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| Return to: Left History: a digital archive | Return to: Say no to imperialist wars! | Return to: NATO-Yugoslav War Internet Resources |
Speaking before 650 anti-war activists from 11 countries in Berlin's Holy Cross Church Oct. 30, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark said there was no alternative except to "abolish NATO."
The Berlin meeting was the eighth of nine hearings and discussions held in late October in the United States and Europe to condemn U.S. and other NATO country officials and military leaders for war crimes in their aggressive war against Yugoslavia last spring.
Many of the meetings, while organized locally, were inspired by the July 31 hearing in New York of the Independent Commission of Inquiry to Investigate U.S./NATO War Crimes Against the People of Yugoslavia. It had been initiated by the International Action Center (IAC), to which Clark is affiliated.
At that hearing Ramsey Clark had charged Bill Clinton, British Primer Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and other NATO political and military leaders with 19 counts of war crimes and crimes against peace and against humanity.
In Europe, social-democratic forces led the war drive against Yugoslavia. This included Schroeder's Social-Democratic/Greens government in Germany, the Socialist Party-led government of Premier Lionel Jospin in France, Priemier Massimo D'Alema's "Olive" government in Italy led by the Party of the Democratic Left, and Blair's Labor Party in Britain.
That those claiming some degree of "leftism" led the aggression made it harder for anti-imperialists to mobilize the movement and clearly target the U.S.-NATO war criminals.
The goal of the IAC, as well as of many other organizing centers, has been to clarify the truly aggressive role of NATO. The IAC aims to mobilize the anti-war movement to prevent future U.S./NATO-led wars, to stop all sanctions against the people of Yugoslavia, to obtain reparations for damages from their attackers, and to condemn publicly those responsible for the war.
The meetings also target the big-business media who issued shameless war propaganda against Serbia.
East meets West in Berlin hearing
IAC Co-Coordinator Sara Flounders told the large gathering in Berlin, "This meeting is proof that not only the victors of this war will write its history." Flounders' talk, which emphasized the need for further struggle, was frequently interrupted with applause.
Among the German participants in the Berlin hearing were Ret. Admiral Elmar Schmaehling, former director of the military counter-intelligence service of the Federal Republic of Germany, and Dr. Ralph Hartmann, former Ambassador to Yugoslavia for the German Democratic Republic. The audience, like the speakers, represented both West and East German anti-war forces, and was filled with people wearing buttons for U.S. political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Gennadi I. Raikov, president of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into NATO's Crimes Against Yugoslavia and an official delegate of the Russian Duma, reported on the military targeting of civilian installations. Activists from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Switzerland, Spain and Yugoslavia also participated.
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Richter, coordinator of the Association for the Protection of Civil Rights and Human Dignity (GBM), and Laura von Wimmersperg, coordinator of the Peace Coordination of Berlin (FriKo), co-chaired the Berlin hearing. Interviewed in the Nov. 1 Junge Welt, Von Wimmersperg said the organizers will publish a book about the hearing before the winter holiday season. She added that they were working on detailed accounts from committees that reported NATO's crimes in specific areas and hoped to publish that next year.
Readers wanting more information on the German tribunal can contact the GBM by e-mail at gbmev@t-online.de.
Italian tribunal launched
Some 200 anti-war activists from around Italy gathered at the Casa della Cultura in Rome Nov. 1 for a meeting that wound up establishing what amounts to an Italian section of the Commission of Inquiry for a War Crimes Tribunal. Over 30 anti-war organizations backed the hearing. Anti-imperialist groups, representatives of the Refoundation Communist Party, including Luisa Morgantini of the European Parliament, left-Catholic intellectuals and others took the floor in support.
Paolo Pioppi of the Nino Pasti Foundation, which hosted the gathering, introduced the meeting by "calling the Italian government to account for the crimes committed in Yugoslavia and for the crimes it is still committing against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and against international law and against peace." Pioppi urged that Italian anti-imperialists do their part in the international effort begun by Clark and the IAC.
Supporting the tribunal were Lucio Manisco, a member of the European Parliament from the Party of Italian Communists--one of the few members of the party who, during the bombing, advocated withdrawing support for the D'Alema government, which could force it to resign--and former Senator Raniero La Valle, founder of the Committees for International Democracy.
Media-expert Lenora Foerstel also spoke for the IAC, along with Clark and Flounders. Flounders exposed a nine-year-old U.S. strategy to destabilize Yugoslavia. Flounder's motion that the hearing call for a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal was approved by acclamation. When Clark called for abolishing NATO, the audience gave him a standing ovation.
Organizers report cooperation among all groups present and a serious commitment to continue the work. For more information on the Italian tribunal, e-mail to pasti@mclink.it.
Paris: `a devastating case against NATO'
In Paris on Oct. 25, a dozen speakers from seven countries presented a devastating case against NATO's illegal war against Yugoslavia at an international conference on "Justice and War." The speakers included jurists, experts and activists who have closely studied the background of the Yugoslav conflict and NATO intervention.
Speakers included Jan Oberg, Director of the Transnational Foundation for Future and Peace Research based in Lund, Sweden, and Paris-based U.S. journalist Diana Johnstone, who co-chaired the conference. Johnstone accused the Clinton administration of aggravating and exploiting the Kosovo problem in order to inaugurate NATO's new mission of "humanitarian intervention."
University of Paris historian Annie Lacroix-Riz drew from her vast knowledge of diplomatic archives to describe the extraordinary degree of continuity between present and past Great Power intervention in the Balkans.
Organizers reported that Co-Coordinator of the IAC Brian Becker represented an activist approach to the war strikingly absent in today's France. Becker's description of IAC plans to hold hearings in various cities on the indictment Ramsey Clark has drafted against NATO leaders aroused considerable enthusiasm among the audience, and many offered support.
In addition to supporting the Clark initiative, the conference strongly condemned economic sanctions as an unjustifiable continuation of war against the people of Yugoslavia. Workers World readers who want papers and proceedings can contact the Paris-based review "Dialogue" by e-mail at dialogos@club-internet.fr.
Other hearings were held in Oslo and Amsterdam on Oct. 23 and in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, on Oct. 15-16. The Amsterdam meeting exposed the repressive role of Dutch troops occupying Kosovo. Clark and the IAC plan to participate in a Vienna hearing on Dec. 4 and at the Kassel Peace Council in Kassel, Germany, on Dec. 5.