Marlise Simons on the Yugoslavia Tribunal:
A Study in Total Propaganda Service

------------Footnotes------------

1. For details, see Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon, 1988 and 2002), Ch. 4 and Introduction to 2002 revised edition, pp. 143-167; and pp. xxvii-xxix.

2. Stacy Sullivan, “Milosevic’s Willing Executioners,” New Republic, May 10, 1999. Remaining faithful to this vision of the Serbs’ ultimate responsibility for the wars, the next issue of the New Republic followed with Harvard academic Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s defense of NATO’s war against, and eventual occupation of, Serbia, on the grounds that “by supporting or condoning Milosevic’s eliminationist politics, [the majority of the Serbian people] have rendered themselves both legally and morally incompetent to conduct their own affairs….” “A New Serbia,” May 17, 1999.

3. For two examples of the “party line” or standard media version: First, the journalist Christopher Hitchens asserts that these were wars “between all those who favor ethnic and religious partition and all those who oppose it.” (“Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia,” The Nation, October 23, 1995.) This is a comic strip version of recent Balkan history. A second comes from the Tribunal’s indictment of Milosevic for the wars that consumed the former Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, in which the Tribunal charges him with having begun to participate in a “joint criminal enterprise” no later than August 1, 1991 (i.e., at least seven months before the Muslim-led government in Sarajevo declared the Republic’s independence from Yugoslavia), the explicit purpose of which was the “forcible and permanent removal of the majority of non-Serbs, principally Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats, from large areas of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.” ( The Prosecutor of the Tribunal Against Slobodan Milosevic, Indictment [for Bosnia-Herzegovina], Case No. IT-01-51-I, November 22, 2001, pars. 5-9, < http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/mil-ii011122e.htm>.)

4. Among the most helpful contesting sources on the breakup of Yugoslavia are: Tariq Ali, ed., Masters of the Universe: NATO’s Balkan Crusade (New York: Verso, 2000); Steven L. Burg and Paul S. Shoup, The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Ethnic Conflict and International Intervention (Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharp, 1999); David Chandler, Bosnia: Faking Democracy After Dayton (Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, 1999); Noam Chomsky, The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1999); Lenard J. Cohen, Broken Bonds: Yugoslavia’s Disintegration and Balkan Politics in Transition, 2 nd. Ed. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1995); Lenard J. Cohen, Serpent in the Bosom: The Rise and Fall of Slobodan Milosevic (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2001); Philip Hammond and Edward S. Herman, eds., Degraded Capability: The Media and the Kosovo Crisis (Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, 2000); Robert M. Hayden, Blueprints for a House Divided: The Constitutional Logic of the Yugoslav Conflicts (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1999); Robert M. Hayden, “Biased ‘Justice’: Humanrightsism and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia,” Cleveland State Law Review, 1999 ; Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, “Morality’s Avenging Angels,” in David Chandler, ed., Rethnking Human Rights: Critical Approaches to International Politics (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 196-216; Diana Johnstone, Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2002); Michael Mandel, “Politics and Human Rights In International Criminal Law: Our Case Against NATO And The Lessons To Be Learned From It,” Fordham International Law Journal, 25: 95-128 (November, 2001); Michael Mandel, How America Gets Away With Murder: Illegal Wars, Collateral Damage and Crimes Against Humanity (London: Pluto, June 2004) ; Kirsten Sellars, The Rise and Rise of Human Rights (London: Sutton Publishing, 2002); and Susan L. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution After the Cold War (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1995).

5. Raymond Bonner, Weakness and Deceit: U.S. Policy and El Salvador (New York: Times Books, 1984), Ch. 16; Edward Herman and Peter Rothberg, “Media Thugs Slug It Out ,” Lies of Our Times, June 1993, pp. 3-4. As for the dramatic drop off in the appearance of David Binder’s byline in reports about the former Yugoslavia in the New York Times, a search of the Nexis database shows that for the years 1990-1993, the Times ran Binder’s reports on Yugoslavia a total of 146 times, 51 of these having appeared during 1993 alone; and yet after 1993, Binder’s reporting on Yugoslavia fell to only three times in 1994, and never more than twice during any subsequent year.

6. Several of Simons’ articles were co-authored with other Times reporters, and we will refer occasionally to articles by these other reporters to show that on the points with which they deal, they also adhere to the party line, virtually without exception.

7. On the role of human rights organizations---most notably the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch---and their moral advocacy on behalf of NATO’s military intervention in Yugoslavia and the proceedings of the Tribunal, see Sellars, op. cit., Ch. 9.

8. The 120 articles that comprise our Simons universe were extracted from the Nexis database by performing a "Power" search of the New York Times through December 31, 2003.  In the terminology of the Nexis database, we used the following search parameters:

    * Byline(Marlise w/3 Simons) and Tribunal or The Hague and Yugoslavia or Serbia or Slovenia or Croatia or Bosnia or Kosovo and date bef 2004

9. Marlise Simons, “War Crimes Trial Seeks to Define the Balkan Conflicts,” New York Times, May 12, 1996.--We discuss below Simons’ hugely biased treatment of the issue. 

10. Cohen, Serpent in the Bosom, p. 380. Among other establishment truths that Simons repeats uncritically and frequently is the claim that Milosevic was driven by his desire for a “Greater Serbia,” even a living space entirely freed of non-Serbs. That he was being pressed by Serb minorities who found themselves stranded within the newly independent states of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to help them stay within a “Shrinking Yugoslavia” never occurs to Simons. See Johnstone, op. cit., pp. 32ff.

11. For illustrations of these confident assertions that “we have the evidence,” which they most assuredly did not have, see Herman and Chomsky, op. cit., pp. 154-157.

12. For example, “Prosecutors said their cases against the most senior Serb leaders…were solid” (Simons, May 18, 1997); “the changes have engendered a rare sense of excitement in the sober high-security building” (Simons, April 10, 2000); and “Milosevic, insiders say, has taken great pains to avoid written orders” (Simons, June 20, 2003).

13. Cedric Thornberry, a U.N. official with long experience in Bosnia, wrote in 1996 that the consensus evolving “in parts of the international liberal media” that the Serbs were “the only villains…did not correspond to the perceptions of successive senior U.N personnel in touch with daily events throughout the area.” “Saving the war crimes tribunal,” Foreign Policy, Fall, 1996, p. 78. Among many other documents making the same point on the basis of very strong evidence, see Raymond K. Kent, “Contextualizing Hate: The Hague Tribunal, the Clinton Administration and the Serbs,” 1996, < http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/kent.htm>.

14. For example, Simons writes that Milosevic “faces a succession of witnesses, many of them humble villagers, who have traveled from Kosovo to The Hague to confront him and accuse him of destroying their lives.” “Revising Memories Of Yet Another Evil,” New York Times, September 22, 2002.

15. Just considering here Bosnia and Croatia, on May 24, 1993, the Yugoslav government submitted a Letter to the U.N. on “War Crimes and Crimes and Genocide in Eastern Bosnia...Committed Against the Serb Population from April 1992 to April 1993.” This document describes the “almost complete ethnic cleansing of Serbs” from Srebrenica before the autumn of 1992, and lists 12 settlements and 39 villages destroyed and burnt down by Bosnian Muslim forces, with about 1,200 killed and between 2,800 and 3,200 injured. The almost complete ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Srebrenica described in this document is supported by the monthly reports of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which also show that all the so-called “safe areas” (i.e., rendered safe for Bosnian Muslims) had been substantially cleansed of Serbs before July 1995. Half of the Serb population of the overall area around Srebrenica had been driven out by this time. This report includes scores of affidavits from Serb victims, who were often able to name the Bosnian Muslims who attacked them.

An even more extensive document produced by the Serbian Council Information Center was titled, “Persecution of Serbs and Ethnic Cleansing in Croatia 1991-1998.” This document provided massive data on killings, destruction of homes, and enforced flight, similar in character to the data put forward by the Tribunal in its focus on the persecution of Bosnian Muslims. These documents have never been mentioned in the New York Times, and the perpetrators of these crimes have never been indicted by the Tribunal.

16. Ian Fisher and Marlise Simons, “Defiant, Milosevic Begins His Defense By Assailing NATO,” New York Times, February 15, 2002.

17. See Philip Hammond, “Moral Combat: Advocacy Journalists and the New Hum anitarianism,” in Chandler, ed., Rethinking Human Rights, pp. 176-195.

18. Edward L. Greenspan, “This is a lynching,” National Post, March 13, 2002.

19. Fisher and Simons, op. cit.

20. See U.N. Security Council Resolution 827, May 25, 1993, < http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/peace/docs/scres827.html>.

21. David J. Scheffer, Congressional Testimony on the Establishment of a Permanent International Criminal Court before the Committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. Senate, Federal Document Clearing House, July 23, 1998. Scheffer was then serving as the liberal Democratic Clinton Administration’s Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues.

22. Jamie Shea, “Daily NATO Briefing,” NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, Federal News Service, May 17, 1999.

23. Sellars, op. cit., p. 184.

24. This hyperlink was removed shortly after Del Ponte issued a report explaining the Tribunal’s exoneration of NATO of any criminal conduct during the war, even before the Tribunal had conducted an investigation of possible criminal conduct, perhaps in reaction to the harsh criticism with which this hyperlink was met. See Mandel, “Politics and Human Rights…,” op. cit., pp. 98-99.

25. Michael Scharf, “Indicted For War Crimes, Then What?,” Washington Post, October 3, 1999.

26. Quoted in Hayden, “Biased ‘Justice’,” pp. 560-561.

27. Quoted in Miriam Skoco and William Woodger, “War Crimes,” in Degraded Capability, p. 35.

28. Former Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour’s complaints were aired by Simons in “Proud but Concerned, Tribunal Prosecutor Leaves,” New York Times, September 15, 1999.

29. “Tribunal: How It Works,” New York Times, February 12, 2002.

30. Marlise Simons, “U.N. War Crimes Tribunal Steps Up Its Inquiry Into Kosovo,” New York Times, August 26, 1998.

31. “War crimes court opens inquiry into Kosovo massacre,” Agence France Presse, January 17, 1999.

32. Barton Gellman, “The Path to Crisis: How the United States and Its Allies Went to War,” Washington Post, April 18, 1999; and Allan Little, “How NATO was sucked into the Kosovo conflict,” Sunday Telegraph ( London), February 27, 2000.

33. Quoted in Skoco and Woodger, op. cit., p. 35. Of course, it may be true that Arbour considered the information “corroborated” by the simple fact that NATO offered it to her. But if true, Arbour’s independence dissipates into nothing.

34. Marlise Simons, “Militia Leader Arkan Is Indicted For War Crimes,” New York Times, April 1, 1999.

35. Sellars, op. cit., pp. 183-184.

36. Marcus McGee, “Doubts Raised Over Impartiality of Prosecutor,” Globe and Mail, April 21, 1999.

37. As U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright explained the significance of the Tribunal’s indictment of Milosevic for Kosovo at a news conference on May 27, 1999: “[T]his is an important step forward and it will, one, make very clear to the world and the publics in our countries that this is justified because of the crimes committed, and I think also will enable us to keep moving all these processes forward, as I have said now, the idea of continuing with the air campaign, dealing with the hum anitarian situation and also following through on various diplomatic ideas.” “Madeleine Albright Holds Media Availability with Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Axworthy,” FDCH Political Transcripts, May 27, 1999.

The Tribunal’s indictment of Milosevic et al. for alleged crimes committed in the Serbian province of Kosovo is remarkable for another little acknowledged reason: With the exception of the charges that pertain to the alleged massacre of 40-45 ethnic Albanians in and around the village of Racak, all of the other alleged crimes covered by the indictment occurred after the start of NATO’s war on March 24, 1999. In essence, this meant that the Tribunal tried thereby to grant the NATO powers not only the de jure pretext for waging a non-U.N.-approved, and aggressive, war against another sovereign state, but that the target of this war, the rump Yugoslavia, would be uniquely charged with a litany of crimes for which NATO leaders were exempt by virtue of politically-based selectivity. See The Prosecutor of the Tribunal Against Slobodan Milosevic et al., Initial Indictment [for Kosovo], Case No. IT-99-37, May 22, 1999, < http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/mil-ii990524e.htm>, as well as both subsequent Amended Indictments.

38. Hedging its conclusion, Human Rights Watch declared NATO guilty of violations of international hum anitarian law, while Amnesty International charged NATO with crimes of war for its bombing of civilian targets. See Human Rights Watch, Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign , February 6, 2000, <http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/nato/ >; Amnesty International, “Collateral Damage” or Unlawful Killings? , June 6, 2000, <http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGEUR700182000>. For an analysis of NATO’s “hum anitarian” intervention as a war of aggression, see the Memorandum submitted by Professor Ian Brownlie CBE, QC to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons , May 23, 2000, <http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmfaff/28/28ap03.htm>.

39. “CRISIS IN THE BALKANS; Prosecutor's Statement: 'Sufficient Evidence',” New York Times, May 28, 1999.

40. “By her statement, the ‘chief prosecutor’ has tried to act as a surrogate politician and to influence political events in the interest of the NATO countries presently waging war against Yugoslavia.” Hans Koechler, “Illegal Tribunal---Illegal Indictment,” April 23, 2001, < http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/prog2.htm>. Koechler has served as the President of the International Progress Organization, an NGO that has worked with the United Nations for many years.

41. As Tribunal President Antonio Cassese once explained, “The indictment means that these gentlemen will not be able to participate in peace negotiations.…The politicians may not give a damn, but I’m relying on the pressure of public opinion.” Quoted in “Karadzic A Pariah, Says War Crimes Tribunal Chief,” ANP English News Bulletin, July 27, 1995.

42. Thornberry, op. cit., p. 74.

43. As John Laughland observes: “We now think of Nuremberg mainly as the trial of the Holocaust. This is not how the architects of Nuremberg saw matters. Exhausted by up to six years of all-engulfing war, the allies were mainly preoccupied with the fact that Nazi Germany had plunged the whole world into conflict….For the judges at Nuremberg, the primordial war crime was to start a war in the first place. All other war crimes flowed from this. Although naked aggression has always been illegal under customary international law - as is attested by the numerous and no doubt spurious legal justifications made throughout history by belligerent states for their actions - Nuremberg was innovatory in its clear legal formulation that the planning and execution of a war of aggression constituted a criminal act in international law. It was for this crime, and not for crimes against humanity, that all the Nazis at Nuremberg were judged.”  “This is not justice: The Hague has replaced Nuremberg's jurisprudence of peace with a licence to the west to kill,” The Guardian ( London), February 16, 2002.

44. For a copy of the Updated Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (November, 2003), see < http://www.un.org/icty/legaldoc/index.htm>.

45. For a copy of the document filed by Michael Mandel et al. before the ICTY, requesting that the Prosecution investigate NATO-bloc officials for serious violations of international hum anitarian law that fall within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, May 6, 1999, see < http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/icty.htm>.

46. Mandel, “Politics and Human Rights…,” op. cit., p. 95.

47. Ibid, p. 95.

48. Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, U.N Doc. PR/P.I.S./510-E [2000], < http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/nato061300.htm>.  ( OTP Report hereinafter.)

49. Ibid, par. 53.

50. BBC Newsnight, February 12, 2002.

51. OTP Report, op. cit., pars. 59-61.

52. Mandel, op. cit., pp. 117-118.

53. “ UN war crimes tribunal focusing on commanders and leaders Kosovo,” Agence France Press, September 29, 1999, italics added.

54. Announcing that its “forensic program has been successfully completed,” Carla Del Ponte stated that investigators had “found the remains of some 4,000 victims.” “Statement to the Press by Carla Del Ponte,” FH/P.I.S./550-E, December 20, 2000, < http://www.un.org/icty/latest/index.htm>.

55. Kinkel’s charge that the Serbs were the “main source of the evil” in the conflict, that their “ruthless war aimed at creating an ethnically cleansed greater Serbia,” and that they were committing “genocide” in the process, first surfaced in late August, 1992, in the days leading up to the International Conference on Yugoslavia in London. See Patrick Moser, “Peace conference on Yugoslavia opens in London,” United Press International, August 26, 1992.

56. Elaine Sciolino, “ U.S. Names Figures It Wants Charged with War Crimes,” New York Times, December 17, 1992. See also Johnstone, op. cit., pp. 73-74.

57. Geoffrey Robertson, Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice ( New York: The New Press, 2000), p. 301. “Frustrating as it was for the judges to wait for suspects to fall into a net that NATO was not prepared to cast,” Robertson adds, “it was inappropriate for [Cassese] to demand their arrest in language which suggested he had made up his mind about their guilt.”

58. “Nasir Oric's war trophies don't line the wall of his comfortable apartment,” the Washington Post’s John Pomfret once reported. “They're on a videocassette tape: burned Serb houses and headless Serb men, their bodies crumpled in a pathetic heap.” “Weapons, Cash and Chaos Lend Clout to Srebrenica’s Tough Guy,” February 16, 1994.

59. Oric was not indicted until March 28, 2003, and then only on charges related to “violations of the laws and customs of war,” the least grave among the hierarchy of violations for which the ICTY can bring charges---but not “crimes against humanity,” and certainly not “genocide.” See The Prosecutor of the Tribunal Against Naser Oric, Amended Indictment, Case No. IT-03-68-PT, July 16, 2003, < http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/ori-ii030328e.htm>.

60. The Prosecutor of the Tribunal Against Milan Martic, Initial Indictment, Case No. IT-95-11, July 25, 1995, par. 7; pars. 15-18, < http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/mar-ii950725e.htm>; and Hayden, “Biased ‘Justice’,” pp. 573-575.

61. Marlise Simons, “General Gets 20 Years for Sarajevo Atrocities,” New York Times, December 6, 2003.

62. The Prosecutor of the Tribunal Against Ante Gotovina, Case No. IT-01/45-I, < http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/got-ii010608e.htm>.

63. On the presence of the Mujahedin as well as mercenary and other forces tied to (largely American) military-related corporations in Bosnia, see Cees Wiebes, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992-1995 (London: Lit Verlag, 2003), Ch. 4, “Secret Arms Supplies and Other Covert Operations,” esp. pp. 207-208.

64. Following the deaths of Franjo Tudjman (December 10, 1999) and Alija Izetbegovic ( October 19, 1003), the Office of the Prosecutor claimed that both men had been under investigation for possible indictment for actions taken during their wartime leaderships. Of course, in neither case was an indictment ever produced; and in both instances, the deaths of these two figures permanently closed their cases. On Tudjman, see “Tudjman buried Monday,” Agence France Presse, December 13, 1999; and Beth Potter, “Court: Tudjman indictment was discussed,” United Press International, December 14, 1999; and on Izetbegovic, see “U.N. prosecutors were investigating former Bosnian president Izetbegovic,” Associated Press, October 22, 2003; and Stephen Castle, “Bosnian Leader Was Suspected of War Crimes,” The Independent (London), October 23, 2003.

65. Marlise Simons, “Militia Leader Arkan Is Indicted for War Crimes,” New York Times, April 1, 1999.

66. In only one bylined article has Marlise Simons ever mentioned the name ‘Naser Oric’: Namely, on April 12, 2003, a 124-word blurb in the World Briefing Europe section titled, “The Netherlands: Bosnian Muslim To U.N. Tribunal.” Because of its brevity, this article failed to make the Simons Universe. See n. 6, above.

67. Although Simons published no article on the subject at the time of the May 22 indictment, she did take up the matter in a retrospective profile of Louise Arbour, “Proud But Concerned, Tribunal Prosecutor Leaves,” New York Times, September 15, 1999.

68. Stephen Lee Myers, “Kosovo Inquiry Confirms U.S. Fears of War Crimes Court,” New York Times, January 3, 2000.

69. Marlise Simons, “General Clark to Testify for the Prosecution at Milosevic Trial,” New York Times, December 14, 2003.

70. Marlise Simons, “An Unexpected Reversal Of War Crimes Convictions: U.N. Panel Shows It’s Not a Rubber Stamp,” New York Times, October 29, 2001.

71. See the analysis in Koechler, op. cit.

72. Quoted in George Szamuely, “US Hypocrisy on Those IKCs—You Guessed It, International Kangaroo Courts,” CounterPunch, September 24, 2002, < http://www.counterpunch.com.szamuely0924.html>.

73. Michael Mandel, “Milosevic Has a Point,” Toronto Globe and Mail, July 6, 2001, < http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0706-05.htm>.

74. Statement by Antonio Cassese to the Secretary General of the United Nations on January 21, 1994; quoted in Christopher Black, “An Impartial Tribunal? Really?,” November 21, 1999, < http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/Impartial.htm>.

75. Hayden, “Biased ‘Justice’,” p. 569.

76. “When asked by U.S. Information Agency pollsters what they feel are the most urgent issues facing their country,” Charles Boyd reports, “Croats, Muslims, and Serbs have consistently ranked bringing war criminals to justice near the bottom. No more than six percent of the members of any faction regarded the issue as important.” “Making Bosnia Work,” Foreign Affairs, January/February, 1998, p. 51. Boyd is a retired U.S. Air Force General with experience in the Balkans.

77. On the vetting process for the judges who have served on the ICTY’s bench, see Mandel, How America Gets Away With Murder , Ch. 4; and Carol Off, The Lion, the Fox and the Eagle (Canada: Random House Canada, 2000), p. 279ff.

78. Koechler, op. cit.

79. Sellars, op. cit., p. 186.

80. Quoted in Black, op. cit.

81. Quoted in John Laughland, “'The anomalies of the International Criminal Tribunal are legion...',” The Times ( London), June 17, 1999.

82. Ibid.

83. Ibid.

84. Robertson, op. cit., p. 418. He adds that although Arbour was surely “grateful” for the help, she was “unwise to take photo opportunities with Mr. Cook and the belligerent NATO general, Wesley Clark, which cast a shadow over her impartiality”---neglecting the fact that there was no other reason for Arbour to have made this trip in the first place, but to enhance the public image of the NATO-ICTY partnership, and the justness of NATO’s “bombing for humanity” (Robertson’s phrase).

85. “Another achievement of the tribunals has been to marginalize indicted war criminals who have not yet been arrested,” Richard J. Goldstone explains, citing as prime examples the July 1995 indictments of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, and the May 1999 indictment of Slobodan Milosevic. For Humanity: Reflections of a War Crimes Investigator ( New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 126.

86. Marlise Simons, “War Crimes Tribunal Expands Milosevic Indictment,” New York Times, June 30, 2001. The Times later reported that in an interview that the French daily newspaper Le Monde published on the morning of Milosevic’s first appearance before the Tribunal, July 3, 2001, to hear the charges against him for alleged crimes in Kosovo, Del Ponte announced that “she envisages bringing charges of genocide against Milosevic for Serbian crimes in the Bosnian and Croatian wars.” Roger Cohen and Marlise Simons, “At Arraignment, Milosevic Scorns His U.N. Accusers,” July 4, 2001.

87. ANP English News Bulletin, op. cit.

88. Quoted in Skoco and Woodger, op. cit., p. 37.

89. According to Simons, “Investigators at the Hague are notoriously discreet about their inquiries and rarely allow their names to be used.” “Case Against Milosevic Is Not Simple to Prove,” New York Times, July 2, 2001.

90. Hayden, “Biased ‘Justice’,” p. 562.

91. Ibid., p. 567.

92. Ibid., p. 568.

93. Marlise Simons, “Far From Former Yugoslavia, First War Crimes Trial Opens,” New York Times, May 8, 1996.

94. David Owen, Balkan Odyssey (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995).

95. For Robert Hayden’s testimony, see The Prosecutor of the Tribunal Against Dusko Tadic a/k/a “Dule” a/k/a/ “Dusan” [and] Goran Borovnica, Case No. IT-94-1-T, Transcripts, September 10, 1996, pp. 5590-5648, < http://www.un.org/icty/transe1/960910ed.htm>; and September 11, 1996, pp. 5649-5792, < http://www.un.org/icty/transe1/960911IT.htm>.

96. Marlise Simons, “Civil, It Wasn't; Defining a War to Determine the Crime,” New York Times, May 18, 1997.

97. Marlise Simons, “Balkan Rivals Revive Past in Icy Face-Off At U.N. Trial,” New York Times, May 22, 2003.

98. As one of the courtroom amicus lawyers for Milosevic, Branislav Tapuskovic, complained before the start of Milosevic’s cross-examination of Kucan, “to bring in a key witness of this nature for only one day is not sufficient.” But just as clearly, this judgment depends on what the prosecution intended Kucan’s single-day’s worth of testimony to be sufficient for. See “Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia,” Case IT-02-54, May 21, 2003, p. 20904, <http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/030521ED.htm>.

99. Op cit., p. 20915 and passim.

100. See Woodward, op. cit., pp. 134-143. Woodward also notes that “whatever the army did was automatically labeled as pro-Serb” (p. 137). The level distrust and violence directed against the JNA in the period before and after Slovenia’s and Croatia’s declarations of independence is seldom appreciated.

101. “Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia,” op cit., p. 20923ff.

102. Op cit., p. 20947.

103. Op cit., p. 20948ff.

104. Simons, “Balkan Rivals….” Evidently, Kucan fared far worse in the judgment of the Office of the Prosecutor. One little known fact, also unreported by the New York Times, was the prosecution’s last-minute rush to call the Slovenian legal expert and former member of the Yugoslav Constitutional Court, Ivan Kristan, to testify just two days after Kucan, hopefully to counter the damage stemming from Kucan’s appearance. BBC Monitoring International Reports, May 22, 2003, reproducing a report by the STA News Agency, Ljubljana, May 22, 2003. (Logistic delays would prevent Kristan from testifying until September 1, 2003.)

105. Anthony Deutsch, “Ex-Yugoslav President Backs Milosevic,” Associated Press, June 17, 2003; Stephanie Van Den Berg, “Milosevic not linked to Srebrenica massacre: former Yugo President,” Agence France Presse, June 17, 2003.

106. Marlise Simons, “Prosecutors Say Documents Link Milosevic to Genocide,” New York Times, June 20, 2003.

107. “Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia,” Case IT-02-54, November 19, 2003, p. 29215ff; pp. 29314-29315, <http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/031119ED.htm>.

108. “Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia,” Case IT-02-54, November 20, 2003, pp. 29341-19343, <http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/031120IT.htm>.

109. See the Initial Indictment [for Bosnia-Herzegovina], Case No. IT-01-51-I, November 22, 2001, par. 7; FirstAmended Indictment of Milosevic [for Croatia], Case No. IT-02-54-T, October 27, 2002, par. 7.

110. Toby Sterling, “Milosevic gives foretaste of defense in cross-examination of former ally,” Associated Press Worldstream, November 19, 2003.

111. Note that through the date of this writing, the Tribunal in fact has never announced any indictment of Borisav Jovic.

112. Marlise Simons, “Milosevic Is Ill; Trial May Slow,” New York Times, July 26, 2002.

113. Marlise Simons, “ Milosevic Finds a Friendly Face In the Witness Stand at His Trial,” New York Times, July 27, 2002.

114. Cedric Thornberry, wondering at the overwhelming and selective focus on Serb crimes, says that “a kindly soul at U.N. headquarters in New York, ear to the diplomatic grapevine, warned me in the spring of 1993, ‘Take cover—the fix is on.” Op. cit., pp. 78-79.

115. Marlise Simons, “Plea Deals Being Used to Clear Balkan War Tribunal’s Docket,” New York Times, November 18, 2003.

116. Marlise Simons, “Officers Say Bosnian Massacre Was Deliberate,” New York Times, October 12, 2003.

117. Ibid.

118. Greenspan, op. cit.

119. Ian Johnson, “The Judge As Prosecutor: Two Days At The ‘Trial’ of Slobodan Milosevic,” June 19, 2002, <http://www.icdsm.org/more/days-i.htm>.

120. See Mandel, How America Gets Away With Murder , Ch. 5.

121. See “Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia,” Case IT-02-54, February 18, 2002, p. 523, < http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/020218IT.htm>.

122. The estimate is Michael Scharf’s, as quoted in Sellars, op. cit., p. 187.

123. Rules of Procedure and Evidence, Rule 96, Evidence in Cases of Sexual Assault, December 17, 2003, < www.un.org/icty/basic/rpe/IT32_rev19.htm#Rule96 >.

124. When Wesley Clark testified in the Milosevic trial, the Times’s editors turned their paper’s coverage over to Simons’ colleague, Elaine Sciolino, who filed three reports on the testimony: “Clark Testifies Against Milosevic at Hague Tribunal,” December 16, 2003; “Milosevic Trial Helps Clark Try To Gain Notice,” December 17, 2003; “Clark Testimony Links Milosevic Directly to ’95 Massacre,” December 19, 2003. Like Simons, Sciolino’s reports never once deviated from the party-line.

125. Tiphaine Dickson, “Protesting Wesley Clark: As Saddam Faces War Crimes Trial, Milosevic’s Kangaroo Court Hops to US Orders,” Counterpunch, December 1-15, 2003; Paul Mitchell, “Milosevic trial sets precedent: US granted right to censor,” December 31, 2003, < http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/dec2003/cens-d31_prn.shtml>.

126. Marlise Simons, “Judges at War Crimes Trial Rein in Milosevic,” New York Times, September 22, 2003.

127. Marlise Simons , “Milosevic Trial Settles Into Slow But Judicious Routine,” New York Times, March 3, 2003.

128. Ian Traynor, “War Crimes Suspects May Avoid Trial,” The Guardian ( London), February 11, 2004.

129. For example, it was regularly acknowledged during the Vietnam war that the successive rulers of South Vietnam, from Ngo Dinh Diem in 1954 to Nugen Van Thieu in 1974, all of whom were imposed (and some removed) by U.S. officials, could not possibly compete with the Communists on a purely political basis, and were wholly dependent on U.S. support. Nevertheless, these same Saigon puppets were often annoyed that U.S. officials failed to treat them with the respect due independent rulers, although the U.S. media came close to doing that.

130. John Dewey et al., Not Guilty: Report of the Commission of Inquiry Into the Charges Made Against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials, 2 nd. Ed. (New York: Monad Press, 1972).

131. Ibid, p. 393.

132. Ibid, p. 19; p. 388.

133. Ibid, p. xxi; p. 21.

134. Ibid, p. 25.

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