ICDSM Québec

ICDSM Québec/ICDSM Canada in Solidarity with the Workers of Serbia

The fight for people’s sovereignty: in The Hague Star Chamber and on the streets of Belgrade, it is one struggle!

SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC IS DEFENDING JUSTICE AND EQUALITY FOR ALL PEOPLE

President Milosevic warned of the loss of economic sovereignty, privatization, and their consequences

In his address to the Yugoslav people on October 2nd, 2000, President Slobodan Milosevic implored the citizens of Yugoslavia protect their dignity and independence against the assault of foreign domination. He said:

…All countries finding themselves with limited sovereignty and with governments controlled by foreign powers, speedily become impoverished in a way that destroys all hope for more just and humane social relations.

A great division into a poor majority and a rich minority, this has been the picture in Eastern Europe for some years now that we can all see.

That picture would also include us. Under the control of the new owners of our country we too would quickly have a tremendous majority of the very poor, whose prospects of coming out of their poverty would be very uncertain, very distant.

The rich minority would be made up of the black marketeering elite, which would be allowed to stay rich only on condition that it was fully loyal to the outside, controlling powers.

Public and social property would quickly be transformed into private property, but its owners, as demonstrated by the experience of our neighbors, would be foreigners. Among the few exceptions would be those who would buy their right to own property by their loyalty and submission, which would lead to the elimination of elementary national and human dignity.

The greatest national assets in such circumstances become the property of foreigners, and the people who used to manage them continue to do so, but as employees of foreign companies in their own country.

National humiliation, state fragmentation and social misery would necessarily lead to many forms of social pathology, of which crime would be the first. This is not just a supposition, this is the experience of all countries which have taken the path that we are trying to avoid at any cost.

The capitals of European crime are no longer in the west, they were moved to Eastern Europe a decade ago.

As the NATO powers pointed a gun to the heads of Yugoslavia’s electorate, and drenched them with propaganda via their local hirelings, President Milosevic appreciated that not everybody would heed his warnings. He expressed the following hope: "Citizens, you must make up your own minds whether to believe me or not. My only wish is that they do not realize I am telling the truth when it is too late, that they do not realize after it has become so much more difficult to correct mistakes that some people have made, naively, superficially or erroneously."

It is not too late

For five consecutive days, Belgrade has been at the heart of an extraordinary upheaval. Workers have descended upon the Parliament, by tens of thousands, demanding an end to privatization, and the dissolution of the so-called “pro-democracy” government which, while committing constitutional breaches and making a repressive mockery of democratic norms, has created unimaginably desperate living conditions for the people of Serbia. With an unemployment rate of at least 30%, it is galling to read the smug, condescending rebukes of the mainstream press, who claim workers are unhappy or “impatient” with the "painful process" of privatization, and would prefer a "radical" improvement of their quality of life. The indignities suffered by the people of Yugoslavia are too many to mention. Since 1990, every attempt has been made by the US and Western powers to defeat Yugoslavia’s sovereignty: from IMF blackmail to cluster bombs and depleted uranium, and along the way the fomenting of civil war, unrest, poverty, the financing and encouragement of terrorism, the sowing and exacerbation of hatred, fear, and hopelessness.

Today, Serbian steel workers, now employed by the giant multinational US Steel, who purchased the Smederevo steel company – which used to belong to the workers – for a measly $23 million as part of the DOS’s "pro-democracy" fire-sale, are striking for the right to make a bit less than one dollar an hour. Workers all over the country now reject the humiliation of foreign domination and the immiseration of their compatriots in this looting spree brought by NATO bayonets and the IMF and bearing the cynical euphemism of “reforms.” They are demanding respect for their dignity and a return of their sovereign rights. How poignantly this principled struggle points up the prescience and wisdom of President Milosevic’s warnings.

President Milosevic Defends the Ideals of Yugoslavia from a cell in The Hague

For the past seventeen months, President Slobodan Milosevic has defended the dignity of his fellow citizens in an ever-increasingly secretive, unfair and illegal process. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), born of political pressure from the US administration – which has institutionalized legal impunity for its own crimes – does not intend to conduct a trial that would meet international standards of justice. The show-trial of President Milosevic provides "legal" cover for the US/NATO policy of regime change in Yugoslavia. President Milosevic has never wavered in his characterization of the ICTY as an illegal, illegitimate tool of the US and NATO powers against the sovereignty of a nation they destroyed. He has taken every opportunity to defend the dignity of his nation, and reveal the perfidy that broke up Yugoslavia.

An unfair process

As the process wears on, the Trial Chamber's effort to stifle the defendant have gone from outrageous to pathetic. First, the major media pulled out of The Hague, complicit in the browning-out of President Milosevic's articulate and effective defense. Then, without complaint, he has weathered successively more transparent attempts to exhaust him and has maintained remarkable poise in life-threatening conditions.

In November of last year, the ICDSM requested standing before the Chamber to argue that Slobodan Milosevic's medical condition required immediate specialized medical attention, and that his state of health required he be released from custody, given adequate time for his convalescence, and be allowed to prepare his defence in a non-custodial setting. The ICTY has not granted this request, nor has it denied it. The "Tribunal" has simply ignored it.

Gag order

In brazen complicity with the ICTY, the Belgrade regime persecutes the family of President Milosevic, preventing him even from receiving visits from his wife and son.

Article 11 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms the presumption of innocence and the right of the accused to a public trial. But the "trial" of Slobodan Milosevic is often not public, and shielded from international public scrutiny. Security concerns are systematically invoked to justify the numerous closed sessions, pseudonymous witnesses, and ex parte motions filed by the Prosecutor, motions whose content Mr. Milosevic is not entitled to review. In the past six months, the Chamber has handed down several decisions following ex parte motions. Another fundamental right is to be present for one's own trial. If Mr. Milosevic cannot read Prosecution submissions to the judges, let alone respond to them, can it be said that he is actually present at his trial?

Unintelligible

The ICTY has now authorized the admission into evidence of written witness statements. It has become impossible to follow the trial. Witnesses declare that their statements are true, and President Milosevic is afforded a mere hour to cross-examine them. The public can only try to speculate as to the content of the witness' evidence. At least we can now say that this is no longer a "Show Trial", but rather a strictly closed-circuit event.

Less time, fewer questions!

So effective has been Slobodan Milosevic in hammering home the message of NATO's aggression against his nation, and the conspiracy to dismember Yugoslavia, with consequences now being felt – and courageously challenged – by the people of Serbia, that the ICTY is determined to prevent him from continuing. Cross-examination has been severely curtailed and he has been barred, with respect to certain witnesses, from asking questions with respect to their credibility. This is unheard of in any adversarial legal system, such as the ICTY purports to be.

When President Milosevic attempted to question the Deputy Prosecutor (who appeared as a witness!) about their position – namely, supine – with respect to NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia, whether the Prosecutor had acted "objectively" and "without bias" in summarily dismissing a request to investigate a large number of egregious violations of International Law, including the Geneva Conventions, Mr. Milosevic was told by the President of the Chamber that it was "irrelevant". He was told that if he did not ask questions "as ordered" he would not have the right to ask questions at all. A question pointing up the protection of Al Qaeda-supported terrorism in Kosovo by the ICTY and its NATO sponsors met with a similar reaction. The "amicus curiae," friend of the court, appointed against President's Milosevic's will, attempted to intervene but was browbeaten by a visibly angry President of the Chamber.

What comes next?

President Milosevic has been afforded a mere three months to prepare his defence, while the Prosecution has been accumulating evidence since the ICTY was established in 1993. The Prosecution has stalled throughout this case, and is still adding witnesses to its list, as well as changing, at the last minute, the order in which they are to appear. But the ICTY has ordered President Milosevic to provide a witness list only six weeks after the close of the seemingly endless Prosecution case. All the while, the Prosecution blames President Milosevic for the delays. They blame his ill health – for which they are responsible – and they blame him for "wasting the court's time" by asking embarrassing questions.

He has received millions of pages of documents, as well as thousands of tapes, exhibits and photos. Isolated from his closest associates, his preparation of the defence phase – and the crucial matter of defence witnesses – is severely impaired.

After twenty-one months of this process, nothing has been proven against President Milosevic, and thanks to his unerring determination, much has been proven about the ICTY's purely political nature. He could very well invite the Chamber to take notice of the Prosecution's failure to establish a single count of the Prosecution's fantastic indictments. Only one indictment, the so-called "Kosovo" indictment, has shown itself to be of any use – it served to isolate the leadership and people of Serbia, to demonize them, and to justify a gruesome 78-day bombing campaign that barely lifted an eyebrow in the West, even among so many who claim to be progressive.

What is more, it is not clear that this institution has the power to compel witnesses to testify. The ICTY has claimed it is bound by respect for the sovereignty of states – perhaps not that of Yugoslavia – in that they respect the idea that states may decide whether or not they choose to cooperate. In contrast, consequences are severe for non-cooperation when requests are made to surrender those indicted.

It is true that sovereignty is the cornerstone of international law. How can one explain the scores of decisions rendered by the International Court of Justice – a truly legitimate UN body – against the US that have never been complied with? Including the judgments having found that US death sentences had been pronounced against foreign nationals in violation of international law. The President of the ICTY, Theodor Meron, represented the US in one such case, brought by Germany, who won its suit before the world court. But the German prisoners were executed nonetheless.

It is not clear that Slobodan Milosevic could call Bill Clinton as a witness. The ICTY has left open the question as to whether there are certain categories of State officials for whom immunity would apply. Perhaps former Presidents will be protected by immunity from testifying, to prevent other former Presidents from defending themselves and their people. And this in contrast to the United States itself, where Bill Clinton was compelled to provide a deposition when accused of sexual harassment.

This concept of sovereignty, now threatening to prevent President Milosevic from questioning those who destroyed Yugoslavia, is key. Loss of sovereignty created the ICTY, as well as the miserable conditions against which Serbia’s people are now rising, thus recalling President Milosevic’s words: "All countries finding themselves with limited sovereignty and with governments controlled by foreign powers, speedily become impoverished in a way that destroys all hope for more just and humane social relations."

This is the same struggle!

The large-scale protests in Belgrade demonstrate that the will of the people to fight for their dignity will not be defeated. This has been President Milosevic's struggle as well. A Committee of the Serbian Diaspora, ICDSM, Sloboda and other progressive forces and individuals are calling upon all honest and principled people to participate in the international demonstration at The Hague on November 8th.

United for freedom in the same struggle, we shall all rise for freedom, life and for the fundamental rights of the Serbian people and of their defender, President Slobodan Milosevic. This kind of battle a united people always wins. This fight against tyranny is a fight for the dignity and prosperity of all peoples.

SEE THE PICTURES OF WORKERS' PROTESTS IN BELGRADE

AGGRESSORS SHALL NOT WRITE OUR HISTORY!

FREEDOM FOR PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC!

THE HAGUE, 8 NOVEMBER 2003