SERBIA OGGI: IN PARLAMENTO VOTA ANCHE CHI NON C'E'

Dacic says Tadic will be key witness against Micic
Tanjug - December 16, 2003

10:52 JAGODINA , Dec 16 (Tanjug) - Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) Main
Board President Ivica Dacic has said that after admitting that Neda
Arneric, MP, was on holiday and not at parliament during the vote for
a new National Bank of Serbia governor, ranking Democratic Party
official Boris Tadic "might be the key witness at the trial of Natasa
Micic, who was sued by the SPS for rigging the vote at the Serbian
parliament."
"We expect Tadic to admit that parliament member Novakovic was in
Thessaloniki and that there were other rigging cases," Dacic said in
Jagodina, where he took part in an SPS election rally.

Copyright 2003 Tanjug News Agency
Posted for Fair Use only.

See also:
Mr. Clark Goes To The Hague (by Nebojsa Malic)
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m-col.html
-------------------------------------------------------------


Da: ICDSM Italia
Data: Mer 17 Dic 2003 17:51:26 Europe/Rome
A: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] JAIL WESLEY CLARK! FREE MILOSEVIC!

PEOPLE AND ICDSM AT THE HAGUE 15 December 2003
NEW ON www.icdsm.org

Demonstrations and ICDSM press conference at The Hague - picture report
http://www.icdsm.org/more/hague151203.htm

ICDSM attorney Tiphaine Dickson on ban of all communication with
President Milosevic
http://www.icdsm.org/more/gagorder.htm

ICDSM attorney Tiphaine Dickson on Wesley Clark testimony
http://www.icdsm.org/more/deposition.htm

ICDSM statements - open letters:
- by Professor Velko Valkanov
http://www.icdsm.org/more/velkoclark.htm
- by Christopher Black
http://www.icdsm.org/more/chrisreg.htm

PUBLIC STATEMENT BY TORONTO LAWYERS
http://www.icdsm.org/more/toronto.htm

What are you hiding, general Clark? - gallery
http://www.icdsm.org/more/draftWC.htm


---


Picket in New York City:

JAIL WESLEY CLARK! FREE MILOSEVIC!


NYC, 16 December 2003

US National Section of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan
Milosevic organized and hold a picket in front of the presidential
campaign headquarters of General Wesley Clark. His office was presented
with the formal indictment drawn up by Attorney Christopher Black and
others for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia along with the charges
made by Amnesty International and others. ICDSM-US press release was
also presented and hundreds of leaflets were handed out, protesting the
conditions of the secret testimony of Wesley Clark at the ICTY, the
ICTY itself, and the treatment of President Milosevic.

The leaflets also contained a long list of violations by Wesley Clark
as well as by the ICTY, including the most recent one regarding the
violation of the inalienable right of the Serbian people to choose
their own government, violated by the ICTY in their effort to thwart
the election of Slobodan Milosevic to a seat in the Serbian
parliamentary elections Dec. 28th. The leaflets were well received and
caused many supportive discussions.

A 30 foot banner was unfurled on the sidewalk in front of the Wesley
Clark’s offices. The picket was lively and lasted for 45 minutes.
People shouted slogans like "Jail Wesley
Clark! Free Milosevic!" A cable TV program in NYC covered the event.

---

ICDSM-US

U.S. National Section of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan
Milosevic

Press Release
#3                                                                 
Email: info@...
December 16,
2003                                                             
Website: www.icdsm-us.org
Telephone:
212-726-1260                                                     
Yahoo group: icdsm-us

For Immediate Release:

PRESS CONFERENCE AND DEMONSTRATION SCHEDULED TODAY IN NEW YORK TO
PROTEST THE SECRET TESTIMONY OF GEN. WESLEY CLARK AT THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL
- GEN. WESLEY CLARK TO BE SERVED WITH INDICTMENTS FOR WAR CRIMES

 December 16, 2003
 
Today the U.S. National Section of the International Committee for the
Defense of Slobodan Milosevic (ICDSM) will hold a press conference and
demonstration at the presidential campaign offices of Gen. Wesley Clark
at 40 West 25th Street in New York City at 1 PM to protest his wrongful
and outrageous secret testimony on behalf of the prosecution at the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Representatives of the ICDSM-US, will serve indictments for war crimes
on Gen. Wesley Clark at his presidential campaign headquarters. Today’s
event will coincide with a similar protest and press conference
organized at The Hague with other national sections of the ICDSM
yesterday.

We accuse Gen. Wesley Clark, former NATO commander and current U.S.
presidential candidate, of war crimes against the people of Yugoslavia
during the 78-day bombing of that country in the spring of 1999. As
commander of that war Gen. Clark is guilty of directing thousands of
bombings of civilian targets in Yugoslavia resulting in the deaths of
several thousand civilians.

As a war criminal Gen. Clark is unfit to testify as a prosecution
witness. Moreover, his secret testimony is an improper and unlawful
manipulation of judicial practice, making a mockery of any claims by
the ICTY at The Hague to uphold standards of justice or international
law. While the ICTY purports to be concerned with war crimes committed
in Yugoslavia, it has refused to indict a single NATO government
official. But by allowing the U.S. government to screen, censor and
control the conditions of Gen. Clark’s testimony, the ICTY has
completely destroyed any legitimacy to these proceedings.

As NATO commander of the 78-day NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the
spring of 1999:

·       Gen. Wesley Clark willfully violated the principles of the
Nuremberg Tribunal, the Geneva Convention and United Nations
Resolutions of 1950 regarding crimes against peace.

·       Gen. Wesley Clark willfully violated the Helsinki Accords of
1975. In seeking to detach Kosovo from Serbia, Clark violated the
guarantees undertaken by all signatories that the territorial frontiers
of the states of Europe would not be altered by force.

·       Gen. Wesley Clark willfully violated articles 48-58 of the 1977
Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions relating to the
protection of the civilian population.

·       Gen. Wesley Clark willfully violated the 1954 Hague Convention
for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict
by ordering the destruction of Serbian religious and historical sites.

·       Gen. Wesley Clark willfully violated the 1980 Vienna Convention
on the Law of Treaties. By seeking to bully Yugoslavia into accepting
the so-called Rambouillet agreement, Clark was guilty of violating
Articles 51 and 52 of that treaty.

·       Gen. Wesley Clark willfully violated NATO's own charter which
claims that it is a defensive organization that will only resort to
force if one of its members is attacked.

·       Gen. Wesley Clark willfully violated the Vienna Convention for
the Protection of the Ozone Layer (1985, UNEP), the Montreal Protocol
on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (1987) and the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992).

·       Gen. Wesley Clark is directly responsible for the atrocities
committed at the Grdelica Gorge where a civilian train with 56
passengers was incinerated.

·       Gen. Wesley Clark is directly responsible for war crimes
relating to the targeting of the Serbian Radio and Television
headquarters in Belgrade where 16 journalists and staff were murdered.

·       Gen. Wesley Clark is responsible for numerous other acts in
violation of international law and for war crimes relating to the
targeting and deaths of civilians in Yugoslavia.

Today’s demonstration also protests the outrageous actions by the ICTY
banning most if not all contact and communications by President
Milosevic and fellow prisoner Vojislav Seselj with the outside world.
This purpose of this decision, taken on Dec. 12, is openly admitted as
prevention of the elections of President Milosevic and Dr. Seselj to
seats in the upcoming Serbian parliamentary elections of Dec. 28. This
attempt by the powers running the ICTY to suppress the right of the
Serbian people to choose their own government is a violation of the
inalienable natural rights of the Serbian people to freely elect their
own representatives. 

The U.S. Section of the ICDSM rejects the legitimacy of this trial and
that of the ICTY itself. But at the same time we cannot stand by
without protesting the gross violations of fundamental legal,
democratic and human rights visited upon Slobodan Milosevic by this
court. We view this trial as an act of political warfare against the
people of Serbia and against the basic democratic rights of the whole
of humanity that cannot be allowed to succeed.


---

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)

==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
email: icdsm-italia@...

Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC

Da: ICDSM Italia
Data: Mer 17 Dic 2003 13:54:57 Europe/Rome
A: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] The Demonization of Slobodan Milosevic


War Propaganda and the Criminalization of Justice:

The Demonization of Slobodan Milosevic


by Michael Parenti
www.michaelParenti.org ,  December 2003
www.globalresearch.ca    17 December 2003


The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/PAR312A.html


U.S. leaders profess a dedication to democracy. Yet over the past five
decades, democratically elected governments---guilty of introducing
redistributive economic programs or otherwise pursuing independent
courses that do not properly fit into the U.S.-sponsored global free
market system---have found themselves targeted by the U.S. national
security state. Thus democratic governments in Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Chile, Cyprus, the Dominican Republic, Greece, Guatemala,
Guyana, Haiti, Syria, Uruguay, and numerous other nations were
overthrown by their respective military forces, funded and advised by
the United States. The newly installed military rulers then rolled back
the egalitarian reforms and opened their countries all the wider to
foreign corporate investors.

The U.S. national security state also has participated in destabilizing
covert actions, proxy mercenary wars, or direct military attacks
against revolutionary or nationalist governments in Afghanistan (in the
1980s), Angola, Cambodia, Cuba, East Timor, Egypt, Ethiopia, the Fiji
Islands, Grenada, Haiti, Indonesia (under Sukarno), Iran, Jamaica,
Lebanon, Libya, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Syria,
South Yemen, Venezuela (under Hugo Chavez), Western Sahara, and Iraq
(under the CIA-sponsored autocratic Saddam Hussein, after he emerged as
an economic nationalist and tried to cut a better deal on oil prices).

The propaganda method used to discredit many of these governments is
not particularly original, indeed by now it is quite transparently
predictable. Their leaders are denounced as bombastic, hostile, and
psychologically flawed. They are labeled power hungry demagogues,
mercurial strongmen, and the worst sort of dictators likened to Hitler
himself. The countries in question are designated as "terrorist" or
"rogue" states, guilty of being "anti-American" and "anti-West." Some
choice few are even condemned as members of an "evil axis." When
targeting a country and demonizing its leadership, U.S. leaders are
assisted by ideologically attuned publicists, pundits, academics, and
former government officials. Together they create a climate of opinion
that enables Washington to do whatever is necessary to inflict serious
damage upon the designated nation's infrastructure and population, all
in the name of human rights, anti-terrorism, and national security.

There is no better example of this than the tireless demonization of
democratically-elected President Slobodan Milosevic and the
U.S.-supported wars against Yugoslavia. Louis Sell, a former U.S.
Foreign Service officer, has authored a book (Slobodan Milosevic and
the Destruction of Yugoslavia, Duke University Press, 2002) that is a
hit piece on Milosevic, loaded with all the usual prefabricated images
and policy presumptions of the U.S. national security state. Sell's
Milosevic is a caricature, a cunning power seeker and maddened fool,
who turns on trusted comrades and plays upon divisions within the party.

This Milosevic is both an "orthodox socialist" and an "opportunistic
Serbian nationalist," a demagogic power-hungry "second Tito" who
simultaneously wants dictatorial power over all of Yugoslavia while
eagerly pursuing polices that "destroy the state that Tito created."
The author does not demonstrate by reference to specific policies and
programs that Milosevic is responsible for the dismemberment of
Yugoslavia, he just tells us so again and again. One would think that
the Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian Muslim, Macedonian, and Kosovo
Albanian secessionists and U.S./NATO interventionists might have had
something to do with it.

In my opinion, Milosevic's real sin was that he resisted the
dismemberment of Yugoslavia and opposed a U.S. imposed hegemony. He
also attempted to spare Yugoslavia the worst of the merciless
privatizations and rollbacks that have afflicted other former communist
countries. Yugoslavia was the only nation in Europe that did not apply
for entry into the European Union or NATO or OSCE.

For some left intellectuals, the former Yugoslavia did not qualify as a
socialist state because it had allowed too much penetration by private
corporations and the IMF. But U.S. policymakers are notorious for not
seeing the world the way purist left intellectuals do. For them
Yugoslavia was socialist enough with its developed human services
sector and an economy that was over 75 percent publicly owned. Sell
makes it clear that Yugoslavia's public ownership and Milosevic's
defense of that economy were a central consideration in Washington's
war against Yugoslavia. Milosevic, Sell complains, had a "commitment to
orthodox socialism." He "portrayed public ownership of the means of
production and a continued emphasis on [state] commodity production as
the best guarantees for prosperity." He had to go.

To make his case against Milosevic, Sell repeatedly falls back on the
usual ad hominem labeling. Thus we read that in his childhood Milosevic
was "something of a prig" and of course "by nature a loner," a weird
kind of kid because he was "uninterested in sports or other physical
activities," and he "spurned childhood pranks in favor of his books."
The author quotes an anonymous former classmate who reports that
Slobodan's mother "dressed him funny and kept him soft." Worse still,
Slobodan would never join in when other boys stole from orchards---no
doubt a sure sign of childhood pathology.

Sell further describes Milosevic as "moody," "reclusive," and given to
"mulish fatalism." But Sell's own data---when he pauses in his negative
labeling and gets down to specifics---contradicts the maladjusted
"moody loner" stereotype. He acknowledges that young Slobodan worked
well with other youth when it came to political activities. Far from
being unable to form close relations, Slobodan met a girl, his future
wife, and they enjoyed an enduring lifelong attachment. In his early
career when heading the Beogradska Banka, Milosevic was reportedly
"communicative, caring about people at the bank, and popular with his
staff." Other friends describe him as getting on well with people,
"communal and relaxed," a faithful husband to his wife, and a proud and
devoted father to his children. And Sell allows that Milosevic was at
times "confident," "outgoing," and "charismatic." But the negative
stereotype is so firmly established by repetitious pronouncement (and
by years of propagation by Western media and officialdom) that Sell can
simply slide over contradictory evidence---even when such evidence is
provided by himself.

Sell refers to anonymous "U.S. psychiatrists, who have studied
Milosevic closely." By "closely" he must mean from afar, since no U.S.
psychiatrist has ever treated or even interviewed Milosevic. These
uncited and unnamed psychiatrists supposedly diagnosed the Yugoslav
leader as a "malignant narcissistic" personality. Sell tells us that
such malignant narcissism fills Milosevic with self-deception and
leaves him with a "chore personality" that is a "sham." "People with
Milosevic's type of personality frequently either cannot or will not
recognize the reality of facts that diverge from their own perception
of the way the world is or should be." How does Dr. Sigmund Sell know
all this? He seems to find proof in the fact that Milosevic dared to
have charted a course that differed from the one emanating from
Washington. Surely only personal pathology can explain such "anti-West"
obstinacy. Furthermore, we are told that Milosevic suffered from a
"blind spot" in that he was never comfortable with the notion of
private property. If this isn't evidence of malignant narcissism, what
is? Sell never considers the possibility that he himself, and the
global interventionists who think like him, cannot or will not
"recognize the reality of facts that diverge from their own perception
of the way the world is or should be."

Milosevic, we are repeatedly told, fell under the growing influence of
his wife, Mirjana Markovic, "the real power behind the throne." Sell
actually calls her "Lady Macbeth" on one occasion. He portrays Markovic
as a complete wacko, given to uncontrollable anger; her eyes "vibrated
like a scared animal"; "she suffers from severe schizophrenia" with "a
tenuous grasp on reality," and is a hopeless "hypochondriac." In
addition, she has a "mousy" appearance and a "dreamy" and "traumatized"
personality. And like her husband, with whom she shares a "very
abnormal relationship," she has "an autistic relation with the world."
Worse still, she holds "hardline marxist views." We are left to wonder
how the autistic dysfunctional Markovic was able to work as a popular
university professor, organize and lead a new political party, and play
an active role in the popular resistance against Western
interventionism.

In this book, whenever Milosevic or others in his camp are quoted as
saying something, they "snarl," "gush," "hiss," and "crow." In
contrast, political players who win Sell's approval, "observe,"
"state," "note," and "conclude." When one of Milosevic's superiors
voices his discomfort about "noisy Kosovo Serbs" (as Sell calls them)
who were demonstrating against the mistreatment they suffered at the
hands of Kosovo Albanian secessionists, Milosevic "hisses," "Why are
you so afraid of the street and the people?" Some of us might think
this is a pretty good question to hiss at a government leader, but Sell
treats it as proof of Milosevic's demagoguery.

Whenever Milosevic did anything that aided the common citizenry, as
when he taxed the interest earned on foreign currency accounts---a
policy that was unpopular with Serbian elites but appreciated by the
poorer strata---he is dismissed as manipulatively currying popular
favor. Thus we must accept Sell's word that Milosevic never wanted the
power to prevent hunger but only hungered for power. The author
operates from a nonfalsefiable paradigm. If the targeted leader is
unresponsive to the people, this is proof of his dictatorial
proclivity. If he is responsive to them, this demonstrates his
demagogic opportunism.

In keeping with U.S. officialdom's view of the world, Sell labels
"Milosevic and his minions" as "hardliners," "conservatives," and
"ideologues"; they are "anti-West," and bound up in "socialist dogma."
In contrast, Croatian, Bosnian, and Kosovo Albanian secessionists who
worked hard to dismember Yugoslavia and deliver their respective
republics to the tender mercies of neoliberal rollback are identified
as "economic reformers," "the liberal leadership," and "pro-West"
(read, pro-transnational corporate capitalist). Sell treats
"Western-style democracy" and "a modern market economy" as necessary
correlates. He has nothing to say about the dismal plight of the
Eastern European countries that abandoned their deficient but endurable
planned economies for the merciless exactions of laissez-faire
capitalism.

Sell's sensitivity to demagoguery does not extend to Franco Tudjman,
the crypto-fascist anti-Semite Croat who had nice things to say about
Hitler, and who imposed his harsh autocratic rule on the newly
independent Croatia. Tudjman dismissed the Holocaust as an
exaggeration, and openly hailed the Croatian Ustashe Nazi collaborators
of World War II. He even employed a few aging Ustashe leaders in his
government. Sell says not a word about all this, and treats Tudjman as
just a good old Croatian nationalist. Likewise, he has not a critical
word about the Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic. He comments
laconically that Izetbegovic "was sentenced to three years imprisonment
in 1946 for belonging to a group called the Young Muslims." One is left
with the impression that the Yugoslav communist government had
suppressed a devout Muslim. What Sell leaves unmentioned is that the
Young Muslims actively recruited Muslim units for the Nazi SS during
World War II; these units perpetrated horrid atrocities against the
resistance movement and the Jewish population in Yugoslavia.
Izetbegovic got off rather lightly with a three-year sentence.

Little is made in this book of the ethnic cleansing perpetrated against
the Serbs by U.S.-supported leaders like Tudjman and Izetbegovic during
and after the U.S.-sponsored wars. Conversely, no mention is made of
the ethnic tolerance and diversity that existed in President
Milosevic's Yugoslavia. By 1999, all that was left of Yugoslavia was
Montenegro and Serbia. Readers are never told that this rump nation was
the only remaining multi-ethnic society among the various former
Yugoslav republics, the only place where Serbs, Albanians, Croats,
Gorani, Jews, Egyptians, Hungarians, Roma, and numerous other ethnic
groups could live together with some measure of security and tolerance.

The relentless demonization of Milosevic spills over onto the Serbian
people in general. In Sell's book, the Serbs are aggrandizing
nationalists. Kosovo Serbs demonstrating against mistreatment by
Albanian nationalists are described as having their "bloodlust up." And
Serb workers demonstrating to defend their rights and hard won gains
are dismissed by Sell as "the lowest instruments of the mob." The Serbs
who had lived in Krajina and other parts of Croatia for centuries are
dismissed as colonial occupiers. In contrast, the Slovenian, Croatian,
and Bosnian Muslim nationalist secessionists, and Kosovo Albanian
irredentists are simply seeking "independence," "self-determination,"
and "cultural distinctiveness and sovereignty." In this book, the
Albanian KLA gunmen are not big-time drug dealers, terrorists, and
ethnic cleansers, but guerrilla fighters and patriots.

Military actions allegedly taken by the Serbs, described in the vaguest
terms, are repeatedly labeled "brutal," while assaults and atrocities
delivered upon the Serbs by other national groups are more usually
accepted as retaliatory and defensive, or are dismissed by Sell as
"untrue," "highly exaggerated," and "hyperventilated." Milosevic, Sell
says, disseminated "vicious propaganda" against the Croats, but he does
not give us any specifics. Sell does provide one or two instances of
how Serb villages were pillaged and their inhabitants raped and
murdered by Albanian secessionists. From this he grudgingly allows that
"some of the Serb charges . . . had a core of truth." But he makes
nothing more of it.

The well-timed, well-engineered story about a Serbian massacre of
unarmed Albanians in the village of Racak, hyped by U.S. diplomat and
veteran disinformationist William Walker, is wholeheartedly embraced by
Sell, who ignores all the contrary evidence. An Associated Press TV
crew had actually filmed the battle that took place in Racak the
previous day in which Serbian police killed a number of KLA fighters. A
French journalist who went through Racak later that day found evidence
of a battle but no evidence of a massacre of unarmed civilians, nor did
Walker's own Kosovo Verification Mission monitors. All the forensic
reports reveal that almost all of the forty-four persons killed had
previously been using fire arms, and all had perished in combat. Sell
simply ignores this evidence.

The media-hyped story of how the Serbs allegedly killed 7,000 Muslims
in Srebrenica is uncritically accepted by Sell, even though the most
thorough investigations have uncovered not more than 2,000 bodies of
undetermined nationality. The earlier massacres carried out by Muslims,
their razing of some fifty Serbian villages around Srebrenica, as
reported by two British correspondents and others, are ignored. The
complete failure of Western forensic teams to locate the 250,000 or
100,000 or 50,000 or 10,000 bodies (the numbers kept changing) of
Albanians supposedly murdered by the Serbs in Kosovo also goes
unnoticed.

Sell's rendition of what happened at Rambouillet leaves much to be
desired. Under Rambouillet, Kosovo would have been turned into a NATO
colony. Milosevic might have reluctantly agreed to that, so desperate
was he to avoid a full-scale NATO onslaught on the rest of Yugoslavia.
To be certain that war could not be avoided, however, the U.S.
delegation added a remarkable stipulation, demanding that NATO forces
and personnel were to have unrestrained access to all of Yugoslavia,
unfettered use of its airports, rails, ports, telecommunication
services, and airwaves, all free of cost and immune from any
jurisdiction by Yugoslav authorities. NATO would also have the option
to modify for its own use all of Yugoslavia's infrastructure including
roads, bridges, tunnels, buildings, and utility systems. In effect, not
just Kosovo but all of Yugoslavia was to be subjected to an
extraterritoriality tantamount to outright colonial occupation.

Sell does not mention these particulars. Instead he assures us that the
request for NATO's unimpeded access to Yugoslavia was just a pro forma
protocol inserted "largely for legal reasons." A similar though less
sweeping agreement was part of the Dayton package, he says. Indeed, and
the Dayton agreement reduced Bosnia to a Western colony. But if there
was nothing wrong with the Rambouillet ultimatum, why then did
Milosevic reject it? Sell ascribes Milosevic's resistance to his
perverse "bunker mentality" and his need to defy the world.

There is not a descriptive word in this book of the 78 days of
around-the-clock massive NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, no mention of how
it caused the loss of thousands of lives, injured and maimed thousands
more, contaminated much of the land and water with depleted uranium,
and destroyed much of the country's public sector industries and
infrastructure-while leaving all the private Western corporate
structures perfectly intact.

The sources that Sell relies on share U.S. officialdom's view of the
Balkans struggle. Observers who offer a more independently critical
perspective, such as Sean Gervassi, Diana Johnstone, Gregory Elich,
Nicholas Stavrous, Michel Collon, Raju Thomas, and Michel Chossudovsky
are left untouched and uncited. Important Western sources I reference
in my book on Yugoslavia offer evidence, testimony, and documentation
that do not fit Sell's conclusions, including sources from within the
European Union, the European Community's Commission on Women's Rights,
the OSCE and its Kosovo Verification Mission, the UN War Crimes
Commission, and various other UN commissions, various State Department
reports, the German Foreign Office and German Defense Ministry reports,
and the International Red Cross. Sell does not touch these sources.

Also ignored by him are the testimonies and statements of members of
the U.S. Congress who visited the Balkans, a former State Department
official under the Bush administration, a former deputy commander of
the U.S. European command, several UN and NATO generals and
international negotiators, Spanish air force pilots, forensic teams
from various countries, and UN monitors who offer revelations that
contradict the picture drawn by Sell and other apologists of U.S.
officialdom.

In sum, Sell's book is packed with discombobulated insider details,
unsupported charges, unexamined presumptions, and ideologically loaded
labeling. As mainstream disinformation goes, it is a job well done.




The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca
grants permission to cross-post original CRG articles in their
entirety, or any portions thereof, on community internet sites, as long
as the text and title of the article are not modified. The source must
be acknowledged as follows: Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
at www.globalresearch.ca .  The active URL hyperlink address of the
original CRG article and the author's copyright note must be clearly
displayed. (For articles from other news sources, check with the
original copyright holder, where applicable.) For publication of CRG
articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites,
contact: editor@... .

Michael Parenti's recent books are To Kill a Nation: The Attack on
Yugoslavia (Verso), and The Terrorism Trap: September 11 and Beyond
(City Lights). His latest work, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A
People's History of Ancient Rome has been nominated for a Pulitzer
Prize. © Copyright M Parenti 2003  For fair use only/ pour usage
équitable seulement.




==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
email: icdsm-italia@...

Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC

Intellettuali di servizio: Bernard Henri LEVY

---
Per le puntate precedenti su Monsieur Levy si veda:
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http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/1500
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/1538
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---


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: « Romanquete » ou mauvaise enquete ?
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 13:45:03 +0100 (CET)
From: Le Monde diplomatique <info-diplo@...>
To: Le Monde diplomatique <info-diplo@...>


« QUI A TUÉ DANIEL PEARL ? »

« Romanquête » ou mauvaise enquête ?

(11 décembre 2003)

http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/dossiers/bhl/

Peu après la guerre du Kosovo, Daniel Pearl enquêta au
Kosovo avec son camarade Robert Block. Leur enquête fut
publiée à la « une » du Wall Street Journal le 31
décembre 1999. Contredisant le parti pris éditorial des
responsables du quotidien américain, très favorable à la
guerre de l'OTAN et assuré de l'existence d'un génocide,
cette enquête établissait que si les forces yougoslaves
avaient bien « expulsé des centaines de milliers de
Kosovars albanais, brûlant des maisons et se livrant à
des exécutions sommaires, d'autres allégations - meurtres
de masse indiscriminés, camps de viols, mutilation des
morts - n'ont pas été confirmées. (...) Des militants
kosovars albanais, des organisations humanitaires, l'OTAN
et les médias se sont alimentés les uns les autres pour
donner une crédibilité aux rumeurs de génocide. » En
parlant avec insistance de « wagons plombés » opérant
« dans le brouillard », Bernard-Henri Lévy fut l'un des
plus grands propagateurs en France de ces « rumeurs de
génocide ». Une telle erreur est peut-être excusable.
Mais elle ne faisait pas forcément de lui le meilleur
biographe de Daniel Pearl, journaliste exemplaire
atrocement assassiné.

Le système BHL opère depuis plus de vingt-cinq ans.
Presque rien ne lui échappe. Ni dans le domaine du
politique (où les amitiés du philosophe vont de Nicolas
Sarkozy à Dominique Strauss-Kahn). Ni dans celui de
l'économie (il a prononcé l'hommage funèbre du père
d'Arnaud Lagardère, François Pinault parle de lui comme
d'un fils). Ni dans celui des médias (ceux que possèdent
les industriels précités... et la plupart des autres). Ce
système constitue-t-il un des éléments de l'« exception
française », du « retard » qu'un pays trop provincial
aurait pris sur le grand large des idées, d'une certaine
frivolité parisienne ? Fournit-il plutôt la preuve du non
renouvellement des élites hexagonales et de la connivence
qui les lie, au risque d'aiguiser un soupçon de sclérose
intellectuelle ? Depuis un quart de siècle, en tout cas,
Bernard-Henri Lévy fait beaucoup de choses dont il est
presque impossible d'ignorer une seule. Sans doute
sont-elles trop nombreuses, sur des terrains trop divers,
pour être vraiment bien faites.

Philosophe (inconnu des philosophes), réalisateur de
films (de facture incertaine), dramaturge, essayiste,
romancier, reporter, envoyé spécial du président de la
République, homme de télévision et des magazines people,
ami des industriels, Grand Commentateur de Tout, en
particulier de chacune de ses interventions : c'est
assurément beaucoup pour une seule personne.
Bernard-Henri Lévy s'est donc engagé plus d'une fois au
service des causes les plus discutables. Et il s'est
beaucoup trompé. En mars 1985, une résistance attire son
attention, elle obtient son appui. Très mauvaise pioche :
il s'agit en effet de la « contra » du Nicaragua, un
groupe de combattants opérant à coup d'actions
terroristes contre le régime légal du pays, reconnu par
la communauté des Etats. Cette guérilla opère grâce à la
CIA et avec le concours de l'extrême droite locale. Quand
le Congrès des Etats-Unis décide de cesser de financer
cette « sale guerre », Bernard-Henri Lévy intervient avec
quelques autres pour supplier les parlementaires
américains de « reconduire l'aide à la résistance
nicaragayenne. Le Monde Libre attend votre réponse. Ses
ennemis aussi ». D'autres guérillas, que Ronald Reagan ne
soutenait pas, trouvèrent en Bernard-Henri Lévy un avocat
moins attentionné...

Quoi qu'il fasse, l'homme n'est jamais dépourvu d'appuis.
Il opère d'ailleurs à découvert. Il suffit de lire son
« bloc-notes » du Point pour comprendre qui sont ses
alliés et qui sont ses adversaires. Il loue les premiers,
fustige les autres. A charge de revanche. (Lire Dans
les cuisines du Bernard-Henri Lévisme et, dans Le Monde
diplomatique de décembre 2003, « Cela dure depuis
vingt-cing ans »). En 1997, son film Le Jour et la Nuit
réalise une forme d'exploit : un budget impressionnant,
Alain Delon et Karl Zéro au générique, la couverture de
plusieurs magazines (en particulier quand ils
appartiennent aux amis du philosophe et aux producteurs
du film, comme François Pinault et Jean-Luc Lagardère).
Pourtant, à l'arrivée le fiasco commercial est terrible
(70 000 entrées pour un film qui a coûté 53 millions de
francs...) Une aide de 3,5 millions de francs (530 000
euros) du Centre national de la cinématographie, sans
doute ému par les efforts d'un jeune réalisateur
désargenté et sans entregent, n'y fera rien : les
critiques vont saluer la performance artistique d'un
éclat de rire un peu humiliant. Bernard-Henri Lévy passe
à autre chose.

Le 15 février 2002, « à la demande conjointe du président
de la République et du premier ministre », M. Hubert
Védrine, ministre français des affaires étrangères,
confie à Bernard-Henri Lévy « la mission de se rendre en
Afghanistan et d'y étudier les modalités d'une
contribution française à la reconstruction de ce pays
meurtri ». L'enquête est rondement menée. Quelques
semaines après son départ à Kaboul, Bernard-Henri Lévy
revient, rapport bouclé. Il sera publié par La
Documentation française, qui dépend directement du
Premier ministre. Le recueil ne contient qu'une annexe :
le texte d'un discours de Bernard-Henri Lévy à Kaboul...
Quelques mois plus tard, l'intelligentsia afghane hérite
d'un mensuel lui permettant, enfin, de lire en deux
langues un éditorial de Bernard-Henri Lévy sur l'affaire
Papon.

Dès 1977, le philosophe Gilles Deleuze résumait ainsi
l'oeuvre des « nouveaux philosophes » et le formidable
« marketing littéraire » qui leur servait déjà de caisse
de résonance : « Je crois que leur pensée est nulle. Je
vois deux raisons possibles à cette nullité. D'abord ils
procèdent par gros concepts, aussi gros que des dents
creuses, LA loi, LE pouvoir, LE maître, LE monde, LA
rébellion, LA foi, etc. Ils peuvent faire ainsi des
mélanges grotesques, des dualismes sommaires, la loi et
le rebelle, le pouvoir et l'ange. Plus le contenu de
pensée est faible, plus le penseur prend d'importance,
plus le sujet d'énonciation se donne de l'importance par
rapport aux énoncés vides. » (A propos des nouveaux
philosophes et d'un problème plus général, éditions de
Minuit, 2003.) Les choses ont-elles changé vingt-cinq ans
plus tard ? Bernard-Henri Lévy a répondu à sa manière au
moment de la sortie de Qui a tué Daniel Pearl ? : « Je
suis le même, il me semble. Avec le même souci, la même
obsession et la même question inlassable, posée de livre
en livre, qui est la question du mal. Que ce soit dans
mes romans, dans mes essais politiques, ou que ce soit
dans ce livre enquête, je tourne autour de la même
hypothèse théorique : à savoir qu'un système, mais aussi
une société ou un monde se jugent en fonction de leur
part d'ombre et de leur envers davantage que parce qu'ils
montrent ou rendent visible. Je ne suis jamais sorti de
cela : ce qui est intéressant, c'est la part maudite des
sociétés humaines. La part du diable, en quelque
sorte. » (Livres Hebdo, 30 mai 2003.)

Il n'est pas établi qu'un tel fil conducteur, une telle
« hypothèse théorique », ait toujours servi le
journalisme ou l'histoire. Dès 1981, dans un commentaire
cinglant de L'idéologie française, essai de Bernard-Henri
Lévy sur la Collaboration, Raymond Aron notait dans
L'Express : « Un auteur qui emploie volontiers les
adjectifs infâme ou obscène pour qualifier les hommes et
les idées invite le critique à lui rendre la pareille. Je
résisterai autant que possible à la tentation, bien que
le livre de Bernard-Henri Lévy présente quelques-uns des
défauts qui m'horripilent : la boursouflure du style, la
prétention à trancher des mérites et des démérites des
vivants et des morts, l'ambition de rappeler à un peuple
amnésique la part engloutie de son passé, les citations
détachées de leur contexte et interprétées
arbitrairement. » A l'époque, on lisait les livres du
nouveau philosophe avant de se prosterner aux pieds de
leur auteur. Les défauts qui horripilaient Raymond Aron
n'ont pas disparu quand Bernard-Henri Lévy est passé de
l'essai à l'enquête. Qu'il s'agisse de l'Algérie (lire
Les généraux d'Alger préfèrent un reportage de BHL à
une enquête internationale), de l'Afghanistan (lire
BHL en Afghanistan ou Tintin au Congo ? ), de la
Colombie (lire La Colombie selon Bernard-Henri Lévy)
ou, à présent, du Pakistan, plusieurs enquêtes de
Bernard-Henri Lévy ont suscité une volée de bois vert
administrée par ceux qui connaissaient bien les sujets et
les pays en question.

Avec Qui a tué Daniel Pearl ?, il s'agissait d'un
« romanquête », autrement dit d'un mélange des genres
permettant à la fois de constater ce que le romancier
n'aurait pas su imaginer et d'imaginer ce que l'enquêteur
n'aurait pas pu constater. A charge pour le lecteur de
démêler l'un de l'autre. Autant dire que l'ambition était
immense. Dans ses nombreux entretiens, l'auteur a par
exemple répété que les services secrets pakistanais
pourraient avoir procuré les secrets de la bombe atomique
à Al-Qaida ? Une « hypothèse » en passant... Mais
n'est-elle trop sérieuse, trop peu « théorique » pour
être avancée, innocemment, sur des plateaux de
télévision comme si la commercialisation d'un livre était
dorénavant devenue raison suffisante pour lancer
n'importe quelle campagne d'affolement ? Toutefois, la
panique n'eût pas lieu, preuve peut-être que, pour le
public, vingt-cinq ans d'expérience de Bernard-Henri Lévy
n'ont pas été sans effet. Et puis, comment prendre tout à
fait au sérieux un auteur qui, en s'appuyant sur une
citation tronquée de Raymond Aron, qualifia un jour
Pierre Bourdieu de « sociologue ambitieux » d'« aide de
camp peu doué », de « soldat de plomb » à l'« âpreté
désolée » et au « ressentiment visible » ?

Tant qu'à citer Raymond Aron, Bernard-Henri Lévy,
aujourd'hui embarqué avec d'autres dans une chasse à la
« nouvelle judéophobie » trop souvent dépourvue de
discernement pour être convaincante ou même utile, aurait
gagné à rappeler ce que Raymond Aron lui opposa dès
1981 : « Nombre de Juifs, en France, se sentent à nouveau
guettés par l'antisémitisme et, comme des êtres
" choqués ", ils amplifient par leurs réactions le danger
plus ou moins illusoire qu'ils affrontent. Que leur dit
ce livre [L'Idéologie française, de Bernard-Henri Lévy,
ndlr], Que le péril est partout, que l'idéologie
française les condamne à un combat de chaque instant
contre un ennemi installé dans l'inconscient de millions
de leurs concitoyens. Des Français non juifs en
concluront que les juifs sont encore plus différents des
autres Français qu'ils ne l'imaginaient, puisqu'un auteur
acclamé par les organisations juives se révèle incapable
de comprendre tant d'expressions de la pensée française,
au point de les mettre au ban de la France. Il nous
annonce la vérité pour que la nation française connaisse
et surmonte son passé, il jette du sel sur toutes les
plaies mal cicatrisées. Par son hystérie, il va nourrir
l'hystérie d'une fraction de la communauté juive, déjà
portée aux actes du délire. » (L'Express, 7 février
1981.)

Au fond, une succession de reportages déficients ou
calamiteux, de propos à l'emporte-pièce, pose un problème
qui va très au-delà du seul Bernard-Henri Lévy,
épiphénomène exemplaire de ce que Pierre Bourdieu,
justement, appelait l' « intellectuel négatif ». C'est
celui du court-circuit entre les règles qui gouvernent la
vie intellectuelle, le monde des idées, et les techniques
qui régissent l'univers des stars, les lois de la
célébrité. En publiant une contre-enquête au
« romanquête », la New York Review of Books (lire Le
Monde diplomatique, décembre 2003) aura peut-être
contribué à imposer quelques exigences méconnues aux
éditeurs et aux journalistes français. Eux qui présentent
si souvent les Etats-Unis comme un modèle...

Mais dès lors qu'il est peu vraisemblable que, cette
fois, le modèle les inspire, l'affaire Bernard-Henri Lévy
risque de se reproduire très bientôt. Comment ne pas
remarquer déjà que l'article de la New York Review of
Books n'a eu aucun écho dans les médias. Des médias qui
pourtant, il y a six mois, encensaient presque unanimes
Qui a tué Daniel Pearl ?

Un article inédit de SERGE HALIMI.

http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/dossiers/bhl/


« Le Monde diplomatique »

- La Colombie selon Bernard-Henri Lévy, par Maurice
Lemoine, juin 2001.
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cahier/ameriquelatine/tintin

« Bibliographie »

- BHL en Afghanistan ou Tintin au Congo ? , par Gilles
Dorronsoro, octobre 1998.
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/documents/bhl/afghanistan

- Les généraux d'Alger préfèrent un reportage de BHL à
une enquête internationale, par Nicolas Beau, janvier 1998
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/documents/bhl/algerie

- Dans les cuisines du Bernard-Henri Lévisme , par
Nicolas Beau, janvier 1994.
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/documents/bhl/cuisine/

- « A propos des nouveaux philosophes et d'un problème
plus général », Gilles Deleuze, Deux régimes de fous -
Textes et entretiens (1975-1995), Editions de Minuit,
Paris.

« Sur la Toile »

- Murder in Karachi, par William Dalrymple, New York
Review of Books, décembre 2003.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16823


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