The trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague has restarted after a three week break, caused by Milosevic's illness. A few days later, in New York, the go-ahead was given to the setting up of a permanent war crimes tribunal after a further ten states ratified the Rome treaty, which establishes the International Criminal Court. The court will come into existence on I July.
The setting up of the court was greeted by a standing ovation in the crowded chamber. However, the United States' seat was empty. The US boycotted the ceremony, just as it has not attended meetings preparing for the court's operations since last year.
Former President Clinton signed the treaty during his administration, but the United States has refused to ratify it. Two weeks ago the Bush administration said it was considering 'unsigning' the treaty to stress that it won't be bound by its provisions. The US government wants to exempt U.S. soldiers and officials from the court, claiming that the US will be subjected to 'frivolous and politically motivated' prosecutions.
Although Tony Blair has enthusiastically welcomed the court, his differences with Bush are more apparent than real. Blair's support for the international court is simply a continuation of his paternalistic and fundamentally imperialist view of the world.
Blair sees the court essentially as punishing only those who British and American governments brand as war criminals. He, would, no doubt, denounce any attempts to indict British or US politicians or military personnel for war crimes, as 'frivolous and politically motivated'.
So, in Blair's eyes, it is perfectly acceptable to indict Milosevic but not to indict all those in successive British and American governments who encouraged him in his brutal wars and, until Kosova, continued to present him as the most important part of the solution to the break-up of former Yugoslavia. Bush and Blair allow him to live) but not the officers and US government officials who helped organise the coup which brought Saddam to power and who sustained him throughout his ten year war. with Iran.
Despite their differences over the setting up of the international court, both Bush and Blair believe that the government and military of the United States have the right to do whatever they like, whenever they like and wherever they like -without being held accountable. Nauseating hypocrisy (and total capitulation to Washington's diktats) is, of course, Blair's stock in trade. So Robert Mugabe is denounced for a fraudulent election victory based on intimidation, violence and removal of voters from the electoral roll, while Blair has never once raised the intimidation. violence, removal of voters from the electoral role (as well as the discounting of "hanging chads') used in Florida to ensure the election of George Bush to the Presidency. Yet, if there were any justice in the world, the international criminal court would be immediately issuing arrest warrants for Henry Kissinger for war crimes in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Chile and East Timor. Or perhaps they could start with the mastermind of the United States' dirty wars in Central America, John Negroponte. He shouldn't even be too hard to find, since he is the current United States ambassador to the UN.
Ariel Sharon and Vladimir Putin would also be under indictment for their crimes in Lebanon, He's on trial: but Henry Kissinger walks free Palestine and Chechnya, as would all those responsible for the massacre of nearly one million Indonesians in the 1960s - including the staff of the US embassy who handed over lists of 'subversives' to the Indonesian military.
Unfortunately, the chances of the international criminal court indicting any of these butchers are zero. Bringing those responsible for the murders of millions of people in Asia and Latin America to justice would be viewed as frivolous and politically motivated'. Socialist Outlook has consistently argued that Milosevic is guilty of war crimes. We have called for him to be put or. trial to answer for those crimes. However, we have always argued that he should be judged by the people of former the hold of nationalism. in Serbia. ernments decided he was a war criminal. to do business with Milosevic. put into prosecuting him and the trial has received considerable publicity. Far less Yugoslavia. nal court. murderer. Yugoslavia. Firstly, because they were Milosevic's 5s. victims: secondly, because this was the best way • 1ld to break large numbers of people in Serbia from de The trial in the Hague, however, is simply he another example of the hypocrisy of British and US governments... and not only because they have made sure that NATO will not have to he answer for the war crimes its forces committed ,2, Indeed, it was only when it was clear that Milosevic could no longer guarantee stability, and unleashed the war in Kosova, that western govIf there had been no war in Kosova then Milosevic would never have been charged with war crimes in Croatia or Bosnia. They would have been quietly swept under the carpet as western governments and corporations looked There is another repugnant aspect to the trial of Milosevic. Considerable resources have been resources have gone into the other international war crime tribunal - Rwanda. Yet vastly greater numbers were killed in Rwanda than in former The conclusion is inescapable: the killing of Europeans is considered a much greater crime than the killing of Africans. And that, too, is likely to be the attitude of the new international crimiHowever, we can at least make clear our rejection of Bush and Blair's hypocrisy on 24 April when arch war criminal Kissinger visits London to give the Institute of Directors the benefit of his wisdom attained during his career as a mass
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