The sinister twist to The Hague tale

The sinister twist to The Hague tale
10/26/2004 10:51
Assassination attempt against Milosevic?
How low can Washington stoop? After George Bush's policy in Iraq has brought the international community together, standing up for what is right and reason against lies, forgery, blackmail, and arrogance, the diplomatic tools used by Colin Powell, nothing much would surprise anyone any more.
Now we have the proof that former President Slobodan Milosevic is being given the wrong medicine, or else The Hague tribunal is telling lies, which seems to be an endemic trend of the Bush regime.
Slobodan Milosevic has declared recently that his medication against hypertension is administered to him daily in the detention unit by guards, and that he has to take it in their presence.
How, then, is it possible that blood tests reveal that the level of the drugs prescribed are lower than they should be and how is it possible that the same tests reveal the presence of drugs that were not prescribed?
Is someone manipulating the medication regime, trying to kill the ex-President to stop him telling the truth about what really happened in Yugoslavia, or is the Hague tribunal lying? If the medicine to combat hypertension is not being administered properly, is someone trying to murder him?
Mr.Milosevic's supporters have sent the following report to PRAVDA.Ru: "On November 23, 2002 the Dutch paper NRC Handelsblad reported in a story entitled "Milosevic Kreeg Verkeerd Medicijn " that the Tribunal had given him the wrong medicine. Their report said, "In the Scheveningen prison Slobodan Milosevic was given the wrong medicine, causing his blood pressure to rise very quickly. This was why at the beginning of this month the trial against the former president of Yugoslavia was suspended. Sources within the tribunal have confirmed this."
The Hague Tribunal is in total disarray, the defense counsel, Mr. Kay, a British lawyer, having resigned over the weekend, claiming that: "My team and me are unable to properly perform our function, we are ineffective in this trial and we are unable to say we are acting in the interest of justice." Kay said, "People are kidding themselves making believe that what is happening here is a proper defense."
Why was Kay imposed in the first place? Because Slobodan Milosevic was pumped full of drugs to raise his blood pressure so that he could not continue his defense (which he was doing so well, that he made a mockery of the ridiculous allegations of Prosecutor Carla del Ponte, cross-examining all of her witnesses and making many of them turn back on their stories). The result? He was silenced. Is this justice? Probably, in George Bush's Washington.
Just as Mr. Milosevic was making a mockery of Carla del Ponte's assertions, the "court", which started with the prosecutor stating to the press that Mr. Milosevic was guilty, before the trial had started, which holds the former President of Yugoslavia as a result of an act of kidnapping, against Yugoslav Federal law and against Serbian law, without any international arrest order being formally recognized in the state where he was kidnapped from, decided that he could no longer defend himself.
Changing the position of the goal posts during the game? Legal counsel was imposed on ex-President Milosevic when his blood pressure was lower than it had been in 2002, when he was considered fit enough to defend himself.
This Hague farce is degrading for the United States of America, degrading for the administration of President Bush, a disgrace for international law (wholly disrespected by the Bush regime) and degrading for the European Union, on whose territory this nonsense is being committed.
How can Slobodan Milosevic be denied the right to defend himself when his blood pressure was lower than it had been when they said he was well enough to speak?
Stop the war, in this case against international law, against the norms of diplomacy and common decency! When will the former enemies of the Soviet Union just drop the gauntlet? The answer? When Cheney and Rumsfeld become political history.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey