TRIBUNAL ABANDONS LAST TRACES OF JUDICIARY
WHILE ITS PRESIDENT PRAISES WARMONGERS BEFORE GOING TO UN

Total Desperation and Harassment of Law in the "Trial" of President
Milosevic


In another astonishing development at the political creation known as the
ICTY, the Appeals Chamber has granted the Prosecution's request to admit
written statements instead of testimony, if the witness attends the hearing
and affirms that the statement is true, and makes himself available for
cross-examination and questions from the bench.

After the world's major news media abandoned any significant coverage of
this shameful farce, now the even the Prosecutor wishes to avoid the
embarrassment of public testimony. Her own witnesses shielded from public
view, like dust swept under a rug. It will now be possible to request that
not a single witness actually testify before being cross-examined! And it is
likely that cross-examination will be as brutally limited as what has been
"granted" to President Milosevic in the past: only one hour!!!

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the
right to a public trial. Throughout this process, all have observed the
increasingly private proceedings in the matter of President Milosevic. More
secret applications by the Prosecutor, more closed sessions, more secret
witnesses, and now witnesses who do not have to testify at all before being
cross-examined. Cross-examinations cannot make sense to the public if they
have not heard the witness' evidence! This institution is violating the
public's right to understand the content of President Milosevic's
cross-examinations !  The right to a public trial benefits everyone,
including the public, for who will judge the judges?

If the Prosecution had a case, would she really want to hide it? Where is
the right to a fair and public hearing? Where is the search for truth? NOT
AT THE HAGUE, to be sure!

Why the rush to judgment? Do the ICTY staff have something better to do than
hear the witnesses who were supposed reveal the "truth" and bring about
"reconciliation"?

In the worst manipulative sense, one can expect now that the Prosecution
submits immediately couple of dozen of written statements and claims that
they have proved the indictment. But what about cross-examinations? Well,
the witnesses are too busy to come just in the days when President Milosevic
is not too ill.

At the same time, his life-threatening illness is a matter of the particular
care of the tribunal. Yesterday, having the illness as a pretext, the
so-called judges granted surrogate counsels called "Amici Curiae" more
rights. A step towards imposing a counsel against defendant's will.

And then, another gesture of generosity. A nurse measured President
Milosevic's blood pressure in one of the breaks. Only 160/110! Not enough!
He will certainly not have an infarct in the next three hours! So he can go
on!

Adding insult to injury, the ICTY President Theodor Meron ("a man of
continuity" - once Israeli Ambassador to Canada, then Clinton's negotiator
for the Rome Treaty and finally Bush's executive at The Hague) yesterday,
only two days before delivering his annual report to UN (October 9 to the
Security Council and October 10 to the General Assembly) addressed the "US
Helsinki Commission", praising the US which refuses to be subjected to the
authority of any international judicial body for the atrocities committed in
Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq or anywhere else - for its "contribution to
international justice". Special, well deserved homage he devoted to the
murderers of Yugoslavia, to the father and mother of the tribunal, Bill
Clinton and Madeleine Albright, by quoting their hypocritical blasphemies
from Srebrenica (crocodile tears over "the vulnerability of ordinary people
to the dark claims of religious and ethnic superiority") and New York, from
the time of the creation of the tribunal: "This will be no victor's
tribunal. The only victor that will prevail in this endeavour is the truth."

The only "Truth" now is that this is a Show Trial. The only trappings of
justice left at the ICTY are judicial robes and the ability to turn off
President Milosevic's microphone.

The "task of the continuity" of crime is there. That's why Meron says: "I
chair a group of judges assigned to search for additional ways to improve
our efficiency, and the Prosecutor has also offered a number of helpful
suggestions that the judges are actively considering." What it means in
practice, we have seen yesterday and today.

All this proves that the end of the tyranny is near. The magnificent
struggle of President Milosevic backed by all the Serbian people has
completely defeated the attempt to cover the blood of innocent victims with
the Hague robes.

Now, when everything is so rudely clear, let us all rise to save the life of
Slobodan Milosevic and future of Serbia from the deadly hug of The Hague!

Sloboda/ICDSM,  October 8, 2003



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