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STOP WAR CRIMINAL WESLEY CLARK FROM TESTIFYING IN SECRET
For Immediate Release
Press Contact: Sara Flounders
212-633-6646
STOP WAR CRIMINAL WESLEY CLARK FROM TESTIFYING IN SECRET
Statement of the International Action Center
12/15/03
The International Action Center (IAC) protests the
appearance before the International Criminal Tribunal for
the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of U.S. General Wesley Clark,
former NATO commander and current presidential candidate.
The IAC especially protests the acquiescence of the ICTY
to Washington's demands that General Clark's testimony be
given in secret. We would ask, ?What are they hiding?? but
we already know the answer. General Clark is a war
criminal and both he and the U.S. government fear being
exposed as such.
General Clark commanded the 78-day NATO bombing campaign
against Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999. During that
campaign, which was directed mainly against civilian
targets in Serbia, killed several thousand Serbian
civilians, destroyed or damaged schools and hospitals as
well as much of the industrial infrastructure of the
country, General Clark was responsible for ordering war
crimes.
Indeed, General Clark admitted in his book, ?Fighting
Modern War,? that the NATO powers opted for warfare as a
political weapon. The Kosovo war, he writes, "was coercive
diplomacy, the use of armed forces to impose the political
will of the NATO nations on the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, or more specifically, on Serbia. The NATO
nations voluntarily undertook this war." This means
General Clark collaborated in a crime against peace, the
most serious of all war crimes.
According to the public record, General Clark argued for
bombing civilian targets in order to force the Yugoslav
leadership to retreat and allow NATO troops to occupy
Kosovo. This is a war crime.
At least three initiatives recognized General Clark's
responsibility for these crimes by naming him along with
other NATO political and military leaders in war crimes
indictments.
In 1999 a group of lawyers and legal academics, including
Toronto Professors Michael Mandel and David Jacobs,
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. They presented what they called ?overwhelming
evidence that the attack was unlawful and that the conduct
of the attack on civilian objects,? breaching the Geneva
Conventions. The Prosecution has laid no charges to date
and has refused to indict any U.S. forces for crimes
committed during the war on Yugoslavia.
On June 10, 2000, a People's Tribunal organized by the
International Action Center and others held its final
hearing in New York and found the same NATO leaders,
including General Clark, guilty of war crimes. Individuals
from about 20 countries presented evidence to prove a
thorough indictment prepared a year before by former U.S.
Attorney General Ramsey Clark accusing Wesley Clark and
others of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
In a major war-crimes case, a Belgrade court found him and
the other leaders guilty on Sept. 22, 2000.
Considering the skill Slobodan Milosevic has shown in
cross-examining witnesses during almost two years of
defending himself before the ICTY, the Yugoslav leader
could easily expose General Wesley Clark as a war criminal
of the worst sort. That, and not the phony ?national
interests? excuse from Washington, is why the U.S.
government has demanded secrecy.
According to a Nov. 19 ICTY announcement, the public
gallery of the ICTY will be closed during the course of
Clark's testimony. In addition, "the broadcast of the
testimony [will] be delayed for a period of 48 hours to
enable the U.S. government to review the transcript and
make representations as to whether evidence given in open
session should be redacted in order to protect the
national interests of the U.S."
That the ICTY has acquiesced in this matter to U.S.
demands is the final proof, if any was needed, that this
court is a U.S. tool created as part of the overall U.S.
and NATO campaign to destroy Yugoslavia.
Protests were reported to have been carried out at The
Hague on the morning of Dec. 15 against General Clark's
secret testimony and there were other protests in
different capitals.
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