Byzantine Blog

Kafka’s Worst Nightmare Materialized: The Hague

Imagine finding yourself charged by the foreign, self-imposed “international court,” established by the military organization and governments of few of the wealthiest world states that bombed your country into oblivion, with enticing wars, violence and ethnic cleansing by your speeches. Imagine your own government, largely brought to power by those same states, acting as if it’s perfectly alright to charge you, and any other of their citizens, for free speech and perfectly fine to demand you to be handed over to such “court.” Imagine yourself voluntarily going to the Kafkian institution and being held imprisoned, locked and cut away for four years, as if already found guilty of something, while the “court” keeps changing and rigging your “indictment” in order to find something they can pin on you.

Imagine your “indictment” changing over and over, while you’re waiting in their cell, to finally end up charging you with something called “joint criminal enterprise” — so now, it’s not just your words you should be tried for, it’s your thoughts and presumed intentions that you are to face the “judges” for. Imagine the Kafka’s Process finally starting, yourself capable, eager and ready to speak in your own name and defend yourself, only to find you really can’t, because the “court” won’t give you documents, charges, and piles of material they intend to shower you with in the “courtroom” in your language, but in theirs, which you don’t speak or understand. Moreover, you are also required to learn to use the complex computer program the “court” uses in order to be able to find and read all the documents pertaining to your trial, because this “court” won’t give you hard copies of any of it — not a single piece of paper.

This is when you also find out the “court,” for some reason, decided to make an exception with you, by refusing to register the legal advisers of your own choice. These are the lawyers you trust and desperately need in order to be able to go through the heaps of material (most of which is irrelevant and just another way of effectively obstructing your defense by forcing you to read tons of garbage daily) and adequately prepare to face whatever they cooked up for you.

On top of everything, when your wife and children come to visit you (a sacrifice for the entire family, since the costs of such visits, traveling expenses, hotel accommodation and the rest come from the family budget of someone living and working in impoverished Serbia, not from Enron CEO’s bank account), you are not given one second of privacy, you cannot hug your children and wife, you can’t hold their hands, you can’t even talk to each other without every word you exchange being recorded, as if you haven’t only been found guilty, but have been found guilty of raping and strangling your own children.

Finally, imagine the “court” suddenly deciding your complains are “an obstruction of the [Kafka’s] Process” and punishing you further, by taking away your (nominal) right to defend yourself and imposing a set of foreign lawyers you have reason to distrust to “defend” you. Now, you are not permitted to even speak in the courtroom, at your own trial. And if you don’t want to speak to your imposed lawyers either — that’s your problem, you are welcome to sit in your cell, the “trial” will proceed without you, some men in wigs will say what they can, what they think should be said, they’ll try to figure it all out and guess what went on, what you said and did here or there... they’ll wing it somehow.

What would you do?

Capitulate or Die!

Most people give up at one point or another, as did most Serbs who have found themselves in the Hague Nightmare, knowing fully well their destiny was sealed the moment the “indictments” were issued. You could see them one after another sitting quietly behind the little desk in the corner of the courtroom flanked by prison guards, while the wigs are exchanging courtesies, ritualistically bowing to each other and droning on and on, for days, weeks and months in a language the accused don’t understand, their eyes sank in and glazed, politely waiting for the moment they will be motioned to stand up and say one word they were taught: Guilty, when they will finally be allowed to step out of the Throne of Shame and move on to the lesser evil, to life in prison or 10, 20, 30 years of imprisonment in some other corner of the Fourth Reich.

Late President Slobodan Milosevic did his best to adjust, swallowing his pride and years of daily humiliation in the “courtroom” from venomous and biased third-rate “judges” most of whom were adjudicating traffic offenses in their own countries until the day before and semi-literate “prosecutors” foaming at their mouth, hoping to enter the history by bringing “another Hitler” down to his knees. His English was not as good as the Kafkian myth-makers were hoping to project, and although he was a Law graduate, he never practiced law in his entire life, so he missed numerous opportunities to score important points over false witnesses, distorted facts and sheer nonsense bandied about.

President Milosevic was forced to go through 1,300,000 pages of documentation in English (most of which was, also, entirely irrelevant, but you can’t know that until you read it and that’s the whole point: wasting your time and energy on minutiae) in a month-and-a-half he was given to “prepare” his defense, and he suffered the same obstructions Dr. Vojislav Seselj has been faced with and more, during the four years of a “trial.” Nevertheless, he refused to let go, he refused to say the only word he was required to say, and kept trudging on, proving, with each new witness, he really doesn’t need to know English better than he did and doesn’t need to be an experienced lawyer simply because the truth is on his side.

With each new day and each testimony it was becoming more and more obvious President Milosevic’s indictment is false, based on lies and yellow-journalism mythology and impossible to prove. But freeing him of all charges due to the lack of evidence was also impossible, since pinning blame on Serbian President and Serbian nation is the very purpose and reason for the “court’s” existence. So, denying Mr. Milosevic’s request for treatment of the heart condition was the bullet-proof way to ensure that he suffers a deadly heart attack before the end of his “trial.” Because, if he was allowed to undergo a simple surgical procedure on his heart in Russia, as he requested, President Milosevic would have undoubtedly be alive today. His ten years older brother, Borislav Milosevic, suffered from the exact same condition and is alive and well after surgery in Moscow.

In other words, since there is such a charge as murder through negligence, or a manslaughter, the Hague’s president should be brought to trial on such charges in case of late President Milosevic.

Deadly Struggle

Going back to each of us trying to imagine ourselves in the midst of Kafka’s worst nightmare, this is the situation Dr. Vojislav Seselj was in when he decided to start the most drastic hunger strike, on November 10, 2006.

During 27 days of total starvation, Dr. Seselj took only plain water daily and the Eucharist once a week from Father Vojislav (Bilbija) of Serbian Orthodox Church in Holland. 52 year old University Professor, Seselj suffers from high blood pressure, asthma and back pain, but during the nearly month-long hunger strike he refused to take any and all medications, along with vitamins and food. The French, Russian and Serbian medical doctors that examined him on Tuesday, December 5, announced that Mr. Seselj’s life is seriously endangered, that he has lost 55 lb and is at the stage where his body is dissolving tissue of vital organs, that his kidneys are failing and he can suffer the heart attack or stroke and pass away any day. They have also confirmed that, although very weak, Dr. Seselj is fully conscious, clear-minded and rational, and determined to continue the strike until his requests are granted by the Inquisition, or unto death if they continue refusing to grant him his legal rights.

Dr. Seselj’s requests were:

1. Lifting restrictions regarding his wife’s visits;
2. Registering Dr. Seselj’s legal advisers, so they can help him prepare his defense;
3. Translating all the documents pertaining to his case into Serbian and giving Dr. Seselj hard copies of the material “court” intends to air, and
4. Withdrawal of the imposed lawyers, their removal from the “courtroom” and giving Dr. Seselj back his right to defend himself.

But the Inquisition, as always, kept trying to wiggle out. They blamed Dr. Seselj for “endangering his own life” and even sank so low to suggest Dr. Seselj is attempting to “manipulate the court” (I would really like to see any of them try to “manipulate” someone by taking no food for three days only; I suspect such “manipulation” would end in the midst of day 3, when they’d be found dead in front of an open fridge) and it’s “up to him” to simply end his strike (as if it’s all a charade), submit to the Inquisition’s will and go with the flow. It should be noted that this is exactly the same behavior and same mix of accusations and “advice” the Inquisition used in case of late President Milosevic: they had the gull to accuse him of “manipulating the court” when he begged to be allowed to go to heart surgery — I guess his very death is nothing more than the ultimate proof of Mr. Milosevic’s cunningness. The callousness and cynicism these supposedly civilized, supposedly cultured, gloved executioners are capable of is entirely scandalous.

Because of all that and being that the Inquisition chose to let Dr. Seselj starve himself to death, while they went on their merry way to start his trial without him, Seselj added another key request to the list, in the midst of hunger strike:

• Declaring all of the procedural sessions of the “court” that took place in Dr. Seselj’s absence invalid and starting his trial anew, once his requests are granted.

Support for Dr. Seselj and his requests poured in from around the world. A vast number of world’s greatest intellectuals, thinkers and scholars, along with renowned writers, directors, artists, political activists, groups of students, medical and legal experts, parliamentarians, and people with conscience from all four corners of the world have signed the petition requesting respect for Dr. Seselj’s legal and basic human rights. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and Russian Duma have also voiced strong support for Dr. Seselj’s requests, and concern with Hague’s persistent attempts to avoid taking responsibility for blatant disregard of Seselj’s legal rights.

When open blackmail — capitulate or die — failed, the Inquisition tried to trade. It granted (only verbally and haphazardly, in front of the media) Seselj’s requests regarding his wife’s visits, the proper registration of his legal advisers and agreed to translate trial documents into Serbian (hard copies and all), but said the last two requests (the right to represent himself and to annul part of the process that was led in his absence) have to be resolved in the “courtroom,” so Seselj needs to end his hunger strike immediately, go to the “courtroom” and try to argue two other issues there. As if that ever helped before! The very reason Dr. Seselj was forced to resort to starvation is because he was not allowed to argue his case in or outside of the “courtroom.”

So, when that trick turned useless too, the Inquisition tried to pressure his wife, family and friends to persuade Seselj to accept whatever they gave him and give up the rest to save his life. Jadranka Seselj, as valiant and brave as her husband, responded that, even though it is needless to say how much she, their children and the entire family worries for Dr. Seselj, they would “never tell him to stop.” That what he needs now is their full support, and not to be brought down by their tears and fear. Instead, she added, The Hague needs to grant her husband’s requests, since he isn’t asking for anything above and beyond his legal rights.

After 27 days of the rigorous hunger strike, on Friday, December 8, 2006, the Inquisition’s “appeals panel” granted the last of Dr. Seselj’s key requests and restored his right to represent himself. It has also agreed with his request that trial sessions held in his absence be annulled.

Dr. Seselj ended his hunger strike after receiving a written confirmation that his rights have been restored and is now under medical supervision, while attempting a recovery.

What No One Can Take Away

After wondering if it was really necessary for Dr. Seselj to bring himself to the edge of death in order for the Hague to recognize and restore his legal and human rights, it has to be said that, for all of us who supported Dr. Seselj in his righteous and just struggle against the Goliath, this is a happy end of a very difficult chapter. It is also a great moral victory, since it shows that even a morose Kafkian apparatus and a mythological bureaucratic labyrinth such as the one constructed in the Hague is powerless against the truth, personal integrity and single-minded determination to hold out. Even in the event that Dr. Seselj has lost his life before his legal rights were restored, he would still be a moral winner — and more.

There are millions of dollars behind the frightful, inhumane ‘efficiency’ with which the Hague Inquisition minces and grinds Serbian political and military leaders. There are few of the wealthiest states in the world, along with NATO, intelligence agencies, thousands of administrators and hundreds of legal representatives behind this horrendous, soulless, Orwellian machinery for swallowing, chewing up and spitting out a nation. What can a single man do against all that?

The first and easiest thing to forget when one finds himself facing the seemingly invincible enemy is the most important thing: that no one can take away your soul. No matter who they are, no matter what they do, no matter what else they take, including the life — unless you give it away, they can never take your soul. And as for a single man, so too for a nation. Dr. Vojislav Seselj, obviously, understands that better than most.