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Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 18:14:20 -0600 (MDT)
From: Robert Chavez <xcruz@webtv.net>
Reply-To: Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu
To: Labor Research and Action Project <Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: NATO Leaders Charged with War Crimes (fwd)
Date: Fri, May 7, 1999, 11:48am (MDT+2)
To: lbo-talk@lists.panix.com
From: CounterPunch <sitka@teleport.com>
Subject: NATO Leaders Charged with War Crimes
Sender: owner-lbo-talk@lists.panix.com Reply to:
lbo-talk@lists.panix.com
This is from Canadian law prof Michael Mandel who has filed a complaint
naming Clinton, Albright, Solana, Jamie Shea and others as war
criminals. I will post the full complaint later on the CounterPunch
website (http://www.counterpunch.org).
JSC
Dear Jeffrey St. Clair,
You wanted to know about our charges against NATO leaders before the
Hague tribunal. I am attaching the complaint we couriered to Judge
Arbour yesterday along with the following letter. Copies have been sent
to the accused. I am also enclosing our press release which is being
released tomorrow morning in Geneva and Toronto. Please post anything
you want.
Yours truly, Michael Mandel
**** Dear Madam Justice Arbour:
Re: the attached complaint
Enclosed please find a complaint against certain named individuals for
crimes within your jurisdiction.
I trust that you will take all the necessary steps to see that these
crimes
are investigated and indictments prepared against those responsible.I am
sure that I need not impress upon you the urgency of the situation.I
would be grateful if your office kept us abreast of the progress of your
investigations and, in that regard, I am authorized by all of the
complainants to advise you that all correspondence may be sent to me on
behalf of them.
Yours very truly,
Michael Mandel, Professor
**** PRESS RELEASE
MAY7,1999
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 complaint was initiated by professors from
Osgoode Hall Law School of YorkUniversity 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 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 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 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 Statue, 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 said in Toronto today:
"The bombing of civilians is not only immoral, it is criminal and
punishable under the laws governing theTribunal. 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 wont feel so free to spill other people's
blood."
For further information, please contact
in Toronto: Professor Michael Mandel (telephone 416-736-5039; e-mail
mmandel@yorku.ca) or David Jacobs (telephone 416-539-; email
david@ShellJacobs.com in Geneva: Alejandro Teitelbaum, (telephone
France: 33-4-78-30-87-78; e-mai Assamjur@aol.com
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