At UN Hearing, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić Sez Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal Guilty of Flagrant Violations of Human Rights

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On Tuesday, the President of the UN General Assembly, former Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vuk Jeremić, accused his critics of trying to intimidate and pressure him into cancelling a special meeting on international criminal justice boycotted by the USA and some of its allies. Jeremić set up the meeting last week, whilst serving as President of the Assembly, a largely-ceremonial, but high-profile, post. Critics of the event said Jeremić that organised it as an excuse to attack the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)… an allegation Jeremić rejected. A spokesman for the American mission to the UN explained its decision to boycott the event by saying, “It’s an unbalanced, inflammatory, thematic debate … on the role of international criminal justice in reconciliation”.

Jordan and Canada also boycotted the event, whilst EU countries sent junior diplomats. A number of key officials from international organisations and tribunals, including the ICTY, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and the International Criminal Court (ICC), chose not to attend. Without accusing any individual countries, Jeremić suggested that the 11 officials from the international organisations and tribunals didn’t attend due to outside pressure, adding that he, too, was under pressure to cancel the debate entirely, saying, “Unfortunately, these ladies and gentlemen refused to come to this debate. So, we worked with those who accepted, given that I wouldn’t balk under pressure to cancel what I believe is a debate on a critically-important topic. Somebody obviously thought that I could be embarrassed and intimidated into giving it (the debate) up”.

Jeremić said that the fact that the tone of the debate was more critical than supportive of the ICC, ICTY, ICTR, and other war crimes tribunals was because those who would’ve supported those courts chose not to attend the UN session. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić was amongst those who spoke. He hammered away at the ICTY in a 45-minute speech to the assembly, telling participants, “The prosecution was favoured over the defence” and that the court was guilty of the “most flagrant violation of human rights”. Serbia and its ally Russia sharply criticised the tribunal over recent decisions to free two Croatian generals and a former Kosovo Albanian guerrilla commander.

Jeremić said that amongst those who avoided last week’s debate were the presidents of the ICC, ICTY, and ICTR, head of the UN Office of Legal Affairs Patricia O’Brien, head of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth, and former ICTY/ICTR chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte. He said, “How did it come about that all of them at the end of the day couldn’t be with us, couldn’t be with the member states on 10 April? We’re talking about too big a number … just to put it down to chance, that they just couldn’t make it”.

 17 April 2013 (MSK)

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_04_17/Yugoslav-tribunal-guilty-of-flagrant-violations-of-human-rights-Nikolic-027/

Editor’s Note:

Let’s keep it simple. The USA chooses to cloak its warmongering under a façade of smarmy pseudo-legality. These courts deal in ex post facto “victor’s justice”… they aren’t real courts at all. The USA invaded the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, and Libya… and it’s beating the war drums for an invasion of Syria and Iran. I know who belongs in the prisoner’s dock… it’s not Serb patriots whose only crime was opposing the American-fomented and –financed breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (don’t forget, the present Croatian leadership is the direct descendant of the murderous Ustaše of World War II… the USA turned a blind eye to butchers of Orthodox Serbs and Croatian Jews escaping to South America and the USA). The USA refused to participate because its amoral and noxious foreign policy was under scrutiny… and they hate it when the truth is told about their unprincipled, unscrupulous, and brutal warmongering. God bless Vuk Jeremić… he told the truth.

Orthodox people have an obligation to support their Serb co-religionists in this. We shouldn’t follow disreputable quislings like Victor Potapov and James Paffhausen, who’ve sold out to the American powers-that-be (making them two of the worst “Sergianists” who ever existed… ironically, Potapov screams loudly about “Sergianism” in Russia whilst being more guilty of it than his targets are… fancy that). That’s the way it is…

BMD

Brouhaha Over SPC Stance on Kosovo

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A report in the Belgrade-based weekly Nedeljnik claimed that the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) “requested the Serbian President and Prime Minister to reject the agreement on integrated crossings management” and that it presented its own plan to solve the Kosovo problem. In the meantime, a spokesman for the SPC Holy Synod specifically branded this report as false.

Nedeljnik wrote that the proposal has eight points that range from the “abolishment of Petar Stambolić‘s borders to a request to remove US Camp Bondsteel“. In the letter, the SPC Synod reportedly called on the state officials “not to take part in the country’s suicide. We expect the current government and parliament to reconsider all agreements of the previous government about the ‘crossings’ that haven’t been approved by parliament, instead of accepting ‘integrated border management’”. The SPC “requests state organs to demand guarantees from the international community for the return of thousands of expelled [Serbs] from Kosovo, restoration of houses and churches, and to pass a law on restitution of the state and church property in Kosovo before any other talks”. According to the weekly, the letter was sent to President Tomislav Nikolić, Prime Minister Ivica Dačić, First Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić, and opposition leaders.

The weekly published the letter a day after Dačić met with Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi in Brussels, where they discussed the implementation of the integrated crossings management. However, Bishop Irinej Bulović of Bačka denied that the letter is authentic. Today, a delegation of northern Kosovo Serbs will meet with Nikolić, and Dačić and top Serbian officials met late last night. The prime minister said after the meeting that the state leadership fully agreed on a policy towards Kosovo. Nikolić met with Patriarch Irinej Gavrilović in June, July, and November; he asked for the patriarch’s support and blessing for the state policy towards Kosovo.

6 December 2012

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Patriarch Irinej Gavrilović denied that the SPC Holy Synod sent a letter to the state leadership regarding the situation in Kosovo. He told Blic that the Synod didn’t write the letter, which strongly criticises state policy towards Kosovo, saying, “This letter didn’t come from us, and the Church distances itself from the written and released letter”. When asked who the author of the letter was and who’d sent it to the media, Irinej said that he didn’t know, emphasising, “I don’t know who the author was, or, who forwarded it, as the alleged position of the SPC, to the media”. The patriarch said that he’d already presented his position on the situation in Kosovo. Earlier, he stated that Serbia should work towards EU membership, but that it shouldn’t renounce Kosovo for the sake of the EU membership. At the time, Irinej said, “If we have to renounce (Kosovo), thanks for the invitation, we’ll continue to live our difficult and hard lives as we’ve lived in the past 500 years”.

Nedeljnik reported that the SPC Synod requested the state leadership to reject the agreement on integrated crossings management. However, the weekly also published an interview with Metropolitan Amfilohije Radović of Montenegro and the Littoral and Archbishop of Cetinje, who said, “President (Tomislav) Nikolić surely knows the opinion of the Church, and that its position hasn’t changed. Recently, the Synod informed him about the position in writing as well”. Amfilohije didn’t say whether that was in reference to the letter published by Nedeljnik.

6 December 2012

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For now, Patriarch Irinej said that the SPC wouldn’t release a letter sent to President Tomislav Nikolić. He also added that the SPC’s position on Kosovo was well-known. He told Večernje Novosti, “I don’t see any reason why it’d be necessary to release the letter that was given to the President or what would be achieved by it”. Irinej repeated that he didn’t know who wrote and released a letter that claims that the SPC Synod was opposed to state policy on Kosovo and denied that it was authentic, adding, “The position of the Serbian Church on Kosovo’s future is well-known and this letter wouldn’t change anything. We’ve submitted our perspective to the state leadership, so, the release of the letter’s content doesn’t depend on us anymore”.

8 December 2012

B92

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2012&mm=12&dd=06&nav_id=83513

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society-article.php?yyyy=2012&mm=12&dd=06&nav_id=83517

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society-article.php?yyyy=2012&mm=12&dd=08&nav_id=83553

Acquittal of Haradinaj is a Slap in the Face

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On 29 November, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) acquitted former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, accused of war crimes, for the second time. The Serbian government made a special statement saying that the not guilty verdict was scandalous. It called the verdict an indulgence for committed crimes and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. The Hague–based Tribunal acquitted Haradinaj in 2008 because the judges decided that there was insufficient evidence. However, his case went back to the ICTY for a new hearing at Serbia’s urgent request. Serbia said that some witnesses in the Haradinaj case were intimidated, and that many of them were simply eliminated. According to Belgrade, 30 witnesses and members of their families were killed from 1999 to 2011. Since the ICTY handed down its not guilty verdict to Haradinaj, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) made a special statement. It said that, for the first time in the history of international justice, the witnesses in this case were subjected to blatant blackmail, and very often simply eliminated. All this occurred in an atmosphere of complete impunity and with the connivance of international missions in Kosovo.

Dragan Stanojević, President of the United Serbian Diaspora in Eurasia, said, “For Serbs, the Hague Tribunal engenders cynicism because of its lack of justice. We should ask for the closure of the Hague Tribunal and ask for the reconsideration of its decisions, as well as holding trials of those who delivered such verdicts. All cooperation with the Hague Tribunal should be halted”. Again, the judges mentioned a lack of convincing evidence for convicting Haradinaj, who was one of the cruellest chieftains of the Albanian militants during the Kosovo War at the end of the 90s. He was involved in killing, torturing, raping, expelling, and persecuting the Serb population. Serbia opened 108 criminal cases involving murders and terrorism against him. In Kosovo, Haradinaj is one of the mafia godfathers. He controls arms, drugs, and gold smuggling.

Even former ICTY Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said that she was shocked to hear the ruling of the Tribunal’s Chamber of Appeal. Aleksandr Karasev, an expert with the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said, “It’s not objective. According to it, all Serbs receive punishment, whilst it acquits all the rest. The Hague Tribunal had the task of creating a legal justification of the actions that were carried out by NATO and the USA in the Balkans, and the ICTY Tribunal fulfilled this task”. Two-thirds of the cases involved Serbs, and two-thirds of those convicted are Serbs too. Current forecasts are that, after his acquittal, Haradinaj will have a first-class political career. According to media reports, behind-the scenes talks about a possible coalition of Haradinaj’s party, the Alliance For the Future of Kosovo, with the Democratic Party of Kosovo led by the current Kosovo Prime Minister (and Haradinaj’s good friend) Hashim Thaçi are presently underway.

30 November 2012

Andrei Fedyashin

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_11_30/Acquittal-of-Haradinaj-Slap-in-the-Face/

 

Karadžić Begins Defence in War Crimes Trial

In case you’ve forgotten, THIS is what Wet Willy’s neocon advisers want in the Balkans… and what Radovan Karadžić fought against…

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On Tuesday, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić began his defence against allegations of war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, saying, “I should’ve been rewarded for all the good things that I’ve done, because I did everything within human power to avoid the war and to reduce the human suffering”. He’s been given 300 hours for his defence, an equal amount of time as given to the prosecution.

He stands accused of ten counts of crimes including one charge of genocide, murder, inhumane acts, unlawful attack on civilians, and hostage-taking during the conflicts that erupted in the Balkans in the 1990s. In September, the ICTY rejected his request for a retrial. The trial started on 26 October 2009 and has had repeated delays. Karadžić maintains that he isn’t guilty. In June, one genocide charge against him was dropped due to insufficient evidence. However, the court refused to dismiss a second genocide charge, which relates to the murders of up to 8,000 men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995. Initially indicted in 1995, he spent 13 years in hiding in hiding before being arrested in Belgrade in 2008.

16 October 2012

RIA-Novosti

http://en.ria.ru/world/20121016/176667101.html

Editor’s Note:

Even though both interventionist Democrats and neoconRepublicans have an unreasoning and demonic hatred of Serbs, the latter are worse. Indeed, they’re so much so that a vote for Romney is a vote for kicking our Serb co-religionists full-force in the face until the blood and gore fly. NO Real Orthodox believer should cooperate in such wickedness… no Real Orthodox believer should be able to do such evil. What does that tell us about the konvertsy and the Far Right ethnics who suck up to them? They ADORE the Far Right lunatics who want to bomb the whole world… not only poor little Serbia. None dare call it diabolical…

BMD