Macedonia: Fuck Carla del Ponte, the ICTY, the EU & all the Rest; Save the World and the Concept of Sovereignty of Nations!

The other day Sylvera Padori, once a potential journalistic discovery of the tabloid Vecer, told the Macedonian radio-listening public that top-ranking government delegation (lead by the vice prime-minister Gabriala (like my grand-daughter) Konevska-Trajkovska) arrived in The Hague to coordinate the future law of independent and sovereign Republic of Macedonia with the whims and wishes that day ruled the attitudes of one Fausto Pocar and internationally notorious Carla del Ponte. The vice-prime minister was flanked by an old governmental hand, Mr. Mihailo Manevski, the minister of justice and by a novice, Ms Gordana Jankulovska minister of interior of Macedonia.
(The pic above: former prosecutor of Macedonia Stavre Dzikov, left, and his deputy Marko Zvrlevski during a stormy night in Gouda, before the next morning hearing in the Tribunal about the four cases Carla del Ponte wanted so badly)
Since (according prof. d-r Gjorgje Marjanovik, a friendly acquaintance from high-school days) I am an ignoramus in the artistry of interpreting legal procedures, the mere reason that brought this power to The Hague - baffled me. I have not heard of the chair of US Senate Commitee on Judiciary send Patrick J. Leahy flanked by Edward M. Kennedy (that's The Kennedy, you know) and the presidential hopeful Joseph R. Biden down to The Hague to discuss how should the United States of America phrase the law that forbids US citizens tried for war crimes by the ICTY or prevents or most effectively unilaterally (without any negotiation with the ICTY) conditions US present and former officials appearing as witnesses in cases brought before the Tribunal against foreign citizens (as was president Slobodan Milosevic) indicted for war crimes.

It is unthinkable that President of the United States would send Dick Chaney with a bunch of secretaries of departments to discuss with Pocar and Carla how should US laws be written. And now we hear this chick Padori bullshit that "the text of the law must be made befitting the Tribunal and the European standards".
I was amazed that nobody in Macedonia exploded when SIlvera Padori told the radio-listeners that "the draft text of the (future) law was put together under the magnifying glass of the Tribunal".

Since I believe that the prime-minister Nikola Gruevski is an honest and proud man, it is normal to reflect upon the forces that drive him act the way he does in this this case. Everybody knows that the ICTY or the Tribunal in The Hague has degraded into a an ugly and lame duck. It will be dissolved in two or three years. It cannot open up new cases. Why is Macedonia pressed to pass a Law on cooperation with the ICTY? Why indeed?
Macedonia did and continues to cooperate with the Tribunal despite Carla del Ponte's and Tribunal's absolutely arrogant, viciously biased and perfidiously contemptuous attitude towards Macedonian government and the judiciary.

I believe that only the US and their friends in Brussels could have led the administration in Skopje believe that "cooperation" (albeit self denigration) was the right dosage of humility in pursuit of otherwise evading EU or NATO membership. That at the same time when Macedonia was pressed by the US to sign a bilateral agreement that it will not deliver to the Tribunal any US citizen found in Macedonia even if the Tribunal wanted them.

(Here, on the pic left, a paste-up with prof. d-r Vasil Tupurkovski, an old friend who missed a perfect chance to testify at the Tribunal -as witness in the case of Milosevic- during a relaxed New Year dinner not far away from the Capitol; Reminds me of so many missed opportunities.)

So, why not kick their asses? Why should Macedonia play a fool on the international stage? Why prof. d-r Ljubomir Frckoski does not tell his dear compatriots what is all this about? Why miss a chance to make history, to light a match if not a big pyre of light in this dungeon of legality? See what courageous people tell the US Senate Judiciary Committee:
Prof. Laurence Tribe, Tyler Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School appeared to extend his testimony about a Military Order issued by President Bush on November 13, 2001, while the rubble of the TWorld Trade Center twin towers was still smoking. He said:
I hope we share the belief that the war against terrorism does not require us to sacrifice constitutional principles on the altar of public safety, We know what is the result of that sacrifice. .. But liberty, properly understood, requires both protection from government and protection by government.
As promulgated, the Military Order, by its express terms, is a direct threat to some 20 million lawful resident aliens in the United States. Almost any act by a resident alien, anywhere, could in some circumstances lead the President to believe the alien has or had some form of involvement with a terrorist organization. Hiring a car for a friend could be a terrorist act ...
The November 13 Military Tribunal Order, despite Bush administration efforts to describe it as more like a mere press release, than a real order,...suffers from the compounding vice that it violates the separation of powers required by our Constitution of the federal government....It installs the executive branch as lawgiver as well as law enforcer and law interpreter and applier...
This "blending of executive, legislative, and judicial powers in one person or even in one branch of the Government is ordinarily regarded as the very acme of absolutism...
Ours is "a government of laws, not men." It is offensive to our founding values to have the powers of drafting the laws, and then prosecuting and adjudicating violations of those laws, embodied in one agency—here, one man.

Very important observations by prof. Tribe, you'll be impressed. I mean, you should read the whole testimony: it is amazing. THAT is real America, that is the Spirit of America that gave me wings. The other stuff, say one or another administration or event - all that passes. And if you can - do suggest Mr. Mihailo Manevski also read this.

Let me go back to the Tribunal in The Hague where people rather die than endure the whims of prosecutors and prejudiced justices. This is what Honorable Pierre-Richard Prosper, Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, U.S. Department of State, had to tell the senators:
International tribunals are not and should not be the courts of first redress, but of last resort. When domestic justice is not possible for egregious war crimes due to a failed state or a dysfunctional judicial system, the international community may through the Security Council or by consent, step in on an ad hoc basis as in Rwanda and Yugoslavia. That is not the case in the United States.
My, my. But then he concluded:
Because justice and the administration of justice are a cornerstone of any democracy, pursuing accountability for war crimes while respecting the rule of law by a sovereign state must be encouraged at all times.
That is what the Chinese justice told Carla del Ponte when he allowed her to demand those four cases from Macedonia and when he ruled (that means when he ordered her to return them without any meddling back to Macedonia within a fixed poeriod of time, a period long passed now. So why discuss anything with her? Why not approach the Court directly? Why not raise the subject in the UN?
(My poor self impressed with the performance of Stavre Dzikov at the Tribunal) Prof. Cass R. Sunstein, a Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence Law School and Department of Political Science, University of Chicago testified before the senators that:
History suggests that war crimes tribunals do not always provide fair procedures and indeed that there is inevitably some danger of a miscarriage of justice.

The most scathing remarks were pronounced by Mr.Timothy Lynch, Director, Project on Criminal Justice, Cato Institute in Washington D.C. who said: On November 13, 2001 President George Bush signed an executive order with respect to the detention, treatment, and trial of persons accused of terrorist activities. The president declared a national emergency and claimed that Article II of the Constitution ...empowered him to issue the order... Because Article I of the Constitution vests the legislative power in the Congress, not the Office of the President, the unilateral nature of this executive order clearly runs afoul of the separation of powers principle.
President Bush would like to be able to issue his own executive arrest warrants...Under the order, the person arrested cannot get into a court of law to challenge the legality of the arrest. The prisoner can only appeal to the official who ordered his arrest in the first instance, namely, the president. The whole purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to make such procedures impossible in America.
Thus, Congress cannot authorize the use of executive warrants with mere legislation.
President Bush would like to be able to seize and deport people without any hearing whatsoever. As noted above, under the executive order, the president can have people arrested outside of the judicial process and held incommunicado at military bases.
The problem, as Justice Robert Jackson once noted, is that "No society is free where government makes one person's liberty depend upon the arbitrary will of another."

Article III of the Constitution provides, "The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment; shall be by Jury." The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution provides, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury."
Like to read the full text? OK, Here is the link

Thus, this is what the US Senate was told be knowledgeable people when they discussed powers of the President of the US versus the Constitution of the US when America was under a heinous attack by foreign terrorists short six years ago. We know what happened as a backlash. If, say, the pilots of the two airplanes full with unsuspecting passengers parachuted seconds before the impact and landed in Central Park, these experts on Constitutional law argued before the US Senate and all the country that when captured the attackers would have had a Constitution-clad guarantee to have a public trial by jury.
How miserable (in this context extended so far here) appears this minister of justice of Macedonia who is dictated (by a stuttering legal mind like Carla del Ponte) a draft-law text as if a schoolboy sitting his spelling exam. But then, this is a clear signal for all the judiciary in Macedonia:
If useless laws are created and passed in this way - then you better expect that the justices will fool around and fuck-up every other law of the country. Irrelevant what the European Union or anybody else will think about that.

And finally, it is the big bad wolf from Brussels who needs to howl and show teeth instead of poor aspirants like Macedonia, molested by every other bully on the dark road to full membership. Stop that Carla del Ponte blackmailing the Balkans into unseemly submission. She so visibly failed to come close to prove her own indictment against Slobodan Milosevic that there is nothing she can do now. Let her better try establish police force and see how does she really rate with the international community.