Charlie Rose

Marko Pantelic  06/22/2007 09:43 PM Report

300,000 dead in the Yugoslavia war is the biggest lie ever told that western media still publishes left and right. check out the true numbers as estimated by the UN. Numbers that del ponte knows better than anyone else. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6228152.stm

Milan Simich  06/21/2007 04:56 PM Report

While I believe that many of the people involved should be punished, the Hague is a 'selective' and 'politacl' tribunal, not to mention a pig's trough for lawyers who work there.

It is in the lawyer's interest to drag everything out because they work very little, get paid a lot and are eligible after 5 years for 100% lifetime pensions from the U.N.

All in all, despite the usual Charlie Rose fawning, her work means nothing as far as humankind's inate ability to kill and maim, witness the U.S. in Iraq.

BTW The Swiss government, she is Swiss, refused to pay her anymore, as much as she would have liked to continue indefinately.

David Peterson  06/21/2007 02:06 PM Report

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is justifiably regarded as a negation of Nuremberg's "attempt to institutionalize an anti-fascist theory of international relations" (John Laughland) and heralding a "renaissance of power politics in humanitarian clothes" (Hans Köchler). The Tribunal has "provided many valuable services to the Americans in corroborating the claim that the illegal bombing campaign, far from being the supreme international crime, was actually a law-enforcement mission against war criminals who were right then perpetrating unspeakable acts" (Michael Mandel), with the Tribunal's Office of the Prosecutor ingenuously inventing new crimes "to fit the punishment" meted out by these more enlightened Western powers (Diana Johnstone). Its creation was undertaken outside the legitimate powers of the UN Security Council in 1993, and it charged Yugoslavia with the commission of crimes against itself, while NATO, whose breach of the peace against Yugoslavia in 1999 was transparent for its UN Charter-busting illegality, went free. (My paraphrase of something that Slobodan Milosevic once told the Court prior to the start of his trial. See the October 30, 2001 transcript, p. 64, lines 17-21, < http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/011030SC.htm >.)

Like that of her two predecessors and whoever succeeds her, Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte's work has done nothing to advance the cause of universal jurisdiction, and everything to destroy it. Instead, selective enforcement remains the rule at the ICTY, where this principle is observed religiously. Del Ponte's office notoriously declined to investigate the leadership of the NATO states, much less bring indictments against them. It is for this kind of service, ultimately, that Del Ponte will always be warmly welcomed among the Western capitals.

The question is, Why is she so warmly welcomed on the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service's Charlie Rose Show?

Marilyn Moorcroft   06/21/2007 11:50 AM Report

I loved your interview with Ms. Del Ponte last night. However, I would have asked the following add'l questions: Why was the trial allowed to drag on for 4 years? Why was the defendant allowed so much press "face" time? Why was he allowed to be his own counsel? Also, I'd wanted to know why the prosecutor was leaving -- did she resign? was her term up? was she let go? (On a personal note, I'd have asked her where she got her fabulous wardrobe?!) Other than that, it was a terrific absorbing interview with a timely newsmaker by such a skilled interviewer.

Thanks, Charlie.