HAGUE TRIBUNAL CHIEF PROSECUTOR CARLA DEL PONTE LEAVES BELGRADE HUMILIATED. IT SERVES HER RIGHT

Carla del Ponte is the Chief Prosecutor at the Internal Penal Court based in Hague, Netherlands. As such, one assumes that she is a woman who possesses at least a reasonable degree of intelligence. Why she went to Belgrade to demand the handing over of citizens in full exercise of their constitutional rights in their own country, after having spoken to the press about going to Belgrade with arrest warrants, even though the climate in Yugoslavia was against such an attitude, defies logic. Evidently and immediately, the response from President Vojislav Kostunica was clear - del Ponte was trying to destabilise Yugoslavia. "If you want to destabilise the situation in this country, you should do the same as Carla Del Ponte (requesting the handing over of ex-President Milosevic).” The Yugoslav Foreign Minister, Goran Svilanovic, told Mrs. del Ponte that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has the means necessary to perform justice within its borders and that there is no desire whatsoever in Belgrade to extradite any Yugoslav citizen for trial in the Netherlands. "I told her that the government's official position is that the trials should take place in the territory of our own country. Our people must trust those responsible to apply justice," Mr. Svilanovic declared to the press. After her meeting, Carla del Ponte was received with extreme hostility by a group of Yugoslav nationals, eggs and stones being thrown at her car, such was the hatred that she generated. One might add: what did she expect? Depleted uranium? A leader of the association of Serbs who disappeared in Kosovo, Ranko Djinovic, also had an audience with Ms. del Ponte. During this meeting, "we discussed legal questions and drew del Ponte's attention towards the actions of the UCK (Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves, Kosovo Liberation Army in Albanian), later transformed into the civil protection force TMK, which are the authors of crimes against humanity and as a consequence, a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural genocide,” declared Mr. Djinovic. Ms. del Ponte's actions in recent weeks and her pathetic, ludicrous figure in Belgrade show us that she is either deaf, or stupid. One thing is certain: she understands ZERO about the Balkans. Her attitude is typical of that misguided group of revengeful, fascist, power-freaks who mistakenly assume that they have any control over world public opinion. Such failures exist in many countries which at present feel that the sun shines out of their national banners. Their ignorance and cultural nullity is almost tangible, so blatant it is. Even those of us who actually know the Balkans first hand and who have been there, never purport to dictate our outside rules on a people who have spent thousands of years to become an example of human excellence. Leave the Balkans people alone and they will again live in peace and harmony. One last point. Ms. Del Ponte is from Switzerland, the land of the eternal accusations of collaboration with the Fascist Nazi regime of Hitler. It has even been stated that much of the gold in certain Swiss banks comes from melted-down remnants of this metal from the teeth of Jews slaughtered in the concentration camps. Now that everyone is deciding to go mad about "justice" and "human rights," maybe some court in some distant, foreign land, which has nothing to do with Switzerland or the Swiss, could bring a case against Switzerland in a pseudo-International Penal Court, whatever that means. Or what about NATO? Or is the legal profession no longer impartial? - contemplates our correspondent Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey reporting from Lisbon.