AN OPEN LETTER TO CARLA DEL PONTE
2 June 2000
TO: Carla del Ponte, Chief Prosecutor
International Tribunal for Yugoslavia,
The Hague
FROM: Raymond K. Kent
Emeritus
History Department
University of California
Berkeley, CA. 94720
U.S.A.
I am a former secretary to a California-based Citizen's Committee set up to
monitor the International Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ITY) since its
establishment. I resigned in 1997 but you will find me in an article I had
sent to the Tribunal and the Secretary General of the United Nations as a
reprint from the Paris-based trilingual journal Dialogue (no20,1996). It is
entitled "Contextualizing Hate-The Hague Tribunal, the Clinton
Administration and the Serbs." A copy is enclosed. The ITY was set up,
under open indictments, ostensibly to punish all those involved in the armed
ethnic conflicts who killed innocent civilians since 1991. It became
obvious by the third year of its operation that the Tribunal's prosecutor
pursued only the alleged Serb criminals in a tripartite conflict. In one
prominent case, two high-ranking officers of the Bosnian Serb Army were
kidnapped in Sarajevo after Dayton and delivered to the Hague without being
accused of anything. This is the case which led to a change from open to
secret indictments to pre-empt additional accusations against a Tribunal
with an anti-Serb bias impossible to mask.
Although two Chief Prosecutors have followed the one from South Africa and
although some alleged Croat and Bosnian Muslim criminals were indicted there
is hardly any doubt that the reality emerging in the first three years of
ITY's work is the same. It pursued mainly the Serbs. This is also
confirmed by the fact that the alleged Croat and Bosnian Muslim criminals
have been accused of doing harm to one another's civilian populations but
not to those of the Serbs. It is only in the most recent times that the ITY
has looked at what was done to the Serb civilians in Western Slavonia
(August 1991- March 1992) and Krajina (mainly August 1995). This was done
only under pressure from a variety of complaints.
Against this background, it is not surprising that you have rejected
international (not only Serb) claims that NATO committed war crimes without
mentioning the other two areas in ITY indictments, those of crimes against
humanity and peace. You simply did not have the will and courage to bite
the hands that feed you as the major NATO players in the 78 days of bombing
are also the major supporters and financial backers of your Tribunal. Nor
is it surprising that you have claimed to have been "stupefied" to "even
hear" Russia's claims that the ITY is "politicized" and "biased" against the
Serbs. At this point it seems salutary to show you just how the Tribunal is
really polluted with political considerations.
Tuzla is a major NATO base in Bosnia. One of its Discotheques is run by
Nasir Oric. He was the Bosnian Muslim Commander at Srebrenica. He happens
to be a self-admitted war criminal of the most bestial kind. For nearly a
year, from the UN-protected Srebrenica, Oric and his "elite corps" raided
its Serb countryside. They destroyed 48 Serb villages, looting, torching
and killing about 1,800, including women and children. Oric bragged to at
least two foreign reporters and showed one of them a video tape of the
mayhem. You do not even have a "secret" indictment against him under the
bogus claim that he had been "killed." He will not be grabbed by the NATO
troops and sent to the Hague out of fear that this would alienate and
radicalize the Bosnian Muslims against NATO ground personnel..
Exactly the same type of fear concerns the case of Agim Ceku, General of
the Kosovo Liberation Army. He is now a major player in what is happening
in Kosovo but you have excluded Kosovo's Albanians from the category of war
criminals since the war at Kosovo is defined as an internal civil war while
Bosnia was internationalized in order to get to the Serbs. Actually, you
are seeking evidence of mass murders of Albanian civilians at Kosovo from
which to shore-up an indictment against Milosevich (curiously made public
after Judge Arbour's visit to Madeleine Albright, ITY's "Mother" in
Washington) stemming from the Bosnian conflict. Yet, Agim Ceku was a
general of the Croat Army responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Krajina in
August 1995, the looting and torching all of the Serb properties as well as
killing several hundred, probably more, older Serbs who either could not or
would not run. Agim Ceku is now saluted by NATO troops and remains the
behind-the-scenes coordinator of the ex-KLA. To grab him and ship him to
the ITY at the Hague could alienate the still-extant KLA from NATO and impel
some of its more extreme elements to cause harm to the NATO and U.N.
personnel insitu.
Clearly, Madame Prosecutor, your Tribunal is "politicized" as is documented
beyond refutation by the two cases. Both, Oric and Ceku should have been
indicted, tried and sentenced long ago if your Tribunal really belonged to a
civilized judicial system, with the mechanics of a real court of law. It is
an instrument of an emerging neo-Nazism. What makes it Right is the Might
of NATO and more specifically the U.S. Super Power. Its would be lofty ends
justify the dirtiest of means and humiliations of Serbs in particular. The
ITY is a tragicomic political theater, draped in judicial robes, engaged in
over-blown acting and pompous self esteem, providing endless perks and
high-paying remunerations, a "sweetheart deal" for those "pre-selected" to
sit on it and most unlikely to oppose any secret indictments or
pre-conceived verdicts against the Serbs. Let me now pass on the components
of your rejection.
You have not denied in any known instance that the accusations against NATO
do fall within the Tribunal's mandate from the Security Council. In fact,
one of the key assignments in your Security Council mandate demands it.
However, you tabled for the time being these accusations because you were
"too busy searching for mass graves at Kosovo." Well,your legal staff acted
pretty fast as the accusations were multiplying in several European
countries and in the United States. You are, I am sure, at least aware that
Citizen's Tribunals have been working for some time to indict NATO leaders
and principal actors as having committed war crimes, crimes against humanity
and against peace. In rejecting the war-crimes charge you are quoted to have
said that while "accidents" have taken place, you are "satisfied that there
was no deliberate targeting of civilians." I am not sure what evidence you
had examined in person but the numbers of churches, schools, non-military
factories, water purifying facilities, oil heating depositories and even
medical facilities fully or partially destroyed, add up to pretty staggering
numbers. ALL OF THEM ARE CIVILIAN TARGETS EVEN IF A SINGLE CIVILIAN WAS NOT
KILLED IN ANY. All of them could not have been "accidents." If you need
another proof of NATO war crimes here it is and you can look it up. In her
10th May last speech at the University of California's Berkeley Campus,
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright admitted "to have raised the bar" high
enough so that "Milosevich could NOT jump over it" because "YUGOSLAVIA
NEEDED A LITTLE BOMBING." This is a prima facie confession of the "Mother"
of your Tribunal. It refers to the addition of Appendix B at Rambouillet
after the Serbs were ready to sign an agreement to restore autonomy to
Kosovo. Appendix B demanded the occupation of Yugoslavia, including
Belgrade, by NATO troops. The intent is deliberate bombing of a country and
not even you can exclude its civilian population simply because you do not
have the courage to practice law instead of politics.
There is also a memo, which your legal toadies could not somehow excavate
from the NATO files. It reveals the change from going exclusively after
military targets into civilian ones. It is a prima facie document showing
that CIVILIAN TARGETS WERE DELIBERATELY INCLUDED after the initial bombings
failed to produce Milosevich's signature to the main text and Appendix B of
the proposed Rambouillet Accord. I am sure that you must be aware how
ridiculous is the claim of NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson that the
"alliance acted entirely in accordance with international law." It is
illegal, under extant International Law, by international convention, to
secure Presidential signatures with a pointed gun and the threat to use it.
It is further illegal under International Law to mount 78 days of bombing a
sovereign state without the mandate from the Security Council. The U.N.
Charter demands it but it was shredded instead. As there was not even a
formal declaration of war, the constitutions of at least two member-states,
France and the United States, were violated because they allot that power of
war declarations to their respective legislatures only. Lord Robertson is
simply extending ad infinitum the lies and propaganda used first to mount
the NATO attack and later to whitewash this collective crime and its aftermath.
You cannot negate the physical evidence of destruction from the air in
Yugoslavia (which still includes in theory Kosovo itself), enshrined with
pictures, names, dates and targets actually hit. The Yugoslav government has
published four factual volumes that need no further discussion about
authenticity. No one can deny that civilian targets have been extensively
hit. Figures for civilian deaths and for those injured more or less
seriously do vary. Some 3000 dead have been claimed at the maximum with
three times that number for the maimed. On the lowest end about 300 dead and
some 2,000 injured are on hand. We even have a visually recorded tragedy in
the complaints of General Clark that NATO's civilian authorities would not
allow him to "further extend" the number of civilian targets, another item
of evidence "missed." Clearly, Madame Prosecutor, your entire case for
rejection rests only on the presumed lack of INTENT to punish the Serb
civilians. The intent is clearly admitted by the U.S. Secretary of State
more than a year after the bombs started falling on civilian targets in
Yugoslavia. The INTENT WAS TO ACTUALLY PUNISH YUGOSLAVIA. How much more
proof do you need to shed your judicial glaucoma and see the real shapes of
dead Serbs and Albanians from NATO bombs, parachuted mines, cluster bombs
(many unexploded and still killing daily), shells with depleted uranium
which will be hitting local genes for decades to come since it is a mutant
without known limits?
When you were appointed to replace Louise Arbour a reputation preceded you
from your native Switzerland. Its criminal elements and its politicians
could not "crack" your judicial integrity. In fact, they deflected you
because of it, like The Godfather of Mario Puzzo, with an offer you could
not refuse. It is a pity that what ordinary criminals and local politicos
could not do has been reversed by the heady brew of rendering some sort of
"international justice" while "missing" a major collective crime committed
under the Open Sun.
Sincerely,
Raymond K. Kent |
