Tlahui-Politic. No. 7, I/1999
Lawyers Charge Nato Leaders Before War Crimes Tribunal
Información enviada al Director de Tlahui. USA-Yugoslavia a 8 de Mayo, 1999.
Lawyers Charge Nato Leaders Before War Crimes Tribunal.Press Release May 7, 1999.
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 group, lead by professors from Osgoode
Hall Law School of York University in Toronto --where Tribunal
prosecutor Louise Arbour was also a professor before becoming a judge --
have 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 Nuremberg 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 Statute, 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, spokesman for the group of complainants, said
in Toronto today: "The bombing of civilians is not only immoral, it is
criminal and punishable under the laws governing the Tribunal. 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 won't feel so free
to spill other peoples' blood."
From: For further information please contact: Toronto: Professor Michael
Mandel ( telephone 416-736-5039 e-mail mmandel@yorku.ca or David Jacobs
telephone 416-539---e-mail david@ShellJacobs.com - in Geneva: Alejandro
Teitelbaum, e-mail Assemjur@aol.com
Michel Chossudovsky Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa Member
of the Ad Hoc Committee to Stop Canada's Participation in the War in
Yugoslavia. Voice 613-5625800, Ext. 1415 email chossudovsky@sprint.ca
On Kosovo: http://www.transnational.org/features/crimefinansed.html
On the break-up of Yugoslavia: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/62/022.html
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