Informazione
La eliminazione dei serbi dalla Croazia
4: Il Vaticano festeggia
---
LINKS:
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/files/IMMAGINI/
krajina1995.jpg
Da non dimenticare
http://www.reformation.org/holocaus.html
The Vatican's Holocaust
---
Da "La Voce del Popolo", Fiume-Rijeka, 6 agosto 2003 e "Vecernji list",
Zagreb, 28 e 6 agosto 2003:
"Celebrata la Giornata del Ringraziamento" (titolo dell’articolo su "La
Voce"); "Celebrata la Giornata della Vittoria e del Ringraziamento
patriottico" (titolo in prima pagina del "Vecernji")
Knin. "In tutta la Croazia è stata celebrata ieri (5 agosto) la
Giornata del Ringraziamento, in memoria di tutti coloro che hanno dato
la vita per la libertà [sic] della Croazia. A Knin, simbolo della
vittoria [sic] croata, una delegazione del Governo guidata dal ministro
della Difesa Zeljka Antunovic e dal vice-premier Goran Granic, ha
deposto una corona di fiori ed ha acceso dei ceri dinanzi alla croce
[sic] innalzata per ricordare l’evento, dopo aver presenziato
all’alzabandiera alla fortezza di Knin".
Ricordiamo come è stata "conquistata" dalle truppe di Tudjman la
cittadina di Knin, capoluogo della regione, popolata a maggioranza da
serbi, che "si poteva difendere anche con le pietre". Dopo che
l’Esercito jugoslavo si era dovuto ritirare senza combattere, la
popolazione civile scappò in massa. Chi ricorda più il grande esodo dei
serbi dalle Krajine sotto il sole cocente estivo?!
Anche nelle celebrazioni di quella tragedia, nella cattolicissima
Croazia immancabile è la presenza della Chiesa.
"A ricorrenza della festa della Signora del Grande Voto Benedetto
Croato, protettrice del Vicariato militare, e in seguito alla Giornata
della Vittoria e del Ringraziamento, ieri (5 agosto) è stato benedetto,
a Zagabria, il nuovo, imponente edificio del Vicariato militare. La
celebrazione è stata presieduta dal rappresentante del Vaticano,
l’arcivescovo Francesco Monterisi."
E non finisce qui! Dopo la messa è stata inaugurata la statua di papa
Giovanni Paolo II, a grandezza d’uomo.
In occasione della benedizione del Vicariato militare, il Papa ha
inviato un messaggio in "lingua croata", nel quale esprime la speranza
che questo avvenimento dia un nuovo vigore al molto proficuo e fertile
lavoro di cura (delle anime) dell’esercito croato e della polizia.
Inoltre nel messaggio, inviato tramite il Segretario di Stato,
cardinale Angelo Sodano, il Papa esprime, tra l’altro, "la speranza che
ciò contribuirà anche alla promozione della cooperazione sempre più
armoniosa tra lo Stato e la Chiesa, per il bene comune della Croazia".
Il Papa "non sa" oppure "non vede" che cosa sta facendo in Croazia "il
figlio spirituale del Vaticano (e suo)" . Quel figlio "cresciuto" e
rafforzato con la beatificazione del cardinale Stepinac.
Il clero cattolico croato, come nel 1941, ed ora dal 1991, grazie allo
"status specialissimo" per le sue istituzioni, è "guida e luce" del
nuovo staterello croato, e si preoccupa di inculcare già dagli asili
nido credenze religiose ed un sostanziale odio razziale - che dovrebbe
essere un affronto al vero Credo - fino ad assolvere anche i criminali
di questa guerra fratricida, detta "civile", perché "combattenti
patrioti".
Proprio, lo ripetiamo, come fecero i prelati nel 1941 – 1945, nel
cosiddetto Stato Indipendente Croato; ora pero' anche con il
beneplacito degli ex comunisti e dei cosiddetti democratici della
sinistra, in primis Ivica Racan, primo ministro.
L’edificio nuovo del Vicariato militare occupa un’area di 1500 mq. E'
stato costruito su 4 piani, all'interno di un’area di 8800 mq, donata
dall’Episcopato metropolitano. Ufficialmente la costruzione è iniziata
il 23 di aprile 1999 (sic! Per festeggiare l'inizio dei bombardamenti
selvaggi contro la Jugoslavia federata –Serbia e Montenegro- ?!), con
benedizione e dedica sulla pietra di basamento. La costruzione è
costata circa 34 milioni di kune - la moneta locale, riedizione della
moneta dei nazisti - ed è stata finanziata dal ministero della Difesa e
dal ministero degli Interni, che si occuperanno anche della
manutenzione.
Il Vicariato militare per la cura dei fedeli cattolici appartenenti
alle forze militari e dipendenti dalla Repubblica di Croazia è stato
fondato il 25 aprile 1997 da papa Giovanni Paolo II, in seguito
all'accordo tra il Vaticano e la Repubblica di Croazia sottoscritto il
19 dicembre 1996. Come primo vescovo militare è stato nominato il
monsignor Juraj Jezerinac.
(a cura di I. Istrijan)
PS. Da "Antologija suvremene hrvatske gluposti" (Antologia della
stupidità contemporanea croata), Edizione di Feral Tribune, Split 1999:
"La nostra religione è molto più libera. Noi almeno abbiamo la
confessione, con la quale tutto ci viene perdonato".
(Una studentessa delle medie superiori, dopo la visita alla sinagoga.
Pubblicato nel mensile dei giovani cattolici "Mi", marzo 1994)
"Questo secolo non aveva mai visto una così grandiosa azione di
liberazione quale e' stata l'Operazione Tempesta. Questa è la
testimonianza che il popolo croato per un momento è stato toccato da
Dio"
(Maja Freundlich, giornalista, al succitato "Mi", giugno 1997)
"A tanti sembra mostruoso che io abbia dato la mano agli ustascia.
Anche se li avessi baciati non vedo che cosa c’è di strano".
(Zdravko Tomac, ex comunista, radicale trasversale pannelliano, ora
socialdemocratico e persino viceministro, a "Slobodna Dalmacija",
aprile 1996)
PPS. Consigliamo vivamente i libri:
"L'Arcivescovo del genocidio" (Monsignor Stepinac, il Vaticano e la
dittatura ustascia in Croazia, 1941 - 1945), di Marco Aurelio Revelli,
Edizioni Kaos, 1998
"Il fascismo e gli ustascia , 1929 -1941" (Il separatismo croato in
Italia) di Pasquale Iusso, Edizioni Gangemini editore, 1998
4: Il Vaticano festeggia
---
LINKS:
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/files/IMMAGINI/
krajina1995.jpg
Da non dimenticare
http://www.reformation.org/holocaus.html
The Vatican's Holocaust
---
Da "La Voce del Popolo", Fiume-Rijeka, 6 agosto 2003 e "Vecernji list",
Zagreb, 28 e 6 agosto 2003:
"Celebrata la Giornata del Ringraziamento" (titolo dell’articolo su "La
Voce"); "Celebrata la Giornata della Vittoria e del Ringraziamento
patriottico" (titolo in prima pagina del "Vecernji")
Knin. "In tutta la Croazia è stata celebrata ieri (5 agosto) la
Giornata del Ringraziamento, in memoria di tutti coloro che hanno dato
la vita per la libertà [sic] della Croazia. A Knin, simbolo della
vittoria [sic] croata, una delegazione del Governo guidata dal ministro
della Difesa Zeljka Antunovic e dal vice-premier Goran Granic, ha
deposto una corona di fiori ed ha acceso dei ceri dinanzi alla croce
[sic] innalzata per ricordare l’evento, dopo aver presenziato
all’alzabandiera alla fortezza di Knin".
Ricordiamo come è stata "conquistata" dalle truppe di Tudjman la
cittadina di Knin, capoluogo della regione, popolata a maggioranza da
serbi, che "si poteva difendere anche con le pietre". Dopo che
l’Esercito jugoslavo si era dovuto ritirare senza combattere, la
popolazione civile scappò in massa. Chi ricorda più il grande esodo dei
serbi dalle Krajine sotto il sole cocente estivo?!
Anche nelle celebrazioni di quella tragedia, nella cattolicissima
Croazia immancabile è la presenza della Chiesa.
"A ricorrenza della festa della Signora del Grande Voto Benedetto
Croato, protettrice del Vicariato militare, e in seguito alla Giornata
della Vittoria e del Ringraziamento, ieri (5 agosto) è stato benedetto,
a Zagabria, il nuovo, imponente edificio del Vicariato militare. La
celebrazione è stata presieduta dal rappresentante del Vaticano,
l’arcivescovo Francesco Monterisi."
E non finisce qui! Dopo la messa è stata inaugurata la statua di papa
Giovanni Paolo II, a grandezza d’uomo.
In occasione della benedizione del Vicariato militare, il Papa ha
inviato un messaggio in "lingua croata", nel quale esprime la speranza
che questo avvenimento dia un nuovo vigore al molto proficuo e fertile
lavoro di cura (delle anime) dell’esercito croato e della polizia.
Inoltre nel messaggio, inviato tramite il Segretario di Stato,
cardinale Angelo Sodano, il Papa esprime, tra l’altro, "la speranza che
ciò contribuirà anche alla promozione della cooperazione sempre più
armoniosa tra lo Stato e la Chiesa, per il bene comune della Croazia".
Il Papa "non sa" oppure "non vede" che cosa sta facendo in Croazia "il
figlio spirituale del Vaticano (e suo)" . Quel figlio "cresciuto" e
rafforzato con la beatificazione del cardinale Stepinac.
Il clero cattolico croato, come nel 1941, ed ora dal 1991, grazie allo
"status specialissimo" per le sue istituzioni, è "guida e luce" del
nuovo staterello croato, e si preoccupa di inculcare già dagli asili
nido credenze religiose ed un sostanziale odio razziale - che dovrebbe
essere un affronto al vero Credo - fino ad assolvere anche i criminali
di questa guerra fratricida, detta "civile", perché "combattenti
patrioti".
Proprio, lo ripetiamo, come fecero i prelati nel 1941 – 1945, nel
cosiddetto Stato Indipendente Croato; ora pero' anche con il
beneplacito degli ex comunisti e dei cosiddetti democratici della
sinistra, in primis Ivica Racan, primo ministro.
L’edificio nuovo del Vicariato militare occupa un’area di 1500 mq. E'
stato costruito su 4 piani, all'interno di un’area di 8800 mq, donata
dall’Episcopato metropolitano. Ufficialmente la costruzione è iniziata
il 23 di aprile 1999 (sic! Per festeggiare l'inizio dei bombardamenti
selvaggi contro la Jugoslavia federata –Serbia e Montenegro- ?!), con
benedizione e dedica sulla pietra di basamento. La costruzione è
costata circa 34 milioni di kune - la moneta locale, riedizione della
moneta dei nazisti - ed è stata finanziata dal ministero della Difesa e
dal ministero degli Interni, che si occuperanno anche della
manutenzione.
Il Vicariato militare per la cura dei fedeli cattolici appartenenti
alle forze militari e dipendenti dalla Repubblica di Croazia è stato
fondato il 25 aprile 1997 da papa Giovanni Paolo II, in seguito
all'accordo tra il Vaticano e la Repubblica di Croazia sottoscritto il
19 dicembre 1996. Come primo vescovo militare è stato nominato il
monsignor Juraj Jezerinac.
(a cura di I. Istrijan)
PS. Da "Antologija suvremene hrvatske gluposti" (Antologia della
stupidità contemporanea croata), Edizione di Feral Tribune, Split 1999:
"La nostra religione è molto più libera. Noi almeno abbiamo la
confessione, con la quale tutto ci viene perdonato".
(Una studentessa delle medie superiori, dopo la visita alla sinagoga.
Pubblicato nel mensile dei giovani cattolici "Mi", marzo 1994)
"Questo secolo non aveva mai visto una così grandiosa azione di
liberazione quale e' stata l'Operazione Tempesta. Questa è la
testimonianza che il popolo croato per un momento è stato toccato da
Dio"
(Maja Freundlich, giornalista, al succitato "Mi", giugno 1997)
"A tanti sembra mostruoso che io abbia dato la mano agli ustascia.
Anche se li avessi baciati non vedo che cosa c’è di strano".
(Zdravko Tomac, ex comunista, radicale trasversale pannelliano, ora
socialdemocratico e persino viceministro, a "Slobodna Dalmacija",
aprile 1996)
PPS. Consigliamo vivamente i libri:
"L'Arcivescovo del genocidio" (Monsignor Stepinac, il Vaticano e la
dittatura ustascia in Croazia, 1941 - 1945), di Marco Aurelio Revelli,
Edizioni Kaos, 1998
"Il fascismo e gli ustascia , 1929 -1941" (Il separatismo croato in
Italia) di Pasquale Iusso, Edizioni Gangemini editore, 1998
LINK:
PHOTOS FROM GORAZDEVAC, AUGUST 14, 2003
Reality Macedonia - August 15, 2003
The Massacred Children of Kosovo
VICTIMS OF ALBANIAN TERRORISM IN KOSOVO
For Photo Display, click on:
http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/web/news_page.asp?nid=2729
---
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m082103.html
ANTIWAR, Thursday, August 21, 2003
Balkan Express
by Nebojsa Malic
Antiwar.com
Fresh Blood in Kosovo
Occupied Province Terrorized Again
Even as north-eastern United States clawed its way from a weekend
blackout, and the UN mission in Iraq gasped in shock at Tuesday's
massacre at its Baghdad headquarters, the occupied Serbian province of
Kosovo was once again in the headlines. A week ago, British historian
Kate Hudson noted that the attack on Yugoslavia over Kosovo in 1999
established a "pattern of aggression" that was applied to Iraq in 2003.
Of course, the US did not occupy all of Serbia, as it did with Iraq
only its one province, settled with Albanians bent on carving out an
independent state, or possibly annexing Albania. While Iraqis shoot at
occupation troops, the Albanians actually welcomed them. These
differences, while rightly irrelevant to Hudson's argument, have also
meant years of abject misery for non-Albanians living in Kosovo.
Last Tuesday, the government in Belgrade finally announced its official
position on the status of its occupied province, rejecting outright the
notion of independence but pledging "substantial autonomy" within
Serbia.
The unexpectedly firm line by the otherwise spineless Dossie leadership
came a day before Kosovo's new international viceroy, Harri Holkeri,
was to make his first visit to the occupied province.
A Clear Response
Belgrade and UNMIK probably expected an official Albanian response
filled with righteous indignation at the very thought of anything but
full independence for the province. But the unofficial response that
came on August 13 was loud, clear and disgusting. An "unknown" gunman
fired at children swimming in the Bistrica river, killing two and
injuring
several others. The attack took place just outside Gorazdevac, a Serb
enclave surrounded by Albanian villages. Serbs in Kosovo have long
since been disarmed by the NATO occupation force; the assailant had
used an AK-47 assault rifle.
Another attack followed on Sunday, only this time no one was hurt.
Earlier that week, and again on Saturday, Serbian military outposts
near the border with Kosovo came under fire. The attacks were claimed
by the AKSh, the "Albanian National Army," the newest incarnation of
the KLA. It seems to
have reawakened following the announcement of Presevo area Albanians
that they would form an Albanian National Council to promote annexation
to Kosovo.
Anger and Loathing
The attack on children was condemned by both Kosovo Serbs and the
Belgrade government. As angry Serbs protested in the streets of their
ghettos, the UN authorities and NATO occupiers pledged to find the
assailants. That pledge has remained unfulfilled as of yet, as have all
others before it.
Father Sava, the famous "cybermonk" at Decani, wrote that the
Gorazdevac attack was "first and foremost a shocking indicator of the
real situation in Kosovo and Metohija that the majority of UNMIK and
KFOR representatives, together with Albanian political leaders, are
persistently attempting to hide from the global public in order to
rationalize their own failures..."
Even Bishop Artemije, who once collaborated with the UN-NATO occupiers,
is embittered. "All words have been used already; everything that
should have been said has been said so many times already," he told
KFOR political officer Frederick Mathias during their meeting Saturday,
quoted FoNet news
agency.
When even the most conciliatory Serbs who have condemned Slobodan
Milosevic's government on many occasions and repeatedly reached out to
Albanians - are this embittered, it should be obvious that few if any
Kosovo Serbs trust the occupying authorities any more. KFOR may be the
only thing standing between them and the Albanian lynch mobs, but it
clearly isn't doing it well; besides, NATO occupation enabled those
lynch mobs to operate in the first place, a fact Kosovo Serbs have not
forgotten, if others have.
Mr. Covic Goes To The UN
While the murders at Gorazdevac were ghastly, they should not have been
a surprise to anyone familiar with the situation in Kosovo. Truly
surprising was the reaction of official Belgrade, where the normally
ambivalent Dossies actually did something.
Nebojsa Covic, deputy Prime Minister charged with Kosovo affairs,
quickly traveled to New York for the emergency session of the UN
Security Council. What he said there was surprisingly frank:
"[T]he hideous attack on innocent children swimming in the river near
their homes in Kosovo and Metohia had taken place only because they
were Serbs. It was an attempt to send a message to all Serbs that they
had to leave and there is no chance for a multi-ethnic society,"
official UN reports quoted
Covic, who added that "it was necessary to accept the fact that last
week's crimes were not unique they belonged to a pattern of activity
by a determined minority of the Albanian population to bring the ethnic
cleansing of the province to completion."
The UN Ambassadors gave him a polite hearing and said the obligatory
words of concern and condolences, then rejected his claims outright.
According to US government-sponsored Radio Free Europe, British
Ambassador Emyr Jones-Parry said the attacks "must still be considered
as isolated acts of
extremism," offering no explanation as to why. And the Council said "it
was important for leaders in Pristina and Belgrade to redouble their
efforts to cooperate in building a multiethnic Kosovo."
Let's see, double of zero is still zero. The UN gets to sound all
proper, but do nothing. Impressive.
Lie and Deny
While at first apologetic, after Covic's presentation UN officials
began an all-out effort at spin control. Derek Chappel, UN police
spokesman in Pristina, glibly dismissed the danger of terrorism in the
occupied province in an interview to Agence France-Presse. The agency
played along, labeling the manifestly one-sided campaign of murder
"inter-ethnic violence."
Here are some of Chappel's more ludicrous statements from Tuesday's AFP
story:
* "They [the AKSh] have been classified as a terrorist organisation
but we don't believe they can seriously threaten the stability of
Kosovo."
* "We've always said that we don't believe there are any
large-scale terrorist organisations in Kosovo but there are always
people who are capable of carrying out terrorist acts."
* "Kosovo is still awash with explosives, hand grenades and
military weapons and it is certainly true that there are people here
who do not want reconciliation and want to create instability. They
wouldn't hesitate to use violence to drive the communities apart. I
think that is a very serious threat..."
* (paraphrased by AFP): "the extremists' failure to generate a
popular uprising against the international police and judiciary
following the recent war-crimes conviction of an ethnic-Albanian
guerrilla commander showed that most people, whether Serb or Albanian,
wanted to bury the past."
Chappel is either insane, or deliberately lying. To him, the AKSh
exists - but not really - and is certainly not a threat. But of course,
there are people who threaten "the stability of Kosovo," (!) and since
he pointedly avoids mentioning Albanians (and everyone knows they want
a stable, Serbenfrei Kosovo of their own), then who else could possibly
be responsible than those dastardly Serbs again ?
Describing people who have systematically killed and expelled their
neighbors of all other ethnicities, then stole or torched their
property as "people who do not want reconciliation" is surely the
pinnacle of cynicism.
In case he'd been living under a rock these past four years (which is
entirely possible), he could not have helped but notice that
"communities" in occupied Kosovo had already been separated into
Albanians (forcibly ruled by KLA thugs) and everybody else (killed,
expelled, or terrorized into ghettos). How many more people need to die
for Chappel to snap out of
his auto-colonoscopy and confess the truth? Why, all of them, in all
likelihood. Kosovo would be very stable then.
Now Chappel isn't just some faceless UN bureaucrat. He is the official
spokesmanfor the UN police force, the people who are supposed to
prevent attacks like Gorazdevac from happening - or at the very least
catch their perpetrators. Which they have markedly failed to do over
the past four years.
There are no signs they would perform differently in the future. That
"failure to generate a popular uprising" Chappel incredulously
mentioned had in reality been a week-long bombing spree against police
stations and a fatal sniper attack against a UN policeman. It appears
the UN police have heard the KLA's message, loud and clear.
Distort and Divert
AFP is not the only news service deliberately obfuscating the issue.
The Associated Press reported on the Serbian government's Tuesday
declaration with obvious derision and distortion of facts. For example,
its reporter claimed "dozens" of Serbian churches were destroyed in
"revenge attacks" since 1999, while in reality the number has been over
112, and the
attacks were motivated not by "revenge" (what have the churches done?)
but sheer hatred.
The Guardian article about the Bistrica beach atrocity referred to
"brutal Serbian occupying forces," dismissed the Belgrade position as a
"wish list" that had "fat chance of becoming reality," and claimed that
"indicted war criminal" Slobodan Milosevic had "set up a police state"
in Kosovo. It did call the attack on children "exceptionally brutal"
and "extreme," but it
almost sounded as a pretext for lambasting Belgrade.
Obviously, the media refuse to see the pattern in the attacks so
obvious to Covic and the Kosovo Serbs. They have toed the UN-NATO line
for so long, it has become impossible to drop it, even in face of
overwhelming evidence.
So what happens in Kosovo must be distorted and the audience diverted
from obvious conclusions.
Until last week, under Imperial pressure and that of their regime, the
Serbs had gone along with this charade. No more.
Awareness of Empire
Three weeks ago, Helle Dale of the Washington Times quoted Dossie Prime
Minister Zoran Zivkovic, who supposedly said that, "There are three
things Serbs cannot stand an independent Kosovo, NATO and the United
States." Dale
was trying to be malicious and smear the Serbs as Nazis and barbarians.
But she really did them a favor.
In a letter of response, the Serbia-Montenegro embassy did not deny the
quote's accuracy, only its context: namely, that Zivkovic was trying to
tell the media how he was governing against the will of the people,
like every good modern, progressive, freedom-loving, democratic etc.
vassal of the
Empire.
Zivkovic was right, then. As reactions from both the government and the
people show, Serbs really cannot stomach an independent (and needless
to say, Albanian) Kosovo. After what happened in 1999, they cannot
stand NATO, either. Dossies are working hard to join the Alliance, but
they might
well choke themselves trying. Regarding the United States, perhaps the
Serbian peasants have figured out something that has eluded most
Americans: that the United States, once venerated by Serbs as a
friendly and fellow freedom-loving nation, has turned into a
freedom-crushing Empire, an
abomination and antithesis of itself. What it has done to Kosovo is all
the evidence they need.
And that is definitely something to ponder.
PHOTOS FROM GORAZDEVAC, AUGUST 14, 2003
Reality Macedonia - August 15, 2003
The Massacred Children of Kosovo
VICTIMS OF ALBANIAN TERRORISM IN KOSOVO
For Photo Display, click on:
http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/web/news_page.asp?nid=2729
---
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m082103.html
ANTIWAR, Thursday, August 21, 2003
Balkan Express
by Nebojsa Malic
Antiwar.com
Fresh Blood in Kosovo
Occupied Province Terrorized Again
Even as north-eastern United States clawed its way from a weekend
blackout, and the UN mission in Iraq gasped in shock at Tuesday's
massacre at its Baghdad headquarters, the occupied Serbian province of
Kosovo was once again in the headlines. A week ago, British historian
Kate Hudson noted that the attack on Yugoslavia over Kosovo in 1999
established a "pattern of aggression" that was applied to Iraq in 2003.
Of course, the US did not occupy all of Serbia, as it did with Iraq
only its one province, settled with Albanians bent on carving out an
independent state, or possibly annexing Albania. While Iraqis shoot at
occupation troops, the Albanians actually welcomed them. These
differences, while rightly irrelevant to Hudson's argument, have also
meant years of abject misery for non-Albanians living in Kosovo.
Last Tuesday, the government in Belgrade finally announced its official
position on the status of its occupied province, rejecting outright the
notion of independence but pledging "substantial autonomy" within
Serbia.
The unexpectedly firm line by the otherwise spineless Dossie leadership
came a day before Kosovo's new international viceroy, Harri Holkeri,
was to make his first visit to the occupied province.
A Clear Response
Belgrade and UNMIK probably expected an official Albanian response
filled with righteous indignation at the very thought of anything but
full independence for the province. But the unofficial response that
came on August 13 was loud, clear and disgusting. An "unknown" gunman
fired at children swimming in the Bistrica river, killing two and
injuring
several others. The attack took place just outside Gorazdevac, a Serb
enclave surrounded by Albanian villages. Serbs in Kosovo have long
since been disarmed by the NATO occupation force; the assailant had
used an AK-47 assault rifle.
Another attack followed on Sunday, only this time no one was hurt.
Earlier that week, and again on Saturday, Serbian military outposts
near the border with Kosovo came under fire. The attacks were claimed
by the AKSh, the "Albanian National Army," the newest incarnation of
the KLA. It seems to
have reawakened following the announcement of Presevo area Albanians
that they would form an Albanian National Council to promote annexation
to Kosovo.
Anger and Loathing
The attack on children was condemned by both Kosovo Serbs and the
Belgrade government. As angry Serbs protested in the streets of their
ghettos, the UN authorities and NATO occupiers pledged to find the
assailants. That pledge has remained unfulfilled as of yet, as have all
others before it.
Father Sava, the famous "cybermonk" at Decani, wrote that the
Gorazdevac attack was "first and foremost a shocking indicator of the
real situation in Kosovo and Metohija that the majority of UNMIK and
KFOR representatives, together with Albanian political leaders, are
persistently attempting to hide from the global public in order to
rationalize their own failures..."
Even Bishop Artemije, who once collaborated with the UN-NATO occupiers,
is embittered. "All words have been used already; everything that
should have been said has been said so many times already," he told
KFOR political officer Frederick Mathias during their meeting Saturday,
quoted FoNet news
agency.
When even the most conciliatory Serbs who have condemned Slobodan
Milosevic's government on many occasions and repeatedly reached out to
Albanians - are this embittered, it should be obvious that few if any
Kosovo Serbs trust the occupying authorities any more. KFOR may be the
only thing standing between them and the Albanian lynch mobs, but it
clearly isn't doing it well; besides, NATO occupation enabled those
lynch mobs to operate in the first place, a fact Kosovo Serbs have not
forgotten, if others have.
Mr. Covic Goes To The UN
While the murders at Gorazdevac were ghastly, they should not have been
a surprise to anyone familiar with the situation in Kosovo. Truly
surprising was the reaction of official Belgrade, where the normally
ambivalent Dossies actually did something.
Nebojsa Covic, deputy Prime Minister charged with Kosovo affairs,
quickly traveled to New York for the emergency session of the UN
Security Council. What he said there was surprisingly frank:
"[T]he hideous attack on innocent children swimming in the river near
their homes in Kosovo and Metohia had taken place only because they
were Serbs. It was an attempt to send a message to all Serbs that they
had to leave and there is no chance for a multi-ethnic society,"
official UN reports quoted
Covic, who added that "it was necessary to accept the fact that last
week's crimes were not unique they belonged to a pattern of activity
by a determined minority of the Albanian population to bring the ethnic
cleansing of the province to completion."
The UN Ambassadors gave him a polite hearing and said the obligatory
words of concern and condolences, then rejected his claims outright.
According to US government-sponsored Radio Free Europe, British
Ambassador Emyr Jones-Parry said the attacks "must still be considered
as isolated acts of
extremism," offering no explanation as to why. And the Council said "it
was important for leaders in Pristina and Belgrade to redouble their
efforts to cooperate in building a multiethnic Kosovo."
Let's see, double of zero is still zero. The UN gets to sound all
proper, but do nothing. Impressive.
Lie and Deny
While at first apologetic, after Covic's presentation UN officials
began an all-out effort at spin control. Derek Chappel, UN police
spokesman in Pristina, glibly dismissed the danger of terrorism in the
occupied province in an interview to Agence France-Presse. The agency
played along, labeling the manifestly one-sided campaign of murder
"inter-ethnic violence."
Here are some of Chappel's more ludicrous statements from Tuesday's AFP
story:
* "They [the AKSh] have been classified as a terrorist organisation
but we don't believe they can seriously threaten the stability of
Kosovo."
* "We've always said that we don't believe there are any
large-scale terrorist organisations in Kosovo but there are always
people who are capable of carrying out terrorist acts."
* "Kosovo is still awash with explosives, hand grenades and
military weapons and it is certainly true that there are people here
who do not want reconciliation and want to create instability. They
wouldn't hesitate to use violence to drive the communities apart. I
think that is a very serious threat..."
* (paraphrased by AFP): "the extremists' failure to generate a
popular uprising against the international police and judiciary
following the recent war-crimes conviction of an ethnic-Albanian
guerrilla commander showed that most people, whether Serb or Albanian,
wanted to bury the past."
Chappel is either insane, or deliberately lying. To him, the AKSh
exists - but not really - and is certainly not a threat. But of course,
there are people who threaten "the stability of Kosovo," (!) and since
he pointedly avoids mentioning Albanians (and everyone knows they want
a stable, Serbenfrei Kosovo of their own), then who else could possibly
be responsible than those dastardly Serbs again ?
Describing people who have systematically killed and expelled their
neighbors of all other ethnicities, then stole or torched their
property as "people who do not want reconciliation" is surely the
pinnacle of cynicism.
In case he'd been living under a rock these past four years (which is
entirely possible), he could not have helped but notice that
"communities" in occupied Kosovo had already been separated into
Albanians (forcibly ruled by KLA thugs) and everybody else (killed,
expelled, or terrorized into ghettos). How many more people need to die
for Chappel to snap out of
his auto-colonoscopy and confess the truth? Why, all of them, in all
likelihood. Kosovo would be very stable then.
Now Chappel isn't just some faceless UN bureaucrat. He is the official
spokesmanfor the UN police force, the people who are supposed to
prevent attacks like Gorazdevac from happening - or at the very least
catch their perpetrators. Which they have markedly failed to do over
the past four years.
There are no signs they would perform differently in the future. That
"failure to generate a popular uprising" Chappel incredulously
mentioned had in reality been a week-long bombing spree against police
stations and a fatal sniper attack against a UN policeman. It appears
the UN police have heard the KLA's message, loud and clear.
Distort and Divert
AFP is not the only news service deliberately obfuscating the issue.
The Associated Press reported on the Serbian government's Tuesday
declaration with obvious derision and distortion of facts. For example,
its reporter claimed "dozens" of Serbian churches were destroyed in
"revenge attacks" since 1999, while in reality the number has been over
112, and the
attacks were motivated not by "revenge" (what have the churches done?)
but sheer hatred.
The Guardian article about the Bistrica beach atrocity referred to
"brutal Serbian occupying forces," dismissed the Belgrade position as a
"wish list" that had "fat chance of becoming reality," and claimed that
"indicted war criminal" Slobodan Milosevic had "set up a police state"
in Kosovo. It did call the attack on children "exceptionally brutal"
and "extreme," but it
almost sounded as a pretext for lambasting Belgrade.
Obviously, the media refuse to see the pattern in the attacks so
obvious to Covic and the Kosovo Serbs. They have toed the UN-NATO line
for so long, it has become impossible to drop it, even in face of
overwhelming evidence.
So what happens in Kosovo must be distorted and the audience diverted
from obvious conclusions.
Until last week, under Imperial pressure and that of their regime, the
Serbs had gone along with this charade. No more.
Awareness of Empire
Three weeks ago, Helle Dale of the Washington Times quoted Dossie Prime
Minister Zoran Zivkovic, who supposedly said that, "There are three
things Serbs cannot stand an independent Kosovo, NATO and the United
States." Dale
was trying to be malicious and smear the Serbs as Nazis and barbarians.
But she really did them a favor.
In a letter of response, the Serbia-Montenegro embassy did not deny the
quote's accuracy, only its context: namely, that Zivkovic was trying to
tell the media how he was governing against the will of the people,
like every good modern, progressive, freedom-loving, democratic etc.
vassal of the
Empire.
Zivkovic was right, then. As reactions from both the government and the
people show, Serbs really cannot stomach an independent (and needless
to say, Albanian) Kosovo. After what happened in 1999, they cannot
stand NATO, either. Dossies are working hard to join the Alliance, but
they might
well choke themselves trying. Regarding the United States, perhaps the
Serbian peasants have figured out something that has eluded most
Americans: that the United States, once venerated by Serbs as a
friendly and fellow freedom-loving nation, has turned into a
freedom-crushing Empire, an
abomination and antithesis of itself. What it has done to Kosovo is all
the evidence they need.
And that is definitely something to ponder.
Da: "Vladimir Krsljanin"
Data: Mer 20 Ago 2003 18:45:23 Europe/Rome
Oggetto: Slobodna Srbija Slobodanu
Dragi Predsednice,
Rodoljubi okupljeni danas oko udruzenja «Sloboda» u Beogradu
salju Vam poruku divljenja i dubokog postovanja, ali i poruku resenosti
da zajedno sa Vama nastave bitku za istinu, slobodu, demokratiju,
ljudsko i nacionalno dostojanstvo - do pobede!
Boreci se za slobodu, srpski narod je mnogo puta u istoriji
pokazao svoju velicinu - i 1389, i 1804, i 1914, i 1941, i 1999, nikada
ne posezuci za tudjim, braneci slabe i nezasticene. Mozda najteza i
svakako najduza agresija pogodila nas je pocetkom devedesetih, a traje
i danas. Mi
znamo da ce istorija i ovaj nas otpor, ciji ste Vi predvodnik i simbol,
po zasluzi ovencati. Mnoge bitke smo dobili, ali jos ne i rat.
Komandant na najisturenijem polozaju, kome niko ne moze nista - kakav
podvig. Ulivate nam svima snagu i samopouzdanje.
Ovaj rat jedino moze i mora dobiti - ujedinjeni narod. Na
Kosovu i Metohiji je Vasa bitka za slobodu, dostojanstvo i
ravnopravnost svih pocela, na oslobodjenom Kosovu i Metohiji, u
slobodnoj Srbiji ona mora da se zavrsi.
Zasto su istina i Slobodan Milosevic nepobedivi? Zato sto iza
njih stoji narod. To je najveca snaga. Onaj ko cvrsto stoji na strani
slobode i casti svog naroda zna da ne mora nicega da se plasi.
Jedino u slobodi nasa deca mogu ziveti kao ljudi.
Zelimo Vam dobro zdravlje, dug zivot i skori pobednicki
povratak u zagrljaj porodice, drugova i slobodne Srbije.
Beograd,
20. avgusta 2003
Udruzenje «Sloboda»
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.wpc-in.org/ (world peace council)
http://www.geocities.com/b_antinato/ (Balkan antiNATO center)
Data: Mer 20 Ago 2003 18:45:23 Europe/Rome
Oggetto: Slobodna Srbija Slobodanu
Dragi Predsednice,
Rodoljubi okupljeni danas oko udruzenja «Sloboda» u Beogradu
salju Vam poruku divljenja i dubokog postovanja, ali i poruku resenosti
da zajedno sa Vama nastave bitku za istinu, slobodu, demokratiju,
ljudsko i nacionalno dostojanstvo - do pobede!
Boreci se za slobodu, srpski narod je mnogo puta u istoriji
pokazao svoju velicinu - i 1389, i 1804, i 1914, i 1941, i 1999, nikada
ne posezuci za tudjim, braneci slabe i nezasticene. Mozda najteza i
svakako najduza agresija pogodila nas je pocetkom devedesetih, a traje
i danas. Mi
znamo da ce istorija i ovaj nas otpor, ciji ste Vi predvodnik i simbol,
po zasluzi ovencati. Mnoge bitke smo dobili, ali jos ne i rat.
Komandant na najisturenijem polozaju, kome niko ne moze nista - kakav
podvig. Ulivate nam svima snagu i samopouzdanje.
Ovaj rat jedino moze i mora dobiti - ujedinjeni narod. Na
Kosovu i Metohiji je Vasa bitka za slobodu, dostojanstvo i
ravnopravnost svih pocela, na oslobodjenom Kosovu i Metohiji, u
slobodnoj Srbiji ona mora da se zavrsi.
Zasto su istina i Slobodan Milosevic nepobedivi? Zato sto iza
njih stoji narod. To je najveca snaga. Onaj ko cvrsto stoji na strani
slobode i casti svog naroda zna da ne mora nicega da se plasi.
Jedino u slobodi nasa deca mogu ziveti kao ljudi.
Zelimo Vam dobro zdravlje, dug zivot i skori pobednicki
povratak u zagrljaj porodice, drugova i slobodne Srbije.
Beograd,
20. avgusta 2003
Udruzenje «Sloboda»
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.wpc-in.org/ (world peace council)
http://www.geocities.com/b_antinato/ (Balkan antiNATO center)
Il terrorismo "buono" / 4
Bosnia: A Safe Haven for Terrorists?
---
http://www.tol.cz/look/BRR/
article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=9&NrIssue=1&NrSection=2&NrArticle
=2240&search=search&SearchKeywords=Esad+Hecimovic&SearchLevel=0
TOL - Balkan Reconstruction Report
25 September 2001
Bosnia: A Safe Haven for Terrorists?
Osama Bin Laden may or may not be directly connected to Islamist groups
in Bosnia, but there is little doubt that his message resounded in some
quarters.
by Esad Hecimovic
ZENICA, Bosnia--Like much of the world, Bosnia watched with horror and
disbelief the pictures of terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
As soon as the finger of suspicion was pointed at Islamic
fundamentalists, Bosnia's own encounters with Islamists during and
after the 1992-5 war were recalled. Naturally, the alleged ties of the
Islamic volunteers who fought in Bosnia with Osama bin Laden, the Saudi
dissident who the U.S. authorities suspect was behind the attacks, came
into focus once again. The public was also quick to recall the reports
in the Bosnian press after the war according to which bin Laden had
been granted Bosnian citizenship. Muhamed Besic, the Bosniak-Croat
Federation Interior Minister, formally denied that was true.
The November 1995 Dayton Accords which ended the 1992-5 war stipulated
"the dismantling of the units of foreign volunteers and the departure
of foreign instructors" from Bosnia. Translated to the language of the
Bosnian reality at the time, this provision meant in the first place
that foreign Islamic Mujahedeen volunteers leave the country. The
obligation was a precondition for NATO troops to come to Bosnia, and
later on it was used occasionally as a condition for U.S. economic and
intelligence assistance. The issue has soured the relations between the
Bosniak Muslim part of the Bosnian leadership with the United States.
Janet Bogue, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for european
and eurasian affairs, said during her visit to Sarajevo on 15 September
that the Bosnian authorities hadn't yet fulfilled their Dayton
obligation.
Most Islamic volunteers who remain in Bosnia have in the meantime been
granted Bosnian citizenship either through marrying local women or
under the provision of the former Citizenship Law that made it
possible for foreign members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina
(ABiH) to obtain citizenship. Interior Minister Besic promised that all
such cases, believed to amount to several hundreds, would be examined
by a special government commission.
The extent of the U.S. pressure on Bosnian authorities is perhaps best
illustrated by Besic's 20 September statement in which he pledged that
a number of suspected terrorist who hold Bosnian citizenship will soon
be handed over to the states demanding their extradition. "Three
Egyptians who hold Bosnian citizenship are in prison [and] will soon be
extradited, most probably to Egypt, and their Bosnian citizenship has
been canceled," Besic said, adding that two persons holding Bosnian
passports have already been extradited to France as suspected
terrorists. He denied rumors that there were terrorist training camps
in Bosnia.
The government's tough line on suspected Islamic terrorists is
anything but uncontroversial. A number of lawyers have questioned the
interior minister's right to invalidate citizenship certificates of
those Islamic fighters who were members of the ABiH, except in cases
when they fraudulently claimed ABiH membership. Perhaps more worrying
are the threats of Islamic groups in Bosnia to retaliate if the
government goes ahead with its extradition plans.
IDENTITY CRISES
Problems arising from stolen or forged identities have been the main
obstacle to the investigations so far. When Said Hodzic, a resident of
Han Bila near Travnik, was arrested on 27 April, the public was not
informed. Hodzic was arrested on the basis of a "red" warrant issued by
Interpol in August 2000. He was tried in absentia in Paris, and
sentenced to five years in prison on 6 April this year for dealing in
false passports and other documents for Islamic militants in Canada,
Europe, and Turkey. Bosnian authorities extradited him to France this
summer, despite protests and threats from Islamic groups. Only then did
the federal Interior Ministry acknowledged the arrests of a number of
former members of the El Mujahid unit upon the arrest orders of France,
Egypt, and Croatia where they were wanted on various terrorism-related
charges. Established by Islamist groups from abroad and based in
central Bosnia, the El Mujahid unit fought on the side of Bosniak
Muslims as a part of the ABiH.
At the time of his arrest, Said Hodzic held Bosnian citizenship,
granted under the former Citizenship Law. After marrying a Bosnian, he
accepted her family name--his real name being Karim Said Atmani.
According to U.S. military sources in Bosnia, he is "an expert for
document counterfeiting for the Algerian Armed Islamic Group" usually
known under the French abbreviation GIA. In addition to France, Said
Atmani has been sought since December 1999 by U.S. and Canadian
prosecutors. Bosnian police had claimed he did not reside in Bosnia,
but according to the Stars and Stripes, a daily paper for U.S. troops
in Bosnia, "U.S. peacekeepers issued a bulletin around New Year's 2000
asking troops to keep an eye out for Atmani."
Together with Atmani, Ahmed Ressam was convicted on charges related to
terrorism, violence, and property destruction on 6 April in Paris. On
the same day, the federal court in Los Angeles found Ressam guilty of
attempted terrorist attacks on the millennium celebrations in the
United States. French investigative judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere appeared
as an expert witness at Ressam's trial in Los Angeles. Judge Bruguiere
identified Ressam as a member of the "upper echelons" of the GIA, and a
person connected to Osama bin Laden.
Judge Bruguiere confirmed the connection between Ressam and Atmani as
former roommates in Montreal, Canada. His statement served as key
evidence linking together the so-called Roubaix faction of the
Franco-Algerian Mujahedin movement that fought in Bosnia, with bin
Laden. Bin Laden himself is not known to have ever been in the Balkans.
Cases such as Atmani's give credence to the claims that convicted
terrorists frequently found shelter in Bosnia.
In the investigation, Judge Bruguiere spent some time in Zenica,
central Bosnia, in 1997. At his request, the cantonal court and police
carried out a number of inquiries and hearings. In addition to this
investigation, there was also a local investigation. Two members of the
Roubaix faction were tried and sentenced to 20 years in prison for
banditry. One of the convicts, Mouloud Boughelane, was extradited to
France on 1 June, 1999. The other person convicted, Lionel Dumont,
escaped from a Sarajevo prison five days before the scheduled
extradition. Dumont had found shelter in Bosnia after escaping the
shootout following a armed raid by French police on a faction safe
house in Roubaix. The Roubaix faction of Franco-Algerian Mujahedeens is
the only group that fought in Bosnia for which the international
officials have claimed direct links to bin Laden.
There are two other witness accounts of bin Laden's support for the
Mujahedin combatants in Bosnia. Both have originated from the witnesses
who agreed to testify under the U.S. government's witness protection
program at a New York trial following the attacks on U.S. embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998.
The year 1994 was probably crucial for the extension of bin Laden's
network to the Balkans. The crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing
against Bosnian Muslims "provoked the anger of the Muslim world in
1994," according to David Ruhnke, the lawyer who represented Khalfana
Mohamed at the trial for the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania. The Muslim world responded by sending humanitarian,
financial, and military aid--and volunteers. It is believed that parts
of this movement later attempted to instigate and organize the Jihad,
roughly translated as "struggle" or "Holy War", in the areas inhabited
by ethnic Albanians, in Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania.
The largely passive Western attitude toward the genocide against
Bosniak Muslims became one of the leitmotifs of bin Laden's
"Declaration of War against Americans, Jews and Crusaders." Already in
the first lines of this writing, which was published in August 1996,
bin Laden recalls the Bosnian tragedy: "The world is witnessing all
this, and not only have they not responded to these evil and cruel
events, but they have also denied the right to the helpless people to
obtain the necessary weapons to defend themselves. All this is a public
conspiracy between the US and their allies, protected and excused by
the faithless United Nations." Bin Laden reminds in this statement "the
youth of Islam, who have fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina"
that "the struggle is not over yet."
"This is not peace, this is humiliation. This is not peace, this is a
conspiracy to bring down Islam and destroy Muslims." The statement is
from the first post-war booklet by Imad el-Misri, one of the key
religious leaders of the El Mujahid unit. "Where were they for the past
three years, when Muslims were slaughtered and cities fell one after
another? The real goal of this peace is to stop Muslim conquests and
victories, and to extinguish the light of the Islamic sahva (awakening)
that started spreading all over the world. Muslims, be wary of this
peace and the aims of the West and America. This new peace is, in fact,
a new occupation," wrote el-Misri in 1996 in the introduction to his
booklet The Plot to Crush Islam and Destroy Muslims in the Most Recent
Times.
Imad el-Misri was arrested in Bosnia on 18 July this year upon an
Egyptian warrant. The Egyptian embassy in Sarajevo has rejected all
requests to reveal the nature of charges against him. El-Misri
possesses Bosnian documents in the name of Eslam Durmo, called Imad,
son of Ahmed and mother Hayam Hassan, born 18 October 1964 in Cairo.
After his marriage to a Bosnian woman, he adopted her family name
instead of his previous name, Eslam Ahmed Ahmed Farragala. El-Misri
became a father of three. Regardless of his Bosnian documents, the
district attorney's office and the Second District Court in Sarajevo
concluded on the basis of information provided by the Egyptian embassy
in Sarajevo that it had been proved "beyond reasonable doubt that the
real name of the suspect is Al Husseiny Helmy Arman Ahmed, that he was
born on 14 January 1960 in the town of Kene, and that he is a citizen
of Egypt." Therefore, el-Misri was suspected of the offense of "giving
false data".
BOSNIAN FOLLOWERS
After eight years of constant activity in central Bosnia and the
region of Sarajevo, the number of el-Misri's followers is estimated to
be in the hundreds, perhaps even thousands. Between 1992 and 1995, more
than two thousand Bosniaks went through a forty-day religious training
led by el-Misri, which was a precondition for admittance into the
El-Mujahid brigade. According to his supporters, el-Misri supervised 19
training sessions during the war, and six after the war. He also held
numerous lectures on behalf of the Active Islamic Youth, an
organization recruiting young Bosniak Muslims. So far, nobody has
claimed that el-Misri belongs to any international Islamic group.
Supporters of the Active Islamic Youth are leading a campaign for his
release from prison.
The case of Said Atmani is different. He was known as Hisham in
Bosnian Islamic circles. There are persistent claims that he is
connected to the GIA and the Roubaix faction, linked to bin Laden. A
group of Bosnian supporters of the London sheikh Abu Hamza el-Misri
threatened to retaliate following his arrest. After "the Bosnian
government had handed over a Mujahedin to France to be tried by the
French under secular laws," a Bosnian group called Supporters of
Shariah (SOS) declared on their websites
http://www.geocities.com/valabara and www.geocities.com/sos-bosna that
"we are begging Allah the Almighty to punish all those who participated
in imprisonment of the Mujahedeen, either at our hands or through some
other punishment. Amin! We are saying publicly that all of you who are
participating in imprisonment of the Mujahedeen will feel our
punishment on your skin and necks. Blood and martyrdom, as well as
imprisonment of any Mujahedeen will be avenged--Inshallah! Each and
every action to free the mujahedeen is allowed." The Bosnian faction of
the SOS was the only one to publish the translation of bin Laden's
Declaration of War into Bosnian.
It is impossible to understand bin Laden's Balkan ties if one simply
searches for the cells of his organization Al Qaida. This Arabic word,
meaning "base," was first used in Afghanistan in the eighties. It
essentially referred to bin Laden's training camps for Islamic
volunteers in Afghanistan. According to the New York indictment of bin
Laden for the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, Al
Qaida functions in two ways. It is an independent organization, but it
also works in cooperation with other terrorist organizations. The
Egyptian organizations, Islamic Jihad and El Gamaa Islamia (Islamic
Group), as well as numerous other Jihad factions, are mentioned as
groups functioning under the Al Qaida umbrella. But even Pakistani
groups, which were widely believed to have been sent to Bosnia by bin
Laden, used their own names in Bosnia.
Balkan countries haven't been spared from Islamist terrorist attacks.
Perhaps the best known one is the explosion of a car bomb in the
Croatian port of Rijeka. When Tala'at Fuad Qassem was arrested in
Zagreb in mid September 1995, El Gamaa Islamia issued a threat to
Croatia. A car bomb exploded in front of the police headquarters in
Rijeka on 20 October 1995. The explosion destroyed most of the
building, killing one and wounding 29 persons. El Gamaa Islamia claimed
responsibility a day later, announcing that it would further punish
Croatia if Qassem is extradited to Egypt where he had already been
sentenced to death by the court-martial in Alexandria in 1992. He had
resided as an asylum seeker in Denmark under a pseudonym. He reached
Zagreb in transit to Bosnia, with the intention of writing a book about
Bosnia. Six years later Abdullah Essindar, also a citizen of Bosnia,
was arrested in Zenica. The district attorney in Zenica claimed that he
was, in fact, Al Sharif Hassan Mahmud Saad, a citizen of Egypt.
Essindar claimed that there had been a misunderstanding because his
nickname was Sahar, while Croatia and Egypt were seeking extradition of
a man whose nickname was Sahr in connection with the car bomb explosion
in Rijeka, in September of 1995. On 20 September Interior Minister
Besic said that a person suspected of involvement in the Rijeka bombing
had been arrested and would soon be extradited to Croatia. The suspect
holds Bosnian citizenship.
The war crimes tribunal in The Hague is not likely to face the problem
of suspects' elusive identities. The Hague prosecutor is not planning
to bring to court any Mujahedin, according to an unnamed tribunal
source quoted in the New York Times of 2 September 2001. Instead, three
high ranking ABiH officers have been indicted and transferred to The
Hague for crimes against Croatian and Serb POWs and civilians in
Central Bosnia, which this investigation ascribes to members of the El
Mujahid unit. The officers had command responsibility for the El
Mujahid unit.
In the minds of Mujahedin supporters, "the July arrest of Sheikh
el-Misri, and the Hague indictments one week later" are a result of "a
secret operation of America and the Bosnian police, now under communist
control," according to Abu Hamza, a Mujahedin veteran of the Bosnian
war. The have frequently Islamists vowed to retaliate. Bin Laden may or
may not be directly connected to Islamist groups here. There is little
doubt though that his message is in the hearts of Islamic
fundamentalists in the Balkans.
Esad Hecimovic is a journalist with the Sarajevo Dani news magazine. He
has written extensively on Islamist groups in the Balkans.
Copyright © 2003 Transitions Online. All rights reserved.
Bosnia: A Safe Haven for Terrorists?
---
http://www.tol.cz/look/BRR/
article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=9&NrIssue=1&NrSection=2&NrArticle
=2240&search=search&SearchKeywords=Esad+Hecimovic&SearchLevel=0
TOL - Balkan Reconstruction Report
25 September 2001
Bosnia: A Safe Haven for Terrorists?
Osama Bin Laden may or may not be directly connected to Islamist groups
in Bosnia, but there is little doubt that his message resounded in some
quarters.
by Esad Hecimovic
ZENICA, Bosnia--Like much of the world, Bosnia watched with horror and
disbelief the pictures of terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
As soon as the finger of suspicion was pointed at Islamic
fundamentalists, Bosnia's own encounters with Islamists during and
after the 1992-5 war were recalled. Naturally, the alleged ties of the
Islamic volunteers who fought in Bosnia with Osama bin Laden, the Saudi
dissident who the U.S. authorities suspect was behind the attacks, came
into focus once again. The public was also quick to recall the reports
in the Bosnian press after the war according to which bin Laden had
been granted Bosnian citizenship. Muhamed Besic, the Bosniak-Croat
Federation Interior Minister, formally denied that was true.
The November 1995 Dayton Accords which ended the 1992-5 war stipulated
"the dismantling of the units of foreign volunteers and the departure
of foreign instructors" from Bosnia. Translated to the language of the
Bosnian reality at the time, this provision meant in the first place
that foreign Islamic Mujahedeen volunteers leave the country. The
obligation was a precondition for NATO troops to come to Bosnia, and
later on it was used occasionally as a condition for U.S. economic and
intelligence assistance. The issue has soured the relations between the
Bosniak Muslim part of the Bosnian leadership with the United States.
Janet Bogue, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for european
and eurasian affairs, said during her visit to Sarajevo on 15 September
that the Bosnian authorities hadn't yet fulfilled their Dayton
obligation.
Most Islamic volunteers who remain in Bosnia have in the meantime been
granted Bosnian citizenship either through marrying local women or
under the provision of the former Citizenship Law that made it
possible for foreign members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina
(ABiH) to obtain citizenship. Interior Minister Besic promised that all
such cases, believed to amount to several hundreds, would be examined
by a special government commission.
The extent of the U.S. pressure on Bosnian authorities is perhaps best
illustrated by Besic's 20 September statement in which he pledged that
a number of suspected terrorist who hold Bosnian citizenship will soon
be handed over to the states demanding their extradition. "Three
Egyptians who hold Bosnian citizenship are in prison [and] will soon be
extradited, most probably to Egypt, and their Bosnian citizenship has
been canceled," Besic said, adding that two persons holding Bosnian
passports have already been extradited to France as suspected
terrorists. He denied rumors that there were terrorist training camps
in Bosnia.
The government's tough line on suspected Islamic terrorists is
anything but uncontroversial. A number of lawyers have questioned the
interior minister's right to invalidate citizenship certificates of
those Islamic fighters who were members of the ABiH, except in cases
when they fraudulently claimed ABiH membership. Perhaps more worrying
are the threats of Islamic groups in Bosnia to retaliate if the
government goes ahead with its extradition plans.
IDENTITY CRISES
Problems arising from stolen or forged identities have been the main
obstacle to the investigations so far. When Said Hodzic, a resident of
Han Bila near Travnik, was arrested on 27 April, the public was not
informed. Hodzic was arrested on the basis of a "red" warrant issued by
Interpol in August 2000. He was tried in absentia in Paris, and
sentenced to five years in prison on 6 April this year for dealing in
false passports and other documents for Islamic militants in Canada,
Europe, and Turkey. Bosnian authorities extradited him to France this
summer, despite protests and threats from Islamic groups. Only then did
the federal Interior Ministry acknowledged the arrests of a number of
former members of the El Mujahid unit upon the arrest orders of France,
Egypt, and Croatia where they were wanted on various terrorism-related
charges. Established by Islamist groups from abroad and based in
central Bosnia, the El Mujahid unit fought on the side of Bosniak
Muslims as a part of the ABiH.
At the time of his arrest, Said Hodzic held Bosnian citizenship,
granted under the former Citizenship Law. After marrying a Bosnian, he
accepted her family name--his real name being Karim Said Atmani.
According to U.S. military sources in Bosnia, he is "an expert for
document counterfeiting for the Algerian Armed Islamic Group" usually
known under the French abbreviation GIA. In addition to France, Said
Atmani has been sought since December 1999 by U.S. and Canadian
prosecutors. Bosnian police had claimed he did not reside in Bosnia,
but according to the Stars and Stripes, a daily paper for U.S. troops
in Bosnia, "U.S. peacekeepers issued a bulletin around New Year's 2000
asking troops to keep an eye out for Atmani."
Together with Atmani, Ahmed Ressam was convicted on charges related to
terrorism, violence, and property destruction on 6 April in Paris. On
the same day, the federal court in Los Angeles found Ressam guilty of
attempted terrorist attacks on the millennium celebrations in the
United States. French investigative judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere appeared
as an expert witness at Ressam's trial in Los Angeles. Judge Bruguiere
identified Ressam as a member of the "upper echelons" of the GIA, and a
person connected to Osama bin Laden.
Judge Bruguiere confirmed the connection between Ressam and Atmani as
former roommates in Montreal, Canada. His statement served as key
evidence linking together the so-called Roubaix faction of the
Franco-Algerian Mujahedin movement that fought in Bosnia, with bin
Laden. Bin Laden himself is not known to have ever been in the Balkans.
Cases such as Atmani's give credence to the claims that convicted
terrorists frequently found shelter in Bosnia.
In the investigation, Judge Bruguiere spent some time in Zenica,
central Bosnia, in 1997. At his request, the cantonal court and police
carried out a number of inquiries and hearings. In addition to this
investigation, there was also a local investigation. Two members of the
Roubaix faction were tried and sentenced to 20 years in prison for
banditry. One of the convicts, Mouloud Boughelane, was extradited to
France on 1 June, 1999. The other person convicted, Lionel Dumont,
escaped from a Sarajevo prison five days before the scheduled
extradition. Dumont had found shelter in Bosnia after escaping the
shootout following a armed raid by French police on a faction safe
house in Roubaix. The Roubaix faction of Franco-Algerian Mujahedeens is
the only group that fought in Bosnia for which the international
officials have claimed direct links to bin Laden.
There are two other witness accounts of bin Laden's support for the
Mujahedin combatants in Bosnia. Both have originated from the witnesses
who agreed to testify under the U.S. government's witness protection
program at a New York trial following the attacks on U.S. embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998.
The year 1994 was probably crucial for the extension of bin Laden's
network to the Balkans. The crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing
against Bosnian Muslims "provoked the anger of the Muslim world in
1994," according to David Ruhnke, the lawyer who represented Khalfana
Mohamed at the trial for the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania. The Muslim world responded by sending humanitarian,
financial, and military aid--and volunteers. It is believed that parts
of this movement later attempted to instigate and organize the Jihad,
roughly translated as "struggle" or "Holy War", in the areas inhabited
by ethnic Albanians, in Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania.
The largely passive Western attitude toward the genocide against
Bosniak Muslims became one of the leitmotifs of bin Laden's
"Declaration of War against Americans, Jews and Crusaders." Already in
the first lines of this writing, which was published in August 1996,
bin Laden recalls the Bosnian tragedy: "The world is witnessing all
this, and not only have they not responded to these evil and cruel
events, but they have also denied the right to the helpless people to
obtain the necessary weapons to defend themselves. All this is a public
conspiracy between the US and their allies, protected and excused by
the faithless United Nations." Bin Laden reminds in this statement "the
youth of Islam, who have fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina"
that "the struggle is not over yet."
"This is not peace, this is humiliation. This is not peace, this is a
conspiracy to bring down Islam and destroy Muslims." The statement is
from the first post-war booklet by Imad el-Misri, one of the key
religious leaders of the El Mujahid unit. "Where were they for the past
three years, when Muslims were slaughtered and cities fell one after
another? The real goal of this peace is to stop Muslim conquests and
victories, and to extinguish the light of the Islamic sahva (awakening)
that started spreading all over the world. Muslims, be wary of this
peace and the aims of the West and America. This new peace is, in fact,
a new occupation," wrote el-Misri in 1996 in the introduction to his
booklet The Plot to Crush Islam and Destroy Muslims in the Most Recent
Times.
Imad el-Misri was arrested in Bosnia on 18 July this year upon an
Egyptian warrant. The Egyptian embassy in Sarajevo has rejected all
requests to reveal the nature of charges against him. El-Misri
possesses Bosnian documents in the name of Eslam Durmo, called Imad,
son of Ahmed and mother Hayam Hassan, born 18 October 1964 in Cairo.
After his marriage to a Bosnian woman, he adopted her family name
instead of his previous name, Eslam Ahmed Ahmed Farragala. El-Misri
became a father of three. Regardless of his Bosnian documents, the
district attorney's office and the Second District Court in Sarajevo
concluded on the basis of information provided by the Egyptian embassy
in Sarajevo that it had been proved "beyond reasonable doubt that the
real name of the suspect is Al Husseiny Helmy Arman Ahmed, that he was
born on 14 January 1960 in the town of Kene, and that he is a citizen
of Egypt." Therefore, el-Misri was suspected of the offense of "giving
false data".
BOSNIAN FOLLOWERS
After eight years of constant activity in central Bosnia and the
region of Sarajevo, the number of el-Misri's followers is estimated to
be in the hundreds, perhaps even thousands. Between 1992 and 1995, more
than two thousand Bosniaks went through a forty-day religious training
led by el-Misri, which was a precondition for admittance into the
El-Mujahid brigade. According to his supporters, el-Misri supervised 19
training sessions during the war, and six after the war. He also held
numerous lectures on behalf of the Active Islamic Youth, an
organization recruiting young Bosniak Muslims. So far, nobody has
claimed that el-Misri belongs to any international Islamic group.
Supporters of the Active Islamic Youth are leading a campaign for his
release from prison.
The case of Said Atmani is different. He was known as Hisham in
Bosnian Islamic circles. There are persistent claims that he is
connected to the GIA and the Roubaix faction, linked to bin Laden. A
group of Bosnian supporters of the London sheikh Abu Hamza el-Misri
threatened to retaliate following his arrest. After "the Bosnian
government had handed over a Mujahedin to France to be tried by the
French under secular laws," a Bosnian group called Supporters of
Shariah (SOS) declared on their websites
http://www.geocities.com/valabara and www.geocities.com/sos-bosna that
"we are begging Allah the Almighty to punish all those who participated
in imprisonment of the Mujahedeen, either at our hands or through some
other punishment. Amin! We are saying publicly that all of you who are
participating in imprisonment of the Mujahedeen will feel our
punishment on your skin and necks. Blood and martyrdom, as well as
imprisonment of any Mujahedeen will be avenged--Inshallah! Each and
every action to free the mujahedeen is allowed." The Bosnian faction of
the SOS was the only one to publish the translation of bin Laden's
Declaration of War into Bosnian.
It is impossible to understand bin Laden's Balkan ties if one simply
searches for the cells of his organization Al Qaida. This Arabic word,
meaning "base," was first used in Afghanistan in the eighties. It
essentially referred to bin Laden's training camps for Islamic
volunteers in Afghanistan. According to the New York indictment of bin
Laden for the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, Al
Qaida functions in two ways. It is an independent organization, but it
also works in cooperation with other terrorist organizations. The
Egyptian organizations, Islamic Jihad and El Gamaa Islamia (Islamic
Group), as well as numerous other Jihad factions, are mentioned as
groups functioning under the Al Qaida umbrella. But even Pakistani
groups, which were widely believed to have been sent to Bosnia by bin
Laden, used their own names in Bosnia.
Balkan countries haven't been spared from Islamist terrorist attacks.
Perhaps the best known one is the explosion of a car bomb in the
Croatian port of Rijeka. When Tala'at Fuad Qassem was arrested in
Zagreb in mid September 1995, El Gamaa Islamia issued a threat to
Croatia. A car bomb exploded in front of the police headquarters in
Rijeka on 20 October 1995. The explosion destroyed most of the
building, killing one and wounding 29 persons. El Gamaa Islamia claimed
responsibility a day later, announcing that it would further punish
Croatia if Qassem is extradited to Egypt where he had already been
sentenced to death by the court-martial in Alexandria in 1992. He had
resided as an asylum seeker in Denmark under a pseudonym. He reached
Zagreb in transit to Bosnia, with the intention of writing a book about
Bosnia. Six years later Abdullah Essindar, also a citizen of Bosnia,
was arrested in Zenica. The district attorney in Zenica claimed that he
was, in fact, Al Sharif Hassan Mahmud Saad, a citizen of Egypt.
Essindar claimed that there had been a misunderstanding because his
nickname was Sahar, while Croatia and Egypt were seeking extradition of
a man whose nickname was Sahr in connection with the car bomb explosion
in Rijeka, in September of 1995. On 20 September Interior Minister
Besic said that a person suspected of involvement in the Rijeka bombing
had been arrested and would soon be extradited to Croatia. The suspect
holds Bosnian citizenship.
The war crimes tribunal in The Hague is not likely to face the problem
of suspects' elusive identities. The Hague prosecutor is not planning
to bring to court any Mujahedin, according to an unnamed tribunal
source quoted in the New York Times of 2 September 2001. Instead, three
high ranking ABiH officers have been indicted and transferred to The
Hague for crimes against Croatian and Serb POWs and civilians in
Central Bosnia, which this investigation ascribes to members of the El
Mujahid unit. The officers had command responsibility for the El
Mujahid unit.
In the minds of Mujahedin supporters, "the July arrest of Sheikh
el-Misri, and the Hague indictments one week later" are a result of "a
secret operation of America and the Bosnian police, now under communist
control," according to Abu Hamza, a Mujahedin veteran of the Bosnian
war. The have frequently Islamists vowed to retaliate. Bin Laden may or
may not be directly connected to Islamist groups here. There is little
doubt though that his message is in the hearts of Islamic
fundamentalists in the Balkans.
Esad Hecimovic is a journalist with the Sarajevo Dani news magazine. He
has written extensively on Islamist groups in the Balkans.
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