I just read the report that Bill Clinton will be at Potocari in order to shed some crocodile tears for the 20th Anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide. What a disgrace! As everyone knows, it was Clinton who made the ultimate decision to sacrifice Srebrenica and Zepa (and Gorazde) to Mladic so that Holbrooke could have his genocidal carve-up Map at Dayton. I gave the following interview on June 23, 1995 when I was doing everything humanly possible to prevent the forthcoming genocidal massacre at Srebrenica. fab
From 1999, this is Frances Boyle's "Is Bosnia the End of the UN? Yes!:"
Is Bosnia the end of the road for the UN?
There have been many voices calling for the restructure of the United
Nations, particularly of the representation of the non-First World
states within the General Assembly, and the operations of the Security
Council consisting of the permanent five that largely utilise the UN for
its own political and capital interests. The inept management of the
conflicts in Bosnia by the UN have made those voices more vociferous,
with some calling for the end of the United Nations.
Francis
Boyle is the Professor of International Law at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, served as the Legal Adviser to Bosnian
President Alija Izetbegovic and Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic
during the Owen-Stoltenburg negotiations in Geneva, and represented the
Bosnian Government at the international court of justice. He won two
World Court Orders to Bosnia which the UN Security Council refused to
enforce, due to the manipulations of Britain,
Russia, France, and the US at the diplomatic table.
In
this recent interview he outlines the background to the diplomatic
negotiations in Bosnia, the corruption and amorality of the great
powers, and how the greed and capital interest of the West, and its
anti-Muslim actions will spell the end of the post-World War II
political order.
Initially
the scenario existed where the international players, or the so-called
great players, wanted to keep Yugoslavia intact, but when it became
obvious that this wasn't going to be the case, the West
introduced a number of conferences and plans; first, the International
Conference on Yugoslavia at the Hague, the Vance-Owen Peace Plan, the
Owen-Stoltenburg Plan, the Washington Plan, the Five-Nation Contact
Group Plan. If these plans violated established
Human Rights, Racial Discrimination, and Apartheid Conventions and are
perceived to be illegal according to international law, why have they
been poorly conceived and attempted to be implemented?
The
great powers have basically concluded that the Bosnians have lost the
war, and of course, the reason the Bosnians lost the war was that the
great powers at the Security Council imposed the arms embargo
upon them.
So
when the signal was given by President Milosevic to attack Bosnia--and
remember that he also took General Ratko Mladic who had destroyed
Croatia and Vukovar, and put him in charge of the Bosnia operation--the
Bosnian people were totally defenceless. So from the great power
perspective, the Bosnians have lost the war and, as they see it, they
need to work out some type of deal that will effectively recognise this.
Hence, the creation of the plans and schemes that
violate every known principle of international law.
When
I was instructed by the Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic to sue
Britain in November 1993, I put out a statement at the UN announcing
that the Owen-Stoltenburg Plan violated the Genocide, Racial
Discrimination, and Apartheid Conventions--it clearly did. Anyone who
knew anything at all about that plan would have understood that--and
Cyrus Vance is an international lawyer, he should have known better. So
any of the permanent members of the Security
Council can be sued--and the Bosnian government is aware of this--for
violating the Genocide Convention, the Racial Discrimination Convention
and the Apartheid Convention. And I have no problems at all in suing all
of them on the basis of these three conventions
and I'm sure of winning those law suits. It's an open and shut case.
But
the problem was that when President Izetbegovic instructed me to sue
Britain, the Bosnians were threatened. The then Bosnian Foreign Minister
Ljubijankic, who was later assassinated, was called in,
basically threatened, and told that if the Bosnian government was to
continue with the law suit, the humanitarian assistance that was being
provided to the Bosnian people would be cut. They were pressured by the
French, the Germans, and the Americans, as well
as Owen and Stoltenburg, to drop the whole case. So that's the problem,
where the great powers of Europe threaten to cut off humanitarian
assistance to civilians--and the Bosnian people can only survive because
of food brought in by the world community.
When
Bosnia goes to court to sort out its rights, which it has a perfect
right to do, the so-called protecting powers threaten starvation for
their people. Unfortunately, the Bosnians had to go along with
this as they always have.
What are the historical connections between the Vance-Owen and Owen-Stoltenburg Plans and the Munich Pact from 1938?
First, there needs to be an understanding of the historical evolution.
The
Vance-Owen
Plan would have carved up Bosnia into ten cantons on an ethnic basic,
but would not have destroyed Bosnia as a state. When the Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic and the Bosnian Serb leader,
Radovan Karazdic and his so-called parliament rejected the Vance-Owen
Plan, the great powers then moved into the Owen-Stoltenburg Plan. The
Owen-Stoltenburg Plan would have carved up the state itself--it would
have destroyed the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina
as an independent nation state.
Therefore,
this plan is the modern day equivalent of the Munich Pact. It was
designed to carve up a UN member state, and would rob Bosnia-Herzegovina
of its United Nations membership--the main difference
was that the carve-up was not taking place at Hitler's lair at the
Berchtesgarten but this time the carve-up was taking place in Geneva, at
United Nations headquarters and under the auspices and supervision of
the United Nations, the European Union and the
United States Government. So this time all the major powers of Europe
and the United States were in on the carve-up of a sovereign member
state of the United Nations.
The
Vance-Owen Plan was bad, but the Owen-Stoltenburg Plan would have been
the end of Bosnia's statehood and would have turned Bosnia into a new
Lebanon. The Owen-Stoltenburg Plan would have been a total
catastrophe--to carve up Bosnia into three pieces and rob it of its UN
membership. It was clear that in Geneva during the so-called peace
negotiations, that the whole purpose of the exercise was to destroy the
Bosnian statehood so that the Muslim, Jewish and
non-Serb or Croat population would simply be wiped out. In historical
terms, back in the 1930s the Jews were wiped out because they did not
have a state of their own, and the only thing that has kept the Bosnians
from completely being wiped out, fully and
completely, has been their statehood and their UN membership. Owen,
Stoltenburg, the UN, and everyone else knew that the only thing that
would keep these people from going the way of history was their UN
membership and statehood, so they had to get rid of
it.
Indeed,
Owen's lawyer admitted to me and our team--we have this on file with
the World Court--that the suggestion to eliminate Bosnian statehood came
from Karazdic, the war criminal. Karazdic suggested
this notion to Owen and Stoltenburg and they approved it personally.
Their lawyer then redrafted the documents to eliminate Bosnian
statehood--we have all this on record, with witnesses, at the World
Court. It reminded me of Hannah Arendt's comment on the
Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, about the banality of evil. That here were
nameless, faceless bureaucrats operating in Geneva, destroying a
sovereign member state of the United Nations, knowingly inflicting
ethnic cleansing on a million-and-a-half to two million
people and doing all of this by means of a word processor. And that is
literally what was going on. And the plan today, the so-called Contact
Group plan, carves Bosnia up into two pieces. It will preserve the
shell of the Bosnian state, although, effectively
Bosnia will be carved up. So, all of the discussions in the Security
Council about respecting the territorial integrity and political
independence of Bosnia is nonsense. These men at the Security Council
know exactly what they are doing--that was my assessment
in dealing with them personally. They're still trying to carve Bosnia
up, and the land that they have allocated to the so-called federation
will make Bosnia an appendage of Croatia.
The
Bosnian Muslims, and the Serbs, the Croats, and the Jews loyal to the
Bosnian government, would have never survived the Owen-Stoltenburg
carve-up if it had been implemented. The Contact Group carve-up
was designed and drafted by the US State Department. It appears that if
it were to be implemented, that those people would at least physically
survive. But ultimately Bosnia would lose its independence. So it's a
slight improvement but it still represents
a violation of every known principle of international law including a
violation of the UN Charter, a toleration of genocide and war crimes,
condoning this type of behaviour and again, it would be tantamount to
the Munich Pact. It raises the question then,
and everyone must consider this: what good is the United Nations? If
the UN is not going to be prepared to defend a member state, but instead
carve it up and destroy it, then obviously the United Nations has lost
its utility, just as the League of Nations
did when it could not confront Mussolini over what he did in Abyssinia
in 1935. I remembered, when I was in Geneva with President Izetbegovic,
that it was Haile Selassie that had come to Geneva in the same building
to make a plea for the powers to save Abyssinia
from the Italian fascist invasion and they didn't listen to him.
Abyssinia was taken over and eventually the League was destroyed because
it could not protect small states like Austria, Czechoslovakia,
Abyssinia, and Poland from fascist invasions.
So
if the UN is getting into the business of carving up UN member states
then it's not a good sign for the integrity of the United Nations. It
must be understood that this is all being supervised by the
Secretary General of the UN--Boutros Boutros-Ghali--he knows what's
going on--and at the direction of the United States, the United Kingdom,
France and Russia--they're all in on it. And in the background the
Clinton administration is posturing, and saying
'oh, isn't it terrible what the Europeans are doing'. This is all
public relations--the US government was in on the carve-up just like
everyone else.
The Washington Plan instigated a confederation between Croatia and Bosnia.
Do
the Serbs have a moral or legal right to set up a federation with Serbia
proper--and this has been one of their complaints--if the Bosnian
government can federate with Croatia, why can't the Bosnian
Serbs federate with Serbia?
This
is public relations machinery at work again. The Washington Agreements
were designed by the State Department to carve up Bosnia under the
fiction of preserving the state of Bosnia, but effectively
consigning these people to the control of Croatia. The federation with
Croatia was imposed on the Bosnians--it's not something that they
wanted. It was imposed on them, so the argument that the Serbs must have
the same deal is just total hypocrisy. But the
point is, that the Serbs have already been promised a confederation by
the great powers. That's why the federation-confederation was set up
between Croatia and Bosnia--to ultimately give the Serbs the same thing.
The State Department and the Pentagon admitted
that the Washington Plan was just a sophisticated carve-up under
another name--I have the admissions on file. So the Washington Plan was
another design for a carve-up, to a preservation of the fig-leaf of the
republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina while effectively
carving it up into two. And Karadzic is still holding out for his
independent Serb state. If he were smart--which he is not--he'd go along
with the carve-up plans and he'd probably get his state in five, ten,
fifteen years from now--and that is what the ultimate
agenda is within the Washington Plan. Just read through the documents
that are being drafted by State Department lawyers--all you have to do
is read through them and it's very clear that this is what the deal is.
But most people don't read these documents,
they're long, and they're complicated.
This
highlights the problems within the management and respect of
international law. You did win two world courts orders on behalf of the
Bosnian government, but so far, neither respect nor implementation
of those orders has occurred. What are the difficulties associated with
the management and implementation of international law, and what are
the ramifications for the international political order?
I
think that at this point, if the UN and the great powers are prepared
to let Bosnia go down when there are two World Court orders
overwhelmingly in Bosnia's favour on all points, then it seems to me
that
we're at an end of the international legal order that was set up in the
aftermath at the end of World War II.
"I
think we've reached a historical era now where the West has proven its
complete and total moral bankruptcy on Bosnia and has now forfeited any
moral right to leadership that it might have had in terms
of a commitment to principles like human rights, democracy, the rule of
law, all of which they have subverted, undermined and destroyed in
Bosnia."
Francis Boyle
When
we have the UN carving up a UN member state and violating every known
principle that the post-World War II order was expected to uphold, I
believe that we're witnessing the eclipse of the international
legal order, and I can assure everyone that that's the way that the
Islamic world sees Bosnia. If Muslims had killed a quarter-of-a-million
Christians and Jews, and Muslims had raped 30,000 Christian and Jewish
women, this war would have been over three years
ago. The West would have never tolerated it. But when it comes to
Muslim people being massacred, every known principle of international
law has been violated by the permanent members of the Security Council,
by the United Nations organisation itself, and by
all of Europe--they just do not care. Again, as I argued at the World
Court, if the UN and the World Court cannot save Bosnia, then what good
is the UN. What is left? I think that the answer is nothing. And the
longer this goes on, the more that will become
apparent.
It's the same with NATO. What good is NATO? Again, the answer is nothing.
Here
we have the world's largest military alliance sitting around in Europe
for 40 years with nothing to do. President Bush actually tried to revise
the mandate of NATO to put it into a peace-keeping type
operation to deal with regional threats in Eastern Europe. The first
regional threat appears and what happens? Nothing. And it's destroying
NATO from within, and without. I'm sure that we'll see more of this
in-fighting at the UN and other types of international
forum where the West has proven its total hypocrisy to the Third World
and the Islamic world.
For
what reasons are the UN and the US distorting the mandates that have
been provided to them and why has there been the lack of effective
mediation and conflict resolution in Bosnia?
It
goes back to Machiavellian power politics, a situation that we saw a
decade or so before World War I where there was a reestablishment of the
triple entente between Russia, France and Britain. As they
see it, Bosnia is not worth another world war. Of course, all three
countries unquestionably suffered terribly during World War I. Paris was
almost overrun by the Germans, the British lost an entire generation of
men, and the Russian empire was dissolved.
So their attitude is that the Bosnians are not worth fighting for, the
UN Charter isn't worth fighting for, and above all, that as the Balkans
is a nasty place there will need to be a strongman in charge of the
Balkans. That strongman, of course, is Milosevic--the
great powers can do business with Milosevic, and have done business
with Milosevic and his predecessors, going back to Tito. Tito was the
darling of the West as long as he was opposed to Stalin.
This
is the doctrine of the policeman, that every region of the world needs a
policeman to keep it under control and Milosevic is the policeman in
the Balkans. So we're going to have some hand-wringing
and some tears for the Bosnians but they will be sacrificed on the
altar of great-power politics. It's really a reversion to pre-World War
I mentality and pre-World War II behaviour.
Milosevic
is perceived by the US and the West as someone that they can do
business with. Is this in terms of the arms trade, or economics, or
other geopolitical factors?
In
control and domination of the Balkans. And I'm not the only one saying
this--you can read it in the pages of the newspapers, or on the
Internet--they're all saying the West can do business with Milosevic,
not only in respect to Bosnia, but in the whole region. He can keep it
under his thumb and keep it under control. The Balkans is a volatile
area--that's the assumption, and as far as the West is concerned there
needs be someone there to keep it under control
and Milosevic can do it.
It's
pretty much the replay of the Nixon doctrine. For example, the Shah of
Iran was America's policeman in the Persian Gulf. That's the notion with
Milosevic and whoever his successor might be. Putting
aside the rhetoric, the continuity between the Bush and Clinton
administrations is striking. When Yugoslavia was about to fall apart,
George Bush sent his Secretary of State, Jim Baker, to meet with
Milosevic and make the statement that the United States supports
the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. Why? The policeman theory--the
US needs Belgrade to keep the Balkans under control and that statement
by Baker effectively was the green light to Milosevic to invade
Slovenia, then to invade Croatia, and then to invade
Bosnia. And then the arms embargo was put on. If you read the
negotiated history of resolution 713 at the UN Security Council, it was
not Belgrade's suggestion to implement the arms embargo over the former
Yugoslavia, it was the United States', Britain's,
France's and Russia's suggestion in order to facilitate Milosevic in
his control and domination of the Balkans.
On
the issue of the international arms embargo over the former Yugoslav
republics, the UN General Assembly voted to lift the embargo, the US
Congress voted to lift the embargo as well, yet it remains in
place. Why has the international arms embargo not been lifted, and what
is the relationship between the arms embargo, human rights and genocide
according to the definition provided within the UN Charter?
First of all, the arms embargo was never imposed on Bosnia. Resolution
713
outlining
the arms embargo was imposed on the former Yugoslavia. There is no
Security Council resolution at all that says that the independent Bosnia
is subject to an arms embargo. The situation consisted
of the British, and the French and the Americans deciding to prevent
the government of Bosnia--a government which not only represents
Muslims, but Serbs, and Croats and Jews and others--from defending
themselves from a genocidal assault by the Serbs, led by
Milosevic, by Karadzic, and by Mladic.
This
was a conscientious decision. It was the British Navy, the French Navy
and the American Navy in the Adriatic and their Air Forces that made it
quite clear that no weapons could go into Bosnia. They
couldn't care less about the resolution--the resolution has nothing to
do with it.
Eventually
Congress forced Clinton to pull out but the British and the French are
still there policing this embargo. Again, this goes back to the Bush
policy, which was to preserve Yugoslavia as an entity
at all costs and if the Bosnians had to be sacrificed, then so be it.
As the US sees it, they're just Muslims anyway, who cares--President
Bush had just killed a quarter-of-a-million Muslims in Iraq and no-one
cared, so why should anyone care about the dead
Muslims in Bosnia. So, the great powers are working hand-in-glove with
Belgrade. And with resolution 713, the great powers had to ask Belgrade
to give them permission to put the arms embargo on because it was their
idea, not Belgrade's. And Belgrade, after
some procrastination, went along with this because they already had
enough weapons. They had all the weapons that they would ever need and
therefore the embargo was not going to hurt them, but hurt the Bosnians.
That was the policy and all the great powers
were in on this--the US, Russia, Britain, and France--they're all in on
it and they all know exactly what they're doing. It's dirty. Again,
when I was in Geneva with the Bosnian Presidency at the Owen-Stoltenburg
carve-up, it was like a combination of Munich
and Poland, and like watching the Jews go off to Auschwitz in
cattle-cars. Even the State Department predicted that if the
Owen-Stoltenburg Plan had been carried out, a million-and-a-half to two
million Bosnians would be subjected to ethnic cleansing. And,
despite this, the plan was still being pushed by Christopher. He and
his Ambassador were there pressuring President Izetbegovic to go along
with this carve-up. It was so bad that it led to three State Department
officials to quit in protest over a thoroughly
duplicitous and unprincipled policy that was being pursued by
Christopher, and with the full knowledge and approval of Clinton.
Christopher then made some statements about how if the Serbs continued
to bombard Sarajevo and other Bosnian cities that there
might be airstrikes. Now imagine this--there we were in Geneva trying
to negotiate a peace plan, which for all intents and purposes was really
a carve-up, and at the same time Serb artillery, tanks and
anti-aircraft weapons were pouring fire down on Sarajevo,
on Tuzla, Zenica, Gorazde, and all the other Bosnian cities.
NATO
airplanes were flying over Bosnia, watching all this going on, taking
pictures and sending the reconnaissance photos back to NATO
headquarters, to the UN and to Washington, London and Paris. Yet nothing
is being done.
And
you can watch all this on CNN. Meanwhile, President Izetbegovic is told
'by the way, you have to sign this document that will carve Bosnia up
and rob Bosnia of its UN membership'. This is what's going
on here.
During
the so-called peace negotiations in Geneva, we sent a letter to
President Clinton asking for airstrikes against the Serb artillery,
tanks and anti-aircraft weapons that were then raining death and
destruction upon the innocent people of Bosnia. Christopher had only
threatened to use airstrikes, so I suggested that we send a letter to
Clinton and specifically ask for airstrikes.
So I
drafted the letter which effectively asked 'how do you expect us to
negotiate here when we are being bombarded. If you want reasonable good
faith negotiations, then, at a minimum, we need airstrikes,
we need some counter-power here because the Serb leaders aren't
interested in negotiating with us'. I've been at peace negotiations--I
was with the Palestinians in Washington and that was pretty bad, but
nothing like this.
These
were not negotiations, these were diktats. There is no way that it can
be anything but a diktat as long as the Bosnians cannot really do more
to defend themselves than they currently are. And that's
what the international community has been doing so far. The
Owen-Stoltenburg Plan was a diktat. The Vance-Owen Plan was a diktat.
The Contact Group plan was a diktat--all imposed on the Bosnians against
their wishes. President Izetbegovic is not a Muslim fundamentalist
who wants a mini-Muslim state in Bosnia. He is a very cultured,
educated, old-world gentleman who would very much like to see a true
European state. And he is up there in Geneva with the other members of
the Bosnian presidency fighting for a true multi-cultural
state. The irony for me is that the Bosnians are fighting for human
rights, international law and democracy. That's what the Bosnians
want--and the West, the US, Britain, Russia, and France are saying, 'you
can't have that--we're not giving it to you. All
you have is a little apartheid mini-Muslim state. That's all we're
going to give you, there you go'. That's the greatest irony of all.
Speaking
to the people of Bosnia, predominantly, they blame two people for the
crisis. One is Slobodan Milosevic, the other is Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
The
United Nations is an instrument, and in this sense, Boutros-Ghali is
correct in stating that the UN can only act according to its mandate. He
just does what the great powers tell him to do--this is
not to excuse the UN at all--but the UN is doing exactly what the
Russians, the British, the French and the Americans want them to do.
But
what Boutros-Ghali must be criticised for is for being so spineless and
unprincipled for going along with the carve-up of Bosnia. And remember,
his grandfather was the one who signed the treaty handing
over Egypt to Britain, so Boutros-Ghali is in the pocket of the British
and the Americans. They put him in that slot of Secretary-General
against the wishes of the Africans. They wanted a black candidate, but
the Americans and the British wanted someone that
they could control, and that candidate was Boutros-Ghali. The UN is
complicit through and through but again, he UN is just a tool and an
instrument of the permanent members of the Security Council They are the
ones behind this.
In
1993 when Boutros-Ghali flew into Sarajevo he stated that he could
think of at least ten other regions in the world that had more urgent
needs and concerns than Sarajevo, and how Bosnia is basically
a white persons' war. For what purposes would he have made these
statements and, indeed, are there other arenas around the world that are
more 'deserving'
than Bosnia?
There
are many areas of conflict in the world that we in the West overlook.
Bosnia was unique at that time because genocide was being perpetrated.
This is the first case in the history of the post-World
War II era where a formal determination of the existence of genocide
was produced, and of the trigger of the Genocide Convention obligation. I
won that World Court ruling on April 8, 1992 and no-one did anything
about it despite the existence within the UN
Convention of the obligation to stop genocide. Later on, of course, the
same thing happened in Rwanda and nothing was done there either--the UN
did nothing, the United States did nothing, and indeed the UN made it
worse by pulling troops out and allowing the
genocide to happen again. What we are witnessing now is a degradation
of any international commitments to any principles at all.
That
even when genocide stares the great powers in the face, they refuse to
do anything to stop it. Genocide evolved out of the consensus after
World War II that what happened to the Jewish people was atrocious
and should never happen again. Yet the same type of backsliding,
denial, abnegation of will power that we saw with the Jewish people is
happening with the Bosnians and now the Rwandans. I take it that what
has happened in Bosnia and Rwanda is a sign to any
dictator in the world that it's possible to commit mass murder and
genocide and get away with it--no-one's really going to do anything to
stop the action unless oil or capital interest is involved. As Haris
Silajdzic said in Geneva, 'if you kill one person
you're prosecuted; if you kill ten people, you're a celebrity; if you
kill a quarter-of-a-million people, you're invited to a peace
conference'. That's the lesson of Bosnia, and that's exactly what has
happened with Karadzic.
So
the agenda for the United Nations in Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia is
not to intervene at any cost--a number of public statements by General
Michael Rose and Yasushi Akashi deliberately confuse, contradict
and compromise the actions of the UN in Bosnia...
As a
matter of fact, the UN has now withdrawn the air patrol over Bosnia
that was imposed on the same day that I won the first World Court order.
On
that day it was announced that NATO was going to set up the air patrol
over Bosnian air space. I was asked by the BBC what I thought about this
and I stated that I hoped that those air planes weren't
just going to fly over Bosnia and watch the raping, the killing, the
murdering and the genocide that was going on, and just wave to the
people without anything about it. Yet that is exactly what has
happened.
Again,
it's not a question of inefficiency with the UN. They know what they're
doing and exactly why they're doing it. These people at the UN are not
dumb, they are not inefficient, and they are not incompetent.
What is being done in Bosnia is being done for a reason. To give you an
example, whenever it appeared that NATO might be instigating airstrikes
under the impetus of the Clinton administration, General Rose would
send some of his own troops to be captured by
the Serbs in order to abort the airstrikes.
Why were all the UN troops taken hostage in the last month after the first set of UN airstrikes--why weren't they protected?
That's
exactly what the UN wanted--they wanted them taken hostage so that
further military action would be prevented, and then precipitate an
excuse for the UN to pull out of Bosnia. That's why those UN
peace-keepers were left at risk. And now, NATO has decided to pull back
the patrol
"If
you kill one person, you're prosecuted. If you kill ten people, you're a
celebrity; if you kill a quarter-of-a-million people, you're invited to
a peace conference."
Bosnian
Prime Minister, Haris Silajdzic, referring to the invitation of Bosnian
Serb representative Radovan Karadzic to the Vance-Owen Peace Plan
negotiations.
over Bosnian airspace. Now they are just patrolling on the Adriatic Sea.
When
the attack by the Serb airplanes occurred in Bosnia, nothing was done.
Now NATO is pulling back what little ineffective military action they
were taking. Apparently senior UN General Bernard Janvier
has promised Karadzic that there will be no more NATO airstrikes and as
a symbol of this understanding, the UN pulled back and effectively
terminated the air patrol of Bosnia. And my guess is that the so-called
Rapid Reaction Corps is being sent over there
to extricate the UN--that's why Owen quit. Owen has always been a tool
of the British Foreign Office and he has done exactly what his masters
in London have wanted him to do.
Now
the great powers have decided that the time has come to pull out of
Bosnia and have told Owen to get out of there. So Owen is out. Unless
something remarkable happens between now and the end of this
year, I suspect that the British and the French will probably withdraw
from Bosnia.
The
operations of the War Crimes Tribunal have been along the same lines of
ineptitude as the resolutions that have been passed through the
Security Council and the General Assembly. What exactly is the
purpose of the War Crimes Tribunal and what are the problems that exist
within its legal framework?
I
don't mean to criticise any of the judges involved and I'm sure that
they're men and women of good faith but essentially, the War Crimes
Tribunal is an exercise in public relations by the Security Council.
The CIA has made detailed reports, the State Department has made
detailed reports, they have their reconnaissance satellites and their
airplanes--they know all about the war crimes in Bosnia. But in an
effort to try to deflect public pressure upon them, the
Security Council decided to set up the so-called War Crimes Tribunal to
make it appear as if something is being done about the problem, whereas
in fact what they are doing is negotiating with the very people whom
they know are responsible for the war crimes.
That's pretty much like negotiating with Hitler, Himmler and Goring,
during World War II. The assumption by the great powers is that these
are the reasonable people, they're the ones in power, so we have to
broker some type of peace settlement with them because
they're the only ones that we can deal with.
The
tribunal was pushed by the Clinton administration. Again, total
hypocrisy. Clinton took a very strong stand for Bosnia in the campaign.
Once
he assumed power he just continued the Bush policies. But there's a
certain element of public relations. During the campaign he had to
appeal to a certain constituency in the United States, the human
rights lobby, and for them Bosnia is an important issue. So Clinton has
to run around and make it appear as if something is really being done
on Bosnia, and the installation of the tribunal gave this appearance.
Again, I don't mean to criticise Justice Goldstone,
I'm sure he's a well intentioned man. But it's the question of the
parameters. There's no money for the tribunal, not much staff, there's
not much investigation, so not much is going to happen. It's just like
what happened with the Bassiouni commission to
investigate war crimes. What happened? Sharif Bassiouni was put in
charge of the commission to investigate war crimes in the former
Yugoslavia.
The
UN
gave him no money. He had to go out and find his own money. How can
there be an effective investigation without money? Then he puts a report
out that Boutros-Ghali buries in the ground. We haven't seen
very much of that report. The UN buried the whole thing, on purpose.
Then
the UN put Bassiouni out of business. Why? Because he was doing an
effective job even with all the financial obstacles. And of course, when
it was proposed that Bassiouni should be the chief prosecutor,
the British objected because they couldn't control him--he might do an
effective job--he might do something silly like indict Milosevic.
Bassiouni has more than enough evidence at the court on Milosevic--do
you think that they're going to indict him when they're
trying to negotiate with him? This will not happen.
In
Geneva during the peace negotiations, President Izetbegovic had to go in
and shake hands with Karadzic. I walked right past him--I wasn't going
to shake his hand because he's a mass murderer and a criminal.
And he has been given visas to come and negotiate in Geneva. And in New
York. The State Department let Karadzic come to New York to the
Vance-Owen carve-up negotiations, with a US visa. The State Department
was obliged under the Geneva Convention to apprehend
Karadzic. Eagleburger had already identified him a suspected war
criminal. The US had an absolute obligation to apprehend Karadzic if he
showed up in New York, and to open an investigation, and to
prosecute--instead, they're giving him a visa and secret service
protection in New York. And the same happened in Geneva--they're giving
protection to war criminals. People who commit genocide. That's who the
great powers are dealing with. That's who they're negotiating with, and
they know it. They know it full well. This
is not a question of ineptitude and incompetence. Everyone knows
exactly what they're doing and why they are doing it.
So
when Lawrence Eagleburger accused Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan
Karadzic of war crimes, and he is not the only one to make the
accusations--the accusations have been made many times by leading
political
figures--is it another extension of the public relations and propaganda
machine at work?
Pretty
much--to make it appear that if nothing is being done effectively to
stop the genocide, then at least there can be some condemnation because
there is some public pressure here in the United States
to do something.
At
this time the first reports were coming out of the death camps by Roy
Gutman, the courageous reporter from Newsday. The US knew about these
death camps but they weren't saying anything about them, and
they weren't going to do anything about them. Then Gutman broke the
story and it went out all over the world. Finally, amid the hemming and
hawing the US said 'oh yes, we guess it is happening, we should condemn
it'. The same thing happen to the Jews which
is what led to the Genocide Convention. The theory was that if genocide
ever happened again, that the world had an absolute obligation to stop
it. That's what the Genocide Convention is all about.
And
yet here in the United States, even Clinton refused to admit that
genocide was going on in Bosnia. And that after I won the first World
Court order determining that genocide was going on in Bosnia and
that the Serbs must cease and desist, not only in Belgrade but also in
Pale. The US and the UN refused to admit that genocide was going on even
when they knew all about it. They didn't want to admit to the
obligation to stop it.
And
why?
Again, as the great powers see it, these people are Muslim, they're
throw-away people. If these people were Christians or Jews or
whatever--different story. But since they're Muslims, who cares. It's
the same attitude that the world took towards the Jews a generation
ago. And indeed that's pretty much how it looks with the Bosnians--it
was a repeat of the attempt to save the Jews back in the 1930s, except
this time the Bosnians will go down fighting.
Unlike everyone else who predicted that they were going to throw in the
towel, they're going to fight.
I
remember President Izetbegovic saying that he will die in Sarajevo. So
if the Bosnians are going to go down, they're going to go down fighting.
And
that's what the inconvenience is for the great powers, that these
little-bitty people are going to fight, they're not going to go quietly,
and they're not going to sign some 'peace' document that puts
them out of business completely.
In
current world political affairs, there is one consistent factor in the
conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, Nagorno-Karabakh, the Gulf war--a
toleration by the West of atrocities committed against Muslim
populations.
An
overriding agenda in the West is to actively deter Islamic
fundamentalism and create mass hysteria to surround any political domain
that comprises a 'Muslim' leadership.
Certainly
if you look at it, that's what is happening, where the West seems to be
going to war with the Muslim world. Just look around. The way that the
Palestinians are being treated by the Israelis is
tantamount to genocide--and indeed, I've offered to President Arafat to
sue the Israelis at the World Court over this matter. Libya is being
attacked and destabilised because of oil and the fact that Colonel
Gaddafi will not take orders from the West.
Iran
is under assault by the United States primarily at the beckoned call of
the Israelis lobby the US. The entire Gulf is under the control of the
United States. The US sits on top of all that oil--50
percent of the world's oil supply. And the US is keeping Iraq in near
genocidal conditions--I've also offered to the Iraqi government to sue
the permanent members of the Security Council to break the economic
embargo that's designed to destroy them. Chechnya
again is a situation where more Muslim people are being wiped out.
After the Russian invasion, I tried to get some of the Islamic states to
let me sue Russia to try to stop this, but none of them were prepared
to go after the Russians. So this is the consistent
pattern by the West of hostility toward the Islamic world, and it's
only going to get worse not better. Bosnia is simply part of it in the
grander scheme of things.
And
we've also heard Owen and others say 'we don't want a Muslim state in
Europe'. This is a continuation of the historic process of expulsion of
Muslims from Europe going back to disintegration of the
Ottoman empire and the subsequent mass transfers of people. This is the
final cleansing and wiping out of a major concentrated population of
Muslims in Europe and no-one really cares.
In
1991, the Gulf war contained its own version of geo-political hypocrisy
for the purpose of Western capital interests. However, this period did
see a level of consultancy and agreement amongst the great
powers that failed to exist for decades, and was regarded as the
pinnacle of the United Nations' achievements. Four years after the Gulf
war, the talk about the end of the United Nations is being circulated.
Will the friction that exists between Muslim countries
and Christian countries ultimately lead to the dissolution of the
United Nations, in the same way that the League of Nations dissolved
over 50 years ago?
Of
course, the Gulf war was simply an attempt by the United States to steal
50 percent of the world's oil resources using the UN as a pretext and a
cover to do so. The problem with many of the Muslim nations
is their leadership. It's not the Muslim people, it's their cowardly
leaders.
They
know
exactly what's going on. They are not prepared to take the West on
behalf on any of these causes, they're divided, they're paralysed,
they're corrupt, and they're bought off for the most part by the
West. This became clear to me when I was in Geneva, meeting with some
of the Ambassadors from the Islamic Conference Organisation during the
Owen-Stoltenburg carve-up. I said to these Ambassadors 'gentlemen, your
people will hold your leaders accountable if
the Bosnians are carved-up and destroyed'.
The
Deputy
Head of the ICO smiled and shrugged his shoulders and said 'but, what
can we do?'. At that point it was clear to me that all the Muslim
rulers around the world know exactly what's happening but
are not prepared to take on the West over Bosnia, Palestine, Libya,
Iraq, Chechnya, or anywhere else. And they have had the options
available to them. In 1973 they had an oil embargo and the leverage that
went with it. In the speeches that I've given in Malaysia
and Turkey, I've stated to the Muslim nations that if they want to save
the Bosnians, they should impose an oil embargo on the West. But they
can't do it now because the situation has changed. Because the US troops
are now stationed in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Oman, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar. These rulers are no longer free. So this is
the problem for the leadership. But for the people of the Muslim world,
Bosnia is a critical issue.
They
see the total hypocrisy of the West on human rights and international
law, and the United Nations Charter and see that their leaders are not
prepared to go to the matt on any of these issues. This
is the typical colonial divide and conquer strategy, just as the Romans
did, just as the British did, and what the Americans are doing today.
What type of future do you see for the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina?
The
Bosnians are going to keep fighting. As for where this will lead to, I
really can't say, but as long as the Bosnians keep fighting, the pillars
of the post-World War II legal order are going to be shaken--the
UN, NATO, and the World Court. With the total hypocrisy surrounding all
of the international principles, these institutions will continue to be
unmasked and will continue to be undermined. That's what I see
happening if the current policies continue, but unfortunately
it appears that this is going to be the case in the future. As for me, I
am still prepared to return to the World Court and start suing the
permanent members of the Security Council and break that arms embargo
for the Bosnians. This is the most critical factor
now as they need the heavy weapons to defend their people.
This
is their right under Article 51 of the UN Charter. It is also their
obligation under the Genocide Convention. So I don't see the Bosnians
going away when they are prepared to fight and die for human
rights and democracy--that was my impression after talking with
President Izetbegovic--he is not going to throw in the towel. So the
conflict in Bosnia will continue and the longer it continues the more it
is going to shake the foundations of the post-World
War II order.
What type of future is there for the United Nations?
None.
As I see it, if this continues the way that it's going, then the UN
means nothing, and it would be better to put it out of its misery, than a
continuation of the current hypocrisy. By now, it should
be clear to everyone that the UN is nothing more than the agent, and
the instrument of those four permanent members operating in the Security
Council and that it really has no independent or outside existence. The
UN is pretty meaningless, so let's strip away
the facade and the veneer and get down to the fiasco that's really
happening here.
Could the United Nations become more meaningful and legally viable if there was reform in the Security Council itself?
The
Security Council should be put out of business and all the functions
for any maintenance of international peace and security should be
transferred to the General Assembly by two-thirds vote. In this
sense, there would be the capacity to have some sort of democratic
control but this suggestion is not on anyone's agenda.
The
Security Council is like a star-chamber these days, where they no
longer even meet in public. All matters are now transacted in private.
It's
just a little club of the most powerful members of the world to order
around everyone else. That's what the Muslims saw in the Gulf. We are
seeing, in a historical perspective, the perversion--total
perversion--of every known principle of international law, and the
international organisations and institutions that were set up after
World War II. Now that this is being turned on its head, and especially
if the war in Bosnia continues, I really don't anticipate
the current order staying.
We've
reached a historical era now where the West as it is, Europe, and the
United States, has proven its moral bankruptcy--complete and total moral
bankruptcy, initially in Bosnia and then later on Rwanda.
The West has now forfeited any moral right to leadership that it might
have had in terms of a commitment to principles like human rights,
democracy, and the rule of law, all of which they have subverted,
undermined and destroyed in Bosnia.
The
Bosnian crisis, whatever comes of it will be a turning point in the way
people now perceive the West, and of course, that perception is that
all the West is interested in its their own pocket books
and controlling the world with weapons--the West produces the best
weapons in the world and it has become obvious to the world that the
West doesn't care about principles. All the West cares about is oil,
standards of living and developing the weapons necessary
to keep those standards of living.
That's
it.
And that is becoming more and more clear to the Third World. How the
Third World will act on is unknown but I think that we are certainly at a
major turning point in international relations.
5.2\bosnia.un.WPDot
Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Avenue
Champaign, Ill. 61820
francis a. boyle
