[A-List] ICDSM on Wesley Clark Testifying

[Macdonald Stainsby <mstainsby@xxxxxxxxx>]

War Criminal to Testify In Secret: Toronto Lawyers Object

We deplore the fact that US General Wesley Clark is being called by the
Prosecution to testify at the Milosevic trial before the International
Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague on December 15,
2003.

General Wesley K. Clark was commander of NATO and chief of US forces in
Europe during the NATO attack on Yugoslavia in 1999.  This attack was
unlawful.  In 1999 a group of lawyers and legal academics drafted a Request
that the Prosecutor for the ICTY investigate and indict named persons
including General Clark for war crimes in connection with the attack on
Yugoslavia.  This was only one of many such requests and demands from
thousands of individuals around the world. The attack was a war crime of the
highest magnitude.  The Nuremberg tribunal held that the instigation of a
war of aggression or a war contrary to international treaties was the most
serious war crime - a crime against the peace - and one which contained
within it the combined evil of all of the other enumerated war crimes.  The
NATO attack on Yugoslavia was undertaken in violation of the UN Charter,
without UN approval and was thus a crime against the peace.

Professor Michael Mandel and David Jacobs presented a detailed brief to
Chief Prosecutor Del Ponte demonstrating that General Clark's actions in
Yugoslavia fit the definition of war crimes, crimes against the peace and
crimes against humanity.  There was overwhelming evidence that the attack
was unlawful and that the conduct of the attack on civilian objects breached
the Geneva Conventions.  Regrettably, the Prosecution has laid no charges to
date, despite the fact that General Clark has publicly admitted that the war
was unlawful.

Now this unindicted war criminal is being allowed to use the ICTY as a
vehicle for his electoral ambitions, and is being furnished with the ideal
conditions for so doing: none can report on his testimony, or how his
evidence stands up under cross-examination.  The power of the US Government
is manifest here, as it has successfully demanded that a Tribunal, bound to
hold fair and public trials, violate the fundamental rule that justice must
be seen to be done.  No interest in a fair trial is served, only US
interests.  Yugoslav interests were ignored as the Tribunal extradited
President Milosevic to stand trial in The Hague contrary to its constitution
and to the rulings of Yugoslavia's highest court.

The administration of justice is brought into disrepute by permitting the
likes of Clark  to testify at all, let alone behind closed doors.
Unfortunately this is only one of the many examples of disreputable justice
administered in this trial.

David Jacobs, Christopher Black, Professor Michael Mandel, Charles Roach,
December 12, 2003, Toronto

For further information contact David Jacobs 416-539-0226 ext. 202
__________________________________________________________


The Hague, 15 September 2003

8:00 a.m. Demonstrations in front of the Tribunal

9:00 a.m. ICDSM Press Conference at Bel Air Hotel
                  ICDSM lawyer Tiphaine Dickson will give a statement
and answer questions of the press
______________________________________________________________________


--
Macdonald Stainsby
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
In the contradiction lies the hope
		--Brecht.