Protect and punish
Piotr Bein, independent Vancouver, Canada March 2, 2002 Madame Louise Arbour, a petite brunette giant against grave violations of human rights, spoke at the University of British Columbia (UBC) yesterday. No Serb banners "Humanitarian bombing", "CNN lies", "Over 1 million Serbs cleansed" or chanting "Hej, USA, how many kids you killed today and "Madeleine Albright" - war criminal waited outside. They did on February 12, 2002, when the former US Secretary of State graced our city to self-present in a feministic series on great people's great life stories. Until September 1999, during Albright's term, Arbour was the chief prosecutor at the Hague tribunal for war crimes committed in former Yugoslavia. Her institution became a "kangaroo court" for the laws, procedures and witnesses fabricated for NATO needs in the Balkans. Sponsored by the "international community", the tribunal's top achievement has been the kidnapping and trying of Serbs disproportionately more than others in the Balkan conflict - Croat and Bosnian Moslem nationalists, NATO countries and bin Laden's mujahedins. Equally consistent, the tribunal ignored: Western media blatant lies about "Serb death camps" in Bosnia and other campaigns to demonize Serbs; Sarajevo market massacres staged to look like "the Serbs did it"; driving Serbs out of Krajina; NATO bombing of civilians; or cleansing of non-Albanians under watchful eyes of KFOR and UNMINK, while KLA murdered, burned, looted, and desecrated Kosovo and Metohija, the craddle of Serbs. In the midst of NATO bombing and diplomatic search for a solution in Kosovo, on May 27, 1999, Arbour indicted Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and his associates. US government needed the cover to justify escalation of the bombing and "collateral damage". One of US architects of the Kosovo crisis, unindicted war criminal Madeleine Albright, known for her lack of compassion for Serbs who twice sheltered her and family during WW2 Nazi prosecution of Jews, or for Iraquis' suffering under brutal sanctions, said: "[NATO policy] is justified because of the crimes committed, and I think will also enable us to keep moving [bombing] forward" (CNN, May 27, 1999). US State Departrment spokesman James Rubin praised Arbour's servile performance that it "justifies in the clearest possible way what we have been doing in these past months" (CNN, May 27, 1999). Prime Minister Jean Chretien, yet unindicted NATO war criminal co-responsible for NATO bombing, appointed Madame Arbour a supreme court judge. In Canada, USA or UK she would be disbarred for accepting a job from a figure she had been petitioned by international lawyers to charge. Three pink faces in business apparel introduced Arbour's presentation. A director of international affairs in the university bureaucracy was first. In the foyer before the meeting he reminded me that I should not disturb the speaker, probably upon seeing my casual clothing and unshaven neck. If "anti-terrorist" law was in force, this report could be delayed. The next introducer was Lloyd Axworthy, who after international politics from Ottawa enjoys a directorship of the Liu Centre for the Study of Global Issues in Vancouver. Is it an honour for UBC to have an unindicted war criminal in their ranks? Finally, a tallish blonde Honourable Barbara McDougall, who retired from Ottawa to be President and CEO of an independent, non-profit Canadian Institute of International Affairs, introduced Madame Arbour. McDougall stood next to a poster "Protect human rights, punish the perpetrators" that refused to stay up and kept falling off the wall - just the opposite to Milosevic's standing up for his country and nation in the present trial in Hague under Arbour's follower Carla del Ponte. McDougall read aloud from the poster who has sponsored hers and Arbour's airfare and expenses. Honoraria were not mentioned. Fittingly for the occasion, the meeting was held in an auditorium named after deforestation transnational Fletcher Challenge. Names associated with legalized ecocide and with legitimized war crimes against civilians met at one place at UBC. When the main speaker stood up, the director of international affairs already took "Protect and Punish" poster down. Symbolic? Her talk from notes was newspeak for those familiar with the reality of assorted tribunals for ethnic cleansers and terrorists. I came not to hear Supreme Court Judge Madame Louise Arbour, but to distribute "Louise Arbour: Unindicted War Criminal" by Toronto lawyer Christopher Black and economist Edward S. Herman (www.swans.org). The talk competed with McDougall's and Axworthy's preludes, each proving how the speaker defended the rights of us mortals. In their legalese bragadaccios, I could hear reference to "extremely stringent rules of evidence with respect to the admissibility and the credibility" of grounds for indictments. Milosevic must be a devil if he was able to mow carefully prepared "witnesses" one by one, even when his telephone was cut off recently to deprive him from consultation and moral support. Arbour repeatedly cited a duty to prevent human rights violations, react when they occur, and rebuild ethnic relations thereafter. "Kosovo" was heard frequently, but as hard as I tried I could not associate "international community" with "prevent", "react" nor "restore". By the time she mentioned "scrutiny by media and the public" to guard human rights, I wanted to scream. Arbour shared two frustrations from her job in Hague. IFOR and SFOR in Bosnia were extremely uncooperative in hunting down Serbs to Hague specifications. When she came to Kosovo to investigate the Racak massacre, Yugoslav authorities refused to let her in. Experts know why, but not Madame Arbour, yet. Could we please have literate judges in the supreme court? The "massacre" was a provocation staged by the US and KLA to convince Europe that only bombing could end "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide" of Kosovo Albanians by the "Serbs". NATO-appointed forensic team from Helsinki did not find any evidence of alleged executions and massacre in Racak. Questions from the audience were meek. Students of law probed the Madame politely. An ethnic post-doc asked more radically if the International Criminal Court, a replacement for ad hoc tribunals like Arbour's, could resist corruption by a world power. A former reporter on Srebrenica "massacre" for Vancouver Sun - the same paper that now describes allegations against Milosevic but nothing about cross-examination of false witnesses - wondered incoherently why the West was so slow to capture Karadzic and Mladic for their supposed crimes. A student on exchange from France struggled with a question in English when Madame encouragingly switched to French - a human touch in a dispassionate apology from former precutor who, according to Black and Herman, expedited war crimes and should be "in the dock rather than in judicial robes". Arbour self-advertised at the end with an anecdote. An Albanian woman who just went through the exodus ordeal during NATO bombing, her son and husband missing, told a reporter that on return to Kosovo she would kill all Serbs. Then she added she would talk to that female judge (Arbour). To former prosecutor of the kangaroo court this was evidence of the tribunal's social utility. In rows ahead of me, a few Serbs studying at the university in their chosen land shook their heads in disbelief. I wonder how they felt about Canadian VIPs in business apparel. Copyleft Piotr Bein 2002: copy, distribute, but acknowledge the source After a federal government job located at UBC, and having committed two books (www.zb.eco.pl/internet/nato/index/html, www.antic.org/YU4NSP/Piotr/index.html) and numerous articles on 1999 NATO humanitarian bombing of Yugoslavia (for example, www.du-watch.org, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/files/DUPraha.doc), Dr. Piotr Bein is looking for gainful employment. Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
