This page sets out some views about alleged war crimes, primarily those of NATO and Milosevic.
War does not determine who is right — only who is left. -- Bertrand Russell
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. . . Introduction
. . .
Shall it always be that to the victor belongs the spoils? Or, are we entering a stage in which we have some hope of a reasonable system of international law governing war crimes? What have we learned from the Nuremberg trials? What have we learned from the war of aggression carried out by NATO against Yugoslavia? How biased is the previous sentence? Check your dictionary. A war of aggression is defined as a war started by one country or group of countries against another country or countries. By definition, the aggressor is the first country to launch a military attack across an international border. International means inter-nation-al -- between nations. Is that clear enough? There can be no doubt that the military action carried out by NATO against Yugoslavia was a war of aggression. By definition, it was NATO that started that war.
Not only did NATO start that war, it did so in violation of the charter of NATO, which forbids NATO from starting wars. NATO started that war without the sanction of the United Nations. It also appears -- to both me, and to several legal experts -- that NATO also deliberately committed war crimes, in contravention of the Geneva Convention and others. Among those crimes were the deliberate bombing of places and things with only tenuous or slight military value or no military value at all: city bridges complete with civilian pedestrians in broad daylight, factories, civilian power lines (a war crime), hospitals, marketplaces, downtown and residential neighborhoods, and civilian television studios in a downtown civilian office building. These were not cases of collateral damage, but of deliberate targeting by NATO. I will deal with these issues in more detail below.
A key question that we face is the extent to which nations should have sovereignty over their own people. Should that sovereignty be absolute? NATO, and in particular the USA, seem to think so when in relation to any threat that their own citizens might ever be charged in an international court with war crimes. On the other hand, it is apparent from NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia that NATO feels free to violate laws and the sovereignty of other nations, and to commit war crimes -- all in a supposedly good cause, of course. NATO and its defenders in this regard defend their actions by a call to it being a humanitarian mission to end the cruel violation of human rights within, in this case, Yugoslavia. That thesis is that the protection of human rights supercedes the absolute sovereignty of nations. That view was reiterated recently by Lloyd Axeworthy, formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs in Canada, in his participation in the CBC Radio 1 program Cross Country Check Up, on 8 July 01. The irony to me, however, is that, in ostensibly fighting for the protection of individuals, NATO violates international laws (albeit it, still rather weak ones). We seem to be back to the basis that rather than being governed by international law, we are resorting to the law of the jungle: might is right. Is this the New World Order that we want? Majority opinion seems to favor it. NATO and its public-relations powers have sold, very effectively -- very unfortunately in my view -- the concept that so-called humanitarian missions justify criminal actions.
The USA is among only a few rogue states in opposing an Interational Criminal Court. See Rule of law.
Additional opinions of mine are set out in my following letters to editors:
War-free in Yugoslavia? re illegal NATO aggression against Yugoslavia.
War-free in Yugoslavia re NATO war aggression contravening UN and NATO Charters.
Is Canada at War? re NATO war of aggression against Yugoslavia.
In the article linked to below at NATO War Crimes, Walter Rockler, former prosecutor, Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, is strongly critical of NATO's aggression, and refers to a film which he saw as a young man. Its correct title is Triumph of the Will. It was made by the innovative film director Leni Riefenstahl in 1934, at the height of Hitler's power and overwhelmingly enthusiastic public support, and with the full backing and facilities of Hitler and his public-relations machine. It is a powerful film, consonant with the will to power of Hitler and the German people, which it portrays through skillful depictions of the mass rallies of the time. It is also a horrific film in a sense, when one tries to reconcile the impending horrors to come with the enthusiastic public support shown on the eager faces of individual young people and massed formations of them in the tens of thousands, albeit it staged as it was. I also first saw this film as a young grad student, in a screening at the Kingston Film Society. It made a lasting impression on me. Rockler makes an analogy between the will to power expressed in this film -- with the overwhelming and unquestioned support of the public, orchestrated by media manipulators -- with the newer triumph of the will of NATO in our time. Alas, what "triumph" did NATO achieve in Yugoslavia, with its deliberate and criminal mass destruction of the civilian infrastructure of a modern state? Have the massed crowds of today, spurred on by the media manipulators of public opinion, not learned a single thing from those days of Hitler and the enthusiastic rallies at Nuremberg? You, too, can watch this film -- on the Net -- and read excellent commentary, by visiting Triumph of the Will below.
I shall have more to add . . .
For now, see the links below.
Go up to Table of contents.
The tragic blunder in Kosovo [Free Republic]: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/7374/dossier/Bisset.htm Source: THE GLOBE AND MAIL (Canada). Published: January 10, 2000 Author: James Bissett.
We led the way in Suez, so why didn't we know better than to be led into a flagrant violation of international law, asks James Bissett, Canada's former ambassador to Yugoslavia.
JAMES BISSETT
The bombing of Yugoslavia in the closing days of the 20th century has raised disturbing and unresolved issues about international security that must be addressed. Hailed as a victory for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the bombing, on closer analysis, can be seen as an unmitigated failure with far-reaching implications for world peace. Canada must demand more of its political leaders before they lead us into another war.
Canada's participation in this undeclared war against a sovereign state was carried out without public awareness or debate in Parliament. The bombing was conducted without the approval of the United Nations Security Council and was a direct violation not only of the UN Charter but also of Article 1 of the NATO Treaty itself, which requires NATO to settle any international dispute by peaceful means and to refrain from the threat or use of force, "in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations." Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy and Defence Minsiter Art Eggleton have assured us this flagrant violation of international law was necessary to stop ethnic cleansing and human-rights violations against the Albanian population of Kosovo.
Six months have passed since the end of the bombing. Now the war is over, it's time for sober analysis about why it was fought. The public has been bombarded with NATO propaganda, not only about the reasons for the intervention but also about its results. I believe we have been subject to duplicity and misleading information. The first casualty of the war in Kosovo has been the truth.
Our political leaders and much of the media have said that the bombing of Yugoslavia was launched to stop ethnic cleansing and atrocities. This is a myth. All the evidence shows that there were approximately 2,000 casualties in Kosovo up to the time of the NATO bombing -- by any standard, not an extraordinary number considering that a civil war had been raging since 1993. By contrast, the number of Yugoslavian civilians killed by the NATO bombing is reckoned to be well above 2,000.
The UN estimated that close to 200,000 ethnic Albanians were displaced before the NATO air strikes -- again, a deplorable figure but not surprising given that these people were driven from their homes as a result of the civil war. After the NATO bombs began to fall, more than 800,000 Kosovars were forced to flee from Serbian retaliation and from NATO bombs. So much for humanitarian intervention. . . .
The bombing of Yugoslavia was a tragic mistake. There have been dreadful human and financial costs. Ethnic cleansing and murder continue in Kosovo. More seriously, NATO's illegal action has fractured the framework of world security that has existed since the end of the Second World War. It has destabilized the Balkans and alienated the other great nuclear powers, Russia and China. NATO has abandoned the rule of law and lost any moral stature it might have had during the Cold War years. By forsaking diplomacy and resorting to force, NATO has reduced the democratic countries of the West to the level of the dictatorships it was created to oppose.
Canada's foreign minister would have us believe Kosovo marked a turning point in the way the international community is to react in future when human-rights violations take place within the borders of a sovereign state. We are asked to believe that the long-standing principle of state sovereignty can be overruled in the interests of humanitarianism intervention. We are asked to embrace new concepts of "soft power" and "human security." Mr. Axworthy assures us that Canada will always make its own foreign-policy decisions independently.
Yet when great issues were at stake in Kosovo -- issues of life or death, of war or peace, of ignoring the UN Security Council, of violating NATO's own treaty -- Canada's voice was not heard. We eagerly joined the war without question and without consultation with the representatives of the Canadian people . . .
James Bissett was Canada's ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1990 until 1992, with responsibility for Albania and Bulgaria.
James Bissett - Balkan Crisis Page: http://www.deltax.net/bissett/ Many of his useful articles and links.
NATO'S BARBARISM: http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/NATO.html By James Bissett. Common Sense Alamanac. Progressive pages.
It is time for NATO's political leaders to admit their unjust and unnecessary war against Yugoslavia has been a colossal failure. It is time to put an immediate end to the bombing before ground troops are engaged and the war escalates. For 69 days the democratic countries of the West have been systematically smashing to pieces a modern European state. None of NATO's objectives has been achieved. The air strikes have degenerated into a war of annihilation against the Serbian people. . . .
NATO's unprovoked attack is a blatant violation of every precept of international law. It is a violation of the Final Act of the Conference On Security and Co-operation in Europe, signed in Helsinki in August, 1975, which reaffirmed respect for sovereign equality, the inviolability of frontiers, the peaceful settlement of disputes, non-intervention in internal affairs, and the avoidance of the threat or use of force. It is a violation of NATO's own treaty by which it undertakes "to settle any international dispute . . . by peaceful means . . . and to refrain from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations." . . .
James Bissett is former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia (1990- 1992). The National Post. May 31, 1999.
Swans' Web Resources on the War in Yugoslavia: http://www.swans.com/misc/yugolink.html
kosovo.yusearch.com: http://www.yusearch.com/kosovo/letters.html Articles, Letters, Opinions.
NATO Intervention in Yugoslavia: http://www.acrosswaters.com/yugo.htm Has many useful links, including the following:
. . . Henry Kissinger on Ethnic Cleansing: http://www.acrosswaters.com/yugo_b03.html Review a quote from Henry Kissinger who states that 2,000 people on both sides died in the year prior to NATO bombing. He also notes there was no systematic ethnic cleansing prior to NATO bombing.
. . . Canadian Ambassador about Ethnic Cleansing http://www.acrosswaters.com/yugo_b05.html Review a quote from James Bissett, the former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria. In this quote he describes the situation in Kosova prior to NATO bombing and notes that there was no systematic ethnic cleansing.
The Globe and Mail Search:
Milosevic has a point. The former Serb leader has about as much chance of getting a fair trial from this court as he had of defeating NATO in an air war, says law professor MICHAEL MANDEL. The Globe and Mail. Friday, July 6, 2001 – Print Edition, Page A15.
Legal experts this week dismissed Slobodan Milosevic's condemnation of The Hague Tribunal as "unhelpful to his defence" and "unlikely to help him win an acquittal." . . .
In fact there is a lot to be said for Mr. Milosevic's claim that the tribunal is "false tribunal, and indictments false indictments." When the former Serb leader said "This trial's aim is to produce false justification for the war crimes of NATO, committed in Yugoslavia," he was, in fact, just echoing the words of Michael Scharf, the man who wrote the original tribunal statute for then U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright.
Mr. Scharf wrote in October, 1999, in the Washington Post that "the tribunal was widely perceived within the government as little more than a public relations device and as a potentially useful policy tool." He said that indictments would serve "to isolate offending leaders diplomatically, strengthen the hand of their domestic rivals and fortify the international political will to employ economic sanctions or use force."
Treating the tribunal as a propaganda arm of NATO is, in fact, the only way to make sense of its violation of the principles of judicial impartiality. The indictment against Mr. Milosevic was issued on May 22, 1999, even as NATO's bombs were falling on Yugoslavia; most of the charges, concerning actions alleged to have occurred after the bombing had commenced, relied on undisclosed evidence supplied by none other than NATO itself. This in the middle of a war! An impartial prosecutor should have viewed such evidence as questionable.
If there were an honest tribunal in The Hague, Mr. Milosevic would not be the only government leader on trial. NATO's leaders, from Bill Clinton and Jean Chrétien to Tony Blair and Jose Maria Aznar committed what the Nuremberg judgment called "the supreme international crime" -- resorting to war.
As chief prosecutor Robert Jackson said at Nuremberg: "An honestly defensive war is, of course, legal and saves those lawfully conducting it from criminality. But inherently criminal acts cannot be defended by showing that those who committed them were engaged in a war, when war itself is illegal."
NATO's war was a conscious violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations. Was it a "humanitarian intervention" as some call it? Not likely. What was humanitarian about bombing Belgrade?
Let's not forget either the West's aggressive economic policies that plunged Yugoslavia into depression and civil war in the first place, or the sponsorship of Balkan republics on the basis of ethnic divisions that left huge minorities within them waiting only to be turned on by the majorities. Remember NATO's cultivation of the KLA, the compromising of every single chance of peace, from the Vance-Owen efforts in Bosnia to the farce of Rambouillet, to the bombing campaign itself.
The need to invent a new role for NATO after the Cold War, the U.S. effort to undermine the United Nations, a desire to make an example of those who think they can oppose American will, the appeal of waging a war without losing one American life in combat, even Monica Lewinsky -- all explain this war better than humanitarianism.
The statute of The Hague Tribunal does not include "aggressive war" as a crime. The U.S. didn't want it there, just as it didn't want it in the Rome Statute of 1998 that seeks to create an International Criminal Court. But the statute does include "crimes against humanity" including "murder" and "other inhumane acts."
I believe the NATO leaders planned and executed a bombing campaign that they knew was contrary to the most fundamental tenets of international law and that they knew would cause the death of hundreds of civilian children, women and men. They admitted this even as they apologized for what they called "collateral damage," the kind that happens in any war. Slobodan Milosevic was indicted for the murder of 385 victims. The NATO leaders killed at least 500 and perhaps as many as 1,800 people, without any legal excuse.
Then there are the Geneva Conventions and the "laws and customs of war" which make it a crime, even in a legal war, to kill and injure civilians intentionally or carelessly. These NATO leaders made targets of places and things with only tenuous or slight military value or no military value at all: city bridges, factories, hospitals, marketplaces, downtown and residential neighbourhoods, and television studios.
Michael Dobbs, Madeleine Albright's biographer, wrote in the Washington Post, in July, 1999, that "it is obvious to anyone who visited Serbia during the war that undermining civilian morale formed an essential part of the alliance's war-winning strategy."
So the only legal difference between Mr. Milosevic and the NATO leaders is that the Serb leader lost the war and stands now as an indicted war criminal, while they, the victors, are un-indicted war criminals.
Indeed, the NATO leaders never will be indicted. A year ago, Carla Del Ponte issued a report declaring that she was absolving the NATO leaders of their crimes without even opening an investigation. Read the report if you want to know how much sense Mr. Milosevic was talking at The Hague on Tuesday. Read the report by Amnesty International that came out at the same time.
Where Amnesty's report carefully details a whole host of war crimes against civilians, Ms. Del Ponte's reads like a brief for NATO. In fact, it was written by an ex-NATO lawyer, William J. Fenrick, Canadian Armed Forces frigate captain (ret.) who went to the tribunal directly from his post as director of law for operations and training in the Canadian Department of Defence.
The punch-line of this report comes at the end when it notes that the review of NATO's actions relied primarily on public documents produced by NATO. It explained that the committee "tended to assume that the NATO and NATO countries' press statements are generally reliable and that explanations have been honestly given."
Can you imagine what kind of law enforcement a country would have if the police took alleged criminals' explanations at face value? Yet, after a year, the tribunal declined to even open an investigation.
Contrast this approach to the Racak incident of Jan. 15, 1999, (the other major item in the Milosevic indictment), when prosecutor Louise Arbour flew to Kosovo, with CNN cameras on hand, and dramatically opened an investigation on the say-so of one U.S. diplomat. It took her just two weeks of consultations with NATO to declare the incident a war crime.
Mr. Milosevic may be guilty of the crimes he is alleged by Ms. Arbour and Ms. Del Ponte to have committed, but he'll never get a fair trial at The Hague. And the failure to prosecute NATO's crimes renders this tribunal worse than no tribunal at all.
Michael Mandel, professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, headed an international team of lawyers seeking to have NATO leaders charged with war crimes for the 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.
Article in reply to the above:
The Globe and Mail Search:
Milosevic's war. STEVE APLIN. The Globe and Mail. Saturay, July 7, 2001 – Print Edition, Page A12.
Ottawa -- Michael Mandel, either wittingly or unwittingly, does what all apologists for the ethnic cleansers of Bosnia and Kosovo have done in their attempts to deflect attention from atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia (Milosevic Has A Point -- July 6). He focuses on a spurious analogy between NATO's actions in Kosovo and those of the extremists who sought to forcibly remove Muslims from Bosnia and Kosovo.
There is no analogy. Slobodan Milosevic headed a regime that, by his own admission, supported Bosnian Serb army and paramilitary personnel who committed mass atrocities in Bosnia. There were justified fears in 1999 that Serbian army, police and paramilitary units were poised to repeat those actions in Kosovo. NATO acted to prevent that repetition.
I agree with Prof. Mandel that the West's reliance on high-level bombing and its blithe acceptance of the "collateral damage" it caused were reprehensible. NATO should have assembled a massive ground force as quickly as possible, and it should have directly attacked Serbian army and paramilitary units in Kosovo instead of destroying Serbia's civilian infrastructure. But in the end, Mr. Milosevic, by supporting racist thugs and then playing diplomatic chicken with NATO, inflicted the war on his own people.
Article in reply to the above:
The Globe and Mail Search:
Judging Milosevic. NICHOLAS OUROUMOFF. The Globe and Mail. Monday, July 9, 2001 – Print Edition, Page A12.
Toronto -- Kudos to The Globe for publishing Michael Mandel's scathing exposé of NATO's kangaroo court. Justice, as the saying goes, must not only be done, but must be seen to be done. The voices of the many innocent non-combatants killed by NATO's criminal use of weaponry, such as cluster bombs, have been forever stilled. Will anyone be allowed by this "court" to speak for them?
Judging Milosevic. JONATHAN MAKEPEACE The Globe and Mail. Monday, July 9, 2001 – Print Edition, Page A12.
Montreal -- Michael Mandel's Milosevic Has A Point (July 6) is pure sour grapes. He couldn't get NATO leaders charged with war crimes, so he heaps contempt on the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Slobodan Milosevic is clearly responsible for orchestrating genocide on a scale not seen in Europe since the Second World War, and all Mr. Mandel can do is cast aspersions on the motives of those who finally put a stop to it. I am proud that NATO came to the defence of the 90 per cent Muslim and ethnic Albanian majority population of Kosovo. After the massacre of thousands of Muslim boys and men at Srebrenica, I had begun to wonder whether the West had learned anything from the Holocaust.
Nato War Crimes Complaint Filed: http://www.counterpunch.org/natocrimespr.html From Counterpunch.
Dear Madam Justice Arbour:
Re: the attached complaint
Enclosed please find a complaint against certain named individuals for crimes within your jurisdiction. . . .
Yours very truly,
Michael Mandel,
Professor
**** PRESS RELEASE MAY 7, 1999
LAWYERS CHARGE NATO LEADERS BEFORE WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL
. . . The complaint was initiated 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. The group has 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 NATOs six-week old bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.
The list of crimes includes "willful killing, willfully 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 willful 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 Nüremberg 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 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 Prosecutors investigations to have committed crimes in the NATO attack on Yugoslavia commencing March 24,1999.". . .
Read the entire complaint:
War Crimes Complaint: http://www.counterpunch.org/complaint.html IN THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA
RE: William J. Clinton, Madeleine Albright, William S. Cohen, Tony Blair, Robin Cook, George Robertson, Javier Solana, Jamie Shea, Wesley K. Clark, Harold W. German, Konrad Freytag. D.J.G. Wilby, Fabrizio Maltinti, Giuseppe Marani, Daniel P. Leaf, Jean Chrétien, Lloyd Axworthy, . . .
TO:
Madam Justice Louise Arbour,
Prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia,
Churchillplein 1, 2501 EW,
The Hague, Netherlands.
AND TO:
William J. Clinton, . . .
Details of alleged war crimes . . .
NATO War Crimes: http://www.iraqwar.org/canadatrial.htm Press Conference on June 11th, 1999 with Walter Rockler, Michael Mandel, David Jacobs and David Orchard, Royal York Hotel, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Walter Rockler from Washington, D.C. is a former Nuremberg prosecutor. Michael Mandel and David Jacobs are two Canadian lawyers involved in making a legal case for the indictment of NATO's political and military leaders for war crimes committed in the illegal war of aggression against Yugoslavia. David Orchard is a founding member of the Ad Hoc Committee to Stop Canada's Participation in the Wqr on Yugoslavia, the author of a best selling book, THE FIGHT FOR CANADA: FOUR CENTURIES OF RESISTANCE TO AMERICAN EXPANSIONISM and a former candidate for the leadership of Canada's Progressive Conservative party.
WALTER ROCKLER:
Some 60 years ago when I was relatively young, a well-known German woman film director produced a film which I believe was called, "The Triumph of Will." [See Triumph of the Will below.] This was a film dedicated to the glory, heroism and military power of Nazi Germany. We have over the past few days been faced with a new triumph which in many respects has some of the same characteristics. This triumph is a triumph of credibility.
In my country, my president, my secretary of state assured the Serbs and the rest of the world that if they did not comply with our orders to them, we would bomb them and we would bomb them until they would give up, and this is occurring. . . .
What have we accomplished? What is this triumph? The triumph, in my judgment, is to undermine the UN Charter; destroy a substantial part of the Nuremberg judgments directed at Nazi war criminals; and reduce an imperfect international law to something more closely resembling anarchy and the use of untrammelled power. NATO, which was originally conceived to be a defensive alliance under the umbrella of the Security Council of the U.N., has been transformed into an instrument for aggression and that is my primary thesis. . . .
The tribunal at Nuremberg — which was not a tribunal; it was a four-power court — held that the ultimate crime in international law, the ultimate war crime, is launching an unprovoked attack upon another state, another country. What is "unprovoked?" "Unprovoked" means when the other country has not attacked you, when it's not a defensive war — a defensive war under the Charter is permissible — but obviously Yugoslavia or Serbia has not gone outside its borders to attack anybody, never did at any point in the last 10 years. So, you read the classic definition of what is a war of aggression and this in the opinion of the tribunal, as I said, was the supreme crime. In other words, that launching a war carries with it every crime that may be committed in that war. That's what war is basically. It happens to be a sanction essentially of criminal activity inherently.
The UN Charter actually does not even give the Security Council the power to intervene in any state's domestic affairs. . . .
The humanitarian violations, or alleged humanitarian violations, in effect followed the bombing; they were not the basis on which the bombing was undertaken. . . .
We were going to determine the conditions under which this country would live thereafter and this will, the "triumph of will" of Ms. Riefenstahl statement, is to me what is really involved. Now this triumph involves the shredding to me of international law. It involves substituting anarchy for an imperfect system of international law. It avoided any diplomatic negotiations of any kind between the NATO aggressors and the Yugoslav government. All our demands were non-negotiable and that to me is the key element of the situation. What does "non-negotiable" mean? It means you do as we say or we'll bomb you. And we'll bomb you endlessly and of course our bombs are not perfectly accurate so we will kill a certain number of civilians. We know that. We'll bomb bridges; we'll bomb factories; we'll bomb sanitariums; we'll bomb hospitals; we'll bomb roads; we'll bomb waterways; we'll bomb electric plants; we'll bomb your country out of existence. That is the triumph which has been achieved.
MICHAEL MANDEL:
I’ve just come back from the Hague. Actually I spoke with Justice Arbour and her staff two days ago and we outlined this indictment . . .
I am part of an international team. We, lawyers and law professors in Canada formulateld these indictments against 67 political and military leaders of NATO. Our initiative was entirely independent, but the same initiative has been taken all over the world . . .
We met with Judge Arbour and her senior legal advisors. We spoke for two and a half hours with her. She welcomed our contribution. It was a very friendly and professional atmosphere in the Tribunal. We presented what we believe to be irrefutable evidence, compelling and irrefutable evidence, of war crimes by the individual NATO leaders — and as usual there is some misunderstanding in the press — the NATO leaders are not restricted to President Clinton and Madeline Albright and William Cohen. They include all the prime ministers, all the defence ministers, all the foreign ministers of all the 19 NATO countries. That includes our own Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, and Lloyd Axworthy and Art Eggelton, and of course the leaders of NATO . . .
. . . And you know we’ve all been watching that, we watched it for two months of the campaign. We saw with our own eyes, the world saw this with its own eyes these crimes committed, and we saw the NATO leaders admit these crimes, and we saw them admit the targeting of civilian populations. We saw them admit that the death of civilians would be inevitable. So, we have this clear, compelling evidence of severe crimes which include the deliberate and cowardly attacks on civilian targets, killing hundreds and injuring thousands, and the important thing, Mr. Rockler emphasized that this is a clear violation of international law, a very serious violation of international law, the making of aggressive war, one of the FUNDAMENTALS of international law. I must say, and we pointed out to the Tribunal, nobody doubts this. There is no legal expert of any credibility in the world who doubts this was an illegal war, that failure to have AT LEAST the authorization of the Security Council made it an outlaw war. Actually, an article written recently by a judge of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Judge Cassesi, who wrote clearly that there is no question about it. This is an illegal war.
The other thing is that of course it is a violation of the CLEAR Geneva Convention provisions to protect the civilian population from the effects of war. War is between soldiers and the Geneva Conventions from the Second World War and on have obligated states to protect civilian population but this was far from protecting the civilian population, we have a lot of evidence — compelling evidence presented by this international team — that they deliberately targeted civilian populations. This was a terrorist war. You know when you bomb a bridge in broad daylight a market bridge on market day and then you come back four minutes later and you bomb it again, this can only be interpreted as terrorism and deliberate targeting of the civilian population. We have admitted evidence of this. When the NATO officials were asked how could you justify this as a military necessity in broad daylight on a market day, killing people and then coming back four minutes later and bombing the same bridge, they had no answer. They had no answer at all because there is no answer. They are guilty in front of the world and this Tribunal has jurisdiction over them. . . .
We underlined to the tribunal that there was plenty of evidence to act right now, that this was a crime committed in public in front of everybody. These were crimes admitted by these leaders in front of everybody. . . .
Make no mistake, if these people are not indicted, then international criminal law will go down in history as a great and a terrible farce.
AD HOC COMMITTEE TO STOP CANADA'S PARTICIPATION IN THE WAR AGAINST YUGOSLAVIA
NUREMBERG PROSECUTOR CONDEMNS U.S. AGGRESSION: http://www.interlog.com/~nealm/nuremberg.html CHICAGO TRIBUNE, May 10, 1999. NUREMBERG PROSECUTOR CONDEMNS U.S. AGGRESSION ON YUGOSLAVIA.
For the United States, alias "NATO," the planning and launching of this war by the president heightens the abuse and undermining of warmaking authority under the Constitution. (It seems to be accepted that the president can order his personal army to attack any country he pleases).
The bombing war also violates and shreds the basic provisions of the United Nations Charter and other conventions and treaties; the attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen international aggression since the Nazis attacked Poland to prevent "Polish atrocities" against Germans. The United States has discarded pretensions to international legality and decency, and embarked on a course of raw imperialism run amok. . . .
WALTER J. ROCKLER, Former prosecutor, Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.
War Crimes and Nato: http://www.counterpunch.org/rockler.html Counterpunch. WAR CRIMES LAW APPLIES TO U.S. TOO. By Walter J. Rockler.
. . . We have engaged in a flagrant military aggression, ceaselessly attacking a small country primarily to demonstrate that we run the world. The rationale that we are simply enforcing international morality, even if it were true, would not excuse the military aggression and widespread killing that it entails. It also does not lessen the culpability of the authors of this aggression.
As a primary source of international law, the judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal in the 1945-1946 case of the major Nazi war criminals is plain and clear. Our leaders often invoke and praise that judgment, but obviously have not read it. The International Court declared:
"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." . . .
Walter J. Rockler, a Washington lawyer, was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. This essay originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune
NATO's Pontius Pilate: http://washington-weekly.com/jan17-00/Pilate.html UN Prosecutor Refuses to Consider NATO War Crimes. By JERRY ZEIFMAN, International Ethical Alliance.
Carla Del Ponte, the current prosecutor of the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has declined to investigate evidence of War Crimes committed by NATO leaders. She has issued a press release stating "NATO is not under investigation...There is no formal inquiry into the actions of NATO during the conflict in Kosovo."
Viewed simply in ethical terms her posture is an abdication of her professional responsibilities. On a legal level her position is even more indefensible. . . .
Published in the Jan. 17, 2000 issue of The Washington Weekly. Copyright © 2000 The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com). Reposting permitted with this message intact.
U.S. - Breach of international laws: http://www.suc.org/policy/html/intl_law.html
Will NATO be held accountable for war crimes: http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/yugo_archive/19990730mandel.htm
UN Turns A Blind Eye to War Crimes: http://www.counterpunch.org/black.html Counterpunch. An Impartial Tribunal, Really?
Triumph of the Will: the Nazi propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl
Triumph of the Will: http://www.bijoucafe.com/realaudio/triumph1.html Has commentary on this powerful 1934 film extolling the will to power of Nazi Germany, and you can watch this powerful film online. It is well worth watching!
Rienfenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1935): http://chomsky.arts.adelaide.edu.au/person/DHart/Films/TriumphOfWill.html THE DIRECTOR: HELENE BERTA AMALIE ("LENI") RIENFENSTAHL (1902 - ) Life: German actress and film director who came to prominence during Nazi period as director of propaganda documentaries . . .
Whose will "triumphs"? Presumably Hilter's as the Nazi takeover of power in 1933 is consolidated by mass demonstrations of popular support at staged rallies like the Nuremberg Party "days" at the party Congress in 1934. LR argued that the triumph was the triumph of a strong Germany and the triumph of the the will of the new leader . . .
One of the most controversial and notorious films ever made. Commissioned by Hitler for obvious propaganda purposes but defended by LR as a work of cinematic art . . .
Her films also include Olympia (1936), a film in the same vein extolling the Olympic games. We still extoll them today, but on a larger scale! The will to power, indeed!
Riefenstahl’s Fascist and Non-fascist Aesthetics: http://ugweb.cs.ualberta.ca/~salamon/school/fst205_essay3.html Victor Salamon, FST205 Essay #3. The immersion of politics into culture has always been an issue especially in the case of totalitarian regimes. The best example would be Leni Riefenstahl’s work during the Nazi ruling, work that generated a worldwide spread controversy that is still hot. Her films contributed to the birth of what today is referred to as "fascist aesthetics". In an effort to clearly define this concept and its presence in Riefenstahl’s films, I will try to put her "The Triumph of the Will" and "The Olympiad" films under the microscope. . . .
From such a person’s view - as myself, anybody in my family or anybody in the same situation -- to admit seeing anything beautiful in the work that once served as Nazi propaganda would be a sacrilege **-- to the memory of the dead. But to refuse acknowledging the value of individual shots from Riefenstahl’s propaganda movies would be self-denial. We still acknowledge the best works of notorious anti-Semite creators such as Richard Wagner, Franz List, Mihai Eminescu and many others; and it is natural to do so. One could argue that the effect of their anti-Semitic attitudes is far from having the same influence as the German propaganda movies . . .
[** I find this statement to be ridiculous, and a perversion of language. The film does have scenes of real beauty -- perhaps a terrible sort of beauty, but beauty nonetheless. It is just as ridiculous as the fact that the music of Richard Wagner has been banned -- if not by government decree, then by public opinion -- from being played in Israel until only very recently (June or July 2001). This confusion in the use of language is also illustrated in the inevitable use by most Western political leaders of the word "cowardly" to refer to the actions of terrorists -- actions that, if carried out by the armed forces, would be called "heroic" instead. That society so readily tolerates -- nay, accepts -- such blatant political opportunism in distorting language for emotional leverage means that we have not advanced much in that respect since the days when the words of Hitler were lapped up and venerated by virtually all sectors of the society of Germany only sixty or seventy years ago.]
Themes present in "The Olympiad" can be considered examples of fascist aesthetics. The athletes are filmed in close-ups while performing. This technique allows the viewer to get closer to the athlete’s pain in the effort of performing as well as possible. As Sontag writes, "extravagant effort and the endurance of pain"(Sontag, 91) are fascist themes. Competition between nations -- in this case, taking the form of sports -- is also a fascist concept. Even the title of "The Triumph of the Will" suggests that achievement of great ideals can only be obtained as a result of a great effort. The Olympic torch’s fire can also be viewed as a fascist symbol. It is interesting though how small the presence of swastikas is in both films. Swastika appears only on the huge flags that dominate the stadium in "The Olympiad" and on smaller flags and bandades around party members in "The Triumph of the Will". One explanation could be that both films were intended to be international propaganda films, and they meant to give an impression of normality. The glorification of beauty is clearly another fascist theme. "The Olympiad" starts with images of beautiful nude sculptures, followed shortly by images of beautiful nude men and women, representing an ideal of physical purity. . . .
Sontag writes: "Triumph of the Will and Olympia are undoubtedly superb films (they may be the two greatest documentaries ever made), but they are not really important in the history of cinema as an art form. Nobody making films today alludes to Riefenstahl"(Sontag, 95). It may be true that, until now, not many films made significant references to these documentaries -- with some exceptions, such as scenes from Star Wars; but I think that dismissing the importance of a pioneering initiative in the history of any art form is too harsh of a judgement. [This statement redeems the author from my rather harsh stricture at ** above!]
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