BRING NATO LEADERS TO JUSTICE - YOUR HELP NEEDED! (fwd)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 02:29:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: Eric Sommer <eric@stewards.net>
To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK <psn@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: BRING NATO LEADERS TO JUSTICE - YOUR HELP NEEDED!

Please forward to all pertinent listserves, individuals, and organizations:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

BRING NATO LEADERS TO JUSTICE - YOUR HELP NEEDED!

I would like to urge everyone in the Stewards mailing lists to spend just five 
minutes in helping to bring Nato leaders to justice for the war crimes and 
other violations of international law committed in the Balkins by their
military 
forces.   This is an unusual opportunity for individuals to communicate
directly with an International War crimes prosecutor, and to have a powerful
effect in ending 
war crimes, and above all in stopping the criminal bombing of the Serbian
people.

Charges against 65 civilian and military leaders of Nato nations, including 
Jean Chretien and Bill Clinton, have already been presented to the 
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, an official body 
with international standing which was originally set up to bring war criminals, 
such as the Serbians who perpetrated genocide in Bosnia, to justice.  

The well-formulated charges against the Nato leaders come from a highly
distinguished group of international lawyers and jurists, spearheaded by
professors from Canada's prestigious Osgood Hall Law School, and including a
number of important international legal organizations.  The charges alledge
that Nato leaders are guilty of serious violations of human rights,
violations of international law, and war crimes.  

Now, a key coordinator of this legal effort, Professor Michael Mandel, who
is one of the Canadian lawyers who prepared the war crimes charges against
NATO's political and military leaders, has requested that all concerned
people email directly to the prosecutor at the International Tribunal, the
well-thought-of Louise Arbour. 

"People who want to add their voice to the call to bring the NATO leaders
to justice," says Mandel, "should be encouraged by the fact that the Prosecutor 
is bound by the Statute (Article 18.1) to investigate "on the basis of
information
obtained from any source."  

This means that any allegation you make regarding Nato war crimes or related
matters must be given due weight by the prosecutor's office and investigated! 

Mandel also points out that Prosecutor Arbour is "bound by the law and her
office to listen to all of these writers! Incredible as it may seem, she has
the legal power, in fact the legal duty, to bring these people to justice,
and most importantly, to stop them from continuing their criminal bombing
campaign."

Mandel urges that everyone email or write to the prosecutor's office in
their own words, rather than using petitions or other mass-campaign devices.
"...the best approach is for people to telephone, fax and e-mail the
Prosecutor the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and
to tell her in their own words that they are witnessing terrible crimes
being committed within her jurisdiction by world leaders and that
they want them stopped."

So now you can put your weight behind the charges against the Nato leaders -
by requesting the Tribunal prosecutor to bring those responsible for the
bombings to justice.  Your suggestions regarding Nato's actions and
motivations, which the War Crimes Tribunal is *obligated* to consider, may
even open up new avenues of investigation of Nato and its leaders by the
Tribunal.

Please spend just five minutes composing an email, fax, or letter to bring
the NATO leaders to justice.  Send an email to Madame Justice Louise Arbour,
Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at: 

fisk.icty@un.org 

You can also fax or write her at: +31-70-416-5358 or you can send her snal
mail at: P.O.Box 13888, Churchillplain 1, 2501 EW, The Hague, Netherlands.


Thanks, Eric Sommer, 
coordinator Stewards movement of poor and working people. www.stewards.net 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi there,

We sent out the following press release earlier this month but are
re-distributing  it.  We thought it might serve as useful background
information for people heeding the call in the accompanying article to email
the chief prosector at the war crimes tribunal.

In solidarity,
Eric Sommer

----------------------------------------------------------
Hi there,

We helped distribute the following press release earlier this month but are
re-distributing  it.  We are redistributing it because we thought it might
serve as useful background information for people heeding the call in the
accompanying article to email the chief prosector at the war crimes tribunal.

In solidarity,
Eric Sommer
-----------------

PRESS RELEASE MAY 7, 1999

LAWYERS CHARGE NATO LEADERS BEFORE WAR CRIMES 
TRIBUNAL

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 Eggle-
ton, Lloyd Axworthy and 60 other heads of state and government, foreign
ministers, defence ministers and NATO officials, with war crimes commit-
ted 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 In-
ternational Law Recognized by the Nuremberg Tribunal (the latter of
which makes "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of ag-
gression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or as-
surances" 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 at-
tacks 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 organisa-
tions in possession of information pertaining to the alleged commission of
crimes within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal should make such informa-
tion available without delay to the Prosecutor."

The complaint also cites a statement of United Nations High Commis-
sioner 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 Gov-
ernments, 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 investi-
gations 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 law-
yers, judges, law professors and students, with membership in all coun-
tries 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 can-
not 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 destroy-
ing. We believe that if they are held individually responsible, as the law
requires, they won't feel so free to spill other peoples' blood."

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






"The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands
what will sell. " - Confucious.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Weather Underground. We provide weather across the world.
Visit http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/48



eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/world-crisis
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications






"The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands
what will sell. " - Confucious.