Issue #11/66, June 3 - 17, 1999  

13 Unlucky Reasons Why NATO Should Be Tried!

We reported in our last installment of "14 New Reasons Why NATO's War Sucks" that the UN Human Rights Commissioner, former Irish President Mary Robinson, had warned NATO that they were liable to be investigated for war crimes and that she was appalled by the excessive bombing in civilian areas as well as the use of cluster bombs in crowded cities. Already, her views are becoming more and more mainstream.

1. On May 13th, Human Rights Watch sent a formal letter to NATO Secretary-General Javier Solano detailing several suspected violations of the Geneva Conventions and demanding an investigation and reply to each of the points. Solano has not responded.

2. On May 15th, UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson told Irish radio that the war had the NATO offensive had lost its "moral purpose".

3. Also in May, a group of Canadian, American and other Western lawyers and international legal professors sent a formal legal complaint to the International Tribunal for War Crimes detailing several cases of violations of the Geneva Convention, along with an intention to file suit.

4. An LA Times Op-Ed piece on May 11, 1999 by Southwestern University Law Professor Jonathan M. entitled "Halt the Bombing Serbia: NATO attacks on nonmilitary targets, deliberate or otherwise, may be deemed war crimes" argued that NATO could already be indicted.

5. Nuremburg Trials Prosecutor Walter J. Rockler, in a May 10th Chicago Tribune article, called for NATO to be indicted for crimes against humanity. "As the bombs, smart and dumb, fall ceaselessly on Serbia, Montenegrins and sometimes Albanians, on bridges, waterworks, electric generation plants and factories, and on trains, trucks and homes, the remorseless crusade for 'humanitarianism' presses forward to the applause of journalistic and academic shills. [...] The bombing war violates and shreds the basic provisions of the United Nations Charter and other conventions and treaties; the attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen international aggression since the Nazis attacked Poland to prevent 'Polish atrocities' against Germans. The United States has discarded pretensions to international legality and decency, and embarked on a course of raw imperialism run amok.

6. On May 25th, former American President Jimmy Carter published an article in the New York Times in which he complained that "the decision to attack the entire nation has been counterproductive, and our destruction of civilian life has now become senseless and excessively brutal." He also complained that he sent a letter to President Clinton asking him to stop using cluster bombs on civilian-populated areas, but for several weeks had been ignored.

7. In the recent issue of Newsweek, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in an article entitled "New World Disorder", wrote, "And what kind of humanism expresses its reluctance to suffer military casualties by devastating the civilian economy of its adversary for decades to come? [...] A strategy that vindicates its moral convictions only from altitudes above 15,000 feet-and in the process devastates Serbia and makes Kosovo unlivable-has already produced more refugees and casualties than any conceivable alternative mix of force and diplomacy would have. It deserves to be questioned on both political and moral grounds.

8. An article by Fred Kaplan in the May 30th Boston Globe, "Bombs Killing More Civilians Than Expected", details how, in terms of casualties per tonnage of bombs dropped from the air, the kill ratio from NATO bombs dropped in Yugoslavia is equivalent to the kill ratio of America's aerial bombing of Vietnam. The ratio in both Vietnam and Yugoslavia is one civilian killed for every 10 tons of bombs dropped. In the Gulf War, the ratio was half, or one civilian for every 20 tons.

9. Nelson Mandela, earlier this month while in China, said, "On the one hand human rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Rights are being violated in ethnic cleansing. On the other hand the United Nations Security Council is being ignored by the unilateral and destructive action of some of its permanent members. Both actions must be condemned in the strongest terms."

10. According to a June 1st report by STRATFOR, a US-based intelligence firm, Alice Mahon, parliament member (MP) from the Labor party, also accused NATO of violating the Geneva Convention. A statement from the committee said NATO "is now violating the Geneva conventions on the protection of civilian life on a routine daily basis." Decrying civilian casualties, Mahon said, "NATO's new strategy seems to be to terrorize and brutalize the civilian population of Yugoslavia."

11. According to the May 27th issue of the Irish Times, a poll conducted by the ICAP Institute revealed that 69.7 percent of Greeks--who are members of NATO--want President Clinton tried for war crimes.

12. "Romania says bomb damage is causing pollution." A May 26th article by Agence France Presse starts, "Pollution due to the destruction of Yugoslav factories and refineries by NATO bombs is rising, causing fears that the effects may be lasting, Romanian Environment Minister Romica Tomescu said Wednesday. 'The pollution of water, air and land has grown since the beginning of the conflict' on March 24, Tomescu said. A ministry report said 'negative consequences for animals and the population are to be feared as well as for aquatic life in the Danube and the Black Sea.' The report was published after Romanian ecologists and media accused the government of covering up the environmental consequences of NATO's air strikes. The Romanian government officially backs the NATO campaign against its Yugoslav neighbour."

13. If the UN's indictment of Slobodan Milosevic struck you at all as fishy, don't blame yourself--blame the prosecutor herself. The following headline in the May 27th LA Times explains everything: "Chief Prosecutor rushed indictments to get Canada High Court seat to detriment of Tribunal: Top U.N. Prosecutor May Soon Quit Post. Louise Arbour, a candidate for Canada's high court, is said to be trying to wrap up indictments." In other words, she rushed out the indictment that everyone was looking for just in time to take a cozy lifetime appointment to Canada's High Court.