Michel,
I have written you in the past about my admiration for your IMF
analysis of the Yugoslav breakup but since that time have spoken
with my Slovenian relatives. They are not upset. They are quite
happy to be separate from it all. They also seem happy to give
up their universal health care in order to become Entrepreneurs.
I think that's nuts but they haven't lived under the chaos here as
of yet.
As for your statement about war crimes consider the following
anecdote. A student of mine has a Romanian hairdresser.
She is very upset about the bombing and blames the U.S. that
now gives her a home. She admits to lying about atrocities
in Romania in order to get asylum here. In Romania she did
not have a great selection at the super market and her husband
beat her while she had no recourse to divorce. She also couldn't
complain about the government without retribution. I learned the
same during the Vietnam war working in the Army in Washington,
D.C. I have also learned the same here in many places when
atrocities have been pointed out to the local constabulary. Not
to be comparing their fear to mine but hunger can cause a great
deal of fear and I certainly don't consider America's poor to be
free. She would have been poorer and just as married in Italy
for example.
On the other the Romanian claims that she had a better
apartment than I have in NYCity and a steady salary
which no artist has here, also universal health care
and was educated. But she lied about her "terrible life" as a
professional in order to come here and become a hair dresser
and leg waxer free to complain about the government.
I am confused. She is no different from the
Yugoslavs around Dayton or Youngstown. They complain and
complain to get here and then when we believe them and act
on their complaints then our representatives are war criminals.
Should they simply be returned because they lied? Should
they be stripped of their possessions to pay for the lost lives
and the cost of following up their advice? The most visably
hawkish of American government officials have come from the
Balkans and Poland in the last generation or so.
Belonging to a religion (traditional Native American)
that has been persecuted by every type of
Christian over the last five hundred years I have little sympathy
for those who will not live with their neighbors in an atmosphere
of tolerance. If history is to judge, the Moslems have had
their Jihads but they also practiced religious tolerance in many
more of their societies than the Christians. The only light in
this century that has come from the Christians has been Black
and South African.
It was the Sioux Holy Man who went to Bosnia with the
Sacred Calf Pipe to pray for peace. We waited
many years for the great religious leaders of Europe in the
last century. They never came. It was also an artist who took
his Cello and played in the middle of the sniper's nest and shamed
the world in Bosnia. I am proud to be Native and an artist.
Both my people and profession have taken their stand for both
peace and forgiveness.
You are an economist. I have read all of your posts and admired
much that you write but I do not see a way out in them. Only
blame. If that is the case, then why are you here? What right
do you have to this land. Your home is elsewhere. Were you
run out? The only ones who belong here are the ones who
create significant hope. Litigious hokum is no substitute.
I am confused about this, could you suggest what to do with the
immigrant and non-immigrant Albanians in Kosovo? The
complaints about language coming from the Serbs could be
the same complaints made here against hispanics or the language
wars conducted that eradicated most of the Native languages
in America. Kosovo could be Quebec if Canada had acted
like the Serbs in Bosnia and now Kosovo.
We all have our
Jerusalems and as a member of the First Nations here, you are
living in mine and you are living on my land. Does that give
me the right to hate you at all costs? Maybe, but it seems like
a useless thing. A waste of the genius that we all carry within
us. An insult to the Creator of us all.
Perhaps you misread the unconscious hate carried within the
breasts of Americans who fought and died in the last two
world wars that began in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
They may very well be saying simply "not again, let's stop the
Bastards before they do it again." I'm not saying that it is
so but it makes about as much sense as any of the rest of the
rhetoric that I hear these days.
Ray Evans Harrell,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Michel Chossudovsky wrote:
> PRESS RELEASE MAY 7, 1999
>
> LAWYERS CHARGE NATO LEADERS BEFORE WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL
>
> A group of lawyers from several countries has laid a formal
> complaint with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
> against all of the individual leaders of the NATO countries and officials of
> NATO itself. The group, lead by professors from Osgoode Hall Law School of
> York University in Toronto --where Tribunal prosecutor Louise Arbour was
> also a professor before becoming a judge -- have charged Bill Clinton,
> Madeleine Albright, Javier Solana, Jamie Shea, Jean Chretien, Art Eggleton,
> Lloyd Axworthy and 60 other heads of state and government,foreign ministers,
> defence ministers and NATO officials, with war crimes committed in NATO's
> six-week old bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.
> The list of crimes includes "wilful killing, wilfully causing great
> suffering or serious injury to body or health, extensive destruction of
> property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and
> wantonly, employment of poisonous weapons or other weapons to cause
> unnecessary suffering, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or
> devastation not justified by military necessity, attack, or bombardment, by
> whatever means, of undefended towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings,
> destruction or wilful damage done to institutions dedicated to religion,
> charity and education, the arts and sciences, historic monuments and works
> of art and science."
> The complaint also alleges "open violation" of the United Nations
> Charter, the NATO treaty itself, the Geneva Conventions and the Principles
> of International Law Recognized by the Nuremberg Tribunal (the latter of
> which makes "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of
> aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or
> assurances" a crime).
> Under the Statute "a person who planned, instigated, ordered,
> committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or
> execution of a crime shall be individually responsible for the crime" and
> "the official position of any accused person, whether as Head of State or
> Government or as a responsible Government official, shall not relieve such
> person of criminal responsibility or mitigate punishment."
> The complaint points to the bombing of civilian targets and alleges
> that NATO leaders "have admitted publicly to having agreed upon and ordered
> these actions, being fully aware of their nature and effects" and that
> "there is ample evidence in the public statements of NATO leaders that these
> attacks on civilian targets are part of a deliberate attempt to terrorize
> the population to turn it against its leadership."
> The complaint cites a recent statement of the President of the
> Tribunal, Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, urging that: "All States and
> organisations in possession of information pertaining to the alleged
> commission of crimes within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal should make
> such information available without delay to the Prosecutor."
> The complaint also cites a statement of United Nations High
> Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson in which she says that "large
> numbers of civilians have incontestably been killed, civilian installations
> targeted on the grounds that they are or could be of military application
> and NATO remains sole judge of what is or is not acceptable to bomb...In
> this situation, the principle of proportionality must be adhered to by those
> carrying out the bombing campaign. It surely must be right to ask those
> carrying out the bombing campaign to weigh the consequences of their
> campaign for civilians in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."
> Under the Statute, the Prosecutor is bound to "initiate
> investigations ex-officio or on the basis of information obtained from any
> source, particularly from Governments, United Nations organs,
> intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations" and to "assess the
> information received or obtained and decide whether there is sufficient
> basis to proceed. Upon a determination that a case exists, the Prosecutor is
> bound to "prepare an indictment containing a concise statement of the facts
> and the crime or crimes with which the accused is charged under the Statute
> and transmit it to a judge of the Trial Chamber."
> The complaint asks Judge Arbour to "immediately investigate and
> indict for serious crimes against international humanitarian law" the 67
> named leaders and whoever else shall be determined by the Prosecutor's
> investigations to have committed crimes in the NATO attack on Yugoslavia
> commencing March 24, 1999."
> Copies of the charges have been sent to the accused.
> Participating in the action are 15 lawyers and law professors as
> well as the American Association of Jurists, a pan American organization of
> lawyers, judges, law professors and students, with membership in all
> countries of the American Continent from Tierra del Fuego to Canada, an NGO
> with consultative status before the Social and Economic Council of the
> United Nations.
> Professor Michael Mandel, spokesman for the group of complainants,
> said in Toronto today: "The bombing of civilians is not only immoral, it is
> criminal and punishable under the laws governing the Tribunal. You cannot
> kill a woman and child in Belgrade on the theoretical possibility that it
> might save a woman and child in Pristina. Even in a legal war you cannot
> kill civilians and destroy an entire country as a military strategy. But
> this is an illegal war and the NATO leaders are acting like outlaws. So far
> they have risked nothing by sending others to do their killing and
> destroying. We believe that if they are held individually responsible, as
> the law requires, they won't feel so free to spill other peoples' blood."
> For further information please contact:
> Toronto: Professor Michael Mandel ( telephone 416-736-5039 e-mail
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] or David Jacobs telephone 416-539---e-mail
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> - in Geneva: Alejandro Teitelbaum, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> **********
>
> Michel Chossudovsky
> Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
> Member of the Ad Hoc Committee to Stop Canada's
> Participation in the War in Yugoslavia
>
> Voice 613-5625800, Ext. 1415
> email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> On Kosovo: http://www.transnational.org/features/crimefinansed.html
> On the break-up of Yugoslavia: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/62/022.html
