Don't expect justice from a kangaroo court

one day before a major international donors' conference where western aid for the balkans was to be discussed, the prime minister of serbia -- the main constituent of the federal republic of yugoslavia -- took milosevic from prison and flew him to the hague, where he was arraigned immediately at the international criminal tribunal for the former yugoslavia (icty) for genocide and crimes against humanity.the next day, the us and other donors pledged some $1.2 billion in aid to serbia. now as far as i am concerned, milosevic is easily the worst president the yugoslavs have ever had. authoritarian, corrupt, chauvinist and pig-headed in the extreme, he presided over the destruction of what was once a prosperous, multi-ethnic federal republic. encouraged by his self-destructive management of the country, big powers like the us and germany fished in troubled waters, leading to the break-up of yugoslavia. both countries helped covertly to finance and arm ethnic chauvinist forces in croatia and bosnia. the federation was plunged into bloody civil war. terrible atrocities were committed by serb, croat and bosnian militias, all of which had their external patrons. the icty was set up by the un at the behest of the us ostensibly in order to punish those guilty of war crimes, genocide or violations of the geneva conventions anywhere on the territory of the former yugoslavia. but its real purpose was to use the court as a political lever in favour of washington's geopolitical aims. while milosevic was responsible for arming the brutal bosnian serb militia, it was only towards the end of 1998 -- and that too in the context of the persecution of ethnic albanians in kosovo -- that the word `genocidal' began to be attached to him by the us. on january 15, 1999, 46 ethnic albanians were killed by serb forces at racak in kosovo. although the us claimed these were civilians, it is now considered more likely that the dead were guerrillas of the us-backed kosovo liberation army (kla). following racak, the us put milosevic on notice: agree to let nato troops into kosovo and the rest of yugoslavia or be bombed. milosevic demurred. on march 24, nato launched its aggression, claiming that it was acting in order to stop the ``genocide'' of ethnic albanians. by the time milosevic capitulated on june 10, nato bombs had killed 600 to 1,200 civilians depending on whose figures you believe. in violation of the geneva conventions, nato deliberately targeted civilian installations. on at least one occasion -- the bombing of belgrade's television station in which 16 journalists were killed -- nato knowingly targeted and killed non-combatants, a war crime as per the statute of the icty. though clinton and blair alleged that 100,000 ethnic albanians had been killed by milosevic's forces, the total number of deaths that the former yugoslav president is charged with at the hague is 600. of these, many will turn out to be guerrillas of the kla. with the exception of the questionable case of racak, all the deaths occurred during nato's bombardment of yugoslavia. in other words, had nato not committed aggression, these killings would most probably not have occurred. but i digress. while milosevic is to stand trial for civilian deaths he is said to have caused, the icty's prosecutors decided nato need not answer for the civilians it killed in yugoslavia. but then this is hardly surprising. the court is a political body that has never hidden the umbilical cords that link it to nato. it operates on funds and professional advice given by nato countries and those who serve on it can expect plum assignments directly commensurate to the degree of their partisanship. the icty prosecutor during nato's aggression was louise arbour, a canadian judge whose unprofessionalism was matched only be her self-righteousness. she now serves on her country's supreme court for indicting milosevic and deciding, inter alia, that canada's leaders -- along with other nato leaders and commanders -- need not stand trial for the killing of civilians during their illegal bombing campaign. the current prosecutor, carla del ponte, is equally partisan. if the icty is to have any credibility, it must indict those in nato's military and political chain of command who gave the orders for the bombing of civilian targets. the nato commanders who ``erroneously'' bombed civilian convoys and trains must also be prosecuted. and cognizance must be taken of the radioactive poison nato dumped on kosovo in the form of depleted uranium munitions that have already led to cancers there. if the current government of serbia had any honour and dignity, it would have prosecuted milosevic for the crimes he stands accused of. instead, it sold him to the hague. if the icty prosecutes milosevic, so should it the clintons, blairs, solanas and wesley clarks. otherwise, it will go down in history as nothing but a glorified kangaroo court that served the geopolitical aims of the us rather than an impartial tribunal that protected civilians from the depredations of war.