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

______________________________

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

Advertisement

Nikolić Inaugurated President of Serbia

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić (1952- )

______________________________

On Thursday, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić officially took office for a five-year-term by taking the oath of office in parliament, “I swear to devote all my efforts to preserving the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Serbia, with Kosovo and Metohija as a integral part, to realise human rights and freedoms for national minorities, respect and protect the constitution and laws, maintain the peace and promote the welfare of all Serbian citizens, and that I’ll faithfully and responsibly carry out all my obligations”. Then, a band played the national anthem, Bože pravde (God of Justice).

After taking the oath, he said that Serbia should join the EU, but it mustn’t abandon its sovereignty and territorial integrity to do so, it mustn’t give up Kosovo and Metohija, saying, “I want a different Serbia… I won’t stop fighting until Serbia becomes a just and democratic state under the law. I want Serbia to be a country free from the fear of the future, to be a full EU member, but we’ll never give up Kosovo and Metohija. I see Serbia as a house with two doors… one to the west and one to the east”. In his speech, the new president drew attention to the fact that Serbia was in crisis, and that Serbs lost faith in their government because of “its incompetence, it carried out privatisation, it was corrupt, and it leeched off society”.

For the first time, Nikolić invited all the other 11 candidates in the presidential race to the similar ceremony. Government officials, foreign diplomats, representatives of the army, police, international organisations, religious figures, members of the electoral commission, university rectors, heads of various government agencies, and other public figures, also attended the event. Another solemn inauguration ceremony with the participation of foreign guests will be in Belgrade on 11 June. Nikolić became President of Serbia after winning the second round of the presidential election on 20 May, where he beat former President Boris Tadić by about 2 percent of the vote. The current presidential election was the tenth multi-party election held since 1990, when Serbia was part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. So far, there have been four Presidents of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević  (two terms), Milan Milutinović (one term), Boris Tadić (two terms), and, now, Nikolić . The authorities found four of the elections invalid.

31 May 2012

Voice of Russia World Service

http://rus.ruvr.ru/2012_05_31/76600020/