Milosevic ontvoerd !!!

THEY HAVE SEWN THE WIND!
Statement of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic (ICDSM)
[28 June 2001]

NEWS - 5:19 Eastern U.S. time - As I write these words I was just - briefly - able to reach someone by cell phone. I could hear a speaker and what sounded like a massive public rally.

TODAY, ON THE ANNIVERSARY of the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the Yugoslav and Serbian authorities have kidnapped President Slobodan Milosevic and sent him to NATO's 'Tribunal' in The Hague.

This was done in the face of overwhelming public opposition, majority opposition from the Yugoslav Parliament, a Constitutional prohibition against extradition, as admitted by Mr. Kostunica, an injunction against extradition ordered by the Yugoslav Constitutional Court, the protest of parties constituting more than a majority of the MPs in the Yugoslav Parliament, and plain simple Justice.

By kidnapping Mr. Milosevic the ruling faction has removed any pretense of democracy and named their constituent: the U.S. Empire.

What is Washington's purpose?

Washington has ordered its quislings, the leaders of the Yugoslav and Serbian governments, to slap the Serbian people in the face. This will be followed - is already as we speak being followed -by the attempted imposition of police rule.

Belgrade is presently surrounded with special police (perhaps NATO - who knows?) forces. Roads from the rest of Serbia are blocked. Television and Radio which until now have been uniformly on the side of the ruling authorities, have nevertheless been mainly silenced. We are informed that one news announcement has been made: that the leaders of the Socialist party will all now be arrested. A mass rally has been called for tomorrow. There are reports of battles with police in Belgrade. {Note: As I said earlier, I was able to reach someone by cell phone and could hear what sounded like a massive rally.]

What we are seeing is an attempt at direct intervention by Washington. They tried to rule by fooling the Serbian people. But the huge rallies yesterday and the day before, involving 1-200,000 people on each occasion, the humiliating defeat of all the DOS parties in seven out of seven special County elections (the SPS came in first in every case), and this despite news media hostile to the Socialist and Radical parties, the ruling of the Constitutional Court, despite implied threats, and the refusal of the Montenegrin Socialists to cooperate with Washington's flunkies, despite extreme pressure, have caused Washington immediately to initiate these extreme measures.

What we can expect is an attempt at direct control, perhaps involving NATO troops, certainly involving the mobilization of secessionist forces within Yugoslavia and perhaps the always-useful, entirely misnamed, Kosovo Liberation Army.

The immediate goal: to destroy the Serbian people as a liberating force, a force that resists Great Power occupation of the Balkans.

The more long-term goal: to pacify the Balkans so it can be used as a stable southern flank for Imperial Washington's coming assault on the lands of the former Soviet Union.

But the Serbian people will not accept this. They rejected the DOS leaders despite almost complete media control by DOS. Now that the authorities have shown they are nothing more than Washington's hired hands, the people of Yugoslavia, especially but not only the Serbs, will not rest until they have taken back their country.

The International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic calls on all people who care about peace and national sovereignty and dignity to do all in their power to protest and oppose this outrageous destruction of Yugoslav sovereignty.

The following statement was written by the Cambridge Campaign for Peace just prior to the kidnapping of Mr. Milosevic. It thoughtfully discusses the issues involved in this outrage.

--Jared Israel
For the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic (ICDSM) icdsm@aol.com

DO NOT EXTRADITE SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC OR ANY OTHER YUGOSLAV TO THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL!

The following statement was written by CAMPEACE, the Cambridge Campaign for Peace. We hope it will be distributed by people who are, like us, of varying political beliefs, some of whom may oppose Mr. Milosevich, some of whom may support him, and by those who fit neither category, because now it is critical that we take action. The very sovreignty of Yugoslavia is threatened.

Let us submerge our differences.

We firmly demand that neither Mr. Milosevic nor any other Yugoslav be extradited to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague.

We call on Yugoslav and Serbian authorities to cease current actions aimed at bowing to U.S. demands for extradition. If the authorities in Yugoslavia have evidence of war crimessufficient to motivate them to seek extradition, why is it that no such evidence has been presented in the almost 12 weeks that Mr. Milsoevic has been imprisoned, supposedly for investigation? By bowing to Washington's demands they put Washington in charge of Yugoslav and Serbian government and judicial affairs.

The Yugoslav and Serbian constitutions forbid the extradition of citizens. The majority of Members of the Yugoslav Parliament are declared opposed to extraditions. Despite these compelling facts, we are told that extradition is legal because the ICTY is a UN body and therefore its authority supersedes that of Yugoslavia.

This argument is false.

1) The ICTY was created by the United Nations Security Council supposedly under the provisions of Chapter VII of the UN Charter. But Chapter VII gives the Security Council no right to create any Tribunal or other judicial body. The ICTY was created because the United States had the power to make the Security Council act in violation of the UN Charter.

2) The UN is a body comprised of sovereign nations. In order for the decisions of a UN Court to have binding authority over nations, those nations must first ratify a treaty that gives such a court binding power. That is precisely what is now being attempted with the International Criminal Court.

But in the case of the ICTY, neither Yugoslavia, nor any other nation, has voted to grant binding authority. The ICTY derives its 'authority' from the political/military might of its sponsors, mainly the United States. It is an expression of Imperial power.

3) The ICTY is financed by the United States government and other public and private entities outside the United Nations.

4) The ICTY has abused and punished Serbs for resisting the U.S. and NATO and its proxy forces. Its spokesmen have used their authority as seeming officers of a court to lend credibility to slanders against Yugoslavia and the Serbian people and their leaders.

5) The so-called case against Mr. Milosevic is supported only by the repetition in the mass media of hearsay of a feeble and often grotesque character. Every rumor of possible 'evidence' is broadcast as gospel truth and serves as the foundation for later slanders.

6) The ICTY has revealed its pro-NATO character by refusing to indict NATO leaders for carrying out a blatant war of aggression against Yugoslavia. It has refused to indict any of these leaders for the many war crimes openly committed during that aggression. Indeed, during the aggression ICTY officials appeared in public forums with U.S. officials, supporting NATO actions. And it was during the aggression that the ICTY 'indicted' Mr. Milosevic and other Yugoslav leaders, publicly declaring them guilty even as the U.S. and NATO, the ICTY's sponsors, were bombing their country.

An ICTY 'trial' of Mr. Milosevic would mean putting Yugoslavia and the Serbian people on trial, thus saddling that nation and those people, the targets of U.S./NATO aggression, with responsibility for that aggression.

Such a trial would whitewash the war crimes of NATO, especially the U.S., German, and British governments, and its chauvinist proxy forces, such as the Kosovo Liberation Army. Those war crimes include but are not limited to launching an aggressive war, driving most non-Albanians from their ancestral homes in Kosovo, the use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium-encased shells, the invasion of Serbia north of Kosovo and of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

A trial would crucify Mr. Milosevic and other Yugoslav government leaders who properly refused to surrender Yugoslav sovereignty during the Rambouillet talks and when the U.S./NATO launched their war of aggression on March 24, 1999.

The extradition (or 'surrender') of Mr. Milosevic would open the way to extradite members of the Yugoslav Army and security forces to the ICTY, with the goal of discrediting and weakening Yugoslavia's military defense. This would leave loyal Yugoslavs with weakened protection against attacks by chauvinist proxy forces, such as the Kosovo Liberation Army, or by NATO itself. We have only to look to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and to southern Serbia to realize the significance of this danger.

Such an ICTY trial would serve as a cautionary warning to leaders of other countries, especially but not only in the Balkans, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, not to follow an independent path

What would Yugoslavia receive in exchange for surrendering its sovereignty and laying itself open to physical destruction?

The answer given is: money. If the promises, which are now being made by Washington and the International Monetary Fund, that they will give Yugoslavia aid in exchange for "cooperation" with the ICTY, were true, the acceptance of such aid would constitute an outrageous capitulation. First, because this would reduce Yugoslavia to colonial status. Second, because Washington and NATO owe Yugoslavia billions of dollars in war compensation. In addition, there is every indication, based on the past practices of the International Monetary Fund, that the promises of aid are a lie. Even if some money were loaned to Yugoslavia, it would be taken away a thousand times over in the form of draconian "reforms" that would be imposed on Yugoslavia as a condition of receiving such "aid."

We call on the DOS Government to cease capitulating to the forces that are trying to destroy Yugoslavia.

We call on the people of Yugoslavia, not to be intimidated by the Washington bullies, not to allow the DOS government to yield to pressure from Washington and NATO.

Yugoslav people: take action to stop this blackmail! Otherwise your country will be delivered into the hands of international gangsters.

We call on people around the world to support Yugoslavia, to raise their voices. Demand that neither Mr. Milosevic nor any Yugoslav be sent to NATO's false Tribunal, the ICTY at The Hague!

Please use this statement in any way you can

CAMPEACE - Cambridge Campaign for Peace
(CAMPEACE evolved from Cambridge Against NATO's War in the Balkans)

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)