Canadian criminal law attorney Christopher Black, besides being an experienced legal practitioner who has handled cases in international ad hoc tribunals both at the Hague and in Rwanda, maintains a keen interest in the circumstances which brought about the bloody dismemberment of Yugoslavia. Srebrenica is a key component of those complex historical events. The text that follows is Mr. Black’s take on Andy Wilcoxson’s book about the destruction of Yugoslavia and events that took place in Srebrenica in July of 1995. As a trial lawyer with a duty to vigorously represent his client while relying on accepted legal principles of proof, Mr. Black expresses reservations about author Wilcoxson’s readiness to concede some points of the prosecution’s Srebrenica case. In criminal law, the standard of proof is beyond reasonable doubt and viewed from that standpoint Srebrenica prosecution evidence indeed leaves much to be desired. The historian, of course, bases his conclusions on a standard of proof which is considerably looser. Either way, Chistopher Black’s review of Andy Wilcoxson’s “Joint Criminal Enterprise” makes for stimulating reading which should whet the appetite to read the book in its entirety.
Andy Wilcoxson’s book, with a foreword by Julia Gorin, sets out to demolish the NATO propaganda used to justify the NATO aggression against and destruction of Yugoslavia and succeeds, not only in doing that but in reminding the world of the real history of events; of how a European nation, a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement, the unified expression of the Slavic peoples and their culture, the last socialist, progressive country in Europe was torn apart and finally brutally attacked and occupied and reduced to a collection of vassal ministates by the United States and its NATO allies.
As Julia Gorin states, the same propaganda, the same types of lies have been used since then by the United States and NATO to attack, invade, occupy and destroy other nations, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and is being used to justify aggression against Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, China and any other nation that will not bend to the will of the international mafia that has its headquarters in Washington. To understand the fate of Yugoslavia is to understand the methods and intentions of the aggressor nations, and by understanding, to be able to defend against them.
A key element of the American aggression is propaganda. The Soviets proposed at the UN in the 1950s that propaganda designed to create hatred and hostile feelings in the population against another nation to create the conditions for war be made a war crime. But the United States and Canada blocked the move. We know why.
A Western Myth: Slobodan Milosevic’s Nationalistic Ambitions of A “Greater Serbia”
The first chapter of the book describes the propaganda campaign against the government of Yugoslavia, and against President Milosevic in particular, which attempted to demonise him and his government with false claims that Milosevic was only interested in creating a “greater Serbia” and oppressing the peoples of the other republics of Yugoslavia. This big lie was not only used to justify the NATO attack in 1999, it was also made the focus of the show trial President Milosevic was forced to endure at the hands of these new fascists. The lie was aimed not only at him, and his government. It was imperative for the NATO fascists to destroy socialism in Yugoslavia and try to discredit it as they have tried the world over.
To justify their aggression, these criminals invented terms such as “humanitarian intervention” and “responsibility to protect,” joint criminal responsibility” quasi-legal terms which have no foundation in international law and which are in fact phrases designed to fool the people into supporting aggression, colonialism, and imperialism. They are complete negations of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
Wilcoxon sets out in detail the truth about the policies of President Milosevic which had the objective of trying to keep the multi-ethnic republic of Yugoslavia intact and prospering. He uses Milosevic’s own words, reports from the media at the time, and the evidence produced at the show trial; where even the NATO prosecutor, Geoffrey Nice, had to admit that Milosevic never advocated a greater Serbia in his speeches. It is interesting that we now see Geoffrey Nice brought in again to serve the US and NATO with his so-called “peoples’ tribunal,” recently staged in London, to accuse China of fabricated crimes against the Uighurs in China, assisted by Stephen Rapp, the former prosecutor at the Rwanda tribunal involved in the murder of a key witness and former US ambassador for war crimes. They are trying to create a myth about China just as the Greater Serbia myth was created about the Serbs. The power of propaganda when used by an aggressor with a controlled media at its beck and call is as destructive as the weapons in their military arsenals.
In the case of Yugoslavia, the Wilcoxon cites numerous examples from the western media in the US, France, Germany, Ireland, the UK, Canada of the use of propaganda; of their readiness to propagate the narrative they had been handed by NATO, and then demolishes all the claims with the actual words of Milosevic and the policies adopted by him and his government, proving beyond doubt that he was neither a Serb nationalist, nor a monster, but a man dedicated to the future of the all the Yugoslav peoples in one shared socialist republic.
He then examines, in a series of tragic chapters, the causes of the break-up of Yugoslavia, the false narratives constructed by the west about those causes and the events that took place.
He begins with Chapter 2 on the case of Slovenia, the first republic to break away and whose forces committed the first war crime; the execution of federal troops who had surrendered to Slovene militias, believing they would be treated in accordance with the laws of war.
He traces back the root causes of the breakup to the fact that Slovenia was industrialised to a greater extent by the federal republic and had a better economy than other republics, a circumstance that created nationalist sentiments in Slovenia which were then exacerbated by the financial problems the federal republic developed in the 1980s. The Slovenes no longer wanted to contribute to the national budget and economy and began to think they would do better on their own. It was not Milosevic or the Serbs who caused it the split, but the Slovenes, and as Wilcoxon sums up,
“The Slovenes seceded from Yugoslavia for their own economic and nationalistic reasons. Slovenia was not the victim of armed aggression. Slovenia instigated the war with its flagrant disregard for the Yugoslav constitution and its forcible seizure of Yugoslav border crossings.”
The conflict arose when Slovenia declared its independence illegally and immediately seized control of all the border control points at the borders with Hungary, Austria and Italy. In effect, they seized control of all the routes for Yugoslavia imports from and exports to the rest of Europe. The federal forces tried to prevent this but failed. And Wilcoxon points out that in any case, Milosevic had nothing to do with sending in federal troops, as he was not president of Yugoslavia at the time, but president of Serbia, and had no power to do so.
Chapter 3 examines the causes and events concerning Croatia’s break from the federal republic beginning with the tragic history of Croatian support for the invading Germany Nazi forces in World War Two, the fascist history of Croatia, the war crimes its forces committed during the world war against Serbs, Jews and Gypsies, the concentration camps, and the support those fascists continued to receive from the West after WWII when Croatia was restored to Yugoslavia.
The history of the fascist political leaders of Croatia, their racism, extreme nationalism, their readiness to kill anyone who got in their way, is set out in detail, as is the rise of Croat nationalism in the 1970’s and 80’s during which Croatian nationalists committed a number of terrorists attacks in Yugoslavia, Europe, the USA and Canada, all having the objective of forcing Yugoslavia to give up its control of Croatia.
More sinister is the evidence that Wilcoxon provides that Germany and the USA supplied arms, ammunition and military advisers to Croat paramilitary forces who attacked Yugoslav federal forces during the period 1990-1995 when their leader, Tudjman, an outright fascist, who time and again talks of massacring Serbs to eliminate them from Croatia, finally and illegally declared Croatia’s independence. This illegal declaration caused a reaction among the Serbs living in the republic who remembered how the Croat fascists had slaughtered Serbs in the 1940s, slaughters so terrible that even the Germans had difficulty stomaching them. The Serbs refused to live under this fascist threat and so declared their areas independent of Croatia and still a part of Yugoslavia. War began.
The history of what followed will disgust anyone who learns of it; the several operations to cleanse Serbs, that is drive then out or exterminate them, including Operation Flash, and Operation Storm, which was planned by US Army officers in league with the Croat fascists, on orders from President Clinton, the numerous atrocities committed against civilians, documented by Canadian soldiers, who were shocked at what they saw, including the brutal war crimes of Agim Ceku, who become president of Kosovo.
Ethnic hatred was used to divide the people. Foreign intervention divided the nation. Germany forced the European Commission to illegally recognize Croatian secession. The United States provided military support to the Croatian government.
The fascists of Croatia had their motivations for all this killing. The USA and NATO had theirs. As Wilcoxon writes,
“On May 31, 1997, President Clinton stated, “The bottom line is clear: Expanding NATO will enhance our security. It is the right thing to do.”
A resolution drafted by the US Council of State Governments and published by the US State Department in 1998 said,
“NATO Enlargement is the stated goal of US foreign policy, demonstrating responsible US engagement in global affairs in pursuit of vital US security and commercial interests.”
NATO accomplished their objective of eastward expansion in the Balkans by destroying non-aligned Yugoslavia and subjugating its successor states. All of Yugoslavia’s former republics are now either members of NATO, candidates for NATO membership, or have NATO troops occupying their territory.
Chapter 4 sets out the tragic history of Bosnia-Herzegovina as Muslim fundamentalists, led by a former convict who had associated himself with the Nazi Handzar Divisions in WWII, Izetbegovic, seized power illegally and in 1992 pulled Bosnia out of the Yugoslav Federation.
The detailed narrative Wilcoxson provides provided reveals the layers of illegality involved, including the fact that Izetbegovic did not win the elections that he claimed made him president of the Bosnian republic, and the complicated series of events that led to the establishment of the republic and the reaction to that by the Serbs in Bosnia, led by Karadzic, who set up a Serb republic, the Republic of Srpska, in Bosnia, in reaction. Wilcoxon shows that it was Fikret Abdic, a Muslim, but one interested in good relations with the Serbs and the FRY, who rejected the fundamentalist project of creating a strict Muslim state, who won the election, but was not allowed to take office. Abdic represented a significant number of Muslims in western Bosnia who wanted nothing to do with Izetbegovic and his fanaticism.
But Izetbegovic, the muslim fanatic with fascist views, was supported by the USA, and perhaps, not surprisingly, by Iran, which supplied much of his forces armaments. He was also supported by Osama Bin Laden, who was operating with American forces there, with whom he met several times.
I have to add here that President Milosevic told me in 2001 just after the 911 attack in New York City that the American claim that Bin Laden attacked the USA was unbelievable since the Yugoslav intelligence services had detected Bin Laden’s presence in Bosnia during that war and later in Kosovo at different times, working under US Army command, and as late as 1998-99. It made no sense to President Milosevic, nor to myself, that a man working so closely with the US Army as late as 1999, supporting their objectives, would suddenly turn on the hand that fed him months later.
In any event, the rest of the chapter provides a detailed narrative of the events during the war in Bosnia, the role of the west, and the use of false flag attacks on Muslims by their own forces, to discredit the Serbs and obtain more western support, a narrative that bears close attention to understand the ability of the west and their proxies to commit crimes against civilians in order to create propaganda. The ruthlessness, the immorality of it all, is staggering. But their ruthlessness does not end with the crimes they committed. It also involves fabricating crimes to justify US actions against Yugoslavia. Srebrenica is one of the most egregious of these fabrications.
Chapter 5 examines the claims of a massacre by General Mladic’s Serb forces at Srebrenica. But here I diverge from Mr. Wilcoxon. He states that
.“Nobody denies that a massacre took place.” And that, “Slobodan Milosevic described the massacre as an “insane crime.”
Neither of these statements is correct. General Mladic, whose family consulted me on defending him against the charges regarding Srebrenica, stated that his forces did not massacre prisoners as alleged. Dutch marines, who were present in the town told me in 2001 in The Netherlands that no such massacre ever took place and they had been scapegoated for a crime that never happened in order to support US propaganda.
President Milosevic made the statement he did because he did not accept the claims at all, that it would have been insane to do such a thing.
In fact, no reliable and credible evidence has ever been presented at the Yugoslav tribunal supporting the NATO allegations. The charges rest on a few witnesses who are notorious liars. Yet, no one who watches the video recording of the meeting between General Mladic and the UN commanders on site the day before the alleged massacre, to arrange for the safe passage of civilians put of the area and the possible surrender of the Muslim forces, can believe that Mladic and his men committed massacres. The videos of the meeting at the Fontana Hotel are on YouTube and I invite everyone to watch them. It is clear Mladic had no such intentions and was in command of his men.
We know, in fact, that the Muslim forces refused to surrender, and proceeded to make their escape to Tuzla and it was during this action that several fierce battles took place between the Muslim forces and the Serb forces in which many of the Muslim soldiers were killed. But they were killed in battle. And the world saw that General Mladic kept his word and all women civilians and children were put on buses as agreed and evacuated safely. Not the actions of a man and officer bent on genocide.
However, Mr. Wilcoxson bases his analysis on the evidence presented in the “trials” so-called, in which the accused were never properly represented because the defence failed to contest the claims of the few witnesses that are relied on to support the false claims. If one reads the judgements in the Karadzic and Mladic trials one is struck by the lack of any real defense made on behalf of the accused. For instance, the Fontana Hotel videos, which, in my opinion as a trial lawyer, present clear evidence that there was no intention by those two men to massacre anyone, were crucial evidence for the defence. But they were never used. The Dutch soldiers did not testify. I can find no reference to any of Mladic’s officers testifying. They may have but it is not mentioned in the judgements.
There was little real cross-examination of the handful of witness used to support the claims of a massacre. Witness statements were allowed in as evidence without the witnesses who made them being questioned at all.
Mr. Wilcoxson also states that, ‘“In February 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) verdict that genocide was committed in and around Srebrenica in July 1995 unleashed pent-up Bosniak anger about the 1992-1995 war. Bosniak political leaders exploited the verdict in order to advance their own narrow, nationalist political agenda.”
The latter part is true but the fact is the ICJ’ verdict was meaningless because the NATO Quisling regime in power in Belgrade did not bother to offer any defence to the false allegations made in the case. There was in fact no evidence provided to the ICJ judges of a massacre. None whatsoever. The facts were never examined. They reached their verdict simply on the basis that the claim was made and was not defended. A judgement rendered without any examination of the facts is not worthy of the paper it is written on and certainly is not proof of a false version of history.
But based on what he was faced with by following the trials, Mr. Wilcoxson had to rely on the prosecution claims and the pronouncements of the NATO judges time and again supporting the claim the massacre happened, yet he then effectively disputes the numbers and circumstances. He does the latter very well. He examines in detail the discrepancies in numbers of bodies found, their provenance, that is whether from that battle or older battles from other wars, the suspicious DNA evidence supplied by a NATO linked laboratory, the doubtful evidence of claimed relatives, the playing with numbers and the forensic evidence.
This chapter is the heart of the book and Wilcoxson correctly asks,
“It would appear to be an open and shut case of genocidal Serbs attacking a UN Safe Area and butchering thousands of defenseless Muslim civilians. The journalists, the politicians, and even the courts have certainly made their opinions known, but are those opinions based on reliable evidence or are they politically motivated?”
But then states,
“The controversy has to do with numbers killed, the civilian or military status of the victims, and the underlying motive behind the crime. There is no doubt that a crime was committed, but it has been exaggerated for political reasons.”
It certainly has been exaggerated for political reasons, and the numbers are a relevant issue, and that, if any were killed, they had to be soldiers not civilians. But his statement that “there is no doubt that a crime was committed” is not supported by any credible evidence as he continues in detail to show us.
He sets out and discusses all the political consequences of the “massacre; that it was a useful myth to be used by the Bosnians to try to destroy the Republic of Srpska, by the US and NATO as display of their self-righteousness, as a device to raise anger in the west against the Serbs to justify their final aggression in 1999. And which today is used, like the Rwanda tragedy, as a device to commit aggression in other places in the world, to support their fake quasi-legal doctrine of “responsibility to protect.”
Indeed, at this point, on page 106, Mr. Wilcoxon questions his own conclusions by stating that
“The ICTY’s findings, particularly with regard to genocide at Srebrenica, are not based upon reliable evidence”.
He then proceeds to point out all the problems with the evidence that I have raised above, the political nature of the prosecution, the lack of reliable evidence, the political pressure applied to the ICTY judges by the US military, the suppression of evidence of crimes committed by opposing forces, the politically driven creation of the ICTY as a NATO tribunal, the history of Naser Oric, the commander of the Muslim forces at Srebrenica, who bragged to the western media of his many war crimes against Serbs but who was handled with kid gloves by the ICTY.
Wilcoxson then proceeds to reveal all the frailties in the evidence of which undermines his own conclusion there was a massacre But.ee seems to accept the statements of the “I was the last survivor of a massacre” type of witnesses to posit that prisoners of war were executed at other places, not Srebrenica. We saw many of these witnesses in our war crimes trial at the Rwanda tribunal. The stories were always unbelievable and some of the witnesses recanted on the stand and testified how they had been threatened with prison or death unless they testified to false facts. None of their accounts held up to even casual questioning. On the other hand he does a good job of explaining why we should doubt everything these witnesses claimed to observe, and does it at length.
Leaving the issue of Srebrenica, the book then enters into the history of Kosovo, its importance to Serbs historically and emotionally, the changes in ethnic composition that took place after WWII, the rise of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the support they received from the US, Bin Laden, and, now we know, even Turkey, the rise and history of Hacim Thaci, the false propaganda of Yugoslav crimes against Albanians in Kosovo used as a pretext for the NATO attack and the drive for a Greater Albania, the ethnic cleansing of Serbs in Kosovo since 1999, the destruction of churches and villages. It makes for very painful reading.
The final chapter sets out the history of Slobodan Milosevic, how he rose to become President of Yugoslavia, how he dealt with the civil wars, his overthrow in the putsch of October 5, 2000, his subsequent arrest, his kidnapping and journey, in chains, to the ICTY, for his show trial in which he defended himself with courage and determination, his end in the old Gestapo prison at Scheveningen. Even for those of us who know much about that period it is worth reading for the details of the dramatic events that took place as Milosevic turned the tables on NATO and proved their every allegation false, revealed the torture of witnesses by NATO to force them to testify against him, for a quite dramatic play by play of the trial which led to his murder.
It it the death of Milosevic that closes off the book, followed by an epilogue summing up the situation. Mr. Wilcoxon examines the facts and weighs the opinions of whether it was a case of murder or death by negligence. I wrote a critique on the ICTY investigation that took place that issued its findings as the Parker Report, named after the judge who signed it. It was my conclusion that he was most likely poisoned. Milosevic’s his last letter to the Russian ambassador in The Netherlands, written just days before his death, stated that he was being poisoned. It is true that he had a heart condition which could have been easily treated. But the ICTY refused to allow it. He was under a lot of stress. A heart attack due to failure to provide proper treatment and conditions for his trial cannot be ruled out as impossible, which make his death one of criminal negligence. But all the circumstances lead to the conclusion he was deliberately killed, that he was murdered.
NATO was losing the trial, but the judges could not acquit him. Neither could they credibly convict him. His trial had made him even more popular in Serbia. His bravery in the face of the NATO tribunal made even his detractors admire him. If he was released, he would be a major figure in Balkan and world politics again. NATO’s objectives would have been set back in a big way. They could not credibly convict him and they could allow his release. He knew too many things and he could return to power. Their only way out of their dilemma was to kill him. I remember very well what he told me when I first met him in the Belgrade Central Prison and asked him why he had been arrested. He laughed and replied,
“First because I am a communist, and second because I told the Americans to go fuck themselves.”
No, they could not let him live, so they murdered him.
That’s what NATO does. That’s what NATO is and that is one of the key lessons to be learned from this book, how ruthless the NATO governments are, what they are capable of, what they will do if they have the chance.
I recommend Andy Wilcoxson’s book despite my critical remarks of the chapter on Srebrenica because it presents in a logical, comprehensive and compelling narrative and analysis, the true nature of the events and circumstances that led to the destruction of Yugoslavia and serves as a warning to all the nations of the world who have been made targets of the US and its allies of what awaits them if they do not take steps to defend themselves from forces that want to create their new world order, an order which more and more resembles a violent world tyranny. This is a very valuable book that everyone should read.