War Criminal Wesley Clark to Testify against Milosevic

War Criminal Wesley Clark to Testify against Milosevic

By John Catalinotto

December 11, 2003--News item: Gen. Wesley Clark, NATO commander during the 1999 war against Yugoslavia and current U.S. presidential candidate, will testify for the prosecution in closed hearings on Dec. 15-16 in The Hague, Netherlands, at the war-crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

This news is like a nightmare with ingredients that even the Czech writer Franz Kafka would have been incapable of inventing. A kangaroo court without fixed rules. A war criminal bearing secret witness. A head of state charged with war crimes for attempting to keep his once- socialist and independent country from becoming a colony.

But this absurd trial was manufactured to cover the crimes of the invaders of the Balkans and rewrite the history of that region's latest wars.

After World War II, the overturn of capitalist property relations in most of Eastern Europe came about through reliance on the Soviet Red Army, which had overthrown the Nazi-collaborator governments there. With the fall of the USSR more than four decades later, these countries quickly reverted to capitalism and were penetrated by Western investments and takeovers.

Not Yugoslavia. Yugoslav partisans had liberated the country from German imperialism in 1945. The Communist Partisans then succeeded in uniting the six republics that made up the new Yugoslavia and overthrew capitalism at the same time. The 1989-1991 Soviet collapse left Yugoslavia exposed and vulnerable, but still with an army and party loyal to independence and to what remained of socialist property relations.

This army and party resisted 10 years of subversion, intervention in Yugoslavia's internal affairs, economic sanctions, NATO military intervention in 1995 in Bosnia and a 78-day bombing campaign of civilian targets in 1999. Finally the United States and the Western European imperialist powers were able to tear apart Yugoslavia. Blatant financial subversion of the September 2000 elections combined with military threats overthrew Milosevic and left what remained of Yugoslavia-- Serbia and Montenegro--open to the current U.S.-German takeover.

German capital owns Serbia's newspapers and magazines. U.S. Steel recently bought the state-of-the-art Sartid steel complex in Smederevo, Serbia, for a mere $23 million, paying its 9,000 skilled workers the equivalent of 50 cents an hour.

Meanwhile, Yugoslav workers are trying to resist the ongoing privatization of industry in their occupied country. And President Milosevic, much different from a confused Kafka character, is defending himself before the so-called International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Through his determined self-defense, he has become a symbol of Yugoslav resistance to U.S.-NATO rule.

KANGAROO COURT REWRITES HISTORY

After overthrowing him, the imperialist powers wanted to punish Milosevic and all Serbs for the resistance they put up for 10 years. Their instrument was the NATO-created court, the ICTY, operating under United Nations auspices. By putting Milosevic and hundreds of others from the Balkans, mostly Serbs, on trial in The Hague, NATO leaders placed blame on the Serbs for the Balkans tragedy they themselves caused.

But the tribunal is inherently illegal. The UN has no authority to create international tribunals. The ICTY is by definition unjust and unequal because it is a one-time, one-issue court and only Yugoslavs can be brought before it.

In Milosevic's case, the ICTY brought charges against him in May 1999-- during the 78-day NATO bombing campaign--with the express purpose of pressuring him to concede.

IT IS A STAR-CHAMBER COURT.

Over 200 prosecution witnesses have testified since Feb. 12, 2002, when the trial opened. The ICTY's star-chamber character is most apparent with the appearance of Gen. Clark. The Bush administration allowed him to testify only under strict limitations.

According to a Nov. 19 ICTY announcement, the public gallery of the ICTY will be closed during the course of Clark's testimony. In addition, "the broadcast of the testimony [will] be delayed for a period of 48 hours to enable the U.S. government to review the transcript and make representations as to whether evidence given in open session should be redacted in order to protect the national interests of the U.S."

In other words, Clark's testimony and Milosevic's cross-examination will be censored.

But Clark already published his observations in his 2001 book, "Waging Mod ern War." The Kosovo war, he writes, "was coercive diplomacy, the use of armed forces to impose the political will of the NATO nations on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, or more specifically, on Serbia. The NATO nations voluntarily undertook this war."

Interviewed in the Nov. 29 Junge Welt, a Berlin daily newspaper, key Milosevic aide Vladimir Krsljanin said, "I consider these conditions the Bush regime set as a sign of fear."

Given his skills in cross-examination, the Yugoslav leader could easily expose Clark as a war criminal of the worst sort. Clark, along with Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gerhardt Schroeder and other Western leaders, committed a "crime against peace" by plotting the war and pillage of Yugoslavia. An open session with Clark would make this clear.