civilian targets in Serbia to bring pressure on Belgrade."
Flounders said that hearings scheduled in October in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, in Oslo, Norway and in Berlin, Germany would gather more first-hand accounts of NATO war crimes. But she emphasized that the hearings "were not just to gather evidence, but to bring before an ever greater public the truth about NATO’s aggression against a small Balkan state. This truth has been hidden by the close collaboration between the corporate media and the government in each of the NATO countries."
She said meetings are also set for Atlanta and Athens, Ga.;
Milwaukee and Madison, Wisc. in October; and for Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit and Washington in November, along with others in U.S. cities. In Europe groups are bringing charges against their own governments at hearings in Norway, Germany, Austria and Italy, among others.
"This is only the beginning," Flounders said. "We expect there to be other hearings not only in NATO countries but in other places such as Eastern Europe and Asia where there is concern about NATO aggression."
The commission plans to hold a culminating tribunal in New York in March 2000, she said. This is the year anniversary of the bombing attack that opened the hot war against Yugoslavia.
"We will gather evidence from all these hearings worldwide and bring them before a tribunal here," Flounders said.
Update: Tribunal meeting Oct. 22 at the State University of New York in New Paltz, NY. Info: 914-255-5779. Jack Smith, Mid-Hudson NPC International Action Center
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