Milosevic Dead. Now We'll Never Have to Know the Truth

Milosevic Dead. Now We'll Never Have to Know the Truth

By Julia Gorin
 

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |


The people of the world can breathe a collective sigh of relief; now for sure they'll never be asked to understand what actually happened in the Balkans.


No doubt this is only the second or third time you're hearing anything about the all-important "Second Nuremberg" trial in the four years it has been proceeding. That's because it wasn't going too well - for the prosecution, which Milosevic embarrassed on a daily basis. The UN's kangaroo court even had journalists snickering at the prosecution's flimsy evidence and performance. Journalists--those people who built their careers in the 1990s as co-belligerents against the Serbs in the avoidable but media-ensured Balkan wars.


Though Milosevic's conviction was a foregone conclusion (we wouldn't want any more rampaging Muslims than there need to be), he was creaming the Court (the Court and the prosecution are essentially one), such that six months ago prosecutor Geoffrey Nice admitted (transcript) he was no longer sure what, exactly, the case against the former strongman was. Everyone wondered why a trial would be taking four years for someone who was the undisputed "Butcher of Belgrade." The answer is that there's been an unintended benefit to the otherwise bad idea of an international court: the historical record was being set straight.


But look for a renewed wave of propaganda about the alleged "crimes" of Milosevic from the media anyway, now that they are confident the truth will stay buried longer. (No, I'm not a fan of Milosevic, as I am an anti-socialist.) You won't find the kinds of glowing obituaries that the domestic and international press gave our friend, the late Bosnian President and fundamentalist Muslim Alija Izetbegovic, who turned down the 1992 Lisbon plan that would have avoided the Bosnian war.


But to sum up, here is all that Americans need to know about that confounding, dreaded subject that we so aggressively ignore, the Balkans:


The Serbs have admitted to not being innocents in those civil wars. Problem is, they were less guilty than their enemies - the Croats (a people Germanized since the 1500s and nostalgic for the 1930s), the Bosnian Muslims, and the Albanian Kosovo Muslims. Funny that none of these others have admitted to anything at all, despite their much more dastardly roles in sparking the Balkan wars--most relevantly that last group. As Canadian former UN Commander Major General Lewis MacKenzie wrote in a National Post article titled "We Bombed the Wrong Side?":


"The Kosovo-Albanians have played us like a Stradivarius. We have subsidized.their violent campaign for an ethnically pure and independent Kosovo. We have never blamed them for being the perpetrators of the violence in the early '90s and we continue to portray them as the designated victim today in spite of evidence to the contrary. When they achieve independence with the help of our tax dollars combined with those of bin Laden and al-Qaeda, just consider the message of encouragement this sends to other terrorist-supported independence movements around the world."


Increasingly active separatist movements from the Caucuses to Southeast Asia in the seven years since we lent our Air Force to terrorists have been testament to that.


When Bill Clinton misled us into an obscure region called Kosovo to stop a genocide that wasn't happening, he told us it would stabilize the region, keep the conflict from spreading. This is precisely what Milosevic was doing. Like clockwork, within months of our intervention, the Albanians moved on to terrorize Macedonia, and now they are fighting for parts of Southern Serbia, Montenegro and Greece--to form the Greater Albania that had been their nationalistic and Islamic vision all along. Meanwhile, as UN human rights observer Jiri Dienstbier has said, "Kosovo is an infinitely more dangerous place than it was before" the U.S.-led NATO intervention. What we managed to do, if you can imagine, was destabilize the notoriously unstable Balkans.


Indeed, we mistook for Nazis people who were fighting the Nazis' real heirs. Once we approve independence for Kosovo this year and Albanian borders revert to what they were under Hitler, it'll be worth recalling that an Albanian SS Skanderbeg Division and a Bosnian-Muslim SS Handzar Division fought alongside Hitler, and that Croatia killed 750,000 Serbs and Jews in concentration camps - in ways that humbled the Nazis. By looking for holocausts under every bed, we picked a staged one, and set the stage for a real one; the Serbs were only the Balkans' first victims. New York, Madrid, London and Netanya followed soon after.


For some reason, fate intends the Serbs to be maligned to the end. Croatian President Franjo Tudjman died before the Hague could hand down an indictment for his war crimes - which would have exposed the damning Croatian role in the Balkan wars; Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic was being quietly investigated and died before the indictment came down (which would have been damning to the Bosnian Muslims)--and now Milosevic has died before he could get through his list of defense witnesses, many of whom threatened to further expose the hoax that started a war.


In case you've been obliging both the mainstream and alternative media by not following the Milosevic trial as the accused debunked one charge after another, catching "witness" after "witness" in a lie, here's what you missed--with particular emphasis on the Albanian Islamo-fascist narco-terrorists on whose behalf we declared war on a multi-ethnic European nation:

Milosevic � his gradual, prolonged and protracted murder

Pravda

Front page / Opinion / Columnists

Milosevic – his gradual, prolonged and protracted murder



16.03.2006

Source: URL: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/77338-Milosevic-0

Callous irresponsibility of the International Penal Court amounts to
wanton murder and a gradual and purposeful process of torture, which
eventually cost Slobodan Milosevic his life.

The International Penal Court at The Hague is in serious trouble,
having breached international law on the human rights of prisoners and
the legally afforded processes for sick persons in its control.
However, in today's world, where rules and conventions and agreements
and laws and charters can be broken capriciously, where any common
rules of decency from yesteryear are swept away by a clique of elitist
barons who pull the world's economic strings, what to expect?

What to expect from a "Court" whose chief prosecutor, Carla del Ponte,
stated publicly that Slobodan Milosevic was guilty before the case had
even started? What to expect from a "Court" which held Slobodan
Milosevic in a state of illegal imprisonment after he had been
kidnapped against the laws of Serbia and Yugoslavia ?

What to expect from a "Court" which denied Slobodan Milosevic the
right to conditions and treatment which would have saved his life?
Denying him this right is tantamount to protracted torture and
eventually, murder.

The law

At the First UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of
Offenders, Annex 1A, Rule 22(2) it is stated that "Sick prisoners who
require specialist treatment shall be transferred to specialised
institutions or to civil hospitals".

The case

Nico Varkevisser, the Vice President of the International Committee to
Defend Slobodan Milosevic, applied to the IPC for "the specialised
medical care he requires (and)…an additional adjournment for the
complete recovery of the defendant". This was on 5th November, 2002.

The reason was because Slobodan Milosevic was physically at risk,
suffering from chronic malignant hypertension and angina pectoris, as
pronounced by a council of medical experts, conditions made worse by
stress. The condition is so serious that untreated, 75% of patients
die within one year.

Yet what conditions did the IPC apportion to him?

He was forced to opt between taking a breath of fresh air or eating a
sandwich in the basement for nourishment;

The chief prosecutor had years to prepare her case, giving her an
unfair advantage since Mr. Milosevic had far less time to prepare and
present his defence even though the Statute of the Tribunal provides
for adequate time and facilities for the preparation of the defence.
Mr. Milosevic was not apportioned these (she callously stuck over
100.000 pages of documents and 600 video cassettes before Milosevic
for him to defend himself);

Slobodan Milosevic was pursuing his fundamental right under the
International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights to defend
himself, yet the IPC did not give him equal conditions under fair
legal practice to do so;

The IPC Unit did not provide an adequate custodial setting for
Slobodan Milosevic to conduct his defence fairly and worse than this,
provided a stimulus for an increase in dangerous levels of stress,
since the conditions were not consistent with what would be reasonably
expected for an adequate defence at such a massive trial, at which he
was fighting alone against massive resources which he did not have and
which he was denied;

The IPC was aware of this since both Mr. Milosevic's personal
physician, Zdravko Mijailovic, MD, PhD and other medical experts had
warned the authorities as to the precarious and dangerous state of
health suffered by the defendant;

Mr. Milosevic was not allowed to travel to Russia for specialised
medical treatment which would have saved his life.

Mr. Milosevic's last message

Mr. Milosevic's last written message was delivered to the Russian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 8th March. It was a request for help.
In the letter he claims:

"I think that the persistence, with which the medical treatment in
Russia was denied, in the first place is motivated by the fear that
through careful examination it would be discovered, that there were
active, wilful steps taken, to destroy my health…"

"On January 12th (i.e. two months ago) an extremely strong drug was
found in my blood, which is used, as they themselves say, for the
treatment of tuberculosis and leprosy, although I never used any kind
of antibiotic during this five years that I'm in their prison".

Why did it take two months to report this? Why was it kept a secret?
Who treated Mr. Milosevic with this drug (which we now discover was to
counter the effects of his treatment)?

In his last letter, Mr. Milosevic spoke of "those who have an interest
to silence me".

Whether or not they managed to silence Mr. Milosevic depends on the
members of the international community, those who defend the state of
law, those who believe in justice and fairness and those who stand for
a world ruled by right and reason, not bullying, belligerence and the
bullet.

The death of Slobodan Milosevic was part of the cabal which has seen
criminal actions of state terrorism become the norm, along with a
callous disregard for common decency and human rights, based upon a
unilateralist Anglo-Saxon Alliance of self-righteousness and sheer
arrogance.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smo031506.htm

DEBUNKING THE CONSPIRACY THEORY: MILOSEVIC COULD NOT HAVE ESCAPED BY
GOING TO THE MEDICAL CENTER IN MOSCOW
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - March 15, 2006

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

On the occasion of Slobodan Milosevic's death, the Hague Tribunal and
the Western media have concocted an elaborate conspiracy theory in an
apparent effort to absolve the tribunal of responsibility.

According to this conspiracy theory, Milosevic secretly took a drug
called Rifampicin to block the effectiveness of his high blood
pressure medicine, which in turn created a fake medical condition that
he used to justify his request to go to Moscow under the pretext of
obtaining medical treatment, however obtaining medical treatment
wasn't Milosevic's real objective that was just a ruse so that he
could make his escape.

Dr. Donald Uges, a professor of clinical and forensic toxicology at
the University of Groningen, was the first to advance this theory in
the media. He told the New York Times "It's like a James Bond story",
and on that score he's absolutely correct it's exactly like a James
Bond story – it's fiction.

Dr. Uges told the New York Times: "There was one escape for Milosevic
out of prison, and that was to Moscow where his wife and son, and
friends were. He wanted to go to Moscow on a one-way trip."

Moscow was never an avenue of escape for Milosevic. On January 18th
the Russian Government gave the Hague Tribunal assurances that it
would guarantee "Milosevic's personal security during his time in
Russia and his return to The Hague within the timeframe specified by
the Tribunal." Milosevic would have been under armed-guard the whole
time he was in Russia. There was absolutely no chance that he could
escape by getting medical treatment Moscow.

Dr. Uges was all over the media, acting more like a politician than a
doctor, he told the Irish Times that Milosevic "took Rifampicin
himself, not for suicide, only for his trip to Moscow." Of course Dr.
Uges is a toxicologist, and not a mind reader. He can't possibly know
what was going on in Milosevic's thoughts, but he didn't let that get
in his way.

Rifampicin is odorless and tasteless, and as such could have been
mixed into Milosevic's food without his knowledge. He was administered
all of his medicine by guards at the prison dispensary. He took the
medicine that they gave him. The drug could have easily been added
into one of his medicine capsules.

Clearly, Dr. Uges can't know whether Milosevic took the drug knowingly
or not, but we can find a clue in the letter that Milosevic wrote to
the Russian Foreign Ministry on March 8th:

"I think that the persistence, with which the medical treatment in
Russia was denied, in the first place is motivated by the fear that
through careful examination it would be discovered, that there were
active, willful steps taken, to destroy my health, throughout the
proceedings of the trial, which could not be hidden from Russian
specialists."

"In order to verify my allegations, I'm presenting you a simple
example, which you can find in the attachment. This document, which I
received on March 7, shows that on January 12th (i.e. two months ago),
an extremely strong drug was found in my blood, which is used, as they
themselves say, for the treatment of tuberculosis and leprosy,
although I never used any kind of antibiotic during this 5 years that
I'm in their prison."

"Throughout this whole period, neither have I had any kind of
infectious illness (apart from flu)."

"Also the fact that doctors needed 2 months (to report to me), can't
have any other explanation than we are facing manipulation. In any
case, those who foist on me a drug against leprosy surely can't treat
my illness; likewise those from which I defended my country in times
of war and who have an interest to silence me."

In his interview with the New York Times Dr. Urges confirmed that
March 7th was indeed the day that Milosevic learned the drug had been
found in his blood.

Clearly, the detection of the drug is what motivated Milosevic to
write the letter. As the text of the letter makes plain Milosevic was
not knowingly taking the drug.

The letter raises some serious questions: Why did it take the
tribunal's medical staff two months to tell him that the drug had been
found in his blood? If they knew in January, then why wasn't an
investigation launched immediately to determine how the drug was
getting into his system? Why was this information concealed from him
for two months?

The conspiracy theory being advanced in the media by Dr. Uges and
certain "unnamed sources" at the Hague Tribunal just doesn't hold
water. The conspiracy would have to involve: Milosevic, the Russian
Government, the doctors at the Bakulev Medical Center in Moscow, the
person who was procuring the drug and sneaking it in to him, the
doctor who was advising him on how to take it, etc…. It's all just too
far-fetched to be true.

The fact that the tribunal is floating such a stupid story tells you
right off the bat that they're guilty as sin for Milosevic's death.

Milosevic had no motive to sabotage his own health. A trip to Moscow
for medical treatment would not have allowed him to escape. The
Russian Government guaranteed all the way back in January that it
would return him within the timetable set by the tribunal.

If Milosevic had been sabotaging his health he would have been running
the risk of handing his defense over to Mr. Kay. Anybody who followed
the trial proceedings knows that he would have never done that.

The trial was not going well for the prosecution. They had not
presented a stitch of evidence to show that he ordered or condoned the
commission of a single crime. The prosecution spent a great deal of
time trying to prove that crimes were committed, but they never made a
link between any of the alleged crimes and Milosevic.

At the end of the trial the judges were going to have to write a
judgment based on the evidence presented in court. Writing a credible
judgment convicting Milosevic on the evidence would have been
impossible, because the prosecution never managed to link him to a
crime.

The Milosevic trial was an embarrassment for a lot of very powerful
people, which is why the media very rarely covered the proceedings. He
was using the trial as a platform to expose the crimes committed in
Yugoslavia by various Western governments and political officials.

Milosevic had an extremely long list of enemies. A person would have
to be an fool to think that nobody wanted to kill him. It is a
well-known fact that MI6 was plotting his assassination in 1992.

It isn't hard to believe that one of his many enemies wanted to shut
him up so badly that they poisoned him. Maybe they didn't want to kill
him outright; maybe they just wanted him to be sick enough that Mr.
Kay could take over his defense.

At any rate, it's a lot easier to believe that a foreign intelligence
agency, or a corrupt tribunal official, was able to infiltrate one guy
into the prison who mixed the drug into Milosevic's food or into some
of his other medicines.

Whatever their intentions might have been, Milosevic is dead, and
those responsible must be held legally accountable. Clearly, Mr.
Robinson, Mr. Kwon, and Mr. Bonomy bear the most responsibility
because it was their decision that denied him the medical care he
urgently needed in Moscow.

The doctors who knew that the Rifampicin was in his blood, but didn't
tell him for two months must also be held accountable, and the prison
officials who allowed the drug to be smuggled into the prison must
also be held responsible. If nothing else they were negligent in their
duty to keep non-prescribed drugs out of the prison.

                                   Serbian News Network - SNN

                                        news@antic.org

                                    http://www.antic.org/

He lived and died for us and for a better world

"If we cannot convict you on our lies, we will at least make sure you don't
get out alive"

http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/010149.html


'''''''''''''''''''

To the Family of President Slobodan Milosevic:

When I heard the news that Slobodan Milosevic had died I did not want to
believe it. I did not want to believe that evil had triumphed over good, or
that the evil that had been done to this brave and beautiful man could have
finally killed him.  When I heard it again on the news, my heart sank and I
was deeply sad. His spirit and brilliant mind were indomitable, but his body
was destroyed by the conditions of his arrest and the willful decision by
the Hague Tribunal to let him die in prison rather than receive the medical
treatment they knew he needed. And why proceed with a trial in which he had
already proven his innocence? So in the end this is how the Hague Tribunal
has made its mark on history - with the negligent homicide of Slobodan
Milosevic.

Slobodan Milosevic was not easy to destroy; Slobodan Milosevic was killed
three times. The first time was when they destroyed the country he loved and
lived for - Yugoslavia. The second time was with character assassination,
the preferred weapon of nameless cowards, criminals and liars. The trial
itself did not kill him. He vindicated himself, his country and his people.
He lived and died for us. What more can you say about a man? But ultimately
with no better option before it, the ICTY decided to choke the life out of
him by depriving him of the essential medical care he needed to survive.

My father was also killed by negligence and so I know the bitterness one
feels after such an event. But you can take solace in the fact that Slobo
died a martyr's death. He fought to defend his country, his nation, and a
progressive socialist vision of humanity against the onslaught of a
militarist and imperialist alliance of puppets and puppeteers. He was killed
not because he was a nationalist, but precisely because he believed in
multinationalist unity and justice and a just economic order inimical to the
interests of multinational corporations and their financial and political
institutions. He is the most famous and most courageous Serb of our time.
And in light of the evidence presented at his trial, history will have to
acquit him of all of the monstrous allegations made against him which the
ICTY would not do even though they knew he was not guilty as charged.

Finally, as you know, I had the privilege of meeting President Milosevic
several times. He had great intelligence, warmth, sense of humor and wit,
wisdom, kindness and charm that I will never forget as long as I live. He
was so strong and energetic despite his illness. The prison nurses came
frequently during my visits and reported the news - 240 over 80 or worse.
How did he survive it so long? He was amazing in every way. And then there
was his smile and his penetrating stare which gave you detailed messages
with a single look.

As I said before, he lived and died for us and for a better world. I know
you are proud of him. I feel the same way. And one day I hope the whole
world will feel this way too. If there is a better future, it will.

Barry Lituchy, New York City, 11 March 2006

''''''''''''''

Slobo back to Belgrade
http://today.reuters.com/tv/videoStory.aspx?isSummitStory=false&storyId=2be1
029ead5363bb7c05ed6a9c8442804ae9a0d6


Belgrade getting ready to bid final farewell to Slobodan Milosevic
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=4630027&PageNum=0

Scabegoat RIP (J Bisset)

 

National Post (f/k/a The Financial Post) (Canada)
March 15, 2006 Wednesday
                           All but Toronto Edition

ISSUES & IDEAS

HEADLINE: Scapegoat, R.I.P.

BY: James Bissett, National Post


Slobodan Milosevic's obituaries are damning. In death, as in the last years
of his life, the former Serbian president is being blamed for all of the death
and destruction that accompanied the breakup of the Yugoslav Federation in the
early 1990s. He has been described as the "Butcher of the Balkans." He is
accused of masterminding four wars, of committing genocide and ethnic cleansing.
These charges have been repeated so many times that they have become part of
received wisdom. Yet the facts tell a different story.

Two weeks ago I travelled to The Hague to appear as a witness in defence of
Milosevic at his war-crimes trial. We met in his cell for two days, going over
my testimony.

On the first day, he seemed relaxed and in good health. On the second day,
following several hours of discussions, he suddenly became flushed and appeared
to be ill. I asked if he was alright, and he said he was OK, but then explained
that he suffered from a terrible ringing in his ears. The prison doctors had
told him it was "psychological," but finally agreed to a MRI, which revealed
that an abnormal artery was affecting his hearing. He told me he did not believe
he was getting adequate medical attention in the prison, and wanted to get
specialist treatment in Moscow, but tribunal officials had refused.

He regarded the presiding body -- the UN's International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia -- as a political court set up to make him the
scapegoat for everything that had gone wrong in Yugoslavia. He was aware that
there was, in effect, a Western news blackout of anything revealed during the
trial that was favourable to his case. And he was also resigned to the reality
that he would be found guilty.

I have been asked often why I was willing to appear as a witness for a man
branded by the media as another Hitler. The answer is simple. His prosecution
was the most important war-crimes trial since the Nuremberg Trials of leading
Nazis following the Second World War. It was important that the presumption of
innocence be maintained, and it was equally important that those with relevant
information appear at the court so that their evidence could be heard. I was in
Belgrade as Canada's ambassador during the critical early stages of the Yugoslav
breakup drama, and I was not prepared to remain silent about what I observed.

Even in the early days, it was apparent that most of the media reporting
about the cause and course of the Yugoslav fighting was biased. In effect, the
Serbs had been branded as the bad guys, and any news developments were
interpreted on that basis.

But it was not the Serbians and "Slobo" who started the wars in Yugoslavia.
The fighting started because Slovenia, then a Yugoslav republic, declared
unilateral independence and used force to seize customs posts along the Austrian
border.

The federal prime minister of Yugoslavia, Ante Markovic, who happened to be a
Croatian, ordered the army into Slovenia to restore order. The army was met by
armed resistance and retired to barracks in Croatia to avoid further bloodshed.
The Croatian security and paramilitary forces then surrounded the federal
barracks and fighting broke out in Croatia. At this time, Milosevic, as
president of Serbia, had no control over the federal army. (Incidentally, the
federal minister of defence at the time was also a Croatian, as was the foreign
minister.)

Later, when the army lost all of its non-Serbian soldiers, it did become a
Serb-dominated force. But when the federal government collapsed, it was none
other than Milosevic who ordered all Serbian soldiers out of Bosnia. (At the
time I was asked to call upon him to congratulate him for this decision.) From
the outset of the violence sweeping across Yugoslavia, Milosevic was a key
player in all of the peace plans that were proposed. Had it not been for him,
the 1995 Dayton peace agreement could not have taken place. He was heralded then
by U.S. secretary of state Madeline Albright as a man of peace.

Although the war crimes Tribunal was set up in 1993, it was not until the
bombing of Kosovo five years later that a hurried indictment was issued against
Milosevic on charges of genocide. Yet the forensic teams that searched for
evidence of this genocide in Kosovo have so far discovered fewer than 3,000
bodies -- bad enough, but not genocide.

Milosevic was a communist party boss. He was an apparatchik and an
opportunist interested in holding on to his power, prestige and privileges. He
was not an ardent Serbian nationalist and I believe had little interest in a
"greater Serbia." As the president of Serbia, he was forced to display sympathy
to his fellow Serbians in Bosnia and Croatia, but he did not have authority over
them. He was prepared to help them battle brutally for land and power, but he
was also prepared to sell them out if it was to his own advantage.

There are many Serbians who despise him for that. It is unfortunate that he
died before being given the chance to set down his side of the story. Now we
only have his opponent's version of events.

GRAPHIC: Black & White
Photo: Eric Miller, Reuters; From left, president Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia,
president Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and president Franjo Tudjman
of Croatia sign the Dayton peace accord on Nov. 21, 1995.

                         Copyright 2006 National Post
                             All Rights Reserved

MILOSEVIC'S DEATH: A Political Assassination Blamed on the Victim

 

MILOSEVIC'S DEATH: A POLITICAL ASSASSINATION BLAMED ON THE
VICTIM

By Sara Flounders
Co-Director, International Action Center

In the summer of 2004 I met with former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic in Scheveningen prison when I was
approved as a defense witness. Before I could get in, I
had to pass four totally separate check points, unable to
take in anything but papers. Each level of security was
more rigid than the one before.

No one who has met with President Milosevic over the past
four years would believe he would risk killing himself
rather than finishing his trial. And no one who visited
Scheveningen in The Hague would believe the outlandish
claims that somehow he was able to smuggle in
un-prescribed medications on a regular basis. They would
instead suspect that the authorities were desperately
trying to cover up their own crimes.

My role as witness was based on my trip to Yugoslavia in
the spring of 1999, during the 78-day U.S./NATO bombing. I
visited bombed schools, hospitals, heating plants and
market places, recording the harm done to civilians. In
addition, I had written since 1993 on the
behind-the-scenes U.S. role in the strangulation and
forced dismemberment of Yugoslavia.

Even after my name was accepted as a defense witness, it
was a complicated and lengthy procedure to make the visit.
Though all was approved on the day of the visit, it still
took four hours to get through the checkpoints into the
special unit inside the prison where the defendants for
the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) were kept totally segregated from
general population and closely monitored.

Scheveningen prison is a maximum-security high-tech
facility. Milosevic and other indicted prisoners are
housed in a special prison unit within the larger prison.
This section is spread over four floors with 12 cells
each. The unit is specially patrolled by United Nations
guards. Cameras are everywhere. Every movement of the
prisoners is monitored and controlled. When the president
was first placed in his cell, lights were kept on 24 hours
a day and every motion was monitored.

WHERE DID RIFAMPICIN COME FROM?

Now the Dutch authorities claim that Milosevic was taking
a rare, difficult-to-acquire antibiotic used to treat
leprosy or tuberculosis that has the unique ability to
counteract the medicine he was taking to control his high
blood pressure. How did this medicine, rifampicin, get
into Milosevic's system? He was held in a maximum security
prison in triple lock down in a special contained unit
within a larger Dutch prison once used by the Nazis to
detain Dutch resistance fighters.

When rifampicin was found last Jan. 12 in Milosevic's
blood, the ICTY kept the report of the blood tests secret,
even from Milosevic and his doctors, who were complaining
that something terribly wrong was damaging the defendant's
health. While the prisoner and his defense committee and
assistant lawyers were demanding health information, the
ICTY officials sat on this report. If ICTY officials
responsible for Milosevic's health really believed he was
sneaking toxic medications into the prison, why hadn't
they publicized this report much earlier?

DELAYS HURT MILOSEVIC

Equally outlandish are the claims that Milosevic staged
his illness to delay the trial. The prosecution delayed
the trial, first by adding charges against the president
regarding Croatia and Bosnia when they realized they had
no war-crimes case on the original Kosovo charges, then by
bringing hundreds of witnesses to generate 500,000 pages
of prosecution testimony from February 2002 to February
2004.

Each time Milosevic was too sick to continue in court, the
prosecution moved to impose counsel and to take away the
prisoner's right to present his own defense. Milosevic was
determined to use the trial as a platform to defend not
only himself but the people of Yugoslavia, and to indict
the U.S., Germany and the NATO powers for their role in
the criminal destruction of his country. He welcomed the
trial as the only platform where he could make the
historical record. In his words to the court he constantly
described why, despite his bad health, he was determined
to continue.

When I met Milosevic it was in the special room that was
the only place where the ICTY allowed him to work or have
the court papers to prepare for his defense. Whenever his
blood pressure rose and he was unable to continue the
court sessions, he was also barred from any access to his
defense materials.

During each step of the trial Milosevic's cardiovascular
problems, especially his high blood pressure had resulted
in several delays in the trial. At each step the ICTY
officials tried to use the issue of his health in constant
efforts to deny him the right to conduct his own defense.
Neither the illness nor the delays helped his defense.

The ICTY charged that Milosevic was secretly medicating
himself and avoiding taking prescribed medicines.
Milosevic answered this charge himself for the court
record on Sept. 1, 2004: "You probably don't know the
practice in your own Detention Unit. I take my medication
in the presence of guards. I'm given them. I take them in
the presence of the guard, and the guard writes down in
the book the exact time when I ingested those medicines."

Despite the life-threatening cardiovascular risk raised in
every dispute with the prosecution, tribunal officials
refused even to secure regular check-ups of the
president's health condition. They also denied access for
months to specialists who were willing to come to
Scheveningen, delaying his care.

The president's own explanation of his problem was more
consistent and credible than the ICTY's. In a letter
addressed to the Russian Embassy two days before he died,
Milosevic writes that he has taken no antibiotics in more
than four years. He asks why the medical report on the
discovery of rifampicin was kept secret from him for
almost two months. He writes that he believes that "active
steps are being taken to destroy my health." He warns that
he is sure he is being poisoned and that his life is in
danger.

A POLITICAL TRIBUNAL

The ICTY's handling of President Milosevic's death has
been like its handling of the entire trial: an attempt to
blame the victim for the crime.

The ICTY is not a real international court, with the
ability to try any accused war criminal. It is a political
court set up by the UN Security Council at the insistence
of Secretary of State Madeline Albright in 1993 in
violation of the UN Charter. Its scope is limited to
trying the peoples of the former Yugoslavia and the vast
majority of prisoners are Serbs. It is a propaganda
apparatus and internment camp for political prisoners
disguised as an unbiased court. It aims to punish the
victims for the crimes committed against them and to
absolve the imperialist powers who invaded, bombed,
dismembered and forced the privatization of the Socialist
Federation of Yugoslavia.

When Milosevic discussed the trial with me, his scope of
historical knowledge, his energy despite his illness, cut
through my own jet-lag and fatigue from the four-hour
entrance hurdle and allowed us to finish the interview
with enthusiasm for the next step of the tribunal.

Now the world is asked to believe that Milosevic is
responsible for his own death. It is a scenario so
incredibly complex, an elaborate suicide story that is as
improbable as the charges he was facing. The
bought-and-paid-for corporate media is accepting and
propagating the story of his death in the same servile
fashion they accepted the very existence of this illegal
court and the justification for the destruction of
Yugoslavia.

Milosevic is now gone. But his summation answering two
years of the prosecution case and his opening defense
speech live on. He has left a ringing indictment of U.S.
and European big-power intervention in the Balkans in a
historic document in an "I accuse" format. His speech,
which contains extensive documentation and factual detail,
has been published in Serbian, Greek, French, Russian and
English. This response, "The Defense Speaks-for History
and the Future," (IAC 2006) will stand long after the
tawdry war propaganda has collapsed.

Russia: Milosevic's Death Sparks Fury With UN Tribunal

Russia: Milosevic's Death Sparks Fury With UN Tribunal
By Claire Bigg
 
Milosevic's wife, Mira Markovic, lives in Russia
(epa)

The lower house of Russia's parliament on March 15 lashed out at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, blaming it for the death of late Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and calling for its dissolution. Over the past few days, a number of high-ranking political figures have spoken harshly against the court. What is behind Russian anger at Milosevic's death?


MOSCOW, March 16, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Russian deputies unanimously approved a statement accusing the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of systematically applying double standards and bias since its creation in 1993.

The statement, which is not legally binding, dismisses the court as "useless" and says it is "essential" that it be immediately disbanded.

Konstantin Kosachyov, the head of the Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee and the man who drafted the statement, accused the international court of being anti-Serb.

"The problem with the Hague tribunal is that, in line with a higher political task given to it, it has established once and for all who the criminals are and that they are in Serbia, while NATO is -- like Caesar's wife -- above suspicion," Kosachyov said.

The statement came just days after the sudden death of Milosevic, who was found dead in his cell at The Hague on March 11. An autopsy has revealed he succumbed to a heart attack.

Charges

Milosevic had been in custody since 2001. He was standing trial on 66 charges that included genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo in the 1990s.

The death of Milosevic before the pronouncement of a final verdict came as a severe disappointment to many, not least his prosecutors and victims.

Russia, however, has other reasons for being upset at Milosevic's passing.

The former Yugoslav leader had fervent supporters among the Russian political establishment, particularly among nationalists and communists.

Speaking to RFE/RL's Russian Service, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov cast serious doubt on the UN tribunal's legitimacy: "Even the most pro-American forces in Russia are now silent and ashamed, because they understand that today it's Milosevic, and tomorrow they may get to you. I think all responsible politicians and citizens are seriously asking themselves what kind of tribunal this is, what kind of mock trial, what kind of procedures these are, when one is interrogated hundreds of times for eight or 10 hours. This is enough to push anyone to a heart attack and to death."

On March 15, a group of communists in St. Petersburg wrote to President Vladimir Putin to request that a street be renamed after Milosevic and a bust of him be erected in the city.

Slav Brothers

Russia and Serbia have close historical ties, are both predominantly Orthodox Christian, and have been allies in most of the 20th century's armed conflicts. Business ties between both countries also run deep.

Testifying to these warm relations, Moscow is currently home to Milosevic's wife, son, and brother Borislav Milosevic, who served as Yugoslav ambassador to Russia between 1998 and 2000.

The Kremlin's strong aversion to international rights watchdogs, which it accuses of meddling in Russia's internal affairs, may also explain such passionate calls for the dissolution of the tribunal. Some suggest that the Russian authorities may also fear being hauled one day before The Hague tribunal for crimes against civilians in war-torn Chechnya.

Many in Russia blame the UN tribunal for Milosevic's death.

In its statement March 15, the State Duma called for an independent international inquiry into the circumstances of his death. Deputies accused the court of "negligence or malicious intent."

The statement echoed earlier comments by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who on March 13 slammed the court for denying Milosevic permission to seek heart treatment in Moscow: "The Russian Federation provided the tribunal with 100 percent state guarantees that after the completion of the treatment Milosevic would return to The Hague. Those guarantees were examined during a special session of the tribunal, which found them insufficient. Essentially they did not believe Russia. This can only disturb us. It can only worry us that Milosevic passed away shortly afterwards."

Lavrov also said the late Yugoslav leader had sent a letter to the Foreign Ministry three days before dying. In the letter, he reportedly complained the treatment he was receiving in The Hague was harming him.

The foreign minister dispatched a team of Russian doctors earlier this week to check the findings of the official autopsy. The Russian medical team later endorsed those findings, but raised questions about what might have caused the heart attack that killed Milosevic.

Defense Witnesses

This storm of accusations is unlikely to come as much of a surprise to The Hague.

Anton Nikiforov, the chief adviser to the UN's chief war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, told RFE/RL's Russian Service that Russia has consistently refused to cooperate with the tribunal: "We have asked Russia for certain documents connected to the Milosevic cases and to other cases, but we almost never received anything. Milosevic had high-ranking witnesses from Russia. When we asked these witnesses whether they were ready to show us some of the written documents supporting their testimonies -- since these documents obviously had an official or confidential character -- no one has been able to show them to us."

Three Russian defense witnesses appeared at Milosevic's defense trial -- two former Russian premiers, Yevgeny Primakov and Nikolai Ryzhkov, and General Leonid Ivashov, who once headed the Defense Ministry's International Department.

Milosevic was the sixth person charged with war crimes in the Balkans to die at The Hague. A week earlier, former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic, who had been a key prosecution witness against Milosevic, committed suicide in the same prison.

He had been sentenced in 2004 to 13 years in prison for crimes against humanity after pleading guilty to persecuting the non-Serb population in Croatia's Krajina region.



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