The trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague Tribunal was supposed to be “the trial of the century”, a landmark case vindicating international justice. Milosevic was charged with over 60 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in the Kosovo, Croatia/Krajina, and Bosnia conflicts. The US and NATO were going to show how so-called Western justice worked. But the “trial of the century” has become the travesty of the century, a travesty of justice and fair-play and an attack on common sense. The Hague Tribunal is an all-out attack and assault on human decency and morality and basic human rights. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has become a political show trial orchestrated and staged by the US/NATO. The ICTY demonstrates a profound contempt for international law and justice and represents the politicization of international law.

But you cannot criticize or analyze what you cannot see. What is most glaring and salient about the trial of the century is that is has received no media coverage whatsoever. If it is such a landmark and important trial, why is there a total news blackout? Why no media coverage at all? Where is the free press, the independent media, we keep hearing so much about ad nauseam in the “free world”? Why is the media muzzled? Why the censorship? Why the propaganda? Why is the media silent during the trial of the century? Why did the O.J. Simpson trial receive unprecedented saturation media coverage while the Slobodan Milosevic trial receives none? Why no media feeding frenzy? Why no media circus? After all, the Milosevic trial is a groundbreaking and landmark trial we are told, not a tabloid, sensationalistic trial like that of the O.J. Simpson case? Where is the media in all of this? Where is our free and independent media? Why the total and complete lack of interest? Why no media coverage and analysis?

The Slobodan Milosevic trial at The Hague may be dubbed the “trial of the century” in US propaganda but there is a total news blackout of the trial in the US media. Why? Why doesn’t the US government/media cover the “trial of the century” especially after the massive and unprecedented US propaganda and information war against Serbia and Slobodan Milosevic? This is really a crucial question. Where is the media? In a nation obsessed with COURT TV and JUDGE JUDY and courtroom television shows, why no media coverage? The media is conspicuous by their absence.

On July 26, 2002, the prosecution put on its “key” star witness against Slobodan Milosevic, Radomir or Rade Markovic, who headed the Department of State Security of the Serbian Ministry of the Interior during the Kosovo crisis of 1998-1999. The so-called Western media described Markovic as “Serbia’s former secret police chief” and a member of the Milosevic “inner-circle”. His testimony was planned to provide the “smoking gun”, the proof that Slobodan Milosevic was a war criminal as NATO propaganda alleged. His testimony was supposed to prove that Slobodan Milosevic was a war criminal as NATO/US propaganda alleged. He was the final witness before the court adjourned for a four week recess after July 26. The prosecution planned to wrap up its case against Milosevic with a knockout blow. But is this what happened?

“Secret police?” The term “secret police” is an anachronistic journalistic propaganda relic from the Cold War era. Democracies/capitalist countries do not have “secret police”, only totalitarian, i.e., only Communist/Socialist regimes do. The term is a tip-off that the news reporting is being spin-doctored, that it is part of a propaganda campaign. The term “boss” appears in the news accounts as well, another anachronistic Americanism that has negative connotations about the American hierarchical structure and the racist slavery past of the US. To have an American boss you needed usually a Negro/nigger slave or an exploited factory worker who initially could not join any unions, which were outlawed. Boss is an odd and curious term to use in this context. But it demonstrates the mindset and the intellectual context of the reporter. Bosses and slaves and factory workers. The propaganda is American-based in other words.

What happened during the presentation of the key prosecution witness? There was a total news blackout of the trial in the United States, but the BBC and AP and CNN reported on the trial, albeit in spin-doctored and censored and propagandistic form.

On July 26, 2002, BBC News, in the article “Milosevic acted within law”, reported that the “smoking gun” and the knock-out blow was not produced. The BBC reported that Rade Markovic “has told the international war crime tribunal in The Hague that former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was not responsible for any war crimes in Kosovo.”  The report emphasized the fact that Markovic was “a prosecution witness”. All the prosecution was able to show was that Milosevic received “daily briefings” about Kosovo.

The prosecution was seeking to show that Milosevic had “command responsibility” for “ethnic cleansing campaigns” in Kosovo and that he gave the orders for war crimes in Kosovo. But this has never been proven or shown in the trial. The prosecution could never establish that Milosevic had knowledge of any criminal acts let alone that he ordered the commission of such. In criminal law, knowledge is an essential element of the crime. Without knowledge, you cannot have criminal  responsibility or intent. Mens rea, or a “guilty mind”, guilty intent, a guilty knowledge and willfulness, is required to establish criminal culpability or guilt. In civil law, there is the doctrine of respondeat superior, attributing liability and responsibility to the person in the hierarchical chain in command or in control, but this doctrine is not valid in criminal cases. Richard Dicker, of Human Rights Watch (HRW), the front organization for the US government and a cheerleader/advocate of the New World Order and George Soros’ Open Society Institute/Foundation, explained the procedure: “The more difficult part is making the link … between Mr. Milosevic himself and those crimes.” At the very least, knowledge of those crimes must be established. But the ICTY has failed to accomplish this.

The prosecution sought to prove that Milosevic had command responsibility for war crimes in Kosovo by connecting him to the refrigerator truck that was found dumped in the Danube river allegedly with corpses. The Hague Tribunal brought in a police official, Bosko Radojkovic, to testify about the refrigerator truck. He showed several photographs of the truck but no photographs of the bodies were produced. Moreover, Radojkovic stated that he did not know where the bodies were, who killed them, where they were killed, or what ultimately happened to the bodies. He also did not know the identities or nationalities of the bodies. There was speculation that they may have been Kurdish illegal immigrants crossing into Yugoslavia. Cases existed of human smuggling or trafficking in the region near the border with Rumania. There was no identification on the bodies and therefore the identity could not be established.

Were the bodies in the refrigerator truck those of Serbs, Albanians, or Kurds, or of someone else? Radojkovic did not know. Milosevic cross-examined Radojkovic and established that Radojkovic did not file a report on the April 5, 1999 incident which as a police official he was legally required to do. He explained that he was “traumatized” by the incident. He was queried by a puzzled Milosevic who reasoned that as a police official he encountered homicide scenes on a routine basis and that he should be expected to be desensitized to such crime scenes. No photographs of the bodies were presented to the court. Milosevic asked him why no photographs were taken of the corpses, a usual and normal procedure in police investigations? Radojkovic stated that because “the war was going on” and because the incident was “traumatic” no photographs of the bodies were taken, although he acknowledged that photographing bodies at the scene of a homicide was routine police procedure but had oddly not be done in this instance.

Milosevic established the fact that the report to the Hague investigators was not written by Radojkovic but by someone else, someone not from the Balkans and not from Serbia. Milosevic pointed out that he knew the area well and no one who was a resident of the region, as Radojkovic was, would refer to it in the way it was referred to in the report. Only someone who knew nothing of the region would refer to it that way. Moreover, the term “state security reservists” appeared in the report. Milosevic explained to the witness that no such people existed, that the term was obviously manufactured and concocted by someone else. Milosevic pointed out that the term “explosives for production”, found in the report, is also not used in the Balkans. Radojkovic agreed that he was unfamiliar with the term. Only someone who was not from the Balkans would use that term, it was a foreign term. The conclusion was that someone else wrote and prepared the report.

Milosevic argued that the incident of the refrigerator truck or lorry full of Kosovo Albanian corpses was invented and manufactured, a fabrication needed to create public opinion for his illegal extradition to The Hague, which occurred on June 28, 2001, the date commemorating Vidov Dan or Kosovo Day. The media ridiculed and spin-doctored Milosevic’s allegations. But how valid are they? In criminal law, there is the doctrine of corpus delicti, the body of a crime. In a homicide or murder case, the corpus delicti, the body of the crime is the body/corpse or bodies/corpses of those murdered. The act and the criminal agency of the act must be proven. The cross-examination of the prosecution witness Dragan Karleusa established, however, that the bodies exhumed were not conclusively determined to be those from the refrigerator truck. Karleusa did not know the identities of the bodies, how they had died, or why they had died. He could not establish that the bodies, purported to be those of ethnic Albanians, were actually those retrieved from the refrigerator truck. There was no corpus delicti, in other words. There was merely speculation and innuendo.

About the widely-publicized refrigerator truck case, the prosecution witness Dragan Karleusa testified that there was no conclusive evidence that the bodies found near a police training base were those taken from the truck. Karleusa testified:

We are still trying to determine who they are, who killed them, and where. The bodies are not identified yet.

The bodies were found over a year and a half ago but have not yet been identified. The bodies could be those of Serbs murdered by KLA troops, ethnic Albanians, or illegal immigrants, or the bodies may be of those of another group. The point is: No one knows for certain. In a criminal case, however, guilt cannot be established by speculative evidence but beyond a reasonable doubt. Radojkovic did not take photographs of the bodies as he was bound to do based on normal police procedure. There is no way to determine how they were killed or by whom. Moreover, Karleusa admitted under oath that he is uncertain whether the bodies exhumed are those from the refrigerator truck. Is he not certain whether they are of ethnic Albanian civilians? He cannot establish how they died? Did they die from NATO bombing, collateral damage? Were they executed by Yugoslav military, para-military, or police units? Neither Karleusa nor Radojkovic knew. This is hardly conclusive proof of war crimes. It is speculation and hearsay. And even if the prosecution can prove all its allegations, which it has not done, they will have to establish criminal agency on the part of Milosevic, they will have to prove the connection to him. There is, however, no evidence whatsoever linking Milosevic to the refrigerator truck incident.

Milosevic established that the report was based on hearsay. Milosevic quoted from the report. The report began with phrases such as the following: “Rumor has it…” Milosevic pointed out that police reports are not usually based upon rumor and was puzzled by that term. Radojkovic stated that as a police officer he was bound to report everything he heard regardless of the source and its credibility, it was his job to report it and investigate it. Milosevic pointed out that the statements and allegations in the report were based on “hearsay” and even “third degree hearsay”. The statements were what people heard someone else say and then reported that, not their direct statements based on personal observation.

In the news report “Milosevic Witness: No Serb Threats”, July 26, 2002, CNN reported that according to the Rade Markovic testimony at the trial, NATO bombing was responsible for the 800,000 Albanian refugees who fled to escape the bombardment.  Many were directed and induced to flee their homes to create a propaganda scenario, to create a “humanitarian catastrophe” and a “humanitarian disaster” which ex post facto would justify NATO bombing, which was otherwise illegal under international law and the UN Charter. CNN reported as follows:

Kosovo Albanians fled the region because of NATO bombing rather than any threat posed by Yugoslav forces, a high-ranking Serb officer has told the Milosevic trial.

The CNN report mischaracterized Markovic’s role in Kosovo. He was engaged in anti-terrorist and anti-insurgency operations against the so-called KLA/UCK, a terrorist separatist group committed to establishing Greater Albania, a group even the US State Department termed a “terrorist organization”. But the CNN report totally censored and deleted the KLA terrorist role and instead falsified the rationale. Markovic was supposed to be engaged in “security operations” against the “ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo.” There was nothing about the KLA. Nothing is stated about the KLA terrorism/separatism campaign, nothing about KLA terrorists murdering Yugoslav policemen, Serbian civilians, and even the murders of Albanian civilians who did not support the separatist Greater Albania ideology of the Albanian terrorist group, the KLA/UCK. Nothing is stated about the KLA armed invasions and incursions from the “mother country” Albania which the Yugoslav government was duty-bound to defend. Instead, CNN characterizes his actions as those against the Albanian population of Kosovo, an example of oppression/repression, propaganda terms in the US lexicon with no real meaning. CNN described Markovic’s role as follows:

He had been the effective boss of state security operations against the ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo.

Again, that term “boss” appears. That term is moronic and idiotic in this context. Why is it used? Nothing in propaganda and information warfare happens by accident or chance. Everything in propaganda/information technology/brainwashing is meticulously planned. The term “boss” is an Americanism, unique to the American society of slavery and a division between whites and Negroes/niggers, between a capitalist owner or baron of industry and the rabble, the exploited working class, the down-trodden factory worker and laborer in the US. Unlike most of the world, unions were illegal in the US. There were menial laborers in the US who were supervised by someone termed a “boss”, something not found in other cultures and other societies. Political corruption in American politics is endemic. There is the case of Boss William Tweed in New York who ran Tammany Hall in the late 1800s. The term boss makes an allusion to American political and industrial and slave-owning bosses. The term boss thus has a negative connotation implying a hierarchy or subordination, a master and servant. The flippant and inappropriate term “boss” in the context of Yugoslavia is further meant to show the contempt of the journalist for the Yugoslavian political system. It is like the practice that was common during the Yugoslav break-up. US and Western leaders and journalists and analysts were unable to pronounce Slobodan Milosevic’s name correctly. Is this due to stupidity and abject ignorance? Only partly. They have the money and resources to find out the proper and correct pronunciation. Mispronouncing his name is meant to dehumanize the victim and to show contempt for him or her. It is a subtle form of brainwashing or propaganda. No one has bothered to analyze why intellectual elites cannot pronounce the name of Milosevic. It is not by accident though, nothing in propaganda is. It just demonstrates how our sensory organs have been corrupted and degraded and deadened by the media of the New World Order. Our brains are like putty in their hands. This is the so-called Information Age where in fact there is very little useful information as such. Merely noise. Noise pollution. That is what the media in the US is today. Conversely, recall how these same US/Western political leaders, media, and journalists, strangely and as if miraculously, could pronounce the names of “Alija Izetbegovic”  and “Sarajevo” and other judiciously chosen terms. That is not by accident. Nothing in propaganda or brainwashing is by accident or chance or happenstance. The term boss is used for a purpose and for an objective. Why not use proper and appropriate legal terminology and analysis? Why use a moronic and brain-dead Americanism like boss? Like mispronouncing a name of a leader, it is meant to de-legitimize, in this case, the Yugoslav political system. Why? This is done to falsify the fact that Yugoslav political, military, and police officials were carrying out appropriate and legal measures. Every sovereign and independent UN recognized nation is allowed to defend its borders and to protect it citizens from armed and hostile incursions. A nation can combat a separatist/terrorist guerrilla campaign, such as the one the UCK/KLA was waging in Kosovo. Such measures by the Yugoslav military, security, and police forces are legitimate and appropriate. This is what the US propaganda/information technology seeks to camouflage and obfuscate through propagandistic terms such as “boss” and “secret police”.

The prosecution sought to establish that Milosevic possessed command responsibility for Yugoslav military, security, and police measures in Kosovo. The prosecution established that Milosevic was receiving daily briefings of events in Kosovo and thus had knowledge of developments there. Markovic stated that Vlajko Stojiljkovic, the Interior Minister, was “duty-bound to inform Slobodan Milosevic daily on activities of the Interior Ministry.” Markovic testified that he received his orders from the Interior Ministry alone and not from Milosevic. This fact was incorrectly reported in the Western media. Some accounts reported it accurately and correctly while others did not. Some media reports stated inaccurately that Milosevic had direct command control over security forces in Kosovo.

Was “the key prosecution witness” Rade Markovic able to prove “command responsibility” on the part of Milosevic in not only having knowledge of, but ordering war crimes and ethnic cleansing against oppressed/repressed ethnic Albanians (the so-called Kosovars, another anachronistic oxymoron propaganda term from the Cold War/Communist era)? What happened at the trial was a bombshell. The entire prosecution case collapsed like a house of cards. The trial of the century was a dud and a flop. The star witness, the “key” prosecution witness, exonerated Milosevic completely and totally.

Was this reported in our so-called independent and free press and media in the US? Did this fiasco and preposterous show trial garner headlines in the US or the so-called independent and free Western media? Of course not, there was a total news blackout. To be sure there were some news reports that were released merely to create the illusion that indeed the trial was being covered, and covered in a fair, objective, and ethical manner. But this was not so. The exception proved the rule.

Why didn’t the US and other Western media cover this sensational denouement and dramatic climax to the trial of the century? It is odd and bizarre and inexplicable. The US media is dependent on the US government and a symbiotic relationship exits between the two. The Pentagon had military psyop personnel employed with the largest US “news” network, CNN, during the Kosovo crisis. What other proof is required? The US media is for all intents and purposes state-run and government-controlled. Is that a surprise to anyone? The media in the US gets its marching orders from the US government. The US government does not want the Milosevic trial of the century reported on by the media. This is why the US government/media are censoring and suppressing news coverage of the trial of the century. Why?

Any person who actually watches and follows the ICTY proceedings at the Hague Tribunal will emerge with disgust and repulsion. Any American citizen will be offended and insulted and outraged by what is going on there. This is why the US government and its media stooges and lackeys do not cover the Milosevic trial of the century. What should American citizens be disgusted and enraged about? Isn’t the ICTY a model of international law and justice? Isn’t the ICTY ensuring justice and punishing genocide and war crimes and crimes against humanity? What could possibly be so disgusting and repulsive about the ICTY to Americans?

What was the bombshell? What did the “key” prosecution witness Rade Markovic testify to? Rade Markovic testified that Yugoslav military and police forces had orders to safeguard Albanian civilians in Kosovo. Markovic testified:

The Yugoslav Army and Serbian police had strict orders to protect Albanian civilians during NATO bombing….I never got any order nor did I hear about any order or plan to expel Albanians.

Markovic stated that he received his orders from Vlajko Stojiljkovic, the Interior Minister, and not from Milosevic. He maintained that Milosevic sought to punish any crimes that were committed by Yugoslav forces. Milosevic told him that “every crime must be immediately punished.” Moreover, there were over 200 prosecutions against members of the Yugoslav armed forces and police. Such actions are incompatible with a policy of the planning and the commission of war crimes and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Milosevic had specifically ordered that no atrocities be committed against ethnic Albanian civilians. Markovic testified:

Specifically, there was this ban on which you [Mr. Milosevic] insisted…that houses in Kosovo must not be set on fire and nothing must be stolen….Our task was to preserve the life and security of civilians in Kosovo, both Serbs and Albanians…I told (local officials) that presidential orders are that the flow of refugees must be stopped.

Markovic confirmed that there was no plan to expel Albanians from Kosovo. The 800,000 Kosovo Albanian refuges were forced to flee due to the NATO bombing campaign not because of any Yugoslav government policy or campaign. CNN reported that Markovic “appeared to support his former boss saying he had acted in accordance with the law.”  The media was totally surprised that he did not provide the “smoking gun” or knockout punch. Indeed, the opposite happened. Markovic exonerated Milosevic. How was this possible? Incompetence on the part of the ICTY prosecution? A miscalculation in legal strategy? How could the “key” and star prosecution witness do this? How was this possible? The media queried so-called legal experts who deduced that Markovic remained “loyal” to his former boss, that it was “loyalty” that induced him to tell the truth and not lie in a court of law. CNN further reported that Markovic accused ICTY investigators of manipulating and twisting a statement he made about allegedly destroying evidence. Moreover, CNN reported that Markovic testified that “he had been offered a deal to give false testimony”, to testify “falsely against Slobodan Milosevic.”  CNN reported this without comment. In criminal law this is a crime, the suborning of perjury. But an accusation under oath in a court of law that he was coerced or induced to give false testimony in a criminal case is a serious charge. Such an allegation would bring into question the procedures and legality of the ICTY. After all, the Yugoslav federal Constitution was violated when Milosevic was initially extradited to The Hague. The Yugoslav Constitution prohibited such extraditions. But the ICTY induced and abetted this violation of the Yugoslav Constitution. Milosevic thus has a legal basis for denying the jurisdiction of the ICTY and regarding the court invalid. The rationale is that the ends justify the means. The ICTY can break the law and engage in illegal activity so long as justice is served. This will never fly in the US and under the US Constitution. But it is perfectly acceptable at the ICTY. The ends justify the means. Such a doctrine is anathema in the United States, a country governed by laws, not men. That is the ingrained American tradition/value so contemptuously violated at The Hague.

The ICTY was created, founded, instituted, financed, and controlled by the US government. The ICTY, in short, is just an instrument of the US/NATO. Madeleine Albright, the “mother of the tribunal”, engineered the ICTY as a propaganda tool, as an extra weapon to use against Serbia, but as a propaganda tool only. The US has no intention of abiding by any such tribunal. The tribunal is only for propaganda purposes, for those who dare to defy or oppose US policy. Much of the money needed for the ICTY is US-based, funneled through front organizations like the Soros Open Society Institute/Foundation and New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), strictly a front or cover organization for the US government. In other words, the ICTY is not a multi-national or international tribunal as such but merely a US tribunal, a tribunal the US has established. This is why American citizens would be offended and outraged. They would witness the abuse and misuse and manipulation of international law in a selective and arbitrary war crimes trial engineered and financed by their own government, the US government. They would be shocked by the moral hypocrisy and selective morality and by the misuse of the legal system. They would question. They would ask: Why isn’t “the butcher of Beirut” Ariel Sharon on trial for the Sabra and Shatila massacres that left thousands of Muslim Palestinians refugees dead? Zionist ultra-nationalist Ariel Sharon makes Adolf Hitler look like a choirboy. But where are the Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports? Where is the George Soros Open Society Institute/Foundation? Why isn’t the Jenin Massacre investigated? Where is Susan Sontag and Anthony Lewis? Where is the US media? If Srebrenica is a war crime, why isn’t Sabra and Shatila? What about the Sharon policy of assassinations? Isn’t that illegal under international law? Is it a war crime? What about illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza? Aren’t these illegal under international law and United Nations guidelines? What about the policy of bulldozing and demolishing homes and houses of suspected Palestinian militants? Is that legal? Is it genocide? Is it a crime against humanity? A war crime? What about President Bill Clinton and General Wesley Clark and Madeleine Albright? NATO bombed Serbian hospitals, nursing homes, Serbian Orthodox Churches, bridges, trains, automobiles, busses, and a television station. NATO bombed and killed Serbian and Albanian civilians. Collateral damage or war crimes? The ICTY raises troubling issues and questions. These questions are dismissed by the assertion that the ICTY and the International War Crimes Court only applies to the former Yugoslavia and only to nations that are not client/ally states of the US. The US, the sole global “hegemon”, is immune from prosecution, is immune from such an international court. But this will ring hollow and unsatisfactory. American citizens would be repulsed by the moral selectivity and moral hypocrisy. Moreover, such political trials are reminiscent of the Senator Joseph McCarthy witch-hunt era in the US, looked at with disdain now. A show trial is an anachronistic holdover form the Joseph Stalin era, the era of the Moscow show trials of 1938. The ICTY is unique in that it is being used strictly for propaganda purposes. The Nuremberg trials of 1946-48 are not the model here because Yugoslavia had not attacked or invaded any foreign country, but indeed, was invaded, attacked, and occupied by a group of nations, NATO. The only model is the McCarthy/Stalin show trial. A show trial will disgust and enrage American citizens. American citizens are not the stupid, brainless cattle or herd the media/government adduces it to be. Americans will figure it out. And this is why the US government has a news blackout of the ICTY trial of Milosevic, the so-called landmark trial of the century. The US government/media is only awaiting the guilty verdict. That is all that matters. That is all that needs to be reported in the media. Guilty as charged.

The trial of the century? Or travesty of the century. Is the ICTY a political show trial based on the model of Joseph Stalin/Joseph McCarthy, a travesty of justice? Or is the ICTY a landmark case of international law ensuring justice and the punishment of genocide and war crimes? There is no media coverage or analysis or debate so it is difficult to determine. The US government/media have censored coverage of the trial and suppressed and manipulated developments, reporting selectively and propagandistically on it. Trial of the century? If it is, it is receiving absolutely no media coverage and is being censored and propagandistically manipulated. So how can we know?