Informazione
Da: ICDSM Italia
Data: Gio 13 Mag 2004 11:08:04 Europe/Rome
A: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] Milosevic "trial" - News
[ Il Consiglio Mondiale per la Pace, recentemente riunitosi ad Atene
alla presenza di 150 delegati, per il tramite del suo nuovo presidente,
il cubano Fundora, ha espresso appoggio alla causa della difesa di
Milosevic e sostegno alla campagna per la sua liberazione.
Nel frattempo: il riavvio del "processo" slitta al 22 giugno, anche a
causa dei persistenti problemi di salute di Milosevic; la legge per il
finanziamento della difesa dei prigionieri dell'Aia in Serbia e' stata
bloccata; 250 serbi bosniaci, ex internati nei lager di Izetbegovic,
chiedono di andare a testimoniare in favore di Milosevic... ]
1. World Peace Council on Milosevic, Kosovo and the Hague Tribunal
2. Law on rights of the Hague prisoners suspended
3. Group of 250 Bosnian Serb ex-camp inmates to testify for Milosevic
in the Hague
4. Milosevic's Ill Health Delays UN War Crimes Trial Again
LINK:
Milosevic "trial" - Prosecution witness list
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/icty041804.htm
---( 1 ) ---
Da: "Vladimir Krsljanin"
Data: Gio 13 Mag 2004 02:59:09 Europe/Rome
Oggetto: World Peace Council on Milosevic, Kosovo and the Hague Tribunal
*****************************************************************
STATEMENT OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD PEACE COUNCIL ORLANDO FUNDORA
*****************************************************************
"The illegal process that US and NATO carry at The Hague against
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and by that against the people of
Serbia and Yugoslavia defending their freedom from the aggression,
deserves full condemnation and must end.
The peace-loving forces all over the World demand accountability of
real criminals and cease of the persecution of President Milosevic, his
family and all freedom fighters of Yugoslavia.
Athens, 9 May 2004
/signed/
Orlando Fundora,
President of the World Peace
Council"
*****************************************************************
NOTE:
The above statement was issued by new elected President of the World
Peace Council (WPC) Orlando Fundora after the end of the works of the
Assembly of the World Peace Council, reflecting the position expressed
during the deliberations.
The highest WPC body, the Assembly, meets every three years. This time,
in Athens, 6-9 May 2004, around 150 delegates representing 60
member-organizations from more than 50 countries from all continents
took part.
After the long and fruitful discussion, the Assembly adopted a
political Declaration with a Plan of Action, underlying the need to
strengthen the role of WPC in achieving the World peace through the
opposition to imperialist wars and policies - within the ranks of the
most massive peace movement emerging in the World - and analyzing all
the contemporary challenges and points of war, oppression and people's
struggle in the World.
The paragraph on Yugoslavia in the WPC Declaration expresses solidarity
with Yugoslav peoples in struggling against the consequences of NATO
aggression and occupation of the Serbian province of Kosovo and
denounces the so-called Hague tribunal as a notorious tool of
manipulation with truth aiming to legitimize the aggression and other
crimes of USA and NATO.
Due to the lack of time, the Assembly authorized its executive bodies
to deal with the issues treated in the topical draft Resolutions.
The Assembly also adopted the Amendments to WPC Rules and Regulations
and elected new leadership.
Orlando Fundora from Cuba was elected WPC President and Thanassis
Pafilis from Greece was elected General Secretary. WPC, one of the
oldest and most glorious international non-governmental organizations
in the UN system reelected its Presidents of Honor: Romesh Chandra
(India) and Evangelos
Mahairas (Greece).
Since November 2003 Sloboda/Freedom Association is a full member of WPC.
******************************************************************
TRUTH
OR SLAVERY, HUMILIATION AND DESTRUCTION OF SERBIAN NATION
http://www.icdsm.org/battle.htm
THE DECISIVE BATTLE FOR TRUTH NEEDS YOUR HELP NOW!
******************************************************************
SLOBODA urgently needs your donation.
Please find the detailed instructions at:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/pomoc.htm
To join or help this struggle, visit:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/ (Sloboda/Freedom association)
http://www.icdsm.org/ (the international committee to defend Slobodan
Milosevic)
http://www.free-slobo.de/ (German section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsm-us.org/ (US section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsmireland.org/ (ICDSM Ireland)
http://www.wpc-in.org/ (world peace council)
http://www.geocities.com/b_antinato/ (Balkan antiNATO center)
---( 2 )---
Serbian Constitutional Court puts temporary ban on law on rights of
ICTY indictees
Tanjug - April 15, 2004
11:32 BELGRADE , April 15 (Tanjug) - The Serbian Constitutional Court
on Thursday put a temporary ban on the implementation of the law on
the rights of detained indictees of the International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), based in The Hague, and the
members of their families.
The Court found that the law insufficiently precisely regulates this
delicate legal issue and that there is grounds to believe its
implementation could consequently result in violations of the
elementary Constitutional principles.
---
Da: "Vladimir Krsljanin"
Data: Gio 15 Apr 2004 21:59:59 Europe/Rome
Oggetto: Law on rights of the Hague prisoners suspended
Additional explanation: The Federal Constitutional Court which was a
serious institution was dissolved after the abolishment of Yugoslavia.
Judges of the Constitutional Court of Serbia were appointed in the
period of Djindjic dictatorship. The 'public pressure' mentioned below
is a chorus scream of the US paid obscure NGO's whose 'prominent
members' appeared in desperation of loosing any significance. The
decision was made this morning to release the Government from the
burden to issue a Decree on the session later today which would make
the implementation of the Law possible. Issuing of that Decree was a
Government's obligation according to the Law. The problem was that
Minister of Finance Dinkic (one of the leaders of G17+ Party, which
abstained from vote on the Law) announced that he has prepared a decree
which would cut Milosevic and Seselj from any assistance. Such a Decree
would overrule the Law itself, drafted by the leading opposition
Serbian Radical Party and the leading governmental Democratic Party of
Serbia. Possible lack of consent on the Decree on the session of the
Government could produce a threat to its survival. So, the best
solution was a solomonic solution - of course on the detriment of the
national interests.
******************************************************************
Associated Press Worldstream
April 15, 2004 Thursday 7:59 AM Eastern Time
HEADLINE: Constitutional court suspends disputed law aiding war crimes
suspects
BYLINE: JOVANA GEC; Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro
Serbia's Constitutional Court on Thursday suspended a disputed law
allocating financial and other benefits to Slobodan Milosevic and
fellow war crimes suspects jailed at the U.N. war crimes tribunal.
The court issued a "temporary ban" until it decides on a final ruling.
The court said that its move is based on Serbia's Constitution
stipulating that all citizens of the republic are "equal and enjoy
equal rights and duties."
Serbia's parliament - which passed the law last month - can respond
within 30 days, the court added.
Disputing the ruling, Milosevic's loyalists in the parliament, who
drafted the law, accused the Constitutional Court of being a "political
institution," they said was controlled by the previous, pro-Western
government.
Separately, Djordje Mamula, an aide to Prime Minister Vojislav
Kostunica, urged the court to provide more detail on its decision and
told the Beta news agency that the move was the result of public
pressure.
The legislation formally came into effect when passed March 31 but no
payments have been made due in part to disputes over who - if anyone -
should benefit.
It stipulates that the state pays expenses, including phone bills and
family visits for Milosevic and other war crimes suspects being tried
or awaiting trial by the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. It also
grants them financial help for legal expenses and pays for postage on
packages mailed them by family members.
The law was drafted and approved by legislators loyal to Milosevic, and
opposed by the pro-Western Democratic Party, which led the 2000
rebellion against Milosevic and extradited him to the U.N. tribunal in
2001 to face charges stemming from the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
Approval last month is an illustration of the revival of the
nationalists who won December elections in Serbia, allowing them to
form a government led by Kostunica and supported in the parliament by
Milosevic's Socialists.
Officials from Kostunica's government have argued that the law would
encourage the fugitive war crimes suspects to surrender voluntarily,
but critics have claimed that the law rewards Milosevic and associates
they say bankrupted Serbia.
The Constitutional Court debate on the law followed a motion by the
Democrats and a number of human rights groups, which disputed its
legality because it provides aid only to war crimes suspects before the
Hague tribunal and not to others tried in the country.
Explaining its decision to suspend the law, the Constitutional Court
said that the move was necessary because "application of the law could
violate basic constitutional rights," the official Tanjug news agency
reported.
---( 3 )---
GROUP OF 250 BOSNIAN SERB EX-CAMP INMATES TO TESTIFY FOR MILOSEVIC IN
THE HAGUE
SRNA - April 24, 2004
Banja Luka, 24 April: The (Bosnian) Serb Republic Association of
(former) Camp Inmates decided at today's annual convention in Banja
Luka that 250 former prisoners - who were held (during wars in the
former Yugoslavia) in as many Muslim, Croatian and Slovene prison
camps for Serbs - will testify for the defence of the former Serbian
and Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic.
"Among these 250 former camp inmates, there are 11 women who had been
raped and 19 young men who were taken to Muslim and Croatian prison
camps as children at the beginning of the war," SRNA has been told by
Branislav Dukic, president of the Serb Republic Association of Former
Camp Inmates.
He added that the camp inmates veterans will prove with their testimony
in The Hague that not only Muslims and Croats, but also Serbs, had
suffered in the former Yugoslav republics.
Dukic said that, at today's annual convention, Slavko Jovicic was
re-elected as the vice-president of the Serb Republic Association of
Former Camp Inmates. He had been suspended from this post because of
his outbursts at gatherings of the opposition (as published) in Banja
Luka.
---( 4 )---
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/icty050504.htm
Press Release . Communiqué de presse
(Exclusively for the use of the media. Not an official document)
TRIAL CHAMBER
CHAMBRE DE 1ERE INSTANCE
The Hague, 30 March 2004
JP/P.I.S./841-e
MILOSEVIC DEFENCE CASE TO START ON 22 JUNE 2004
Please be advised that the Defence case in The Prosecutor v. Slobodan
Milosevic will commence on 22 June 2004 and not on 8 June 2004, as
previously scheduled. The Pre-Defence Conference will now be held on 9
June 2004, instead of 17 May 2004.
In its Order of 5 May 2004, the Trial Chamber considered that the
material filed by Mr. Milosevic on 13 April 2004, including his list
of proposed witnesses, still needed to be translated and would need to
be examined before the Pre-Defence Conference took place. Furthermore,
the Trial Chamber considered Mr. Milosevic’s bad health during the
three month period assigned for the preparation of the Defence case,
his present bad health and his doctor’s advice to rest.
---
Milosevic's Ill Health Delays UN War Crimes Trial Again
THE HAGUE (AP)--Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic will start
his defense against war crimes charges at the U.N. tribunal two weeks
late, in part due to his ill health, the court said Wednesday.
Milosevic's trial, which began in early 2002, has already been delayed
by 65 days because he was repeatedly ill with the flu and the effects
of high blood pressure.
Prosecutors rested their case in February after calling around 300
witnesses.
In reaching their decision to further delay the hearings, the judges
considered Milosevic's "present bad health and his doctor's advice to
rest," a statement said.
Milosevic will defend himself against 66 counts of war crimes,
including genocide, allegedly committed during the Balkan wars of the
1990s. His defense will now begin on June 22, instead of June 8.
Other reasons for delaying the hearings were that Milosevic's witness
list - which reportedly contains 1,631 names - needs to be reviewed and
translated, the statement said.
Milosevic's lawyers say he hopes to call former U.S. President Bill
Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and U.N. Ambassador
Richard Holbrooke to the stand.
Last month, Scottish judge Lord Iain Bonomy was named to join the
three-judge panel hearing Milosevic's case after the senior judge,
Richard May, resigned due to ill health.
Dow Jones Newswires
05-05-041307ET
Copyright (C) 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
http://news.nasdaq.com/news/newsStory.aspx?
&cpath=20040505\ACQDJON200405051307DOWJONESDJONLINE000845.htm
==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
tel/fax +39-06-4828957
email: icdsm-italia@...
Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC
sito internet:
http://www.pasti.org/linkmilo.htm
Data: Gio 13 Mag 2004 11:08:04 Europe/Rome
A: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] Milosevic "trial" - News
[ Il Consiglio Mondiale per la Pace, recentemente riunitosi ad Atene
alla presenza di 150 delegati, per il tramite del suo nuovo presidente,
il cubano Fundora, ha espresso appoggio alla causa della difesa di
Milosevic e sostegno alla campagna per la sua liberazione.
Nel frattempo: il riavvio del "processo" slitta al 22 giugno, anche a
causa dei persistenti problemi di salute di Milosevic; la legge per il
finanziamento della difesa dei prigionieri dell'Aia in Serbia e' stata
bloccata; 250 serbi bosniaci, ex internati nei lager di Izetbegovic,
chiedono di andare a testimoniare in favore di Milosevic... ]
1. World Peace Council on Milosevic, Kosovo and the Hague Tribunal
2. Law on rights of the Hague prisoners suspended
3. Group of 250 Bosnian Serb ex-camp inmates to testify for Milosevic
in the Hague
4. Milosevic's Ill Health Delays UN War Crimes Trial Again
LINK:
Milosevic "trial" - Prosecution witness list
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/icty041804.htm
---( 1 ) ---
Da: "Vladimir Krsljanin"
Data: Gio 13 Mag 2004 02:59:09 Europe/Rome
Oggetto: World Peace Council on Milosevic, Kosovo and the Hague Tribunal
*****************************************************************
STATEMENT OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD PEACE COUNCIL ORLANDO FUNDORA
*****************************************************************
"The illegal process that US and NATO carry at The Hague against
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and by that against the people of
Serbia and Yugoslavia defending their freedom from the aggression,
deserves full condemnation and must end.
The peace-loving forces all over the World demand accountability of
real criminals and cease of the persecution of President Milosevic, his
family and all freedom fighters of Yugoslavia.
Athens, 9 May 2004
/signed/
Orlando Fundora,
President of the World Peace
Council"
*****************************************************************
NOTE:
The above statement was issued by new elected President of the World
Peace Council (WPC) Orlando Fundora after the end of the works of the
Assembly of the World Peace Council, reflecting the position expressed
during the deliberations.
The highest WPC body, the Assembly, meets every three years. This time,
in Athens, 6-9 May 2004, around 150 delegates representing 60
member-organizations from more than 50 countries from all continents
took part.
After the long and fruitful discussion, the Assembly adopted a
political Declaration with a Plan of Action, underlying the need to
strengthen the role of WPC in achieving the World peace through the
opposition to imperialist wars and policies - within the ranks of the
most massive peace movement emerging in the World - and analyzing all
the contemporary challenges and points of war, oppression and people's
struggle in the World.
The paragraph on Yugoslavia in the WPC Declaration expresses solidarity
with Yugoslav peoples in struggling against the consequences of NATO
aggression and occupation of the Serbian province of Kosovo and
denounces the so-called Hague tribunal as a notorious tool of
manipulation with truth aiming to legitimize the aggression and other
crimes of USA and NATO.
Due to the lack of time, the Assembly authorized its executive bodies
to deal with the issues treated in the topical draft Resolutions.
The Assembly also adopted the Amendments to WPC Rules and Regulations
and elected new leadership.
Orlando Fundora from Cuba was elected WPC President and Thanassis
Pafilis from Greece was elected General Secretary. WPC, one of the
oldest and most glorious international non-governmental organizations
in the UN system reelected its Presidents of Honor: Romesh Chandra
(India) and Evangelos
Mahairas (Greece).
Since November 2003 Sloboda/Freedom Association is a full member of WPC.
******************************************************************
TRUTH
OR SLAVERY, HUMILIATION AND DESTRUCTION OF SERBIAN NATION
http://www.icdsm.org/battle.htm
THE DECISIVE BATTLE FOR TRUTH NEEDS YOUR HELP NOW!
******************************************************************
SLOBODA urgently needs your donation.
Please find the detailed instructions at:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/pomoc.htm
To join or help this struggle, visit:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/ (Sloboda/Freedom association)
http://www.icdsm.org/ (the international committee to defend Slobodan
Milosevic)
http://www.free-slobo.de/ (German section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsm-us.org/ (US section of ICDSM)
http://www.icdsmireland.org/ (ICDSM Ireland)
http://www.wpc-in.org/ (world peace council)
http://www.geocities.com/b_antinato/ (Balkan antiNATO center)
---( 2 )---
Serbian Constitutional Court puts temporary ban on law on rights of
ICTY indictees
Tanjug - April 15, 2004
11:32 BELGRADE , April 15 (Tanjug) - The Serbian Constitutional Court
on Thursday put a temporary ban on the implementation of the law on
the rights of detained indictees of the International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), based in The Hague, and the
members of their families.
The Court found that the law insufficiently precisely regulates this
delicate legal issue and that there is grounds to believe its
implementation could consequently result in violations of the
elementary Constitutional principles.
---
Da: "Vladimir Krsljanin"
Data: Gio 15 Apr 2004 21:59:59 Europe/Rome
Oggetto: Law on rights of the Hague prisoners suspended
Additional explanation: The Federal Constitutional Court which was a
serious institution was dissolved after the abolishment of Yugoslavia.
Judges of the Constitutional Court of Serbia were appointed in the
period of Djindjic dictatorship. The 'public pressure' mentioned below
is a chorus scream of the US paid obscure NGO's whose 'prominent
members' appeared in desperation of loosing any significance. The
decision was made this morning to release the Government from the
burden to issue a Decree on the session later today which would make
the implementation of the Law possible. Issuing of that Decree was a
Government's obligation according to the Law. The problem was that
Minister of Finance Dinkic (one of the leaders of G17+ Party, which
abstained from vote on the Law) announced that he has prepared a decree
which would cut Milosevic and Seselj from any assistance. Such a Decree
would overrule the Law itself, drafted by the leading opposition
Serbian Radical Party and the leading governmental Democratic Party of
Serbia. Possible lack of consent on the Decree on the session of the
Government could produce a threat to its survival. So, the best
solution was a solomonic solution - of course on the detriment of the
national interests.
******************************************************************
Associated Press Worldstream
April 15, 2004 Thursday 7:59 AM Eastern Time
HEADLINE: Constitutional court suspends disputed law aiding war crimes
suspects
BYLINE: JOVANA GEC; Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro
Serbia's Constitutional Court on Thursday suspended a disputed law
allocating financial and other benefits to Slobodan Milosevic and
fellow war crimes suspects jailed at the U.N. war crimes tribunal.
The court issued a "temporary ban" until it decides on a final ruling.
The court said that its move is based on Serbia's Constitution
stipulating that all citizens of the republic are "equal and enjoy
equal rights and duties."
Serbia's parliament - which passed the law last month - can respond
within 30 days, the court added.
Disputing the ruling, Milosevic's loyalists in the parliament, who
drafted the law, accused the Constitutional Court of being a "political
institution," they said was controlled by the previous, pro-Western
government.
Separately, Djordje Mamula, an aide to Prime Minister Vojislav
Kostunica, urged the court to provide more detail on its decision and
told the Beta news agency that the move was the result of public
pressure.
The legislation formally came into effect when passed March 31 but no
payments have been made due in part to disputes over who - if anyone -
should benefit.
It stipulates that the state pays expenses, including phone bills and
family visits for Milosevic and other war crimes suspects being tried
or awaiting trial by the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. It also
grants them financial help for legal expenses and pays for postage on
packages mailed them by family members.
The law was drafted and approved by legislators loyal to Milosevic, and
opposed by the pro-Western Democratic Party, which led the 2000
rebellion against Milosevic and extradited him to the U.N. tribunal in
2001 to face charges stemming from the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
Approval last month is an illustration of the revival of the
nationalists who won December elections in Serbia, allowing them to
form a government led by Kostunica and supported in the parliament by
Milosevic's Socialists.
Officials from Kostunica's government have argued that the law would
encourage the fugitive war crimes suspects to surrender voluntarily,
but critics have claimed that the law rewards Milosevic and associates
they say bankrupted Serbia.
The Constitutional Court debate on the law followed a motion by the
Democrats and a number of human rights groups, which disputed its
legality because it provides aid only to war crimes suspects before the
Hague tribunal and not to others tried in the country.
Explaining its decision to suspend the law, the Constitutional Court
said that the move was necessary because "application of the law could
violate basic constitutional rights," the official Tanjug news agency
reported.
---( 3 )---
GROUP OF 250 BOSNIAN SERB EX-CAMP INMATES TO TESTIFY FOR MILOSEVIC IN
THE HAGUE
SRNA - April 24, 2004
Banja Luka, 24 April: The (Bosnian) Serb Republic Association of
(former) Camp Inmates decided at today's annual convention in Banja
Luka that 250 former prisoners - who were held (during wars in the
former Yugoslavia) in as many Muslim, Croatian and Slovene prison
camps for Serbs - will testify for the defence of the former Serbian
and Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic.
"Among these 250 former camp inmates, there are 11 women who had been
raped and 19 young men who were taken to Muslim and Croatian prison
camps as children at the beginning of the war," SRNA has been told by
Branislav Dukic, president of the Serb Republic Association of Former
Camp Inmates.
He added that the camp inmates veterans will prove with their testimony
in The Hague that not only Muslims and Croats, but also Serbs, had
suffered in the former Yugoslav republics.
Dukic said that, at today's annual convention, Slavko Jovicic was
re-elected as the vice-president of the Serb Republic Association of
Former Camp Inmates. He had been suspended from this post because of
his outbursts at gatherings of the opposition (as published) in Banja
Luka.
---( 4 )---
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/icty050504.htm
Press Release . Communiqué de presse
(Exclusively for the use of the media. Not an official document)
TRIAL CHAMBER
CHAMBRE DE 1ERE INSTANCE
The Hague, 30 March 2004
JP/P.I.S./841-e
MILOSEVIC DEFENCE CASE TO START ON 22 JUNE 2004
Please be advised that the Defence case in The Prosecutor v. Slobodan
Milosevic will commence on 22 June 2004 and not on 8 June 2004, as
previously scheduled. The Pre-Defence Conference will now be held on 9
June 2004, instead of 17 May 2004.
In its Order of 5 May 2004, the Trial Chamber considered that the
material filed by Mr. Milosevic on 13 April 2004, including his list
of proposed witnesses, still needed to be translated and would need to
be examined before the Pre-Defence Conference took place. Furthermore,
the Trial Chamber considered Mr. Milosevic’s bad health during the
three month period assigned for the preparation of the Defence case,
his present bad health and his doctor’s advice to rest.
---
Milosevic's Ill Health Delays UN War Crimes Trial Again
THE HAGUE (AP)--Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic will start
his defense against war crimes charges at the U.N. tribunal two weeks
late, in part due to his ill health, the court said Wednesday.
Milosevic's trial, which began in early 2002, has already been delayed
by 65 days because he was repeatedly ill with the flu and the effects
of high blood pressure.
Prosecutors rested their case in February after calling around 300
witnesses.
In reaching their decision to further delay the hearings, the judges
considered Milosevic's "present bad health and his doctor's advice to
rest," a statement said.
Milosevic will defend himself against 66 counts of war crimes,
including genocide, allegedly committed during the Balkan wars of the
1990s. His defense will now begin on June 22, instead of June 8.
Other reasons for delaying the hearings were that Milosevic's witness
list - which reportedly contains 1,631 names - needs to be reviewed and
translated, the statement said.
Milosevic's lawyers say he hopes to call former U.S. President Bill
Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and U.N. Ambassador
Richard Holbrooke to the stand.
Last month, Scottish judge Lord Iain Bonomy was named to join the
three-judge panel hearing Milosevic's case after the senior judge,
Richard May, resigned due to ill health.
Dow Jones Newswires
05-05-041307ET
Copyright (C) 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
http://news.nasdaq.com/news/newsStory.aspx?
&cpath=20040505\ACQDJON200405051307DOWJONESDJONLINE000845.htm
==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
tel/fax +39-06-4828957
email: icdsm-italia@...
Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC
sito internet:
http://www.pasti.org/linkmilo.htm
DA DI LENARDO ALLE GUERRE PROSSIME VENTURE, PASSANDO PER SOMALIA,
GENOVA ED IRAQ.
DEPENALIZZARE LA TORTURA PER AVERE LE MANI PIU' LIBERE ?
http://www.repubblica.it/2004/a/sezioni/politica/rifogiu/tortu/
tortu.html
POLITICA
Approvato alla Camera un emendamento del Carroccio
che la definisce tale solo minacce e violenze sono reiterate
Tortura, passa modifica leghista
Legge stravolta, bagarre in aula
Il testo ritorna al comitato dei 9. Appassionato intervento della
diessina Finocchiaro. La condanna di Amnesty
ROMA - Con una mano vuole allargare le
maglie della legittima difesa. Con l'altra, restringe - e di molto - la
nozione di tortura. In queste settimane di campagna elettorale la Lega
è sempre più attiva su fronte della giustizia. Ma l'emendamento
presentato oggi dal Carroccio e poi approvato dalla Cdl nell'aula di
Montecitorio alla legge che istituisce il "delitto di tortura" sta
scatenando una rovente polemica. Con l'opposizione, ma anche con
associazioni internazionali di grande prestigio come Amnesty
International.
La modifica voluta dal Carroccio prevede infatti che, per esserci il
reato di "tortura", le violenze o le minacce gravi devono essere
reiterate. Con il risultato che, dopo il voto e la protesta delle
opposizioni, che hanno minacciato di lasciare l'aula, il testo è
tornato all'esame del comitato ristretto.
La proposta di ricominciare daccapo l'iter in commissione era stata
fatta dal deputato della Margherita Giuseppe Fanfani, e ad essa si era
associato in un primo momento il presidente della commissione Giustizia
di Montecitorio, il forzista Gaetano Pecorella. Che poi, annunciando
invece il ritorno della legge al comitato dei nove, ha spiegato: "Devo
dare atto che la scelta della commissione era esattamente nel senso
opposto, e cioè di un parere contrario all'emendamento della Lega; poi
c'è stata una decisione politica all'interno della Cdl, di cui non
abbiamo potuto non prendere atto".
Una decisione "politica" che ha mandato in frantumi l'accordo
bipartisan sulla legge e, di fatto, ha affossato l'intero spirito del
provvedimento. Basta ascoltare quanto detto in aula dalla diessina Anna
Finocchiaro: "Vorrei raccontarvi la testimonianza di una donna che nel
Salvador venne sottoposta per giorni e giorni a torture fisiche...lei
mi disse che la cosa più grave che le fecero fu una sola minaccia,
fatta una volta sola: le promisero che avrebbero fatto assistere alle
torture che le infliggevano il figlio di 3 anni e mezzo". Ecco perchè,
spiega la Finocchiaro, "per essere tortura la minaccia non ha certo
bisogno di essere ripetuta più volte...".
Poco più tardi, la condanna netta di Amnesty International: ''Iniziamo
male, con un emendamento che, se confermato nel testo finale,
significherà che l'Italia non vuole adeguarsi al diritto internazionale
dei diritti umani e in particolare alla Convenzione dell'Onu contro la
tortura, che il nostro paese ha ratificato nel 1988''. Sono parole di
Marco Bertotto, presidente della Sezione Italiana di Amnesty, secondo
il quale la modifica approvata "stravolge la definizione di tortura,
limitando in modo inaccettabile la nozione ai comportamenti ripetuti:
quante volte, dunque, occorrerà torturare prima che si possa parlare di
tortura?''.
(22 aprile 2004)
L'ITALIA AUTORIZZA LA TORTURA
Noi sappiamo.
Noi abbiamo assistito, raccolto testimonianze, denunciato nei nostri
libri: in Italia, a Luglio del 2001, a Genova nella Caserma di
Bolzaneto centinaia di persone italiane e straniere sono state
torturate.
Noi siamo indignati, gli italiani dovrebbero vergognarsi e ribellarsi
all'approvazione della legge sulla tortura che si sta discutendo in
questi giorni alla Camera dei deputati. La legge di un paese civile che
dovrebbe tutelare i diritti umani fondamentali e non mettere dei limiti
a questi diritti.
L'Italia è in ritardo di 15 anni nell'introduzione del reato di tortura
nel proprio ordinamento, ma se il testo definitivo conterrà
l'emendamento approvato in questi giorni, (secondo il quale per esserci
il reato di tortura le violenze o le minacce gravi devono essere
reiterate) è meglio che rimanga senza alcuna legge.
Le testimonianze di coloro che passarono ore, giorni all'interno della
caserma di Bolzaneto, parlano di violenze e torture, trattamenti
inumani e degradanti, sospensione di diritti umani fondamentali,
mancate cure mediche a persone già ferite, mancate telefonate a
familiari, avvocati, consolato per gli stranieri, tutti i fermati e i
detenuti scomparsi nel nulla, "desaparecidos". Raccontano di mani
spezzate a Bolzaneto, di suture senza anestesia, di ragazze trascinate
per la collottola e coperte di sputi ed ingiurie da due ali di agenti,
prese a calci durante il tragitto verso il bagno. Parlano di canzonette
fasciste, di ragazze e ragazzi nudi, derisi ed umiliati. Non furono
somministrati né cibo, né acqua, i giovani furono coperti di pugni e
calci, costretti a rimanere per ore in piedi col volto
verso il muro, gambe divaricate, braccia alzate, anche se feriti,
spruzzati da gas urticante, minacciati di morte, di stupro e di altre
violenze.
L'emendamento della Lega approvato dalla Camera, è contro le forze di
polizia, lo sostiene il Silp-Cgil affermando che così facendo si evoca
la falsa immagine di forze dell'ordine pronte a rinunciare a quel
principio di legalità che è la prima ragione della loro esistenza. Le
forze di polizia respingono con sdegno l'idea che un qualsiasi atto di
tortura, commesso anche solo una volta, possa aiutarle nell'esercizio
delle loro funzioni, considerano il rispetto dei diritti fondamentali
della persona un principio irrinunciabile della loro azione a tutela
dei cittadini.
Le forze di polizia si considerano garanti del rispetto dei valori
costituzionali, e ritengono che in uno stato democratico si debba e si
possa garantire la sicurezza senza fare alcun passo indietro sul
terreno della civiltà giuridica.
Migliaia di cittadini hanno firmato la petizione per l'introduzione del
reato di tortura perché credono in una democrazia che rispetta i
diritti umani. Non lasciamo che l'Italia precipiti definitivamente e
"legalmente" nel baratro di un regime dove tutto è permesso, nessun
diritto dei cittadini italiani e stranieri tutelato.
Ricordiamo che l'art. 13 della nostra costituzione prevede che:
"È punita ogni violenza fisica e morale sulle persone comunque
sottoposte a restrizioni di libertà."
Enrica Bartesaghi
(Presidente Comitato Verità e Giustizia per Genova - autrice del libro
"Genova il posto sbagliato")
Marco Poggi
(ex-infermiere di Bolzaneto - autore del libro "Io, l'infame di
Bolzaneto")
Hanno già aderito all'appello:
Vittorio Agnoletto Consiglio Int. FSM
Paolo Agnoletto Salaam Ragazzi dell'Olivo Comitato di Milano Onlus
Mario Agostinelli forum Mondiale delle Alternative
Samir Amin economista egiziano, Pres. Forum Mondiale delle Alternative
Angela Bellei Presidente Associazione AZAD (Per la libertà del popolo
kurdo)
Marco Bersani Attac-Italia
Norma Bertullacelli della rete controg8 - per la globalizzazione dei
diritti
Franco Carletti Consigliere di Corte di Cassazione
Paolo Cento Onorevole
Giulietto Chiesa Presidente onorario Comitato Verità e Giustizia per
Genova
Peppino Coscione presidente Comitato Piazza Carlo Giuliani Onlus
Maura Cossutta Onorevole
Stefano Costa portavoce dei Verdi di Milano
Loredana De Petris senatrice
Oliviero Diliberto Onorevole
François Houtart Università di Lovanio
Giovanna Luciano Rete Lilliput
Josè Luiz del Roio Consiglio Int. FSM
Gigi Malabarba senatore
Paola Manduca Prof.Dipartimento di Oncologia,Biologia e Genetica
Università di Genova
Antongiulio Mannoni Segr. Prov.le FISAC CGIL GENOVA; Direttivo Prov.le
CGIL Genova
Carlo Mariani prof. Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita' di Roma "La
Sapienza"
Francesco Martone senatore
Alessandra Mecozzi Responsabile ufficio internazionale Fiom-cgil
Emilio Molinari Vicepres. Comitato Italiano Acqua
Giorgio Riolo pres. Punto Rosso
Natale Ripamonti, senatore
Marco Rizzo Onorevole
Giovanni Russo Spena Onorevole
Sabato Saggese sindacalista
Sergio Segio Gruppo Abele di Milano
Maria Grazia Tafuri portavoce assopace napoli
Luigi Vinci Europarlamentare
Seguono altre 150 firme raccolte in un giorno, tutte le adesioni
verranno
pubblicate sul sito:
www.veritagiustizia.it
per aderire all'appello:
info@...
GENOVA ED IRAQ.
DEPENALIZZARE LA TORTURA PER AVERE LE MANI PIU' LIBERE ?
http://www.repubblica.it/2004/a/sezioni/politica/rifogiu/tortu/
tortu.html
POLITICA
Approvato alla Camera un emendamento del Carroccio
che la definisce tale solo minacce e violenze sono reiterate
Tortura, passa modifica leghista
Legge stravolta, bagarre in aula
Il testo ritorna al comitato dei 9. Appassionato intervento della
diessina Finocchiaro. La condanna di Amnesty
ROMA - Con una mano vuole allargare le
maglie della legittima difesa. Con l'altra, restringe - e di molto - la
nozione di tortura. In queste settimane di campagna elettorale la Lega
è sempre più attiva su fronte della giustizia. Ma l'emendamento
presentato oggi dal Carroccio e poi approvato dalla Cdl nell'aula di
Montecitorio alla legge che istituisce il "delitto di tortura" sta
scatenando una rovente polemica. Con l'opposizione, ma anche con
associazioni internazionali di grande prestigio come Amnesty
International.
La modifica voluta dal Carroccio prevede infatti che, per esserci il
reato di "tortura", le violenze o le minacce gravi devono essere
reiterate. Con il risultato che, dopo il voto e la protesta delle
opposizioni, che hanno minacciato di lasciare l'aula, il testo è
tornato all'esame del comitato ristretto.
La proposta di ricominciare daccapo l'iter in commissione era stata
fatta dal deputato della Margherita Giuseppe Fanfani, e ad essa si era
associato in un primo momento il presidente della commissione Giustizia
di Montecitorio, il forzista Gaetano Pecorella. Che poi, annunciando
invece il ritorno della legge al comitato dei nove, ha spiegato: "Devo
dare atto che la scelta della commissione era esattamente nel senso
opposto, e cioè di un parere contrario all'emendamento della Lega; poi
c'è stata una decisione politica all'interno della Cdl, di cui non
abbiamo potuto non prendere atto".
Una decisione "politica" che ha mandato in frantumi l'accordo
bipartisan sulla legge e, di fatto, ha affossato l'intero spirito del
provvedimento. Basta ascoltare quanto detto in aula dalla diessina Anna
Finocchiaro: "Vorrei raccontarvi la testimonianza di una donna che nel
Salvador venne sottoposta per giorni e giorni a torture fisiche...lei
mi disse che la cosa più grave che le fecero fu una sola minaccia,
fatta una volta sola: le promisero che avrebbero fatto assistere alle
torture che le infliggevano il figlio di 3 anni e mezzo". Ecco perchè,
spiega la Finocchiaro, "per essere tortura la minaccia non ha certo
bisogno di essere ripetuta più volte...".
Poco più tardi, la condanna netta di Amnesty International: ''Iniziamo
male, con un emendamento che, se confermato nel testo finale,
significherà che l'Italia non vuole adeguarsi al diritto internazionale
dei diritti umani e in particolare alla Convenzione dell'Onu contro la
tortura, che il nostro paese ha ratificato nel 1988''. Sono parole di
Marco Bertotto, presidente della Sezione Italiana di Amnesty, secondo
il quale la modifica approvata "stravolge la definizione di tortura,
limitando in modo inaccettabile la nozione ai comportamenti ripetuti:
quante volte, dunque, occorrerà torturare prima che si possa parlare di
tortura?''.
(22 aprile 2004)
L'ITALIA AUTORIZZA LA TORTURA
Noi sappiamo.
Noi abbiamo assistito, raccolto testimonianze, denunciato nei nostri
libri: in Italia, a Luglio del 2001, a Genova nella Caserma di
Bolzaneto centinaia di persone italiane e straniere sono state
torturate.
Noi siamo indignati, gli italiani dovrebbero vergognarsi e ribellarsi
all'approvazione della legge sulla tortura che si sta discutendo in
questi giorni alla Camera dei deputati. La legge di un paese civile che
dovrebbe tutelare i diritti umani fondamentali e non mettere dei limiti
a questi diritti.
L'Italia è in ritardo di 15 anni nell'introduzione del reato di tortura
nel proprio ordinamento, ma se il testo definitivo conterrà
l'emendamento approvato in questi giorni, (secondo il quale per esserci
il reato di tortura le violenze o le minacce gravi devono essere
reiterate) è meglio che rimanga senza alcuna legge.
Le testimonianze di coloro che passarono ore, giorni all'interno della
caserma di Bolzaneto, parlano di violenze e torture, trattamenti
inumani e degradanti, sospensione di diritti umani fondamentali,
mancate cure mediche a persone già ferite, mancate telefonate a
familiari, avvocati, consolato per gli stranieri, tutti i fermati e i
detenuti scomparsi nel nulla, "desaparecidos". Raccontano di mani
spezzate a Bolzaneto, di suture senza anestesia, di ragazze trascinate
per la collottola e coperte di sputi ed ingiurie da due ali di agenti,
prese a calci durante il tragitto verso il bagno. Parlano di canzonette
fasciste, di ragazze e ragazzi nudi, derisi ed umiliati. Non furono
somministrati né cibo, né acqua, i giovani furono coperti di pugni e
calci, costretti a rimanere per ore in piedi col volto
verso il muro, gambe divaricate, braccia alzate, anche se feriti,
spruzzati da gas urticante, minacciati di morte, di stupro e di altre
violenze.
L'emendamento della Lega approvato dalla Camera, è contro le forze di
polizia, lo sostiene il Silp-Cgil affermando che così facendo si evoca
la falsa immagine di forze dell'ordine pronte a rinunciare a quel
principio di legalità che è la prima ragione della loro esistenza. Le
forze di polizia respingono con sdegno l'idea che un qualsiasi atto di
tortura, commesso anche solo una volta, possa aiutarle nell'esercizio
delle loro funzioni, considerano il rispetto dei diritti fondamentali
della persona un principio irrinunciabile della loro azione a tutela
dei cittadini.
Le forze di polizia si considerano garanti del rispetto dei valori
costituzionali, e ritengono che in uno stato democratico si debba e si
possa garantire la sicurezza senza fare alcun passo indietro sul
terreno della civiltà giuridica.
Migliaia di cittadini hanno firmato la petizione per l'introduzione del
reato di tortura perché credono in una democrazia che rispetta i
diritti umani. Non lasciamo che l'Italia precipiti definitivamente e
"legalmente" nel baratro di un regime dove tutto è permesso, nessun
diritto dei cittadini italiani e stranieri tutelato.
Ricordiamo che l'art. 13 della nostra costituzione prevede che:
"È punita ogni violenza fisica e morale sulle persone comunque
sottoposte a restrizioni di libertà."
Enrica Bartesaghi
(Presidente Comitato Verità e Giustizia per Genova - autrice del libro
"Genova il posto sbagliato")
Marco Poggi
(ex-infermiere di Bolzaneto - autore del libro "Io, l'infame di
Bolzaneto")
Hanno già aderito all'appello:
Vittorio Agnoletto Consiglio Int. FSM
Paolo Agnoletto Salaam Ragazzi dell'Olivo Comitato di Milano Onlus
Mario Agostinelli forum Mondiale delle Alternative
Samir Amin economista egiziano, Pres. Forum Mondiale delle Alternative
Angela Bellei Presidente Associazione AZAD (Per la libertà del popolo
kurdo)
Marco Bersani Attac-Italia
Norma Bertullacelli della rete controg8 - per la globalizzazione dei
diritti
Franco Carletti Consigliere di Corte di Cassazione
Paolo Cento Onorevole
Giulietto Chiesa Presidente onorario Comitato Verità e Giustizia per
Genova
Peppino Coscione presidente Comitato Piazza Carlo Giuliani Onlus
Maura Cossutta Onorevole
Stefano Costa portavoce dei Verdi di Milano
Loredana De Petris senatrice
Oliviero Diliberto Onorevole
François Houtart Università di Lovanio
Giovanna Luciano Rete Lilliput
Josè Luiz del Roio Consiglio Int. FSM
Gigi Malabarba senatore
Paola Manduca Prof.Dipartimento di Oncologia,Biologia e Genetica
Università di Genova
Antongiulio Mannoni Segr. Prov.le FISAC CGIL GENOVA; Direttivo Prov.le
CGIL Genova
Carlo Mariani prof. Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita' di Roma "La
Sapienza"
Francesco Martone senatore
Alessandra Mecozzi Responsabile ufficio internazionale Fiom-cgil
Emilio Molinari Vicepres. Comitato Italiano Acqua
Giorgio Riolo pres. Punto Rosso
Natale Ripamonti, senatore
Marco Rizzo Onorevole
Giovanni Russo Spena Onorevole
Sabato Saggese sindacalista
Sergio Segio Gruppo Abele di Milano
Maria Grazia Tafuri portavoce assopace napoli
Luigi Vinci Europarlamentare
Seguono altre 150 firme raccolte in un giorno, tutte le adesioni
verranno
pubblicate sul sito:
www.veritagiustizia.it
per aderire all'appello:
info@...
--- In This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., "Andrea" ha scritto:
Una critica dal Pakistan al concetto di società civile...
What is 'Civil Society'?
A Marxist Critique of the NGO-Inspired Concept of "Civil Society"
CMKP - Communist Workers and Peasants Party of Pakistan
After the break up of the Soviet Union most 'left intellectuals' have been =
gripped with
the fever of Civil Society. From Non-Governmental Organisations and Human =
Rights
Groups to academics and activists, the so called 'democratic' opposition ha=
s taken
recourse to the concept of Civil Society to fight the evils of the modern w=
orld.
However, few have questioned, and others have deliberately not spoken about=
, what
the concept Civil Society actually means.
The French and American Revolutions are recognised as the corner stones of =
Democracy and Civil Society. The ideological framework developed during th=
ese
bourgeois democratic revolutions is the accepted foundation of Civil Societ=
y.
According to the constitutions formed during the French and American revolu=
tions,
Civil Society is based on six tenets: Property, Equality, Liberty, Security=
, Secularism,
and the Free Press. For example, in The Declaration of the Rights of Man, =
Article 2
defines natural inviolable rights as Equality, Liberty, Security, Property.=
At first glance
these concepts appear to be the embodiment of justice. Indeed, that is wha=
t is
incessantly preached by top journals to daily newspapers. However, a close=
r look
reveals that Civil Society goes no further than the rule of the capitalist =
class. In a
word, Civil Society is a euphemism for the dictatorship of the capitalist c=
lass.
Property
The central tenet of Civil Society is the inviolability of private property=
. For example,
Article 16, Constitution of 1793: "The right of property is the right which=
belongs to
all citizens to enjoy and dispose at will of their goods and revenues, the =
fruit of their
work and industry." This tenet is true of all constitutions premised on ci=
vil society.
Marx says: "Thus, the right of man to property is the right to enjoy his po=
ssessions
and dispose of the same arbitrarily, without regard for other men, independ=
ently
from society, the right of selfishness. It is the former individual freedom=
together
with its latter application that forms the basis of Civil Society. It lead=
s man to see in
other men not the realisation but the limitation of his own freedom."
Thus, the use of private property at will, in other words, in utter disrega=
rd for the rest
of mankind, is enshrined in the very constitutions of bourgeois democracy a=
nd civil
society. The selfish use of resources is a central tenet of civil society.=
We understand from a study of economics that private property obeys certain=
laws of
development. What interests us is the law of concentration of capital: the=
fact that
the richest 3 individuals have more money than 600,000,000 people in the wo=
rld. It
is clear that this type of growing inequality does not contradict the tenet=
of private
property.
Equality
Civil Society defines the concept of equality as (Article 3, Constitution o=
f 1795):
"Equality consists of the fact that the law is the same for all, whether it=
protects or
punishes."
In other words, 'equality' in Civil Society consists in 'equality before th=
e law' but not
equality of opportunity. In other words, it is equality in the purely lega=
l sense and not
in the economic or human sense. Equality within Civil Society, therefore, =
is entirely
compatible with vast and growing economic disparity, concentration of wealt=
h, power,
and privilege. In fact it would be more correct to say that the concept of=
'equality'
touted by Civil Society is premised on economic inequality since Civil Soci=
ety itself is
premised on private property. One must ask the question 'in what sense can=
we talk
about liberty in such a society?'
Liberty
The grand word 'Liberty' conveys a sense of freedom from exploitation. How=
ever, this
notion is entirely incorrect. According to Article 6: "Liberty is the powe=
r that belongs
to man to do anything that does not infringe on the right of someone else."=
Similarly
according to the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1791 "Liberty consists=
in the
power of doing anything that does not harm others" defined by law.
Therefore, 'liberty' within Civil Society implies the right to do anything =
that does not
infringe on the property of others. The boundaries of 'liberty' within Civ=
il Society are
defined by law that upholds the inviolability of private property as the ce=
ntral tenet of
Civil Society. In other words, 'liberty' is premised upon the right to exp=
loit workers
via the institution of private property. Furthermore, the attempt on the p=
art of
workers to change social relations (which cannot be done without infringing=
upon
private property) is not the realisation of liberty but the infringement of=
'liberty'. In
conclusion, 'liberty' within Civil Society is nothing other than liberty fo=
r the capitalist
to exploit the workers.
Security
Civil Society is prevented from falling apart from the stress of economic i=
nequality by
the concept of security. Article 8 of the Constitution of 1793 says, "Secu=
rity consists
in the protection afforded by society to each of its members for the conser=
vation of
his person, rights, and property."
Marx writes: "Security is the highest social concept of civil society, the =
concept of the
police. The whole of society is merely there to guarantee to each of its m=
embers the
preservation of his person, rights and property."
In other words, 'security' within Civil Society is not the security of peop=
le from
hunger, poverty, depravation. But merely the security of property and 'righ=
ts' defined
as the unimpeded individual use of that property. Therefore, security is n=
ot
understood as security of the people or the individual in general but speci=
fically
security of property and the utilisation of property.
Marx writes: "Thus, none of the so-called rights of man goes beyond egoisti=
c man,
man as he is in civil society, namely an individual withdrawn behind his pr=
ivate
interests and whims and separated from the community. … The only bond that =
holds
them together is natural necessity, need and private interest, the conserva=
tion of their
property and egoistic person."
Civil Society is based on capitalist exploitation (property), formal 'equal=
ity' before the
law, 'liberty' to exploit workers, and a police force to guarantee 'securit=
y'. It is high
time that those who speak in the name of Civil Society should realise that =
they speak
only the name of capitalist exploitation.
Some might argue that while the above may be correct, nonetheless, seculari=
sm and
the free press are positive benefits of Civil Society.
Secularism
The common impression about secularism is that it is the anti-thesis of rel=
igion or of
religious intolerance. This view is supported by the religious right who ne=
ver tire of
inveighing against the secularists. As we find out this view is also not co=
rrect.
According to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1791,=
Article 10,
"No one should be molested because of his opinions, not even religious ones=
."
Furthermore, "the liberty of every man to practice the religion to which he=
adheres" is
guaranteed as human right. The Declaration of the Rights of Man 1793, Arti=
cle 7,
upholds "the free exercise of religious practice". The Constitution of 1795=
, Section
14, Article 354, argues that freedom of religion is so obvious that the 'ne=
cessity of
announcing these rights supposes either the present or the recent memory of=
despotism'. Similarly, the Constitution of Pennsylvania, Article 9, Paragr=
aph 3 says,
"All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God acco=
rding to
the dictates of their own consciences: no man can of right be compelled to =
attend,
erect or support a place of worship, or to maintain any ministry, against h=
is consent;
no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the=
rights of
conscience." The Constitution of New Hampshire, Article 5 & 6 says, "Among=
the
natural rights, some are in their very nature unalienable … Of this kind ar=
e rights of
conscience."
In Pakistan the point of contention between the bourgeois secularists and t=
he
religious-right is not concerned with whether or not there should be religi=
on or
religious worship (both uphold the right of religious worship). The centra=
l issue
between these two parties is whether the state should be a theocracy or a s=
ecular
state.
The bourgeois secularists, who are 'highly educated' capitalists, wish to s=
ee the
capitalist economy run in accordance with the most modern notions of capita=
list
relations. Amongst other things, this includes the 'emancipation' of women=
but
obviously within the confines of a capitalist economy. Naturally, such an =
'emancipation' is unable to mobilise working class or peasant women because=
of the
limited nature of its class aims.
The religious-right, who are 'less well educated' small capitalists, wish f=
or a capitalist
economy with a more traditional superstructure. This traditional superstru=
cture, in
reality, is a better ideological defence against the rising working class m=
ovement than
pure bourgeois democracy. Therefore, they are the principle obstacle in th=
e path of
development of working class consciousness.
The conflict between these two social groups is over the particular form of=
capitalism
(modern or traditional). While the religious-right is a more obvious enemy=
, the
bourgeois secularists are the more devious and clever enemies of the workin=
g class
and women. Revolutionary forces must use the right hand to fight the influ=
ence of
the narrow minded right-wing forces, and the left hand to fight the influen=
ce of the
'left-wing' devious bourgeois secularists in the realm of ideology.
Free Press
According to the Constitution of 1793, Article 122, the 'unlimited freedom =
of the
press' is guaranteed as a consequence of the right of man to individual fre=
edom.
However, a deeper reading shows that the freedom of the press is limited by=
the
concept of public liberty. The same article says, 'the liberty of the pres=
s must not be
permitted when it compromises public liberty'. In other words, the freedom=
of the
press must not be permitted when it impinges on the right of the capitalist=
class to
exercise its liberty to exploit the workers through the institution of priv=
ate property.
It has become quite obvious that a tight censorship is maintained over all =
the media
of the world, despite the claim that we have entered an era of communicatio=
ns and
free information. But it is less obvious that such censorship is not contr=
adictory to
Civil Society. Civil Society is premised on the right of censorship in to =
protect 'liberty'
based on private property. This can be seen in the attitude that the US sta=
te has taken
towards the attacks against Iraq and Afghanistan in the 'free press'.
Conclusion
The reader can see from the above exposition of the concept of Civil Societ=
y that it is
wholly tied to the class rule of the capitalists. Therefore, the conclusion=
that Civil
Society is merely a euphemism for the dictatorship of the capitalists is no=
t
unfounded. Furthermore, the argument that the use of the concept of Civil =
Society by
a particular group is different from the above exposition ignores the natur=
e of
politics. The subjective desires of individuals or groups are wholly irrel=
evant in
relation to the use of the concept Civil Society. In the political field, =
the concept is
intellectually and morally tied to the class rule of the capitalists. This=
link cannot be
changed and the concept cannot be 'appropriated' for revolutionary purposes=
.
Therefore, it is high time that activists realise that `Civil Society' is p=
remised on
exploitation, selfishness, oppression, inequality, and censorship. Those w=
ho are
genuine to the people must develop new theoretical premises upon which to c=
onduct
the struggle for the emancipation of people.
CMKP - Communist Workers and Peasants Party of Pakistan
--- Fine messaggio inoltrato ---
Una critica dal Pakistan al concetto di società civile...
What is 'Civil Society'?
A Marxist Critique of the NGO-Inspired Concept of "Civil Society"
CMKP - Communist Workers and Peasants Party of Pakistan
After the break up of the Soviet Union most 'left intellectuals' have been =
gripped with
the fever of Civil Society. From Non-Governmental Organisations and Human =
Rights
Groups to academics and activists, the so called 'democratic' opposition ha=
s taken
recourse to the concept of Civil Society to fight the evils of the modern w=
orld.
However, few have questioned, and others have deliberately not spoken about=
, what
the concept Civil Society actually means.
The French and American Revolutions are recognised as the corner stones of =
Democracy and Civil Society. The ideological framework developed during th=
ese
bourgeois democratic revolutions is the accepted foundation of Civil Societ=
y.
According to the constitutions formed during the French and American revolu=
tions,
Civil Society is based on six tenets: Property, Equality, Liberty, Security=
, Secularism,
and the Free Press. For example, in The Declaration of the Rights of Man, =
Article 2
defines natural inviolable rights as Equality, Liberty, Security, Property.=
At first glance
these concepts appear to be the embodiment of justice. Indeed, that is wha=
t is
incessantly preached by top journals to daily newspapers. However, a close=
r look
reveals that Civil Society goes no further than the rule of the capitalist =
class. In a
word, Civil Society is a euphemism for the dictatorship of the capitalist c=
lass.
Property
The central tenet of Civil Society is the inviolability of private property=
. For example,
Article 16, Constitution of 1793: "The right of property is the right which=
belongs to
all citizens to enjoy and dispose at will of their goods and revenues, the =
fruit of their
work and industry." This tenet is true of all constitutions premised on ci=
vil society.
Marx says: "Thus, the right of man to property is the right to enjoy his po=
ssessions
and dispose of the same arbitrarily, without regard for other men, independ=
ently
from society, the right of selfishness. It is the former individual freedom=
together
with its latter application that forms the basis of Civil Society. It lead=
s man to see in
other men not the realisation but the limitation of his own freedom."
Thus, the use of private property at will, in other words, in utter disrega=
rd for the rest
of mankind, is enshrined in the very constitutions of bourgeois democracy a=
nd civil
society. The selfish use of resources is a central tenet of civil society.=
We understand from a study of economics that private property obeys certain=
laws of
development. What interests us is the law of concentration of capital: the=
fact that
the richest 3 individuals have more money than 600,000,000 people in the wo=
rld. It
is clear that this type of growing inequality does not contradict the tenet=
of private
property.
Equality
Civil Society defines the concept of equality as (Article 3, Constitution o=
f 1795):
"Equality consists of the fact that the law is the same for all, whether it=
protects or
punishes."
In other words, 'equality' in Civil Society consists in 'equality before th=
e law' but not
equality of opportunity. In other words, it is equality in the purely lega=
l sense and not
in the economic or human sense. Equality within Civil Society, therefore, =
is entirely
compatible with vast and growing economic disparity, concentration of wealt=
h, power,
and privilege. In fact it would be more correct to say that the concept of=
'equality'
touted by Civil Society is premised on economic inequality since Civil Soci=
ety itself is
premised on private property. One must ask the question 'in what sense can=
we talk
about liberty in such a society?'
Liberty
The grand word 'Liberty' conveys a sense of freedom from exploitation. How=
ever, this
notion is entirely incorrect. According to Article 6: "Liberty is the powe=
r that belongs
to man to do anything that does not infringe on the right of someone else."=
Similarly
according to the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1791 "Liberty consists=
in the
power of doing anything that does not harm others" defined by law.
Therefore, 'liberty' within Civil Society implies the right to do anything =
that does not
infringe on the property of others. The boundaries of 'liberty' within Civ=
il Society are
defined by law that upholds the inviolability of private property as the ce=
ntral tenet of
Civil Society. In other words, 'liberty' is premised upon the right to exp=
loit workers
via the institution of private property. Furthermore, the attempt on the p=
art of
workers to change social relations (which cannot be done without infringing=
upon
private property) is not the realisation of liberty but the infringement of=
'liberty'. In
conclusion, 'liberty' within Civil Society is nothing other than liberty fo=
r the capitalist
to exploit the workers.
Security
Civil Society is prevented from falling apart from the stress of economic i=
nequality by
the concept of security. Article 8 of the Constitution of 1793 says, "Secu=
rity consists
in the protection afforded by society to each of its members for the conser=
vation of
his person, rights, and property."
Marx writes: "Security is the highest social concept of civil society, the =
concept of the
police. The whole of society is merely there to guarantee to each of its m=
embers the
preservation of his person, rights and property."
In other words, 'security' within Civil Society is not the security of peop=
le from
hunger, poverty, depravation. But merely the security of property and 'righ=
ts' defined
as the unimpeded individual use of that property. Therefore, security is n=
ot
understood as security of the people or the individual in general but speci=
fically
security of property and the utilisation of property.
Marx writes: "Thus, none of the so-called rights of man goes beyond egoisti=
c man,
man as he is in civil society, namely an individual withdrawn behind his pr=
ivate
interests and whims and separated from the community. … The only bond that =
holds
them together is natural necessity, need and private interest, the conserva=
tion of their
property and egoistic person."
Civil Society is based on capitalist exploitation (property), formal 'equal=
ity' before the
law, 'liberty' to exploit workers, and a police force to guarantee 'securit=
y'. It is high
time that those who speak in the name of Civil Society should realise that =
they speak
only the name of capitalist exploitation.
Some might argue that while the above may be correct, nonetheless, seculari=
sm and
the free press are positive benefits of Civil Society.
Secularism
The common impression about secularism is that it is the anti-thesis of rel=
igion or of
religious intolerance. This view is supported by the religious right who ne=
ver tire of
inveighing against the secularists. As we find out this view is also not co=
rrect.
According to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1791,=
Article 10,
"No one should be molested because of his opinions, not even religious ones=
."
Furthermore, "the liberty of every man to practice the religion to which he=
adheres" is
guaranteed as human right. The Declaration of the Rights of Man 1793, Arti=
cle 7,
upholds "the free exercise of religious practice". The Constitution of 1795=
, Section
14, Article 354, argues that freedom of religion is so obvious that the 'ne=
cessity of
announcing these rights supposes either the present or the recent memory of=
despotism'. Similarly, the Constitution of Pennsylvania, Article 9, Paragr=
aph 3 says,
"All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God acco=
rding to
the dictates of their own consciences: no man can of right be compelled to =
attend,
erect or support a place of worship, or to maintain any ministry, against h=
is consent;
no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the=
rights of
conscience." The Constitution of New Hampshire, Article 5 & 6 says, "Among=
the
natural rights, some are in their very nature unalienable … Of this kind ar=
e rights of
conscience."
In Pakistan the point of contention between the bourgeois secularists and t=
he
religious-right is not concerned with whether or not there should be religi=
on or
religious worship (both uphold the right of religious worship). The centra=
l issue
between these two parties is whether the state should be a theocracy or a s=
ecular
state.
The bourgeois secularists, who are 'highly educated' capitalists, wish to s=
ee the
capitalist economy run in accordance with the most modern notions of capita=
list
relations. Amongst other things, this includes the 'emancipation' of women=
but
obviously within the confines of a capitalist economy. Naturally, such an =
'emancipation' is unable to mobilise working class or peasant women because=
of the
limited nature of its class aims.
The religious-right, who are 'less well educated' small capitalists, wish f=
or a capitalist
economy with a more traditional superstructure. This traditional superstru=
cture, in
reality, is a better ideological defence against the rising working class m=
ovement than
pure bourgeois democracy. Therefore, they are the principle obstacle in th=
e path of
development of working class consciousness.
The conflict between these two social groups is over the particular form of=
capitalism
(modern or traditional). While the religious-right is a more obvious enemy=
, the
bourgeois secularists are the more devious and clever enemies of the workin=
g class
and women. Revolutionary forces must use the right hand to fight the influ=
ence of
the narrow minded right-wing forces, and the left hand to fight the influen=
ce of the
'left-wing' devious bourgeois secularists in the realm of ideology.
Free Press
According to the Constitution of 1793, Article 122, the 'unlimited freedom =
of the
press' is guaranteed as a consequence of the right of man to individual fre=
edom.
However, a deeper reading shows that the freedom of the press is limited by=
the
concept of public liberty. The same article says, 'the liberty of the pres=
s must not be
permitted when it compromises public liberty'. In other words, the freedom=
of the
press must not be permitted when it impinges on the right of the capitalist=
class to
exercise its liberty to exploit the workers through the institution of priv=
ate property.
It has become quite obvious that a tight censorship is maintained over all =
the media
of the world, despite the claim that we have entered an era of communicatio=
ns and
free information. But it is less obvious that such censorship is not contr=
adictory to
Civil Society. Civil Society is premised on the right of censorship in to =
protect 'liberty'
based on private property. This can be seen in the attitude that the US sta=
te has taken
towards the attacks against Iraq and Afghanistan in the 'free press'.
Conclusion
The reader can see from the above exposition of the concept of Civil Societ=
y that it is
wholly tied to the class rule of the capitalists. Therefore, the conclusion=
that Civil
Society is merely a euphemism for the dictatorship of the capitalists is no=
t
unfounded. Furthermore, the argument that the use of the concept of Civil =
Society by
a particular group is different from the above exposition ignores the natur=
e of
politics. The subjective desires of individuals or groups are wholly irrel=
evant in
relation to the use of the concept Civil Society. In the political field, =
the concept is
intellectually and morally tied to the class rule of the capitalists. This=
link cannot be
changed and the concept cannot be 'appropriated' for revolutionary purposes=
.
Therefore, it is high time that activists realise that `Civil Society' is p=
remised on
exploitation, selfishness, oppression, inequality, and censorship. Those w=
ho are
genuine to the people must develop new theoretical premises upon which to c=
onduct
the struggle for the emancipation of people.
CMKP - Communist Workers and Peasants Party of Pakistan
--- Fine messaggio inoltrato ---
Al Qaeda in the Balkans
1. New Kosovo Violence is Start of Predicted 2004 Wave of Islamist
Operations: the Strategic Ramifications
2. Al Qaeda Roams in Serbia
=== 1 ===
New Kosovo Violence is Start of Predicted 2004 Wave of Islamist
Operations: the Strategic Ramifications
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1100906/posts
http://www.artel.co.yu/en/izbor/terorizam/2004-03-19.html
Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily
Volume XXII, No. 50 Friday, March 19, 2004
Founded in 1972 Produced at least 200 times a year
� 2004, Global Information System, ISSA
Exclusive Special Report
Analysis. By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS, with input from GIS
Stations in Pri�tina, Belgrade and elsewhere.
The major wave of violence instigated in the Kosovo region of Serbia on
beginning on about March 14, 2004, and escalating dramatically through
March 18, 2004, is the start of the forecast series of unrest, guerilla
warfare and terrorist activity planned by radical Islamist leaders in
Bosnia, Albania, Iran and in the Islamist areas of Serbia, and directly
linked with the various al-Qaida-related mujahedin and terrorist cells
in the area.
Attempts have already been made to blame the violence on the very small
Serbian population which remains in Kosovo, but this is not credible,
and nor has the Serbian Government shown any enthusiasm to get involved
in the situation.
Sources confirm that the violence, which began on March 17, 2004, and
continued to escalate through March 18, 2004, is not an isolated
expression of frustration, but, rather, part of a planned �season� of
unrest designed explicitly to pull US and Western strategic focus away
from Iraq, and to ensure that US and Western peacekeeping forces �
which have been progressively diverted to Iraq operations and away from
Kosovo and Bosnia � will need to be held in the Balkans. The purposes
are multifold:
1. To remove US and Western focus on Iraq, thereby relieving pressure
on Iran�s clerical leadership and helping to ensure the retention of
Iranian capability to link, via Iraq, with Syria;
2. To demonstrate the failure of the Western �war on terror� and
specifically to discredit those Western leaders who supported the war
in the run-up to elections in the US and Australia;
3. To create a climate of instability around the Olympic Games,
scheduled for August 2004 in Athens, and which feature as a major
target for unrest and terrorism;
4. To consolidate Islamist control over parts of the Balkans,
specifically the so-called �green transversal�1 belt which links the
Adriatic Coast through Albania, FYR of Macedonia, the Serbian Kosovo
and Metohija region, the southern Serbia/northern Montenegro Ra�ka
(Sandzak) region, through the Gorazde Corridor into Bosnia, not only as
a terrorist corridor but also to facilitate a clear highway for
narco-trafficking and weapons shipments.
Significantly, the Serbian Government within the union of Serbia &
Montenegro, had, until the recent Serbian elections, attempted to
ignore the growing incitement to a new outbreak of violence and unrest
on the part of the Muslim community of southern Serbia (Ra�ka) and
Kosovo because it did not wish to be seen to be drawing attention to
the growing Muslim agitation. However, this action merely allowed the
process to continue to build without any major intelligence or policy
focus on the problem. The issue was compounded by the fact that two
major international oversight bodies � the Office of the High
Representative (OHR) in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and the German-controlled
command of UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) � both sided with radical
Islamists and known war-criminals also, presumably, to avoid the
appearance of being anti-Muslim.
The warnings of this wave of violence were explicitly clearly and
starkly forecast by GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs reports over the past
year, and specifically on October 15, 2003, Defense & Foreign Affairs
Daily, in a report entitled Strong Warning Indicators for New Surge in
European Islamist Terrorism, which noted:
Intelligence sources in the Balkans and Middle East indicate that the
Iranian and Osama bin Laden terrorist networks, assets and alliances
built up in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Southern
Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans are preparing for significant new
slate of operations. Initial operations in this �new slate� have
already begun in Kosovo, and are expected to expand in southern Serbia
in late October and into November 2003.
The intelligence, from a variety of primary sources within the Islamist
movements, points to:
1. Escalation of Islamist terrorist attacks on Serb civilians within
the predominantly Muslim region of Kosovo and Metohija in the Serbian
province of Kosovo;
2. Commencement during October-November 2003 of seemingly-random
bombings of public places, including schools, in Muslim-dominated
cities in the southern Serbian/northern Montenegrin Ra�ka Oblast (this
oblast, or region � not a formal sub-state as in the Russian use of the
word �oblast� � is referred to by Islamists by its Turkish name,
Sandzak) as a prelude to wider violence in this area, and eastern
Montenegro, adjacent to the Albanian border and reaching down to the
Adriatic;
3. Coordination of incidents by the so-called �Albanian National Army�
� a current iteration of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA, or UCK:
Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves, in Albanian; OVK in Serbo-Croat) � in
Kosovo and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia with activities in
Ra�ka, led by the Bosnian radical Islamist party, SDA (Party of
Democratic Action) of Alija Izetbegovic, and all supported by Albanian
Government-approved/backed training facilities inside Albania, close to
the border with Serbian Kosovo;
4. Escalation of incidents � including threats, political action,
terrorist action � within Bosnia-Herzegovina, designed to further
polarize the Serbian and Croat population away from the Muslim
population;
5. Eventual escalation of �incidents� to create a �no-go� area for
Serbian, Montenegrin, Republica Srpska security forces and
international peacekeepers in a swathe of contiguous territory from the
Adriatic through Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Southern Serbia and
Macedonia into Bosnia-Herzegovina, effectively dissecting the Republica
Srpska state (which is within Bosnia-Herzegovina) at the Gorazde
Corridor and isolating Montenegro;
6. Using the extensive save-haven areas and �no-go� zones created by
the actions, undertake a range of terrorist actions against targets in
Greece � which is contiguous with Albania and (FYR) Macedonia � during
(and possibly before) the August 2004 Olympic Games. Specific
intelligence points to the fact that the Islamist groups have already
predetermined target opportunities during the Games.
News sources indicated on March 18, 2004, that NATO could dispatch
nearly 2,000 additional troops to Kosovo, including 750 from the United
Kingdom, to deal with the new unrest. As of March 18, 2004, after only
a few days of unrest, it was understood that 35 NATO troops had been
injured. Some 350 extra troops were already being sent in, including US
and Italians from Bosnia, as well as British forces. The UK Government
then announced it was sending 750 new troops into Kosovo. At least 14
people had been reported killed in Kosovo as a result of the new
fighting, much of which centers around the divided town of Mitrovica;
hundreds have been injured.
A crowd of Albanians, estimated at 3,000 strong, attacked the UN police
station in Mitrovica before crossing the city's main bridge and heading
into the Serbian side where there were exchanges of machinegun fire and
hand-grenades. The Albanian groups were seen to be in possession of
heavy automatic weapons and grenades. It had been claimed that the
Albanians had mobilized to attack Serbs who had allegedly chased
several boys into a river where three of them were drowned, ostensibly
in retaliation for an earlier (and confirmed) drive-by shooting in
which a Serbian youth was killed.
However, UNMIK spokesman Derek Chappell said on the night of March 18,
2004, that the survivor of the March 17, 2004, Ibar River drowning had
told his parents that he and three friends entered the river alone and
were immediately caught up in the heavy current. The boy managed to
reach the opposite bank of the river, but his three companions were
swept away. It was clear that the Albanian forces were mobilized and
ready for the assault and that the story about the drownings was merely
used as a convenient claim on which to base the attacks.
But what seemed clear was the the German-run UNMIK forces were totally
unprepared for the outbreak, despite the warnings and knowledge of
Islamist plans for such actions. As a result, UN forces were known to
have withdrawn rather than protect Serb areas and Serbian Orthodox
churches, which were supposedly to be protected as cultural heritage
sites. The Kosovo Force (KFOR) units fared somewhat better, using
rubber bullets and tear gas, but they, too, were unprepared for the
scale of the operations conducted by the Albanians.
A German spokesman had, in recent months, made clear anti-Serbian
remarks, highlighting the biased nature of the supposedly impartial
international force supposedly administering Kosovo with the support of
KFOR military units and police provided by donor nations [a Polish
police unit was in charge of the area of Metrovica when the incident
occurred]. UNMIK had, additionally, on several occasions, tried to
overturn international warrants and criminal proceedings against one of
the key Kosovo radicals, known war criminal Agim Ceku, who was now
working as the Commander of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), which
was, in fact, created out of the narco-terrorism organization, the
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA/UCK).2
The October 15, 2003, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs report also
indicated that Ceku�s KPC was directly engaged in support of
Albanian-trained Islamist terrorists, noting:
�During the first half of August 2003, 300 Albanian-trained guerillas �
including appr. 10 mujahedin (non-Balkan Muslims) � were infiltrated
across the Albanian border into Kosovo, where many have subsequently
been seen in the company (and homes) of members of the so-called Kosovo
Protection Corps which was created out of Kosovo Albanian elements
originally part of the KLA. In fact, the Kosovo Protection Force seems
almost synonymous with the Albanian National Army (ANA), the new
designation for the KLA. The guerillas were trained in three camps
inside the Albanian border at the towns of Bajram Curi, Tropoja and
Kuks, where the camps have been in operation since 1997.�
All of the warning signs are there for an escalation of substantial
proportions, both in Kosovo and in neighboring areas. On March 18,
2004, Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily highlighted the confluence of
Islamist terrorist activities in 2004, in a report entitled Terrorism,
the Olympics and Elections: the 2004 Confluence. What that report made
clear was the fact that the March 11, 2004, bombings in Madrid were a
precursor for the �season� of violence, and the success of the actions
there in shaping the political outcome of the Spanish general election
gave strong impetus to the actions planned for the Olympics, the US and
elsewhere.
The campaign to paint the Serbs as the aggressors included references,
picked up by international media, that Serbia & Montenegrin forces
and/or internal security forces from the Republic of Serbia were
deployed to move back into Kosovo. Serbian Premier Vojislav Kostunica
said on March 17, 2004, that �our military and police units are not
deployed along the administrative line with Kosovo-Metohija�. Speaking
at a news conference after the Serbian Government's special session
held to discuss the clashes in Kosovo-Metohija, Kostunica said that
news about the army and police presence at the administrative line
dividing Kosovo province from the rest of Serbia were misinformation
spread on purpose in order to justify a further radicalization of the
situation.3
This was confirmed by intelligence sources on the ground in Kosovo;
there were no Serbian military or police deployments in the area.
Similarly, reports of the sacking of a mosque in Belgrade by Serbs was
also distorted, largely to cover the fact that a significant number of
Serbian Orthodox churches had been destroyed by the Albanians in
Kosovo: destructions which were witnessed, and not prevented, by UNMIK
forces on some occasions. There was, however, an incident at the mosque
in Belgrade, and a GIS source witnessed the incident on March 17, 2004,
and noted: �Hooligans � and that�s what they really were: drunk kids,
17 to 22 years old � pillaged the interior of the mosque as well as the
madarasa [Islamic school].� The source said that the teenagers lit a
fire in front of the mosque, but did not damage it.
UN Police Director for Information in Kosovo, Derek Chappell, noted on
March 17, 2004: �In the past weeks there have been a number of
incidents that have escalated tension. We had a hand grenade attack on
the residence of President of Kosovo last Friday, we have had four or
five hand grenades thrown on the streets of Pri�tina, we had a bomb
left on the front of UN headquarters two weeks ago and a Serbian youth
was shot in a drive-by shooting this last Monday evening [March 15,
2004]. These incidents have tended to create a feeling of fear and
uncertainty and last night we had three Albanian youngsters who drowned
in a river, allegedly as a result of being chased into the river by
Serbs, and this seems to have been the catalyst that finally drove
people into the streets and we saw this violence that erupted today
[March 17, 2004].�
However, as noted in repeated reports by GIS since mid-2004, the
escalation was planned, and � because of pressures to move US and other
forces out of the area to aid Iraq deployments � NATO intelligence and
planning officials downplayed the threat.
The matter was not helped when, in recent weeks, former US Clinton
Administration State Dept. Assistant Secretary of State Richard
Holbrooke said that the break-up of the former Yugoslavia was not yet
complete: it required that Montenegro and Kosovo be broken off to form
separate sovereign states. A number of officials from the region told
GIS that they thought that this comment must have reflected official
positions in Washington. Almost certainly the statement by Holbrooke
gave encouragement and incitement to the new wave of attacks in Kosovo.
Meanwhile, on the night of March 18, 2004, Serbia & Montenegro Pres.
Svetozar Marovic convened a special session of the Serbia & Montenegro
Supreme Defense Council, to discuss the latest escalation of clashes.
The Council issued a statement that which said that it was following
with great concern the escalation of organized violence in Kosovo and
Metohija, and was calling on, and expecting from, UNMIK and KFOR, as
well as from other international institutions, to ensure the protection
of the lives of Serbs and Montenegrins and of their property in Kosovo
and Metohija and to fulfill other commitments undertaken under
resolution 1244. The Supreme Defence Council supported the contacts of
relevant bodies of Serbia and Montenegro, the Serbian Government and
the Army of Serbia and Montenegro with international institutions and
expressed a readiness of the Army of Serbia and Montenegro to lend
assistance to the international forces for stabilizing the situation in
Kosovo and Metohija in keeping with resolution 1244, within the mandate
of KFOR and UNMIK.
The Supreme Defense Council, along with the existing activities of the
Army of Serbia and Montenegro, ordered the Chief of Staff to follow the
situation and to suggest to the Supreme Defense Council what measures
should be taken next. Apart from the chairman and members of the
Council, Acting Pres. of Serbia Predrag Markovic and Montenegrin Pres.
Filip Vujanovic, also took part in the meeting, along with Serbian
Premier Vojislav Kostunica, Serbia & Montenegro Defense Minister Boris
Tadic, Deputy Defense Minister Vukasin Maras, Chief of Staff Gen.
Branko Krga and Supreme Defense Council secretary Col. Ljunisa Jokic.
Fewer than 20,000 KFOR troops remain in Kosovo, and the few Serbs who
remain there still live in ghetto conditions; very few who fled during
the fighting in 1999 have returned to their former homes. Serbs now
represent only about 10 percent of Kosovo�s two-million population.
It would, however, be unwise to focus solely on the Kosovo incidents
without seeing them in the light of regional developments and the
larger picture, including operations in and related to the ongoing
peacekeeping operations in Iraq. Significantly, as the Kosovo operation
itself got underway, al-Qaida senior leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was
reportedly being besieged by Pakistan Army forces in southern
Waziristan, in the Pakistani tribal areas. Ayman al-Zawahiri, and his
brother Mohammed (currently in an Egyptian prison) organized and led
much of the terrorist, mujahedin and narco-trafficking arrangements in
both Bosnia and Kosovo. And these arrangements remain central to
al-Qaida and Iranian strategic operations to move from defensive
operations against the US-led Coalition forces to strongly offensive
operations in the run-up to the 2004 US elections.
Footnotes:
1. The attempt to create a Muslim belt from the Adriatic Sea up into
the heart of Europe has been known for many decades by the Islamists as
the �green transversal�, the green standing for the Muslim color
(although, ironically, it is also the color of the Orthodox
Christians), and transversal meaning a line or path on the ascendant.
The Bosnian Muslims, even during the Tito era, managed to inject the
name onto sports stadium in Sarajevo, now the capital of Bosnia &
Herzegovina. The Zetra Stadium specifically stands for ZElena (Green)
TRAnsverszala, in Serbo-Croat.
2. See Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, October 23, 2003: Slovenia
Arrests Key Kosovo Islamist, Based on Serbia-Montenegro Indictment. And
Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, March 5, 2004: UN Mission In Kosovo
Continues Protection for KLA Leader Ceku. See also Defense & Foreign
Affairs Daily, February 11, 2004: Report on Albanian Criminal-Terrorist
Links Providing Key Intelligence for Olympics Security, �War on Terror�.
3.. See Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, November 17, 2003: New Balkans
Islamist Weapons Supply Line Tied to 9/11 Players and Contact of
Holbrooke. And Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily report of September 17,
2004: Bosnian Official Links With Terrorism, Including 9/11, Become
Increasingly Apparent as Clinton, Clark Attempt to Justify Support of
Bosnian Militants.
=== 2 ===
Al Qaeda Roams in Serbia
http://www.artel.co.yu/en/izbor/jugoslavija/2004-05-11.html
TERRORISM / COUNTER TERRORISM
02/24/04
NACIONAL (P, S, I, CG)
Serbian daily newspaper from Belgrade
Belgrade: �Thirteen of nineteen hijackers who destroyed the World Trade
Center buildings in New York and attacked the Pentagon were in Kosovo,
Metohija, Kosovo and Bosnia. They were for a while in the house of an
American citizen of the Bosnian origin,� Dr. Miroljub Jevtic, a
Political Science Faculty Professor and expert for Islam, said to
�Nacional�. He pointed out that he had reached that �unbelievable data�
during his several-day stay in the U.S. (from where he had just
returned) from two very influential people he had met. �I could not
personally verify this information, but my sources are very well
informed. One of them belongs to the category of exceptionally well
informed and reliable people whose pieces of information should not be
doubted,� Jeftic pointed out, refusing to say who he was. The most
famous European expert on Islam stated this information so as to
confirm his and other warnings, particularly by the Military-Security
Agency, that the extreme terrorist organizations �Vehabija�, �Crvena
Ruza� (Red Rose), and �Teratikt� operated in Kosmet (Kosovo/Metohija),
Montenegro, BiH, Albania, and Macedonia and they belonged to the
network of the al Qaeda terrorist organization. �I personally do not
know COL Stojanovic, but if it happens that I meet him, I will tell him
that he is absolutely right for every stated assessment. Furthermore,
he also stated the concrete facts which confirmed all this: Fatos
Klosi, the recently replaced Security Chief of Albania, stated that
Osama bin Laden visited Albania in one Saudi Arabian delegation in
mid-eighties so as to establish his network. Professor Jeftic stated
one more fact that, he said, �was as firm as concrete� and which
confirmed that the al Qaeda terrorists were in these areas and that
their ramified network existed here. �Seik Ben Abdel Kader, the French
citizen, was sentenced before the Albanian Court in Tirana for killing
his translator, the Albanian citizen. In the course of trial, he
himself admitted that he was a member of Osama bin Laden�s terrorist
organization. He also said that he had come to Albania to prepare the
Albanian Muslims for �jihad� against Serbs in Kosmet,� Jeftic claimed.
He pointed out that the extreme organizations linked with al Qaeda were
also present in Sandzak and Montenegro. According to the al Qaeda
ideologists, these were parts of the �Islamic area�, he said. Sandzak
was physically connected with Kosmet and BiH. All those who had fought
in Bosnia in the Army of Alija Izetbegovic established their
organizations in these areas, which al Qaeda looked at as �its own�;
they did this through the SDA of Alija Izetbegovic. He said that Rozaje
and Tutin were �the most Muslim areas among all Muslims of the Serb
language�. Criticisms of Momir Stojanovic, the Military-Security Agency
Director, for the stances about the work of the extremist organizations
in the al Qaeda network in Montenegro were politicized and in the
function of fight for power preserving. �The Montenegrin government
maintains itself by collaborating with the Albanian separatists and
Muslim lobby. The reveling of such activities of extremists means the
fall of the government and later, when everything is revealed, the
criminal responsibility as well. Some one will have to go to prison for
these lapses,� Jeftic claimed. �
Al Qaeda threatens SiCG as well. The additional motive will be the
deployment of our soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan. Every foreign force
that will be there will be the legitimate target from the point of view
of al Qaeda.� He also said: �Some one will be held responsible,
although this is pretty covered up. Slobodan Milosevic and his
Socialist government should be the first one responsible for this, then
DOS, which just spiced up all this. Two people from the �List for
Sandzak� are on the DS list. Sulejman Ugljanin leads this political
group. In two books of interviews, Adil Zulfikarpasic, who used to be
the Vice President of the party whose functionary Ugljanin is, said
that the party of �Sulejman Ugljanin, that is, the SDA, was organized
in fascist manner�. This indirectly shows that Zulfikarpasic could be a
court witness that the DS is in coalition with fascists,� Jeftic said.
�IP (D.V. Petrovic, pg. � 2 of 32)
[Sono state eliminare la parti non di testo del messaggio]
1. New Kosovo Violence is Start of Predicted 2004 Wave of Islamist
Operations: the Strategic Ramifications
2. Al Qaeda Roams in Serbia
=== 1 ===
New Kosovo Violence is Start of Predicted 2004 Wave of Islamist
Operations: the Strategic Ramifications
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1100906/posts
http://www.artel.co.yu/en/izbor/terorizam/2004-03-19.html
Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily
Volume XXII, No. 50 Friday, March 19, 2004
Founded in 1972 Produced at least 200 times a year
� 2004, Global Information System, ISSA
Exclusive Special Report
Analysis. By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS, with input from GIS
Stations in Pri�tina, Belgrade and elsewhere.
The major wave of violence instigated in the Kosovo region of Serbia on
beginning on about March 14, 2004, and escalating dramatically through
March 18, 2004, is the start of the forecast series of unrest, guerilla
warfare and terrorist activity planned by radical Islamist leaders in
Bosnia, Albania, Iran and in the Islamist areas of Serbia, and directly
linked with the various al-Qaida-related mujahedin and terrorist cells
in the area.
Attempts have already been made to blame the violence on the very small
Serbian population which remains in Kosovo, but this is not credible,
and nor has the Serbian Government shown any enthusiasm to get involved
in the situation.
Sources confirm that the violence, which began on March 17, 2004, and
continued to escalate through March 18, 2004, is not an isolated
expression of frustration, but, rather, part of a planned �season� of
unrest designed explicitly to pull US and Western strategic focus away
from Iraq, and to ensure that US and Western peacekeeping forces �
which have been progressively diverted to Iraq operations and away from
Kosovo and Bosnia � will need to be held in the Balkans. The purposes
are multifold:
1. To remove US and Western focus on Iraq, thereby relieving pressure
on Iran�s clerical leadership and helping to ensure the retention of
Iranian capability to link, via Iraq, with Syria;
2. To demonstrate the failure of the Western �war on terror� and
specifically to discredit those Western leaders who supported the war
in the run-up to elections in the US and Australia;
3. To create a climate of instability around the Olympic Games,
scheduled for August 2004 in Athens, and which feature as a major
target for unrest and terrorism;
4. To consolidate Islamist control over parts of the Balkans,
specifically the so-called �green transversal�1 belt which links the
Adriatic Coast through Albania, FYR of Macedonia, the Serbian Kosovo
and Metohija region, the southern Serbia/northern Montenegro Ra�ka
(Sandzak) region, through the Gorazde Corridor into Bosnia, not only as
a terrorist corridor but also to facilitate a clear highway for
narco-trafficking and weapons shipments.
Significantly, the Serbian Government within the union of Serbia &
Montenegro, had, until the recent Serbian elections, attempted to
ignore the growing incitement to a new outbreak of violence and unrest
on the part of the Muslim community of southern Serbia (Ra�ka) and
Kosovo because it did not wish to be seen to be drawing attention to
the growing Muslim agitation. However, this action merely allowed the
process to continue to build without any major intelligence or policy
focus on the problem. The issue was compounded by the fact that two
major international oversight bodies � the Office of the High
Representative (OHR) in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and the German-controlled
command of UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) � both sided with radical
Islamists and known war-criminals also, presumably, to avoid the
appearance of being anti-Muslim.
The warnings of this wave of violence were explicitly clearly and
starkly forecast by GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs reports over the past
year, and specifically on October 15, 2003, Defense & Foreign Affairs
Daily, in a report entitled Strong Warning Indicators for New Surge in
European Islamist Terrorism, which noted:
Intelligence sources in the Balkans and Middle East indicate that the
Iranian and Osama bin Laden terrorist networks, assets and alliances
built up in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Southern
Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans are preparing for significant new
slate of operations. Initial operations in this �new slate� have
already begun in Kosovo, and are expected to expand in southern Serbia
in late October and into November 2003.
The intelligence, from a variety of primary sources within the Islamist
movements, points to:
1. Escalation of Islamist terrorist attacks on Serb civilians within
the predominantly Muslim region of Kosovo and Metohija in the Serbian
province of Kosovo;
2. Commencement during October-November 2003 of seemingly-random
bombings of public places, including schools, in Muslim-dominated
cities in the southern Serbian/northern Montenegrin Ra�ka Oblast (this
oblast, or region � not a formal sub-state as in the Russian use of the
word �oblast� � is referred to by Islamists by its Turkish name,
Sandzak) as a prelude to wider violence in this area, and eastern
Montenegro, adjacent to the Albanian border and reaching down to the
Adriatic;
3. Coordination of incidents by the so-called �Albanian National Army�
� a current iteration of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA, or UCK:
Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves, in Albanian; OVK in Serbo-Croat) � in
Kosovo and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia with activities in
Ra�ka, led by the Bosnian radical Islamist party, SDA (Party of
Democratic Action) of Alija Izetbegovic, and all supported by Albanian
Government-approved/backed training facilities inside Albania, close to
the border with Serbian Kosovo;
4. Escalation of incidents � including threats, political action,
terrorist action � within Bosnia-Herzegovina, designed to further
polarize the Serbian and Croat population away from the Muslim
population;
5. Eventual escalation of �incidents� to create a �no-go� area for
Serbian, Montenegrin, Republica Srpska security forces and
international peacekeepers in a swathe of contiguous territory from the
Adriatic through Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Southern Serbia and
Macedonia into Bosnia-Herzegovina, effectively dissecting the Republica
Srpska state (which is within Bosnia-Herzegovina) at the Gorazde
Corridor and isolating Montenegro;
6. Using the extensive save-haven areas and �no-go� zones created by
the actions, undertake a range of terrorist actions against targets in
Greece � which is contiguous with Albania and (FYR) Macedonia � during
(and possibly before) the August 2004 Olympic Games. Specific
intelligence points to the fact that the Islamist groups have already
predetermined target opportunities during the Games.
News sources indicated on March 18, 2004, that NATO could dispatch
nearly 2,000 additional troops to Kosovo, including 750 from the United
Kingdom, to deal with the new unrest. As of March 18, 2004, after only
a few days of unrest, it was understood that 35 NATO troops had been
injured. Some 350 extra troops were already being sent in, including US
and Italians from Bosnia, as well as British forces. The UK Government
then announced it was sending 750 new troops into Kosovo. At least 14
people had been reported killed in Kosovo as a result of the new
fighting, much of which centers around the divided town of Mitrovica;
hundreds have been injured.
A crowd of Albanians, estimated at 3,000 strong, attacked the UN police
station in Mitrovica before crossing the city's main bridge and heading
into the Serbian side where there were exchanges of machinegun fire and
hand-grenades. The Albanian groups were seen to be in possession of
heavy automatic weapons and grenades. It had been claimed that the
Albanians had mobilized to attack Serbs who had allegedly chased
several boys into a river where three of them were drowned, ostensibly
in retaliation for an earlier (and confirmed) drive-by shooting in
which a Serbian youth was killed.
However, UNMIK spokesman Derek Chappell said on the night of March 18,
2004, that the survivor of the March 17, 2004, Ibar River drowning had
told his parents that he and three friends entered the river alone and
were immediately caught up in the heavy current. The boy managed to
reach the opposite bank of the river, but his three companions were
swept away. It was clear that the Albanian forces were mobilized and
ready for the assault and that the story about the drownings was merely
used as a convenient claim on which to base the attacks.
But what seemed clear was the the German-run UNMIK forces were totally
unprepared for the outbreak, despite the warnings and knowledge of
Islamist plans for such actions. As a result, UN forces were known to
have withdrawn rather than protect Serb areas and Serbian Orthodox
churches, which were supposedly to be protected as cultural heritage
sites. The Kosovo Force (KFOR) units fared somewhat better, using
rubber bullets and tear gas, but they, too, were unprepared for the
scale of the operations conducted by the Albanians.
A German spokesman had, in recent months, made clear anti-Serbian
remarks, highlighting the biased nature of the supposedly impartial
international force supposedly administering Kosovo with the support of
KFOR military units and police provided by donor nations [a Polish
police unit was in charge of the area of Metrovica when the incident
occurred]. UNMIK had, additionally, on several occasions, tried to
overturn international warrants and criminal proceedings against one of
the key Kosovo radicals, known war criminal Agim Ceku, who was now
working as the Commander of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), which
was, in fact, created out of the narco-terrorism organization, the
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA/UCK).2
The October 15, 2003, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs report also
indicated that Ceku�s KPC was directly engaged in support of
Albanian-trained Islamist terrorists, noting:
�During the first half of August 2003, 300 Albanian-trained guerillas �
including appr. 10 mujahedin (non-Balkan Muslims) � were infiltrated
across the Albanian border into Kosovo, where many have subsequently
been seen in the company (and homes) of members of the so-called Kosovo
Protection Corps which was created out of Kosovo Albanian elements
originally part of the KLA. In fact, the Kosovo Protection Force seems
almost synonymous with the Albanian National Army (ANA), the new
designation for the KLA. The guerillas were trained in three camps
inside the Albanian border at the towns of Bajram Curi, Tropoja and
Kuks, where the camps have been in operation since 1997.�
All of the warning signs are there for an escalation of substantial
proportions, both in Kosovo and in neighboring areas. On March 18,
2004, Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily highlighted the confluence of
Islamist terrorist activities in 2004, in a report entitled Terrorism,
the Olympics and Elections: the 2004 Confluence. What that report made
clear was the fact that the March 11, 2004, bombings in Madrid were a
precursor for the �season� of violence, and the success of the actions
there in shaping the political outcome of the Spanish general election
gave strong impetus to the actions planned for the Olympics, the US and
elsewhere.
The campaign to paint the Serbs as the aggressors included references,
picked up by international media, that Serbia & Montenegrin forces
and/or internal security forces from the Republic of Serbia were
deployed to move back into Kosovo. Serbian Premier Vojislav Kostunica
said on March 17, 2004, that �our military and police units are not
deployed along the administrative line with Kosovo-Metohija�. Speaking
at a news conference after the Serbian Government's special session
held to discuss the clashes in Kosovo-Metohija, Kostunica said that
news about the army and police presence at the administrative line
dividing Kosovo province from the rest of Serbia were misinformation
spread on purpose in order to justify a further radicalization of the
situation.3
This was confirmed by intelligence sources on the ground in Kosovo;
there were no Serbian military or police deployments in the area.
Similarly, reports of the sacking of a mosque in Belgrade by Serbs was
also distorted, largely to cover the fact that a significant number of
Serbian Orthodox churches had been destroyed by the Albanians in
Kosovo: destructions which were witnessed, and not prevented, by UNMIK
forces on some occasions. There was, however, an incident at the mosque
in Belgrade, and a GIS source witnessed the incident on March 17, 2004,
and noted: �Hooligans � and that�s what they really were: drunk kids,
17 to 22 years old � pillaged the interior of the mosque as well as the
madarasa [Islamic school].� The source said that the teenagers lit a
fire in front of the mosque, but did not damage it.
UN Police Director for Information in Kosovo, Derek Chappell, noted on
March 17, 2004: �In the past weeks there have been a number of
incidents that have escalated tension. We had a hand grenade attack on
the residence of President of Kosovo last Friday, we have had four or
five hand grenades thrown on the streets of Pri�tina, we had a bomb
left on the front of UN headquarters two weeks ago and a Serbian youth
was shot in a drive-by shooting this last Monday evening [March 15,
2004]. These incidents have tended to create a feeling of fear and
uncertainty and last night we had three Albanian youngsters who drowned
in a river, allegedly as a result of being chased into the river by
Serbs, and this seems to have been the catalyst that finally drove
people into the streets and we saw this violence that erupted today
[March 17, 2004].�
However, as noted in repeated reports by GIS since mid-2004, the
escalation was planned, and � because of pressures to move US and other
forces out of the area to aid Iraq deployments � NATO intelligence and
planning officials downplayed the threat.
The matter was not helped when, in recent weeks, former US Clinton
Administration State Dept. Assistant Secretary of State Richard
Holbrooke said that the break-up of the former Yugoslavia was not yet
complete: it required that Montenegro and Kosovo be broken off to form
separate sovereign states. A number of officials from the region told
GIS that they thought that this comment must have reflected official
positions in Washington. Almost certainly the statement by Holbrooke
gave encouragement and incitement to the new wave of attacks in Kosovo.
Meanwhile, on the night of March 18, 2004, Serbia & Montenegro Pres.
Svetozar Marovic convened a special session of the Serbia & Montenegro
Supreme Defense Council, to discuss the latest escalation of clashes.
The Council issued a statement that which said that it was following
with great concern the escalation of organized violence in Kosovo and
Metohija, and was calling on, and expecting from, UNMIK and KFOR, as
well as from other international institutions, to ensure the protection
of the lives of Serbs and Montenegrins and of their property in Kosovo
and Metohija and to fulfill other commitments undertaken under
resolution 1244. The Supreme Defence Council supported the contacts of
relevant bodies of Serbia and Montenegro, the Serbian Government and
the Army of Serbia and Montenegro with international institutions and
expressed a readiness of the Army of Serbia and Montenegro to lend
assistance to the international forces for stabilizing the situation in
Kosovo and Metohija in keeping with resolution 1244, within the mandate
of KFOR and UNMIK.
The Supreme Defense Council, along with the existing activities of the
Army of Serbia and Montenegro, ordered the Chief of Staff to follow the
situation and to suggest to the Supreme Defense Council what measures
should be taken next. Apart from the chairman and members of the
Council, Acting Pres. of Serbia Predrag Markovic and Montenegrin Pres.
Filip Vujanovic, also took part in the meeting, along with Serbian
Premier Vojislav Kostunica, Serbia & Montenegro Defense Minister Boris
Tadic, Deputy Defense Minister Vukasin Maras, Chief of Staff Gen.
Branko Krga and Supreme Defense Council secretary Col. Ljunisa Jokic.
Fewer than 20,000 KFOR troops remain in Kosovo, and the few Serbs who
remain there still live in ghetto conditions; very few who fled during
the fighting in 1999 have returned to their former homes. Serbs now
represent only about 10 percent of Kosovo�s two-million population.
It would, however, be unwise to focus solely on the Kosovo incidents
without seeing them in the light of regional developments and the
larger picture, including operations in and related to the ongoing
peacekeeping operations in Iraq. Significantly, as the Kosovo operation
itself got underway, al-Qaida senior leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was
reportedly being besieged by Pakistan Army forces in southern
Waziristan, in the Pakistani tribal areas. Ayman al-Zawahiri, and his
brother Mohammed (currently in an Egyptian prison) organized and led
much of the terrorist, mujahedin and narco-trafficking arrangements in
both Bosnia and Kosovo. And these arrangements remain central to
al-Qaida and Iranian strategic operations to move from defensive
operations against the US-led Coalition forces to strongly offensive
operations in the run-up to the 2004 US elections.
Footnotes:
1. The attempt to create a Muslim belt from the Adriatic Sea up into
the heart of Europe has been known for many decades by the Islamists as
the �green transversal�, the green standing for the Muslim color
(although, ironically, it is also the color of the Orthodox
Christians), and transversal meaning a line or path on the ascendant.
The Bosnian Muslims, even during the Tito era, managed to inject the
name onto sports stadium in Sarajevo, now the capital of Bosnia &
Herzegovina. The Zetra Stadium specifically stands for ZElena (Green)
TRAnsverszala, in Serbo-Croat.
2. See Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, October 23, 2003: Slovenia
Arrests Key Kosovo Islamist, Based on Serbia-Montenegro Indictment. And
Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, March 5, 2004: UN Mission In Kosovo
Continues Protection for KLA Leader Ceku. See also Defense & Foreign
Affairs Daily, February 11, 2004: Report on Albanian Criminal-Terrorist
Links Providing Key Intelligence for Olympics Security, �War on Terror�.
3.. See Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, November 17, 2003: New Balkans
Islamist Weapons Supply Line Tied to 9/11 Players and Contact of
Holbrooke. And Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily report of September 17,
2004: Bosnian Official Links With Terrorism, Including 9/11, Become
Increasingly Apparent as Clinton, Clark Attempt to Justify Support of
Bosnian Militants.
=== 2 ===
Al Qaeda Roams in Serbia
http://www.artel.co.yu/en/izbor/jugoslavija/2004-05-11.html
TERRORISM / COUNTER TERRORISM
02/24/04
NACIONAL (P, S, I, CG)
Serbian daily newspaper from Belgrade
Belgrade: �Thirteen of nineteen hijackers who destroyed the World Trade
Center buildings in New York and attacked the Pentagon were in Kosovo,
Metohija, Kosovo and Bosnia. They were for a while in the house of an
American citizen of the Bosnian origin,� Dr. Miroljub Jevtic, a
Political Science Faculty Professor and expert for Islam, said to
�Nacional�. He pointed out that he had reached that �unbelievable data�
during his several-day stay in the U.S. (from where he had just
returned) from two very influential people he had met. �I could not
personally verify this information, but my sources are very well
informed. One of them belongs to the category of exceptionally well
informed and reliable people whose pieces of information should not be
doubted,� Jeftic pointed out, refusing to say who he was. The most
famous European expert on Islam stated this information so as to
confirm his and other warnings, particularly by the Military-Security
Agency, that the extreme terrorist organizations �Vehabija�, �Crvena
Ruza� (Red Rose), and �Teratikt� operated in Kosmet (Kosovo/Metohija),
Montenegro, BiH, Albania, and Macedonia and they belonged to the
network of the al Qaeda terrorist organization. �I personally do not
know COL Stojanovic, but if it happens that I meet him, I will tell him
that he is absolutely right for every stated assessment. Furthermore,
he also stated the concrete facts which confirmed all this: Fatos
Klosi, the recently replaced Security Chief of Albania, stated that
Osama bin Laden visited Albania in one Saudi Arabian delegation in
mid-eighties so as to establish his network. Professor Jeftic stated
one more fact that, he said, �was as firm as concrete� and which
confirmed that the al Qaeda terrorists were in these areas and that
their ramified network existed here. �Seik Ben Abdel Kader, the French
citizen, was sentenced before the Albanian Court in Tirana for killing
his translator, the Albanian citizen. In the course of trial, he
himself admitted that he was a member of Osama bin Laden�s terrorist
organization. He also said that he had come to Albania to prepare the
Albanian Muslims for �jihad� against Serbs in Kosmet,� Jeftic claimed.
He pointed out that the extreme organizations linked with al Qaeda were
also present in Sandzak and Montenegro. According to the al Qaeda
ideologists, these were parts of the �Islamic area�, he said. Sandzak
was physically connected with Kosmet and BiH. All those who had fought
in Bosnia in the Army of Alija Izetbegovic established their
organizations in these areas, which al Qaeda looked at as �its own�;
they did this through the SDA of Alija Izetbegovic. He said that Rozaje
and Tutin were �the most Muslim areas among all Muslims of the Serb
language�. Criticisms of Momir Stojanovic, the Military-Security Agency
Director, for the stances about the work of the extremist organizations
in the al Qaeda network in Montenegro were politicized and in the
function of fight for power preserving. �The Montenegrin government
maintains itself by collaborating with the Albanian separatists and
Muslim lobby. The reveling of such activities of extremists means the
fall of the government and later, when everything is revealed, the
criminal responsibility as well. Some one will have to go to prison for
these lapses,� Jeftic claimed. �
Al Qaeda threatens SiCG as well. The additional motive will be the
deployment of our soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan. Every foreign force
that will be there will be the legitimate target from the point of view
of al Qaeda.� He also said: �Some one will be held responsible,
although this is pretty covered up. Slobodan Milosevic and his
Socialist government should be the first one responsible for this, then
DOS, which just spiced up all this. Two people from the �List for
Sandzak� are on the DS list. Sulejman Ugljanin leads this political
group. In two books of interviews, Adil Zulfikarpasic, who used to be
the Vice President of the party whose functionary Ugljanin is, said
that the party of �Sulejman Ugljanin, that is, the SDA, was organized
in fascist manner�. This indirectly shows that Zulfikarpasic could be a
court witness that the DS is in coalition with fascists,� Jeftic said.
�IP (D.V. Petrovic, pg. � 2 of 32)
[Sono state eliminare la parti non di testo del messaggio]
