MILOSEVIC TURNS TABLES ON U.S./NATO IN THEIR OWN COURT
On Feb.15, 2002, his second day in court in The Hague, Netherlands, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic continued to raise charges against those he saw as the real war criminals regarding the 10 years of war that tore the Balkans apart. These were the regimes then governing the United States and the other NATO powers.
Milosevic is charged with 66 counts of war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavic (ICTY). U.S. pressure caused the United Nations Security Council to set up the court in 1993. It is financed by NATO countries and from private contributions by, among others, multi-billionaire George Soros, a big investor and speculator in Eastern Europe.
Milosevic demanded that the court bring as witnesses former U.S. President William Clinton, United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan, former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, former German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, German Defense Minister Rudolph Scharping, and other leaders of the campaign to destroy Yugoslavia.
A day earlier, Milosevic laid the groundwork for these demands by explaining and showing with pictures the crimes the U.S. and NATO bombers committed during the 78-day bombing campaign against his country in the spring of 1999.
Bill Doares, head of a delegation from the U.S.-based International Action Center to The Hague, was enthusiastic in his description of Milosevic's statements to the court.
"Today," said Doares, "Slobodan Milosevic made a clarion call to all oppressed peoples and all progressive forces all over the world. He spoke out clearly to say that "colonialism is genocide," turning the phony charges of genocide against him back on the so-called great powers of Western Europe and the United States.
"He described how Africa, Asia and Latin America were made victims of colonialism in the 19th century, and said that the imperialist powers were trying to reassert that control in those areas and indeed were extending this colonialism to Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
"His call is also to those all over the world fighting against capitalist globalization from South Africa to Genoa (Italy) to Prague to Calcutta. Milosevic is not in the dock because he committed 'ethnic cleansing,'" said Doares. "If that were true Milosevic would probably be the guest of honor in the White House, as for example Ariel Sharon of Israel, who has been trying to 'cleanse' Palestine of Palestinians, has been, or Bulent Ecevit of Turkey, who has been trying to 'cleanse' Kurdistan of Kurds."
Doares described how the prosecutor, Geoffrey Nice, kept referring to Milosevic's "quest for power." Doares said that if the court-appointed attorneys who are supposed to be helping Milosevic were serious, they would have objected each time Nice referred to Milosevic's psychological state, since Nice has no evidence of any such state. "It was a pure political attack on the former Yugoslav president," said Doares.
"Let's face it," Doares continued. "If Milosevic had only been interested in staying in power, he could have made a deal with the U.S. But he saw what happened to his neighbors in Eastern Europe and how they were completely taken over by the imperialists. He didn't want that to happen to Yugoslavia.
"They also tried to show that Milosevic was some kind of pathological Serb nationalist," Doares went on. "But Milosevic emphasized throughout the need to fight for equality for all the peoples of Yugoslavia. He even corrected the prosecutor's use of the expression 'Serbian Socialist Party' to designate the Yugoslav president's party. He said it was the 'Socialist Party OF Serbia,' meaning that it was in Serbia but composed of many different nationalities, as Serbia itself is.
"The court interrupted Milosevic again, cutting off his microphone as it did so many times in the preliminary hearings, but now he is supposed to have another hour-and-a-half on Feb. 18 to conclude his opening statement."
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