Ivo Skoric on Fri, 23 Jul 2004 20:20:02 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> ivogram x9: iraq/kosovo, libel/law, srebrenica, sanctions, refugees, sacirbey, 'voluntary interviews,' |
[digested @ nettime] "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Iraq - Kosovo CALLS FOR REFORM OF CROATIAN LIBEL LEGISLATION Srebrenica: Serbia's Agressive Denial Violating Sanctions Against Yugoslavia... European Refugee Crisis Missed by American Press skinheads Re: Fw: Sacirbey Bail Scandal ADC Update: Contact ADC if Approache Croatia: Rule of (Bad) Law - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2004 10:04:32 -0400 Subject: Iraq - Kosovo The jury is still out on which model of occupation is better suited for the "failing states" - the EU or the US one. The EU favors UN nominal control and NATO military protection. The US likes to do everything by themselves. Kosovo is under international occupation for past 5 years. Before that it was under minority imposed martial law. Not surprisingly the majority of elected representatives in Kosovo parliament voted that they should be let to rule their own country. Only Kosovo, unlike Iraq, has never been a country. However, while everybody knows that it is a joke, and that the US military still controls Iraq, the Americans administratively let Iraqis govern themselves in slighly more than a year since the occupation. While Iraqis were given a blank check by the US in the country at the edge of the civil war, the Kosovars are still told by the Europeans that "they must first meet internationally mandated standards before there can be movement toward clarifying Kosova's final status." The two different approaches extend to other legal matters as well: while the US still keep the custody of Saddam Hussein, they are letting the Iraqi court put him on trial. In contrast with that, Europeans insist that Slobodan Milosevic must be tried by the International Court, which may as well let him walk soon, in absence of conclusive evidence and due to his poor health. ivo ___________________________________________________________ RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 8, No. 129, Part II, 9 July 2004 KOSOVA'S PARLIAMENT SET TO CHALLENGE UN'S AUTHORITY By Patrick Moore Kosova's parliament voted on 8 July to adopt several constitutional changes, including one establishing the right to hold a referendum on independence. Other approved measures call for switching responsibility for international relations and public security from the UN civilian administration (UNMIK) to Kosova's own officials. UNMIK has repeatedly warned the parliament that it is not competent to make changes to the Constitutional Framework. Only the UN Security Council, which adopted Resolution 1244 in 1999, has the authority to make such changes, UNMIK stresses. One unnamed international official called the parliament's vote a waste of time. But in the wake of the ethnically motivated unrest in March, many political leaders in Kosova have called for speeding up the transfer of authority from UNMIK to Kosovar officials. In a well-publicized editorial, publisher Veton Surroi suggested in the 17 June issue of "Koha Ditore" that the next head of the international administration would do well not to bring any grand plan along. Instead, he should simply let the elected Kosovar officials get on with governing, intervening only when absolutely necessary. In fact, many Kosovars argue that the violence showed that the province is a time bomb waiting to explode so long as the status issue remains unresolved. They stress that time has come to end what is essentially a colonial administration in a postcolonial world, moving toward independence based on self-determination and majority rule, as has been the standard in the post-1945 process of decolonization. These and other scenarios regarding Kosova were discussed on 17 and 18 June at an off-the-record conference in Berlin sponsored by the German Foreign Ministry, the Bertelsmann Foundation, and the Munich-based Center for Applied Policy Research, titled "Rethinking the Balkans." Many of the Western participants at that gathering stressed that the Kosovars must first meet internationally mandated standards before there can be movement toward clarifying Kosova's final status. Serbian participants, for their part, were generally keen to note the importance of all minority rights, including freedom of movement and the right of all refugees and displaced persons to go home. Several Serbs stressed that they will measure the Albanians' sincerity by the extent to which they protect the Serbs' rights, adding that few Serbs are optimistic on this score following the March violence. Instead, many Serbs argued for some form of administrative partition. One Serb said that dividing Bosnia into two ethnically based entities in 1995 might not have been a perfect solution, but it has worked. Besides, he wondered, how can one charge that Bosnia is a weak state when it has the might of the international community behind it? Some of the Kosovar Albanian participants took the opposite approach, arguing that one reason for the frustration that led to the March violence was the tendency of UNMIK to try to build a multiethnic society on the basis of ethnic divisions. Instead, Hashim Thaci of the Democratic Party of Kosova (PDK) told "RFE/RL Balkan Report" on the margins of the conference that Kosova needs a solution resembling Macedonia's 2001 Ohrid agreement, which would reconstruct Kosova on the civic principle rather than on an ethnic basis. This, Thaci continued, would mean an end to enclaves and parallel structures by treating Kosova as a single country. Serbs would have the right to dual Serbian and Kosovar citizenship and to contacts with Serbia. Their cultural and historical monuments would be protected, Thaci stressed. But at least some of the Westerners at the Berlin conference called for recasting rather than ending the foreign administration in Kosova. Some participants close to Germany's opposition Free Democratic Party (FDP) repeated their party's call for replacing UNMIK with an EU administration, while maintaining NATO's security presence. One FDP member of the German parliament told "RFE/RL Balkan Report" on the margins of the conference that the EU is more knowledgeable about Kosova's affairs than are many international officials from Africa or Asia, adding that the EU is in the best position to offer the Kosovars incentives to meet the necessary standards. When asked what the EU would do if the Kosovar Albanian majority wanted a political as well as a military role for the United States, the FDP legislator replied, "We'll see." For their part, many Serbian participants eagerly leaned forward in their seats when the subject of EU rule in Kosova was raised. But the Kosovar Albanians tended to be skeptical, sensing that the project is more an attempt by some in the EU to show that Brussels can solve Balkan problems than something that will truly benefit Kosova. One Kosovar remarked that it seems strange that foreigners want to leave Iraq at the first sign of violence, but when unrest breaks out in Kosova, some foreigners seem more intent on staying than they were before. ______________________________________________________________________ __ ______________________________________________________________________ __ Balkan Human Rights List Subscribe: balkanhr-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: balkanhr-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Home: Balkan Human Rights Web Pages: http://www.greekhelsinki.gr The Balkan Human Rights List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/balkanhr/messages/ The Greek Human Rights List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/greekhr/messages/ Center of Documentation and Information on Minorities in Europe - Southeast Europe: http://www.cedime.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/balkanhr/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: balkanhr-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 13:55:22 -0400 Subject: CALLS FOR REFORM OF CROATIAN LIBEL LEGISLATION OSCE MISSION CONCERNED OVER PRISON SENTENCE FOR LIBEL, CALLS FOR REFORM OF CROATIAN LIBEL LEGISLATION http://www.osce.org/news/show_news.php?ut=2&id=4229 ZAGREB, 13 July 2004 - The OSCE Mission to Croatia has expressed concern that a Croatian journalist was yesterday sentenced to prison for libel. The Split Municipal Court sentenced journalist Ljubica Letinic to a two-month suspended prison term. The verdict is now open to appeal. "It is unacceptable that journalists should face prison sentences for their work," said OSCE Mission Spokesperson, Alessandro Fracassetti. In another case, the editor-in-chief of the former Novi Brodski List has refused to pay a fine and consequently will be serving a prison term in accordance with Article 200 of the Croatian Criminal Code for libel. "The possibility of prison sentences being imposed on journalists may have a chilling effect on the freedom of the media," Fracassetti said. The OSCE Mission, echoing recent statements by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, is again calling on the government to remove libel and defamation from the criminal code to the civil code, or at least start by removing incarceration as punishment for these offences. Changes to the Croatian Criminal Code currently being discussed in Parliament do not fully decriminalize libel. The Croatian Journalists' Association fully agrees with the process of decriminalisation of libel. ---------- Alessandro Fracassetti Spokesperson OSCE Mission to Croatia 14f7ebd.jpg Florijana Andraaeca 14 10000, Zagreb Croatia GMT +1 14f7f0d.jpg 14f7f2b.jpg Tel.: +385 1 309 66 20 +385 91 1988 904 (mobile) 14f7f49.jpg Fax: +385 1 309 62 97 14f7f67.jpg E-mail: <mailto:pau@oscecro.org>pau@oscecro.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 10:50:15 -0400 Subject: Srebrenica: Serbia's Agressive Denial Dear WIB supporters, letters of support can be sent to wib belgrade at: stasazen@eunet.yu. Subject: Srebrenica 2004 by Jasmina Tesanovic 10th July http://www.b92.net/galerija/pics/2004/07/55872873440f06cf16184e4327077 79.jpg It was my daughter s birthday, twentieth, a rather important date for a person who grew up a in Milosevic s Serbia, born on the date of his wife Mira Markovic, who incessantly celebrated the fortunate event that made all of us rather miserable not only politically but in my case personally too. I had a feeling that even that rather rare moment in my private life has been snatched away from us a private persons and made a matter of public charade if not crime: so why bother to celebrate it, considering that my daughter was born in 1984, Orwell science fiction dark year which turned somewhat true in Serbian history, we developed in my family this habit to share this private date as a public issue. This year as every beginning of July was a ritual standing of Women in Black in the Square of Republic for the victims of Srebrenica, 9 years after the massacre, in occasion of the burial of new 338 identified bodies, now more that thousand out of 8000 which have disappeared. We regularly reported our standing, got he official permission, yet once we were there we realized that the square was already occupied by two very loud and commercial events, so we had to retire under the famous Ljilja's clock (our activist) where in the past few months we have been collecting the signatures for, first the abolition of the law supporting the Hague war criminals, then for our recently elected presidential candidate Boris Tadic. Before we even managed to spread our banners, a woman from the usual onlookers stepped forward and started screaming incessantly; traitors, whores, CIA agents, AID patients, the usual repertoire...The police standing by our side was passive; the woman ran into our crowd of fifty, and started hitting random, she hit Ljilja, Cica, Stasa and Slavica; she did it fast and strong. The police finally stopped her while our Women in Black were trying to respond but not particularly surprised, it happened before. It happened only two months ago when three of our activists were beaten repeatedly and nobody was arrested afterwards and of course several other times during the Milosevic s regime. We organized ourselves rapidly in the usual circle with our pacifist and antimilitarist and antinationalist banners asking for the responsibility of the former and present regime for the massacre in Srebrenica. That triggered some others to join the combative woman. Other few women and some men. I recognized one from the last time our activists were beaten and the other from the famous gay lesbian pride march back in 2001 when the 15 activists were incessantly persecuted and beaten and spitted by 900 hooligans as well as members of the Obraz (nationalist) organization. We stood for one hour listening to their threats and offences, extremely radical this time: they threatened to skin us next time, to bring weapons, to take us to the court of traitors...to rape us ...They sang "Ko to kaze ko tolaze Srbija je mala" (nationalist song) and they shouted the names of their heroes, Seselj, Mladic Karadzic Milosevic...The police wrote down their id-s as well as those of attacked women in black women and then stood in silence. After the standing we closed our banners and took a seat in the nearby Gradska kafana (restaurant): we did not want to leave one by one, and we had foreign guests who were visibly upset. We hoped the harassers would leave first, instead they gathered around us waiting ...After some time we stood up and asked to police to protect us by making the aggressors leave...Instead the police asked us to leave because they claimed they could not protect us even though we were in a bigger number then the hooligans, even though we have all the legal and moral right to be where we were and do what we did. Even though the next day the democratic candidate was to be proclaimed the official president of Serbia, even though... We were summoned into cabs and denied to right to walk down the streets, some of us were furious, some scared but most of us, I guess used to it. Srebrenica is a bad word for modern Serbia, even worse then feminism, and the Women in Black put the two together... The next day, early in the morning we went to Srebrenica for the ritual standing in the memorial valley where the victims are buried. Our women friends greeted us and gave us the first row so that our banner Women in Black from Belgrade can be visible for the mass auditorium, press...and it never fails to be noticed, because it is important, for them, for us...paradoxically these last years for us it became safer and more significant to stand in Srebrenica 11the of July than to assist the first democratic president we supported with all our might to be elected while he was anointed the very same day in Belgrade: why did we have to chose and given the choice, how come only few of us were in Srebrenica...and why the obvious fact such as 8000 missing people from Srebrenica some of which found buried in Serbia proper never ever becomes a reality in Belgrade. I had a wish for the maturity birthday of my daughter next year: that the 338 wrapped bodies passed from hand to hand in Bratunac by relatives of the survived, if any, were passed here in the republic Square by our so called decent citizens and policemen who every year now just watch us silently while the war criminals and their loud supporters make the rules according to which we all are their hostages, willing or milling. I know my wish will never come true, but I also know that if we stop wishing we may get what we really want, as an English proverb says. And god forbid what that may be when it comes to Serbia whose favourite proverb is: one can fool around with everything but never with police or army... PS Why the nature becomes so beautiful wherever the crime is committed, said my friend. She was right; I never pay attention to the nature unless I am obliged to. The Srebrenica valley is demanding it: the intensive green colours, the soothing sounds of the wind and birds, the blazing sun which heats without hurting...the design of the clouds...the neat border lines of the place of the crime. On one side the abandoned railway tracks, the barracks the weeds...the barbed wire...in the same condition as 9 years ago; there the male victims were held once separated from the families...Later on they were executed somewhere else they say...it is a Auschwitz atmosphere that side of the valley triangle, it strikes for its organized efficiency, so many people executed in so few days, the technology bothers me, and images of general Mladic throwing chocolates to the children behind the barbed wire... The other side is a hill, not very steep, today covered with humble even graves of the identified recovered victims...the third side is a steep hill with a tree or two, where usually we come and stand during the ritual prayers. And in the middle, the memorial erected last year, a construction resembling a tent a cupola under which the bodies are assembled in rows, where the priest and speakers address god or commons. It is not an even side triangle, it does not resemble justice or beauty, it is even slightly sinister when the shadows start creeping in the late afternoon, it has no running water and has a lot of dust, but somehow every year I have a catharsis there, even though I am not a Muslim, I am not a man who prays and I am not even a foreigner anymore there. The place has the captive beauty of a place of a crime: there where men have wronged, the nature rebels. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 10:55:45 -0400 Subject: Violating Sanctions Against Yugoslavia... Bobby Fischer, former world chess champion, was arrested in Japan for trying to leave the country without a valid passport. The US passport he holds, was not renewed perhaps because there is an arrest warrant against Fischer in the US - he faces charges for violating economic sanctions against the former Yugoslavia by playing an exhibition match there in 1992 (re-match against Boris Spassky, where BF won $3M). He will probably be extradited to US. It will be interesting to see how this will play here. It was interesting to see how he got lured out of his 20 years isolation by an enterprneurial Serbian banker, too. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/17/international/asia/17fisc.html?th ivo - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 13:16:44 -0400 Subject: European Refugee Crisis Missed by American Press Incredibly, the US press completely missed this one! CNN, New York Times, everybody. Controversial German high-seas-roaming humanitarian organization Cap Anamour, that devotes itself to the rights of refugees and, particularly, the "boat people", a month ago, right about at the time Anan and Powel met in Sudan, rescued 37 Sudanese refugees from a sinking dinghy between Malta and Sicily. Then the German boat sailed right into Porto Empedocle with an intention to unload its human cargo on Italy. Italian authorities did not allow them to dock for 18 days, furthering the humanitarian and health crisis among the exhausted refugees on board of the humanitarian ship. Italy argued that the refugees should be taken to Malta, because they were saved closer to Malta's territorial waters. Maltese authorities played dead. German authorities also behaved as if they never heard for Cap Anamour or their ship, that sailed brazenly into Italian territorial waters with the unwanted cargo. The internal EU relations were threatened by the refugee crisis at the Southern tip of the alliance. Italian Green party members of parliament went on hunger strike to coerce the government to let the ship dock. They took the issue to EU Human Rights court at Strassbourg. Eventually, Italian government gave in and let the ship dock. Refugees were taken into detention. Captain and the humanitarian organization representative were arrested and interrogated by the Italian authorities. Local Italian Green party leader voluntarily spent a night in prison with them. They are released now. Sudanese refugees are still in custody, having their claim processed. It is unclear what fate awaits Cap Anamour's ship, which is now impounded by Italians. Italians would like to destroy it. Germans, despite the Green foreign minister, did not raise official objection. But the entire Europe is ruffled with the issue, that became suddenly more imminent than Iraq. Since, there are no news about this in the US, you can follow the developments through the reports by the Italian News Agency. ivo http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200407121949-1195-RT1-CRO-0-NF51 http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200407151212-1044-RT1-CRO-0-NF11 http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200407131711-1181-RT1-CRO-0-NF51 http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200407141752-1215-RT1-CRO-0-NF51 http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200407081409-1122-RT1-CRO-0-NF51 http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200407071848-1190-RT1-CRO-0-NF51 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 13:16:46 -0400 Subject: skinheads http://www.glas-javnosti.co.yu/danas/srpski/B04071802.shtml With the recent discovery of two ageing former Nazi collaborators in Croatia by the Simon Wiesenthal's Center's Ephraim Zurof, Croatia's neo-nazi skinhead scene got busy. Something that calls itself "Anti- jewish movement" sent threatening letters to Ephraim, and to several Croatia's prominent human rights workers, and Jewish leaders. ivo - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 14:25:37 -0400 Subject: Re: Fw: Sacirbey Bail Scandal In 1902 the territory of Bosnia-Hercegovina was ruled by the Austro- Hungarian empire. How can the treaty with Serbian kingdom in 1902 then apply to Bosnia-Hercegovina today? His lawyer should argue that Bosnia-Hercegovina NEVER was a part of Serbian kingdom, and consequently treaties with Serbian kingdom should be deemed irrelevant in this case. Until 1878, Bosnia was a province of Ottoman Empire. Then it fell under Austrian rule, and became a full-fledged Austrian Empire province in 1908. Following the WW I, Bosnia- Hercegovina was divided in cantons that became the part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later of Yugoslavia). It was never part of that kingdom as Bosnia-Hercegovina. During the second world war it was annexed to Nazi ruled Independent State of Croatia. And after the WW II it was a constituent republic of the Yugoslav socialist federation, which energically objected to any enforcement of old Serbian kingdom obligations. If there is no any example of use of that 1902 treaty after 1945, State Department should not have the case. Do they believe he is Al Qaeda to hold him, a US citizen, in prison for 15 months, awaiting trial on white collar charges brought against him by a toddler country? ivo On 19 Jul 2004 at 13:12, Ian Williams wrote: MaximsNews.com Weekly Column Bosnian U.N. Defender Locked Up by Ian Williams Ian Williams is a journalist and U.N. Correspondent for The Nation and a weekly columnist for www.MaximsNews.com [See his Bio. See Ian Williams' email: uswarreport@igc.org ] UNITED NATIONS -- 7 July 2004 / www.MaximsNews.com / Saddam Hussein is on trial, as is Slobodan Milosevic. Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the dynamic duo who gave the world the siege of Sarajevo and the slaughter of Srebrenica, are still at large but being sought. And the U.S.'s part in this movement for international justice and accountability has been to hold former Bosnian Foreign Minister Muhamed Sacirbey for fifteen months in a four by ten foot shared cell in a Federal Prison in New York awaiting extradition to Sarajevo on communist-era charges of "abuse of powers" while he was the Bosnian Mission to the UN. So why would a State Department that has expended so much diplomatic credit on keeping entirely hypothetical U.S. citizens out of the clutches of the International Criminal Court be so eager to hand over an actual living U.S. citizen like Sacirbey to a country where the State Department's annual reports regularly excoriate the political pliability of the judiciary and the danger to inmates in its prisons. Its reports said of Bosnia and Hezegovina last year, "The legal system was unable to protect the rights of either victims or criminal defendants adequately because of its inefficient criminal procedure codes and ineffective trial procedures. "The judiciary remained subject to influence by political parties. "Judges and prosecutors who showed independence were subject to intimidation, and local authorities at times refused to carry out their decisions." Understandably, Sacirbey says his refusal to return to Sarajevo to answer charges is because of his lack of trust in the judicial system there, especially in the face of the political vendetta against him. If he were a GI awaiting extradition from, say Iraq , to an air-conditioned cell in The Hague under accusation of torture, the Pentagon would be plotting a rescue mission for him! As it is, either spectacular incompetence, or equally spectacular malice, are the only explanations for the behavior of the U.S. State Department and Justice Department, who, say Bosnian sources, have been pressuring the judge there to maintain the charges, to the extent of drafting his letters to the U.S. Federal Court to smooth over the gaping differences between Bosnian and U.S. procedures. The U.S. has also hindered attempts by prosecutors of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia to interview Sacirbey to help in the trial of Milosevic. It seems an odd way to repay the man who did so much to help set up the Tribunal which is now trying Milosevic. Finally, last Friday, on July 1 the Federal magistrate Maas , embarrassed at holding someone who, as he had said a year ago, would have been let out on bail immediately if charged with similar offences in a U.S. court, allowed bail for Sacirbey - under punitive conditions of five million dollars surety and house arrest in Sacirbey's Staten Island home. He only did so because the Prime Minister of Bosnia over-rode the local judge in Sarajevo , and wrote a letter stating that his government had no objection to bail. The U.S. Justice Department has opposed bail from the beginning. Sacirbey was arrested last year just as the invasion of Iraq began, and has been held ever since under an extradition warrant executed under a treaty signed with the U.S . in 1902 by "The Kingdom of Servia" (sic) which the State Department considers to be valid with Bosnia & Herzegovina through four changes of name and political system. However the Department chose not to invoke Article 5 of this antique document, which states baldly that neither state "shall be bound to deliver up its own citizens," and Sacirbey is a U.S . citizen. In fact, the Sarajevo Cantonal Court judge has admitted that there was no indictment in the case: the request is to interview Sacirbey, which the former Foreign Minister is very happy with - if it were in the U.S. Sacirbey's legal advisor in the U.S. , American University law professor Paul Williams, maintains that under American law and under the extradition treaty with "Servia," "There is no provision for extradition for investigation, only when actual charges are filed. "The State Department should have bounced this right back to the Bosnians, not passed it on to the Department of Justice," he explains. There were early suspicions by Sacirbey and his family that there were political motivations behind the execution of the warrant, based firstly on the timing of his arrest with the start of the war on Iraq and strong U.S. attempts to get Bosnia to sign up both for the "Coalition" in the war against Iraq, and for the so-called Article 98 exemption for U.S. citizens being extradited to the International Criminal Court. Indeed State Department official, Janet Bogue, was in Bosnia the same week that Sacirbey was arrested, pressuring Sarajevo to sign such a bilateral agreement. While the Bosnian press has rehearsed all sorts of allegation against Sacirbey, the actual U.S. warrant from the Southern District DA's office in Manhattan, which appeared to regard "Bosnia and Herzegovina" as two separate requesting states., says the charge is "the crime of abuse of position or powers." But what led to the charges to begin with? In effect Sacirbey is charged with taking money from the UN Mission's accounts and using it for "unauthorized" purposes. The inference drawn by many in Bosnia was that he used the money to maintain an affluent personal life style and the Bosnian press, which often makes the Supermarket tabloids seem like papers of record in comparison, was happy to weigh in with irrelevant but colourful stories about his life style and demeanour. Sacirbey denies the charge. He says he paid out money on the Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic's orders in support of the ICTY at The Hague and for the ICJ case brought by Bosnia against Belgrade for aggression and genocide. Ironically the person who refused to authorize this spending was Momcilo Krajisnik who is now in prison at The Hague for genocide. Izetbegovic died while Sacirbey has been in prison. The Dayton Agreement, masterminded with the same American constitutional expertise now in progress in Iraq , brought the Bosnian's Serbian enemies into the office, determined to sabotage many of the public relations and legal initiatives the Bosniaks had previously undertaken. People who worked with Sacirbey at the Mission during the days when he was worth several divisions to the beleaguered Bosnians, point out that he put in immense amounts of his own money to start the Bosnian Mission to the U.N. and keep it going over the years. Ambassador Diego Arria, who represented Venezuela on the UN Security Council when the Bosnian war raged says "he was fundamental in bringing the attention of the Security Council and the international community to the massacres and genocide going on in his country. "He was an ardent and forceful advocate of human rights and the Tribunal. "I never had any doubt of his integrity or devotion." If there were any substance to the accusation, there is nothing to stop criminal charges being laid against Sacirbey in the U.S. courts. But no one has tried that route. Extradition in fact represents an Ashcroftian black hole in the justice system on a par with Guantanamo . Under existing law, the Federal Magistrate's position is simply to certify that the documentation is in order, and then to hand the papers on to the State Department for a political decision on whether to extradite the prisoner - the same State Department that began the tragicomedy originally by passing the extradition request on to the Justice Department! One almost worries about publicizing the details in case John Ashcroft does an end run round the Supreme Court decisions on U.S. citizens held as terrorists. All he has to do is to get an unsavory client regime to request their extradition and pop goes habeas corpus! It also highlights the peculiar ideological and totemistic thought processes of the administration. It is prepared to confront all its closest allies on the ICC, which has so many safeguards that no sane jurist ever envisages an American official ever facing it, but is working assiduously to keep a real American citizen in prison for a year and send him to a place where he may not survive incarceration and will find it impossible to get a fair trial. Go figure. Oh, and in case you had forgotten, where is Osama Bin Laden? Ian Williams' email: uswarreport@igc.org Ian Williams 333 E 30th St #10J New York, NY 10016, USA Tel: +1 212.686 8884 email uswarreport@igc.org website www.ianwilliams.info - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 23:13:29 -0400 Subject: ADC Update: Contact ADC if Approache "voluntary interviews"? that's marvelous. we had that in yugoslavia. i went to about a dozen of them. the state security service there called it "informative discussions". they even offered not to handcuff you if you went with them peacefully. later you were supposed to come on your own. finally they would try to make you feel like an informant. however, this was all part of my political asylum case, I mean measures like that in other country judged by the court in this country were enough to grant me political asylum from that other country. Now this country is introducing the same things that did not work elsewhere. This is an evolution from the http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=2233, where ADC gives advice to people to contact FBI if victims of hate crime. Now they are to contact ADC if approached by FBI. What is next? ivo ------- Forwarded message follows ------- ADC Update: Contact ADC if Approached by the FBI The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has noted a recent wave of reports from across the country indicating that FBI agents are contacting Arab and Muslim Americans, including citizens, for what has been described as voluntary interviews. ADC would like to remind members of the Arab, Muslim, and Arab-American communities that equal protection and due process rights are afforded to everyone, including non-citizens, in the United States. Unlike previous initiatives, the FBI has not communicated to ADC any plans to conduct such interviews. ADC urges anyone who is contacted by the FBI to contact the ADC Legal Department and provide details of the incident by calling (202) 244-2990, sending a fax to (202) 244-3196, or via email to legal@adc.org. Upon request, ADC will do its best to provide third party observers, in cases where potential interviewees would want such additional safeguards. Additional useful "Know Your Rights" information can be found on the ADC website at: http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=275 . ADC offers the following guidelines to anyone who is contacted by the FBI or other law enforcement agencies. 1) Make sure an attorney is present at all times during any voluntary interview the person may choose to attend. It is important to note that everything you say to an FBI agent or other law enforcement representative is recorded, nothing is 'off the record,' including immigration - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net> Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 11:20:12 -0400 Subject: Croatia: Rule of (Bad) Law In Croatia people do not go in jail for corruption. They go in jail for writing about corruption. Ashcroft should send a team to Croatia to study the system that would keep his bosses in power, while draining all F911 revenues on court costs. In Croatia, there is a defamation law, carried on from the ancient communist regime through the Tudjman's country, and it is still on the books, two regime changes later. The defamation law is there to protect high ranking fat cats from criticism. High level corruption is always secretive and hard to track down. And something that newspapers publish, is immediately public and easy to document. So, while corrupted officials may easily deny wrongdoing, the journalists who write about corruption find it hard to defend themselves against acusations of defamation. That makes it easy for corruption to continue and flourish regardless of the changes of government. A court in Split, southern Croatia, sentenced state television and radio journalist Ljubica Letinic to a two-month suspended prison term for defamation of Jozo Parcina, a local businessman. Letinic, had accused Parcina of corruption during a talk show that aired on the main television station on 18 March 2002. Meanwhile, Croatia has its own version of Dick Cheney in the person of Miomir Zuzul. Miomir Zuzul used to be a psychology professor at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. There, he was also a high-ranking member of the Communist Party. One of the young cadres, slated for pampered future. But, Yugoslavia collapsed, and he became a high-ranking member of the nationalist Croatian HDZ party - opposing communists. Chosing the winning side, under Tudjman he got the coveted post of Croatian Ambassador to the United States. Once in the U.S., guided by his opportunism, he quickly got onto the payroll of the U.S. military- industrial complex. Not Halliburton, though, but Bechtel. During Racan's government, Zuzul worked as a "consultant" for Bechtel in Croatia. His job was to lobby for Bechtel's contracts in the country. Under the new HDZ government led by Ivo Sanader, Zuzul became Croatia's foreign minister. Like Cheney, who claims to have broken the ties with Halliburton since becoming the vice-president, Zuzul claims not to be working for Bechtel any more, as he took the #2 position in Croatia's government. Just recently, however, Bechtel was awarded a contract worth $257M to build 37 km of highway South of Split (Dugopolje - Šestanovac) WITHOUT public tender. Zuzul swears he did not help. Just as Haliburton miraculously won the contract in Iraq, with no help of Cheney. If, however, someone writes in Croatian media that Zuzul is, perhaps, a corrupt official serving his American corporate masters, rather than the people of Croatia, that someone would be liable for defamation, and could expect a suspended prison sentence by Croatian courts at best. That policy is wrong and must be changed. ivo IFEX - News from the international freedom of expression community _________________________________________________________________ ALERT - CROATIA 15 July 2004 Journalist given two-month suspended jail sentence SOURCE: Reporters sans frontičres (RSF), Paris (RSF/IFEX) - RSF has expressed shock after a court in Split, southern Croatia, sentenced state television and radio journalist Ljubica Letinic to a two-month suspended prison term for defamation of Jozo Parcina, a local businessman. Letinic, who is also an RSF correspondent, had accused Parcina of corruption during a talk show that aired on the main television station on 18 March 2002. Her case will now go before the Split Appeals Court. RSF said the sentence conflicted with United Nations and Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe recommendations that press offences not be punishable by prison sentences. "As Croatia became an official candidate for European Union membership last month, this sentence goes against all progress in press freedom in the past few years," the organisation said. In its 2004 annual report, RSF highlighted the fact that Croatia had carried out major but often controversial legislative reform of the media, with a view toward European integration. The country's defamation law remains out of line with European and international standards. The last prison sentence for a press offence was given to Ivo Pukanic on 23 December 2002. The former editor-in-chief of the weekly "Nacional" received a suspended two-month sentence for threatening Ivic Pasalic, a former political advisor to late president Franjo Tudjman. For further information, contact Soria Blatmann at RSF, 5, rue Geoffroy Marie, Paris 75009, France, tel: +33 1 44 83 84 65, fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51, e-mail: europe@rsf.org, Internet: http://www.rsf.org The information contained in this alert is the sole responsibility of RSF. In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please credit RSF. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net