Sulla biografia di Walter dall'Omo si veda:
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/1304

--- In ita-jug@y..., Claudio Del Bello <delbello@o...> ha scritto:

Mercoledì 17, all'Alpheus (Roma, via del Commercio 36/38), alle ore
21,30, ci sarà un concerto (ingresso 20.000) in memoria di Walter
Dall'Omo, partigiano, morto la scorsa settimana.
Chi era "Falco" sarà ricordato brevemente.
Suonerà la "Banda Bassotti" - band romana tra le più amate, arrabbiata
e
ska - che generosamente devolverà l'incasso alla vedova.
La partecipazione valga, se non per altro, come risposta alle
farneticanti parole dell'attuale presidente della Repubblica.

Walter Dall'Omo era ufficiale dei servizi segreti jugoslavi dal 1947
al
1952, anno in cui fu catturato
mentre era in missione in Italia. Condannato per alto tradimento, si è
fatto diciotto anni in varie carceri italiane.
Anche per questo, i compagni di Roma sono invitati a partecipare.

--- Fine messaggio inoltrato ---

---- Spot ------------------------------------------------------------
I gruppi di discussione + interessanti e divertenti!
Le liste + calde!! Il meglio di Domeus!!!
Iscriviti a listparade-subscribe@...
e visita il sito del momento:
http://www.domeus.it/ad4037700/domeus
----------------------------------------------------------------------




Per cancellarti da questo gruppo, invia un messaggio vuoto a: jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...

The story of the independent muslim unit "Mesa Selimovic" may be read in
the english version at
> http://www.vorstadtzentrum.net/cgi-bin/joesb/
news/viewnews.cgi?category=all&id01232785
or
> http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/1327

---

L'histoire de la � Mesa Selimovic �, unit� musulmane ind�pendante


� D'abord, il faut se d�barrasser des communistes. Vous savez qui c'est,
voil� les listes ici. Et apr�s �a, on liquide les Serbes. �

Cet article a �t� publi� dans le journal Dani. Il pr�sente un compte
rendu int�ressant sur le d�but de la guerre en Bosnie-Herz�govine. C'est
l'interview d'Ismet Djuheric, commandant d'une division musulmane qui a
combattu aux c�t�s des Serbes.

Une compagnie d'honn�tes combattants
par Vlado Mrkic


Ismet Djuheric a �t� le premier commandant de l'unit� �Mesa Selimovic�,
appartenant � l'arm�e de la r�publique serbe, et dont les membres
�taient pour la plupart des musulmans en provenance des villages des
municipalit�s de Bosanski Brod et Derventa. Cette unit� de � Chetniks
musulmans �, comme certains l'ont appel�e, a �t� et reste encore
aujourd'hui l'une des grosses controverses de la guerre �coul�e.
Ismet Djuheric parle dans Dani des �v�nements auxquels il a particip� ou
assist� en tant que simple t�moin.
Aujourd'hui, Ismet Djuheric vit en compagnie de son �pouse Hanumica dans
le village de Sijekovac, pr�s de Bosanski Brod. Sa fille et lui sont
employ�s � la raffinerie de p�trole de Brod. Hormis plusieurs mois
pass�s comme r�fugi�s dans les villages avoisinants de Dubocac et de
Kobas, les Djuheric sont la seule famille musulmane � avoir pass� toute
la guerre dans le village de Sijekovac.
Cet article ne repr�sente qu'une petite partie de l'histoire, c'est un
t�moignage sur une �poque tragique, sur des �v�nements qui ne pourraient
avoir eu lieu, nous semble-t-il, que dans ce chaudron bosniaque chauff�
� blanc par les dissensions et la haine des voisins des deux rives de la
Sava et de la Drina.

Le d�but des troubles

Avant la guerre, je travaillais � l'H�tel de Ville de Brod, en Bosnie,
et mon travail se rapportait � certaines activit�s des autorit�s.
J'�tais �galement en relation avec les autorit�s elles-m�mes. Je
mentionne ce d�tail parce qu'il devait affecter ma destin�e ult�rieure.
J'ai toujours �t� actif en politique, j'ai toujours �t� � gauche, comme
membre du Parti communiste et, plus tard, de la Ligue communiste.
Aujourd'hui, je suis socialiste. Je pense que ce choix est correct. J'ai
toujours dit, et je le pense toujours, que ce sont les extr�mistes qui
ont d�clench� cette guerre. Ils �taient un outil dans les mains de ceux
qui sont venus au pouvoir � l'issue des premi�res �lections
multipartites, c'est-�-dire au moment o� nos malheurs ont commenc�.
Avant la guerre, j'�tais officier de r�serve de l'arm�e populaire
yougoslave (APY). J'avais le grade de capitaine et j'�tait membre de la
327e Brigade (� l'�poque), � Derventa. Le bataillon de Brod faisait
partie de cette m�me 327e Brigade. J'effectuais certaines t�ches. A
l'�poque, c'�tait l�gal. La guerre n'avait pas encore d�but� dans cette
r�gion, mais j'appr�hendais d�j� sa venue. Mes activit�s � l'H�tel de
Ville �taient d'ailleurs en rapport avec les �v�nements. Beaucour de
gens n'aimaient pas cela, surtout les extr�mistes, la plupart �taient
des Croates, et puis des musulmans, aussi.
Je dis �musulmans� parce que j'en suis un. Avant, j'�tais un Yougoslave.
Aujourd'hui, je suis un musulman [aujourd'hui, on d�signe les musulmans
de Bosnie par le terme de Bosniaques].
Apr�s la chute des casernes de l'APY � Slavonski Brod [de l'autre c�t�
du cours d'eau, en Croatie], les tensions dans la r�gion ont
consid�rablement augment�. Des heurts de sont produits: les gens avaient
des armes. J'�tais du nombre de ceux qui �taient d'avis de laisser la
vie suivre normalement son cours, � d�faut de fraternit� et d'unit�. La
Croatie �tait d�j� un Etat nouveau. Si nous avons besoin de nous
prot�ger contre qui que ce soit, avais-je l'habitude de dire,
prot�geons-nous au moins tous ensemble, puisque
nous vivons d�j� ensemble, Serbes, Croates et musulmans. Les
extr�mistes, tant chez les Croates que chez les musulmans, �taient
oppos�s � cette id�e et je peux vous dire que les deux groupes ont tent�
de me convaincre de me joindre � eux. Non en raison d'id�aux, mais pour
des questions d'int�r�ts, du fait qu'ils esp�raient probablement que ma
r�putation et mes connaissances dans le cadre de mon travail auraient pu
aider leur cause.
Ils m'ont dit : � Viens avec nous, et rien ne t'arrivera. � C'a �t�
�vident quand ils m'ont attaqu� par la suite. J'ai �t� attaqu� par les
membres de la milice qui avait �t� constitu�e � Brod au d�but mars 1992
et qui comptait exclusivement des membres croates et musulmans. Le
premier commandant de la police militaire de Bosanski Brod fut Josip
Bilic. Tous ces gens avaient �t� nomm�s selon des ordres venant de
Slavonski Brod. Les Serbes s'�taient d�j� repli�s sur Lijesce.

De violentes fusillades

J'�tais pr�sident de la Commune locale de Sijekovac et lorsque certains
habitants m'ont approch� pour que je leur explique la mani�re dont nous
allions nous prot�ger, surtout des tueurs. L'attitude g�n�rale a �t�
pour dire que nous tous, Serbes, musulmans et Croates, devions
participer � des patrouilles locales. Toutefois, les extr�mistes l'ont
emport� � la fin et ont �vinc� tous ceux qui voulaient vivre ensemble.
Toute de suite, j'ai �t� vir� de mon poste de pr�sident de la commune
locale. En fait, ils ne m'ont pas vir�. Ils ont tout simplement repris
mes fonctions.
Dix-sept membres de la pr�tendue police militaire ont pris part � une
agression physique contre moi-m�me et ma famille. Ils nous ont attaqu�s
� notre domicile en exigeant que je leur c�de des armes. Ils pensaient
que l'APY avait stock� des armes chez moi. Je n'�tais pas en possession
de ces armes mais, par contre, j'avais les miennes propres. Ils ont
d'abord tir�, puis ont exig� que je me rende. La fusillade a �t�
nourrie. Cette nuit-l�, je me suis entretenu avec le g�n�ral Kukanjac,
avec le commandant de la Brigade de Derventa, avec le quartier g�n�ral
de Brod, avec le quartier g�n�ral de Lijesce, et j'ai exig� qu'on fasse
cesser cette attaque contre ma personne. Je n'avais pas l'intention de
me rendre. Ma femme, mon fils et ma fille, qui �taient encore mineurs, �
l'�poque, �taient avec moi dans notre maison. Ce qui m'avait choqu� le
plus, c'est que parmi les agresseurs, il y avait certains de mes voisins
et leurs enfants.
Les murs de notre maison �taient cribl�s d'impacts de balles. Une
intervention pour mettre un terme � ces attaques est venue d'en haut,
mais nous n'avons pas eu d'autre choix que de nous en aller. Ce jour-l�,
il y avait un enterrement. Un personnage important dans je ne sais quel
domaine �tait d�c�d� et tout le monde assistait aux fun�railles. Lorsque
nous avons vu que la sentinelle avait quitt� son poste, nous nous somes
�loign�s quelque peu de Sijekovac et nous nous sommes rendus � Dubocac,
la localit� o� je suis n�. Je suis entr� en contact avec la garnison et
me suis rendu ensuite � Derventa.

Les HOS arrivent

Toutefois, le m�me groupe qui m'avait attaqu� � Sijekovac, renforc� par
un groupe de soldats des HOS [Les HOS, ou Forces croates de D�fense,
�taient une milice croate d'extr�me droite (pro-oustachi), active � la
fois en Croatie et en Bosnie-Herz�govine en 1991 et 1992] sous le
commandement d'Obradovic, un homme bien connu dans cette r�gion, a
attaqu� Dubovac et s'en est empar�. Obradovic vivait � Slavonski Brod,
o� il poss�dait un bar. C'�tait un Serbe. Il provenait de Kraljevo, en
Serbie, mais �tait toujours dans les HOS. Apr�s la chute de Dubocac,
nous nous sommes enfuis vers le village musulman de Kobas, o� ma famille
s�journa durant tout le temps o� je fus � Derventa avec la Brigade.
Un groupe de 22 soldats des HOS, les fameux Handzars, dont le commandant
�tait un certain Ekrem Mendela, originaire de quelque part en Bosnie
centrale, quitta la Croatie pour s'installer � Sijekovac et s'installa
dans un camp de conteneurs appartenant � une compagnie provenant de
Teslic, non loin de chez moi. Ils contr�laient Sijekovac, en m�me temps
que le pr�tendu peloton d'intervention de Nijaz Causevic, de Sijekovac,
connu aussi sous le surnom de Medo. Obradovic et Causevic ont �cum� la
r�gion avec leurs groupes jusqu'au moment de la lib�ration de Brod.
Obradovic est mort plus tard, tu� par ses propres soldats, au moment o�
ils s'enfuyaient de Zboriste. Il avait essay� de les arr�ter et l'un de
ses hommes l'avait abattu.

Un renard � Kobas

Depuis lors, et jusqu'� la lib�ration de Brod, je suis rest� � Derventa.
En ao�t 1992, j'ai form� ma propre unit� au sein de l'Arm�e de la
r�publique de Serbie. La plupart de ses membres �taient des musulmans,
mais il y avait �galement quelques Serbes et quelques Croates. On
l'avait baptis�e l'unit� musulmane ind�pendante �Mesa Selimovic� [un
c�l�bre �crivain musulman de Bosnie], et elle servit dans l'arm�e de la
r�p�blique serbe jusqu'� la fin de la guerre. Elle �tait cantonn�e dans
le village de Kulina, pr�s de Derventa, en face de l'�cole du village.
C'est le g�n�ral Kelecevic et le colonel Slavko Lisica, aujourd'hui
g�n�ral, qui lui avaient donn� son nom.
Je fus le premier commandant de l'unit�, jusqu'en janvier 1993. Par la
suite, je quittai l'arm�e et travaillai � Brod. L'unit� comptait environ
120 hommes, mais les effectifs variaient de temps � autre. Elle avait
donc la taille d'une compagnie. Elle a �t� op�rationnelle dans tous les
combats aux alentours de Bord et de Derventa, et a �galement particip�
aux combats des environs de Teslic, Tesanj, Maglaj et Zavidovici. Ses
membres �taient tous des gars honn�tes, sans exception, et ils sont
d'ailleurs rest�s ici pour y vivre, par la suite. L'unit� faisait son
boulot honn�tement, consciencieusement. A notre avis, nous avions le
droit de d�fendre notre pays et nos biens, et c'est ce que nous avons
fait, nous sommes rest�s dans la r�gion et nous avons fait ce que nous
estimions juste. Et, bien s�r, aujourd'hui, la plupart de ces gens
vivent et travaillent toujours ici.
Comment cette unit� avait-elle �t� constitu�e ? Qu'il n'y ait pas de
confusion. Nous �tions des volontaires. D'une certaine fa�on, je voulais
prot�ger les gens qui �taient rest�s chez eux. Nous avons contact�
Lisica et il a accept� notre proposition. A l'�poque, il �tait colonel
et commandait un groupe tactique. Il vint � Kobas, o� nous nous �tions
r�fugi�s apr�s nous �tre �chapp�s de Dubocac, il rassembla des musulmans
dans la cour de la maison o� je vivais, leur tint un petit discours et
promit � la population que personne ne leur ferait le moindre mal. Puis,
il ajouta : � Si vous le d�sirez, je vous enverrai des v�hicules. � Il
n'y a eu aucune coercition.
Plus tard, nous nous sommes rassembl�s en face de l'�cole de Kulina et
nous avons r�fl�chi au nom que nous allions donner � notre unit�. Pour
autant que je m'en souvienne, je pense que c'est Lisica qui a sugg�r� le
nom de Mesa Selimovic, et que le g�n�ral Kelecevic a ensuite �t�
d'accord. Moi aussi, ce nom me plaisait, et je marquai �galement mon
accord. J'avais lu Mesa, en partie parce que ses oeuvres figuraient sur
la liste des lectures obligatoires de l'�cole, mais aussi parce que
j'aimais beaucoup ce qu'il �crivait. Et c'est ainsi que le nom est
rest�. En tant qu'unit�, nous n'avons commis aucun acte r�pr�hensible,
m�me si nos ennemis pr�tendent que c'est faux. Nous avons re�u la visite
de journalistes �trangers, et m�me la princesse Jelisaveta s'est rendue
au front pour nous rencontrer. Nous avons �galement re�u la visite de
parlementaires britanniques qui ont bu du caf� avec nous. Nous �tions
r�put�s pour notre cuisine. Comme la plupart des gens originaires des
rives de la Sava, nous pr�parions tr�s bien le poisson.

Des agresseurs de leur propre pays?

Ce que j'ai fait, ce que tous, parmi nous, nous avons fait, nous avons
choisi de le faire et n'en sommes nullement d�sol�s. Je sais que les
Serbes ont �t� trait�s d'agresseurs, mais nous ne l'avons pas accept�.
Nous faisions partie de l'arm�e de la r�publique serbe, nous �tions avec
nos voisins, et il n'y avait personne d'autre, ici. Il n'y avait
personne du Montenegro ou de la Serbie. S'ils �taient des agresseurs,
nous �tions nous aussi des agresseurs, dans ce cas, puisque nous �tions
avec eux. Et comment pourrais-je �tre l'agresseur de mon propre pays ?
C'est quelque chose que je ne puis comprendre. C'�tait la guerre, il y
avait ceux qui portaient les armes et qui n'�taient pas assez m�rs pour
le faire. Il se passait toutes sortes de choses et il fallait faire
attention � sa peau et rester dans son propre pays. Certains ne l'ont
pas support� et ils sont partis, mais d'autres ont pers�v�r� et sont
rest�s. Tous les villages musulmans sont rest�s. Prenez, par exemple,
Luzani et Omeragici, dans la municipalit� de Derventa, c'�taient des
villages essentiellement peupl�s de musulmans et tous ces gens sont
toujours l�, aujourd'hui.
Il y avait beaucoup de musulmans de Derventa, dans ma compagnie, mais
�galement dans le reste de la Brigade Derventa. Il est impossible de
juger cette affaire sur les apparences, sur tout ce que l'on a racont� �
propos de l'agression. Jusqu'en mai 1992, lorsque ces gosses, les
conscrits de 18 ans de l'APY, ont �t� tu�s � Kolibe, l'APY �tait une
force militaire l�gale, dans la r�gion. M�me � l'�poque, il �tait
impossible de parler d'agression.
Le mot a �t� utilis� pour faire pencher la communaut� internationale
vers l'un des camps du conflit. Tout le monde le souhaitait. Je connais
des cas o� les trois camps ont attaqu� leurs propres villages afin
d'accuser les autres camps et cela ne peut donc constituer un alibi pour
aucun des trois camps. C'est la stricte v�rit�. Tout cela a �t� organis�
de fa�on � semer le chaos et la confusion, puisque les gens, hormis les
extr�mistes, voulaient toujours rester dans leur propre pays et vivre
avec leurs voisins. Et, voyez, ils reviennent, aujourd'hui.
Il est vrai que l'on trouvait beaucoup plus de musulmans dans l'autre
camp. Mais ils ne l'avaient pas choisi d'eux-m�mes. Ils combattaient au
sein des HVO. Ils devaient ob�ir aux ordres. Chaque unit� musulmane des
HVO avait un �conseiller� croate, et nous savons tous ce que cela veut
dire. J'�tais compl�tement ind�pendant, et je jouissais de la pleine
confiance de mes sup�rieurs. Je n'avais pas de � conseillers �, dans ma
compagnie. La m�me chose est d'ailleurs vraie aussi pour mon successeur.

Le � crime � de Sijekovac

Le � crime � de Sijekovac a eu lieu le 26 mars 1992. A l'�poque, j'�tais
� Derventa, en compagnie de mon unit�, op�rationnelle au sein du QG de
la Brigade. J'ai �t� le premier, � Derventa, � recevoir des informations
sur ce qui s'est pass�. Je sais que l'�tat-major de crise de l'�poque, �
Sijekovac, avait d�cid� d'attaquer et de d�sarmer une partie du village.
Des documents �crits le confirment, d'ailleurs. L'ordre fut sign� par
Smajo Havic, � l'�poque pr�sident de l'�quipe de crise de Sijekovac. Peu
apr�s, il d�missionna, probablement apr�s avoir compris ce qu'il avait
fait. Les troupes des HOS d'Obradovic et le peloton d'intervention de
Nijaz Causevic Medo particip�rent � l'attaque. Les membres du peloton
d'intervention �taient des extr�mistes originaires de Sijekovac, des
musulmans et des Croates. Huit Serbes perdirent la vie dans l'attaque.
Tous �taient innocents, certains �taient m�me des attard�s mentaux.
J'appris la nouvelle du crime � Derventa, de la bouche de feu Miso
Bacic. J'esp�re qu'on le r�habilitera, puisque la fa�on dont on l'a tu�
est une insulte pour tous les gens d'ici.
Avant la guerre, les musulmans �taient les plus nombreux, dans la
population de Sijekovac. Puis, venaient les Serbes, puis les Croates.
S'il n 'y avait eu ces extr�mistes et ces criminels, Sijekovac aurait pu
garder le statut de village neutre, bien qu'� l'�poque il f�t
particuli�rement difficile de demeurer neutre.
On se servit de cet incident comme d'une excuse pour poursuivre la
guerre et, en fin de compte, il exer�a une grande influence sur
celle-ci. Ce fut l'un des �v�nements qui allait indiquer qu'il n'y
aurait plus de retour en arri�re. Sans ce crime, bien des personnes
n'auraient pu s'en sortir lorsque nous sommes arriv�s. Beaucoup ne
voulaient pas partir, mais elles craignaient les repr�sailles.

Piklovic tourne un film

Le HVO [Conseil croate de D�fense, la milice bosniaque � officielle �,
le HVO a absorb� les membres des HOS apr�s le meurtre non �lucid� de
leur dirigeant en Herz�govine] s'�tait vu confier cette r�gion. Par
exemple, la 102e Brigade de Bosanski Bord comptait un bataillon en
provenance de Sijekovac; Adnan Ramadanovic (tu� plus tard par ses
voisins) commandait le bataillon. Il fut le premier commandant de la
police militaire de Sijekovac, au d�but mars 1992. Tous les ordres
�manaient du HVO. Ivan Brzic �tait pr�sident de l'�tat-major de crise.
Armin Pohara �tait en quelque sorte son principal ex�cutant, mais tous
les ordres venaient de Slavonski Brod. Il existe un film, tourn� par les
gens du HVO, et qui montre comment les villages ont �t� br�l�s apr�s le
retrait des Serbes, � commencer par Lijesce, etc. Piklovic en personne
�tait mont� dans une voiture et avait observ� la destruction
syst�matique de ces villages par le feu; le film a �t� tourn� � partir
de sa voiture. A l'�poque, il �tait pr�sident du conseil
ex�cutif de la municipalit� de Slavonski Brod. Je pense que c'est
Tudjman en personne qui a donn� l'autorisation � Ante Prkacin d'agir �
sa guise en Posavina. Le HVO a d�truit par le feu tous les villages
serbes en direction de Doboj. On a probablement agi de la sorte pour
emp�cher les musulmans de Kotorsko et de Modrica d'emm�nager dans ces
villages serbes et de modifier ainsi la composition ethnique de la
population de la r�gion.
Il y a des documents, avec des noms, qui montrent que les membres du
bataillon dit de Sijekovac, qui comptait en ses rangs de tr�s nombreux
musulmans, ont �t� pay�s par la Croatie. Dans ce cas, qui �tait
l'agresseur? Plusieurs formations de l'arm�e croate ont combattu dans
cette r�gion. L'une d'entre elles �tait la 108e Brigade, la premi�re
brigade de l'arm�e croate qui, comme ils le pr�tendent, a lib�r� les
casernes de l'APY � Slavonski Brod. Elle a connu un cuisante revers �
Kostres et � Novo Selo, o� entre 60 et 70% de ses effectifs ont �t�
tu�s. J'ai fait main basse sur toutes ses archives. Le commandement de
la Brigade se tenait dans un restaurant pr�s d'Ukrina. Je me souviens
que le commandant se pr�nommait Martin, mais je ne me souviens plus de
son nom de famille. Je me rappelle aussi qu'il avait �t� officier de
r�serve dans une compagnie d'ing�nierie de l'APY de la Brigade de
Derventa.
Ils �taient venus ici en mission, depuis la Croatie. La Brigade de
Bjelovar et quelques autres brigades de l'arm�e croate se sont �galement
battues ici.
Lorsque nous avons lib�r� Brod et captur� plusieurs personnes, celles-ci
nous ont dit qu'elles avaient �t� embarqu�es en Posavina [r�gion
avoisinant la rivi�re Sava, en Bosnie du Nord] par tromperie. On leur
avait dit qu'elles allaient marcher sur Okucani et, ensuite, on les
avait emmen�es � Brod.
J'�tais de service aux casernes de Derventa lorsque le HVO a captur�
Fikret Abdic � Radic. J'ai d�croch� le t�l�phone et quelqu'un m'a dit :
�Vous pouvez avoir Abdic, refilez-nous simplement Vencelovka et Stanic.�
C'�taient deux Croates que nous avions captur�s, mais nous les avions
imm�diatement rel�ch�s. J'ai appel� le responsable de la d�fense des
casernes, le major Stajcic. Nous n'avions nullement l'intention de
n�gocier quelque �change que ce soit.

Ce que tout le monde sait

Une fosse commune de Serbes assassin�s par le HVO avant octobre 1992 a
�t� d�couverte � Brod, mais l'affaire n'a'pas �t� publi�e. Il existe des
documents sur les actions de Nijaz Causevic Medo, des t�moins ont fait
des d�clarations, il existe aussi des preuves film�es. Causevic a tourn�
un film de trois heures sur son unit�. Des hommes de son groupe ont
viol� une femme serbe originaire de Sijekovac, l'ont d�pec�e et ont
ensuite jet� ses restes en p�ture aux chiens. Il y a eu d'autres viols
et bien d'autres histoires encore. Un membre de l'unit� de Medo a tu� un
homme qui avait vendu un cheval, un Croate. Tous ces actes ont �t�
examin�s, tant par l'arm�e que par la police, et ont fait l'objet de
poursuites. Le 26 mars, les personnes suivantes �taient assassin�es �
Sijekovac : les trois Zecevic, Milan, Vaso et Petar (Milan �tait
chauffeur � la raffinerie), puis Luka Milosevic et ses
deux fils. Sreto Trivic, un grand ami � moi . Puis un homme plus �g�, un
retrait�, a �t� massacr� dans sa chaise roulante. Cela a �t� prouv�. Ils
sont venus chez lui et l'ont massacr�.
Mustafa Kovacevic, un ing�nieur �lectricien de la raffinerie, expert de
renomm�e mondiale, ainsi que sa femme Mirsada ont �t� tu�s pendant que
le HVO et Medo �taient au pouvoir. Leurs corps ont �t� incin�r�s, mais
nous avons d�couvert leurs restes et leur avons donn� une s�pulture. Mon
ami Mustafa Alic a �t� assassin� dans sa propre maison, mais on n'a
jamais retrouv� son corps, par contre. Quelques autres personnes,
surtout des Serbes et des musulmans, ont disparu sans laisser de traces.
La section croate de la direction extr�miste avait l'habitude de dire :
�D'abord, il faut se d�barrasser des communistes. Vous savez qui c'est,
voil� les listes ici. Et apr�s �a, on liquide les Serbes.�
C'est la v�rit�. Tout le monde le sait. Aujourd'hui, certains des
coupables circulent toujours librement dans les environs.

Medo � l'assembl�e

Cela s'est poursuivi jusqu'au 7 octobre 1992, lorsque nous sommes entr�s
� Brod. Je dis � nous � parce que j'�tais l'un des commandants qui ont
particip� � ce que nous appelons la lib�ration de Bosanski Brod. Quoi
qu'il en soit, nous avons mis un terme � nos op�rations dans la r�gion
de Sijekovac, et nous sommes rentr�s chez nous. Nous �tions press�s
parce que nous savions que l�, il y avait des gens honn�tes et braves et
que certains d'entre eux nous attendaient. Voil� comment les choses se
sont pass�es.
Malheureusement, certains sont rest�s et l'ont pay� de leur vie. C'est
ainsi que les choses se sont pass�es, voil� comment a �t� la guerre,
telle est notre infortune.
Je suis assez m�content de la fa�on dont on s'y est pris pour �lucider
les crimes. Nos autorit�s ont fait un certain travail, l'IPTF aussi.
Quelques-unes de ces personnes, dont Nijaz Causevic Medo, qui est en fin
de compte responsable de nombreux crimes qui se sont produits dans cette
r�gion, et sp�cialement � Sijekovac, n'ont jamais �t� inqui�t�es.
Obradovic a �t� tu�, il est parti, mais nombre de ses hommes qui ont
particip� � toutes ses op�rations sont toujours en libert� ici. Par
exemple, Zeljko Barisic, qui �tait ici � l'�poque en qualit� de g�n�ral
du HVO. Il existe un film montrant Barisic � la t�te de ce groupe et
l'emmenant se battre contre des francs-tireurs, � proximit� du bureau de
poste de Brod. Ce film a �t� truqu�. Blazen Kljajic est un autre type de
ce genre.
Progressivement, la vie reprend son cours normal, � Sijekovac. Environ
70% des Serbes sont revenus, il y a plusieurs r�fugi�s et, r�cemment,
une petite douzaine de musulmans ainsi qu'une famille croate sont
revenus. La plupart d'entre eux sont des gens �g�s. Les jeunes viennent
jeter un oeil, puis s'en vont. Mais m�me apr�s tout ce qui s'est pass�,
les gens veulent � nouveau vivre ensemble.


Traduit de l'anglais
par Jean-Marie FLEMAL
avec mes remerciements.
Roger ROMAIN <r.romain@...>

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1. NATO'S Peace in Macedonia: Kosovo Redux
by Jared Israel [29 August 2001]

2. NATO playing favourites in treatment of
indicted war criminal
Indicted war criminal Agim Ceku still collects a UN
paycheque. By S. Taylor on Target. Monday,
September 10, 2001

3. "What do we have to fear if they stop
us? Three days in Camp Bondsteel, then freedom"
AFP, Tuesday September 4, 10:15 PM

4. T�moignage sur les livraisons d'armes clandestines
Un article de Scott Taylor - Tetovo, 20/8/01

5. Canadian Officer Confirms NATO Backing
Albanian Rebels in Macedonia
Truth in Media's GLOBAL WATCH Bulletin 2001/8-3
http://www.truthinmedia.org/Bulletins2001/
tim2001-8-3.html

====================================================
URL for this article:
http://emperors-clothes.com/mac/terror.htm

www.tenc.net * [Emperor's Clothes]

======================================NATO'S Peace in Macedonia: Kosovo Redux
by Jared Israel [29 August 2001]
======================================
The people who bombed Yugoslavia and decimated
Kosovo by installing the Kosovo Liberation Army
in power are trying to bring Peace to Macedonia.

What that peace would mean if fully realized (and
hopefully the Macedonian people will prevent
this) is described in an astonishingly honest
article in the London Telegraph. The article
describes how the so-called NLA rebels target
Macedonian civilians, killing them and driving
them from their homes.

The pattern is eerily familiar.

In Macedonia, as in Kosovo, NATO stonewalls
reality, claiming it only wants to halt abuses
and bring ethnic peace.

At first these propaganda/promises fooled most of
the Serbian residents of the Kosovo town of
Orahovac. Initially they fooled Chedomir
Pralinchevich, the Jewish leader who was driven
from Kosovo by the KLA with NATO's consent.

Soon the horrific truth became clear: while NATO
broadcasted soothing platitudes, its proxy force,
the Kosovo Liberation Army marched in through the
open border with Albania, slaughtering farmers,
terrorizing people simply for being Serbs,
killing residents for their apartments,
instituting a reign of terror that combined
Nazi-like ethnic terror with gangsterism, so that
no one, not even ethnic Albanians, was safe

All this was neatly packaged for politically
correct western consumption. The province filled
with Western NGOs who spoke of conflict
resolution and healing and building democratic
institutions even as the KLA bumped off its
opponents and drove out the same people Hitler
had targeted during World War II.

The KLA was then recycled as a UN outfit called
the Kosovo Protection Corps, or KPC. The NATO/UN
occupiers even hired the KLA terrorists (now KPC)
a liberal Swedish outfit to hold consciousness
raising sessions and put out public statements
describing how the KPC death squad folks were
getting in touch with their feminine side:

"In the first part of my lecture, I think, I
succeeded in getting the participants to actively
take part and reflect. In the second part about
reconciliation I could feel and see the deep
affection in the eyes of the participants,
although it was such a large group. They were
very active in the first part of the lecture,
giving comments and asking questions. In the
second part I could experience a silent, very
active listening.

"A rose - and other reactions

"After the lecture I got several positive
responses from the audience; as well as from the
interpreters. Some of them told me that they had
really learned something, something new. They not
only applauded, I also received a red rose from
the participants. We were all very touched of the
situation." (From "Training the Kosovo
Protection Corps in Kosovo. A Report," by Kerstin
Schultz of Jan Oberg's Transnational Foundation
for Peace and Future Research, at
www.transnational.org/forum/meet/2000/
KerstinKPCrep.html

Fortunately, most Macedonians know that NATO and
its NGO groupies are the enemy. So perhaps NATO
will not succeed in recreating Kosovo so easily.
In which case, the NLA (NATO's name for their pet
terrorists when they operate in Macedonia) may
not get their training and maybe, just maybe, the
world will get a little consciousness-raising.
Which it sorely needs.

-- Jared Israel

Further Reading:

1) The 'Telegraph' article, documenting
terrorist ethnic violence can be read at
http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/
news//2001/08/28/wmac228.xml

2) For articles documenting NATO's
responsibility for anti-Macedonian terror,
see http://emperors-clothes.com/mac/list-m.htm

3) On NATO's terror in the Kosovo town of
Orahovac, see "The Women of Orahovac Answer the
Colonel" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/trouw.htm

4) A Jewish leader tells how he, other Jews and
indeed all Yugoslav loyalists were driven from
Pristina, capital of Kosovo, while NATO looked on at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/interviews/ceda.htm

5) On how NATO's policy of opening the border
between Kosovo and Albania led to slaughter, see
"Gracko survivors blame NATO" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/grack.htm

6) On how those running Kosovo have mixed business
and race hate, see "Death of a Yugoslav," at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/news/letter.htm

7) More on the mix of gangsterism and
fascism: "Concentration camps in Kosovo:
The KLA Archipelago" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/reporter.htm

8) The UN is fully aware that its Kosovo
Protection Corps is the Kosovo Liberation Army
death squad recycled. See "How will you plead at
your trial, Mr. Annan?" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/howwill.htm

9) Being a Serb in Kosovo has become a fatal
condition. See "I cannot give it a name but it
seems like hell" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/name.htm

10) On the heroic resistance of the Macedonian
people, please see "People of Tetovo Refuse to be
Left on the Mercy of the Terrorists" at
http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/news/s_mia14.html

***

To join Emperor's Clothes email list, go to:
http://emperors-clothes.com/feedback.htm


===================================================

Subject: NATO Playing Favourites In Treatment Of
Indicted War Criminal
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 23:07:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: Rick Rozoff

http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2001/09/10/
f121.raw.html

Monday, September 10, 2001
The Halifax Herald Limited

NATO playing favourites in treatment of indicted war
criminal

Indicted war criminal Agim Ceku still collects a UN
paycheque.

By Scott Taylor ON TARGET

WITH SOME 200 troops now on the ground in Macedonia,
as part of NATO's latest intervention force, it's
about time somebody started seriously questioning
Canada's long-range Balkan policy.

Throughout the decade of bloody civil wars in the 90s,
which accompanied the disintegration of Yugoslavia,
Canadian soldiers have been on continuous deployment
to the region. Originally serving as UN peacekeepers
(who evolved into NATO peacemakers by the time of the
Kosovo crisis), Canada's military had become a
belligerent in this complex conflict. Despite our oft
changing role, one constant that has remained is the
reality experienced by our frontline soldiers, which
is rarely reflected by the Western (read: U.S. State
Department inspired) media portrayals of the ongoing
Yugoslavian tragedy.

The most vivid examples of this dichotomy became
evident during the 1999, 78-day NATO air campaign
against Yugoslavia. As cockney spokesman Jamie Shea
took to the airwaves to demonize the Serbian people
and justify NATO's attacks, respected veteran officers
such as General Lewis Mackenzie and Colonel Don Ethell
spoke out to publicly denounce Canada's participation
in the bombing. Having witnessed first-hand the
multi-factional hatred which pervades the Balkan
theatre, Canadian soldiers are unwilling to assign
blame and/or take sides in this brutal civil war.
However, driven by U.S. interests and fuelled by a
jingoistic media corps, NATO leaders have not been so
hesitant to play favourites.

This current crisis in Macedonia originated last March
with Albanian guerrillas attacking from inside
NATO-occupied Kosovo. The guns carried by the
Albanians were the same weapons that NATO was to have
removed from the Kososvo Liberation Army (known as the
UCK) back in 1999. However, over the past two years
with a powerful 40,000 strong occupation force, NATO
has been unwilling and/or unable to strip these
Albanian (UCK) guerrillas of their arsenal. Only now
that a wave of terror has been successfully exported
into heretofore peaceful Macedonia, and the UCK have
seized control of some 30 per cent of Macedonia
territory, has NATO decided to intervene.

The Canadian Combat Group which has been hastily
dispatched from service in Bosnia to participate in
the Macedonia mission is equipped with new Coyote
reconnaissance vehicles. These state of the art
armoured personnel carriers have been roundly praised
by NATO spokesmen for "providing a vital asset in
monitoring the flow of illegal arms across
Macedonian/Kosovo border."

Disgruntled Macedonian citizens are correct in asking
"if such a surveillance capability existed within
NATO's arsenal-why wasn't it employed to prevent
Albanians from entering Macedonia in the first place?"


A similar stumper could be posed to NATO spokesmen
regarding their reluctance to arrest the UCK's
military figurehead General Agim Ceku, an indicted war
criminal. Many of our peacekeepers witnessed the
barbarism committed by Ceku's troops in Croatia in
1993 and 1995 and it is largely on the strength of
Canadian soldiers testimony that The Hague War Crimes
Tribunal has been forced to issue this rogue commander
a sealed indictment.

Agim Ceku, an Albanian Kosovar by birth, began his
military career as an officer in the former federal
Yugoslavian Army (JNA). When the initial Yugoslav
break-up occurred in 1991, Ceku was quick to switch
his loyalty to the Croatian cause of independence. As
a colonel in the Croatian army, Ceku commanded the
notorious 1993 operation now known as the Medak
Pocket.

It was here that the men of the Second Battalion
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry came face
to face with the vulgar savagery of which Ceku was
capable. Over 200 Serbian inhabitants of the Medak
Pocket were slaughtered in a grotesque manner (female
rape victims were found after being burned alive). Our
traumatized troops that buried the grisly remains were
encouraged to collect evidence.

Nevertheless in 1995, Ceku, by then a general of
artillery, was still at large. In fact, he was the
officer responsible for shelling the Serbian refugee
columns and for targeting the UN "safe" city of Knin
during the Croatian offensive known as Operation
Storm.

Just a few months after the Storm atrocities, Canada's
own Louise Arbour began making a name for herself as
the chief prosecutor for The Hague tribunal. Despite
the Canadian connection to these alleged crimes,
Arbour and her lawyers chose instead to pursue more
"politically prominent" individuals and seemingly
little was done to bring Ceku to justice.

Fast forward to January 1999 and the world's attention
begins to focus on a war ravaged Kosovo. With the
blessing of the U.S. State Department, Agim Ceku took
his retirement (at age 37) from the Croatian army and
was pronounced Supreme Commander of the Kosovo
Liberation Army (UCK).

Throughout the air campaign against Yugoslavia, Ceku
was portrayed as a loyal ally and he was frequently
present at the NATO briefings with top generals such
as Wesley Clark and Michael Jackson.

Under terms of the Kosovo peace deal, Ceku's Albanian
guerrillas were to be disarmed and re-constituted into
a UN sponsored, (non-military) disaster relief
organization known as the Kosovo Protection Corps
(KPC). ButCeku's UCK never gave up their guns - nor
their quest for a Greater Albania.

Although he is nominally maintaining an 'arms-length'
posture towards his former comrades, Agim Ceku is
still worshipped as a saviour by both the UCK troops
and Albanian-minority in Macedonia.

As this indicted war criminal continues to enjoy his
freedom, bask in public attention, and collect a UN
paycheque, our Canadian soldiers are risking their
lives to disarm his UCK in Macedonia.

All in the name of peace and justice.

E-mail: espritdecorp@...


===================================================

Subject: NATO Provides KLA R&R
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 07:58:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Rick Rozoff


"What do we have to fear if they stop us? Three days
in Camp Bondsteel, then freedom?"

Tuesday September 4, 10:15 PM
Rebel Albanians from Macedonia lay low in Kosovo

UROSEVAC, Yugoslavia, Sept 4 (AFP) -
Hundreds of ethnic Albanian guerrillas have crossed
over from Macedonia to the Serbian province of Kosovo
since demobilising under an August peace deal aimed at
ending a seven-month insurgency.
For members of the National Liberation Army who come
from Kosovo itself, it is a return home, but for those
coming from Macedonia it is a question of lying low
for a few months before returning home when conditions
are safer.
Most of those who have chosen to go to Kosovo do so by
crossing the mountains which separate the mainly
ethnic-Albanian province of Serbia from Macedonia,
with little heed for NATO-led (KFOR) peacekeepers in
the UN-administered province.
"What do we have to fear if they stop us? Three days
in Camp Bondsteel, then freedom?" said commander Ali
Daja, a former official of rebe brigade 113 in the
northern region of Kumanovo, refering to KFOR's
detention centre.
Many witnesses said that commanders and other fighters
stroll the streets of the Kosovo towns of Urosevac,
Prizren and Gnjilane having crossed either legally or
illegally into Kosovo territory.
Since the peace accord struck in the southwestern
Macedonian town of Ohrid on August 13 aimed at ending
the rebellion over minority rights, several hundreds
of fighters have been stopped by KFOR entering Kosovo
illegally, but most were released shortly afterwards.
According to Captain Daniel Byer, spokesman for the
KFOR brigade, only around 100 fighters are still in
detention in Camp Bondsteel. Over a thousand have been
arrested since the beginning of the conflict in
February.
A 21-year-old man, nicknamed Barut, says that he was
detained for three days by KFOR after being
demobilised by the rebels' 113 brigade. Then he was
taken by KFOR soldiers to the bus station several
kilometres (miles) away.
"Last week between 10 and 50 former combatants were
released each day," a witness at the bus station cafe
said.
A welcome committee has been set up by the rebels in
Kosovo to help those coming from Macedonia who have
nowhere to go.
On Friday 140 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo who claimed
they were former rebel soldiers came to Kosovo legally
right under the noses of KFOR troops and the United
Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
They went first to Albania, then they presented
themselves as unarmed civilians at a border post at
Verbnica, 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Prizren.
Embarrassed UNMIK officials finally allowed their
entry. "Not one of them was stopped because they had
regulation Macedonian passports," said an UNMIK
spokesman.
A number of KLA guerrillas injured in the war have
also found refuge in hospitals in Kosovo where they
are treated just like other patients. Doctors and
nurses know where their injuries came from, but they
maintain a code of silence.
According to witnesses, one rebel shot in the leg at
Slupcane in northern Macedonia has already spent two
months in hospital in Kosovo without receiving a
single visit from the police or KFOR forces.


====================================================

----- Original Message -----
From: Roger ROMAIN
To: r.romain@...
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2001 8:00 PM
Subject: MACEDOINE : oui, la "moisson
indispensable" en Mac�doine est bien une
nouvelle fumisterie am�ricano-otano-europ�enne
occidentale !


MAC�DOINE : oui, la "moisson indispensable" en
Mac�doine est bien une nouvelle fumisterie
am�ricano-otano-europ�enne occidentale !


Mac�doine : une guerre Made in USA !

T�moignage sur les livraisons d'armes clandestines

Ancien soldat canadien, devenu journaliste
sp�cialiste des questions militaires, le Canadien
Scott Taylor le confirme sur le terrain :
Washington, avide de dominer militairement les
Balkans, joue double jeu en armant l'UCK
albanaise.

Un article de Scott Taylor - Tetovo

Tetovo - 20 ao�t. Lundi, un accord de paix a �t�
sign�. Mais cette tentative de la onzi�me heure
d'�viter une autre guerre civile balkanique
risque bien de rester vaine.

Les 3.000 hommes de l'Otan auront pour t�che de
d�sarmer la gu�rilla albanaise, ma�tresse de 30%
du territoire. Mais leur arriv�e sera une pilule
am�re pour les forces de s�curit� mac�doniennes
combattant l'UCK depuis six mois : �Si l'Otan
n'avait pas arm� et �quip� l'UCK au Kosovo, il ne
serait pas n�cessaire de la d�sarmer � pr�sent en
Mac�doine�, explique le sergent Goran Stevanovic.

"God bless America !"

Les diplomates d�noncent vivement l'aide
militaire apport�e � l'UCK, mais sur le terrain,
personne ne conteste l'aide massive (mat�riel et
experts) que leur apporte l'Otan. D'ailleurs, les
commandants UCK m'accueillent par un �Dieu
b�nisse l'Am�rique, et le Canada, pour tout ce
qu'ils nous ont fournis!�

Dans leurs bunkers bien construits, tout - des
armes de poing aux fusils de snipers - porte le
Made in USA. Un abondant stock de lunettes de
vision nocturne, tr�s sophistiqu�es, leur fournit
un �norme avantage sur les forces de s�curit�
mac�doniennes, oblig�es de rester terr�es dans
leurs bunkers pendant que l'UCK d�ambule � son
aise dans les rues de Tetovo. "Serpent" Arifaj
(22 ans), fier commandant d'un peloton UCK, se
f�licite : �Gr�ce � l'Oncle Sam, les Mac�doniens
ne nous posent pas de probl�mes.�

Il y a deux mois, les protestations diplomatiques
ont afflu� lorsqu'on a vu des h�licopt�res US
effectuer des livraisons � un village albanais
surplombant Tetovo. Version officielle : �aide
humanitaire�. Mais le commandant UCK "Mouse" a
confirm� qu'il s'agissait de canons lourds et
munitions. La preuve : le 16, l'UCK a bombard�
Tetovo avec des canons de 120 mm et 82 mm. Et vu
la dur�e et l'intensit� des tirs, les munitions
ne sont pas un probl�me pour eux.

Fr�quemment aussi, les Etats-Unis envoient leurs
h�licopt�res tactiques d'espionnage, sans
autorisation du gouvernement mac�donien. Et les
villageois albanais l�vent les bras pour saluer
�leur force a�rienne�. Enfin, au Q - G de l'UCK,
� la sortie de Tetovo, les gardiens portent des
T-shirts au logo Nike: "NATO Air : Just do it!"

Untertitre

De l'autre c�t�, la Mac�doine - Tr�sor en
faillite et �conomie en d�gringolade - n'avait
pas donn� la priorit� � �quiper son arm�e. Apr�s
le d�but de l'insurrection, en mars, elle a
import� en masse du mat�riel et des conseillers
mercenaires, principalement d'Ukraine.

Mais, la semaine pass�e, George Robertson et
Javier Solana, secr�taires-g�n�raux
respeectivement de l'Otan et de l'Union
Europ�enne, se sont entretenus avec les
Ukrainiens pour arr�ter cet approvisionnement.
Cette ing�rence explique que la majorit� des
Mac�doniens se soit engag�e dans de violentes
�meutes anti-Otan, attaquant r�cemment les
ambassades et les restos McDonald's.


Roger ROMAIN
a/conseiller communal PCB
B6180 COURCELLES

sites :
http://homeusers.brutele.be/r.romain/Sommario.html


==================================================

---------------------------------------------------
Truth in Media's GLOBAL WATCH Bulletin 2001/8-3
26-Aug-2001
---------------------------------------------------
Topic: BALKAN AFFAIRS
-----------------------------------

HEADLINES

Ottawa 1. Canadian Officer Confirms NATO Backing
Albanian Rebels in Macedonia
Skopje 2. Ukraine, Russia Continue to Arm
Macedonia?
Kiev 3. Macedonian President Gets Putin's,
Kuchma's "Support"
Skopje 4. NATO "Peace Farce" Unfolding
Skopje 5. Angry Macedonians Block NATO
Supply Route

http://www.truthinmedia.org/Bulletins2001/
tim2001-8-3.html

-------------
NOTE: To cancel the e-mail editions of our
reports, just reply REMOVE or
UNSUBSCRIBE, followed by your e-mail address.
-------------

Canadian Officer Confirms NATO's Backing of
Albanian Rebels in Macedonia

OTTAWA, Aug. 26 - Once again, we have to turn to
Canada to find out what's really going on in
Washington or Brussels, not to mention Skopje or
Pristina. This time, it was an Ottawa-based
journalist that quoted a former Canadian officer,
now also turned journalist and author, as saying
that the Canadian had seen evidence during of
NATO's backing (and arming!) the Albanian rebels
his recent trip to Macedonia.

Of course, this is nothing new to TiM readers.
But while we arrived at the same conclusion via a
geopolitical analysis (see Macedonia: Another
Farcical American Oil War, Aug. 10), this
Canadian officer did it the old-fashioned way -
he saw it with his own eyes.

"A Canadian journalist has evidence that NATO is
arming and equipping the ethnic Albanian
guerillas who have waged a five-month long
insurgency against the Macedonian government in
Skopje" wrote Stephen Gowans in an Aug. 23
special report published first at the Media
Monitors web site. "Scott Taylor, editor of
Espirit de Corps magazine, says that on a visit
to guerilla bunkers overlooking the besieged
Macedonian city of Tetovo he was welcomed with
shouts of, "God bless America and Canada too for
all they have provided to us." Canada is a member
of the US-led NATO coalition."

Taylor should be no stranger to longtime TiM
readers, either. Just like the TiM editor, he
was in Belgrade in the spring of 1999, while the
NATO bombs were raining down on the Yugoslav
capital and on much of the country (see his
moving account of a funeral he attended in June
1999, published contemporaneously in the NATO War
section of the TiM web site -
http://www.truthinmedia.org/Kosovo/War/day78.html
).

The two of us met for the first time in Toronto,
in December 1999, following the TiM editor's
lecture on NATO's war on Serbia (see New World
Order Pits Canadians vs. Serbs, Dec. 1999 -
http://www.truthinmedia.org/Tour-de-Canada/tor-12-99.html).
That's when we learned that Taylor had also
served as a Canadian officer within the UN
peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Krajina. In
other words, he knows of what he speaks - inside
out.

And now, with this as a brief preamble, here's
the rest of Steve Gowans article, republished
here by TiM with permission of the Media
Monitors' publisher:

More signs NATO is behind ethnic Albanian attacks
on Macedonia by Stephen Gowans

Taylor says guerrilla commanders showed off their
arsenal, which included side arms, sniper rifles
and grenade launchers, all marked "Made in the
USA."

Says Taylor, one commander remarked that, "thanks
to Uncle Sam, the Macedonians are no match for
us." Taylor isn't the first to charge that
Washington is aiding the guerillas. The
Macedonian government alleged that US helicopters
were delivering supplies to guerillas in the
mountains above Tetovo. US officials don't deny
that airdrops were made, but say helicopters were
transporting vital humanitarian aid. But Taylor
says the local guerilla commander told him that
the helicopters were delivering heavy mortars and
ammunition. The guerillas have bombarded Tetovo
with artillery.

Taylor says ethnic Albanian villagers cheer at
the sight of US helicopters, while guerillas at
brigade headquarters wear Nike-style T-shirts
bearing the phrase, "NATO Air - Just do it!"
Meanwhile, one Macedonian police officer lamented
to Taylor that "if NATO hadn't been arming and
equipping the (KLA) in Kosovo there would be no
need for them to disarm these guerillas now."

This isn't the first time complaints about the US
and NATO arming ethnic Albanian guerillas have
been made. In March, a European K-For battalion
commander told the London Observer that, "the CIA
has been allowed to run riot in Kosovo with a
private army designed to overthrow Slobodan
Milosevic...Most of last year, there was a
growing frustration with US support for the
radical Albanians." And in January the BBC
reported that Western forces were training
guerillas, then opening a new front in southern
Serbia and Macedonia.

In June, when Macedonian forces were closing in
on guerillas in the town of Aracinovo, NATO
intervened, transporting ethnic Albanian rebels
out of the besieged town in air-conditioned
busses. According to the German newspaper
Hamburger Abendblatt, 17 US advisors, belonging
to an American mercenary firm involved in other
Balkan conflicts, were among the guerillas. And
the newspaper pointed out that 70 percent of the
equipment carried away by the guerillas was US
made.

Days earlier, a American diplomat was slightly
wounded by Macedonian gunfire as he emerged from
the woods (around Aracinovo) with two other
Americans," according to the International Herald
Tribune. The diplomats were emerging from
rebel-held territory. Two months ago, the London
Sunday Times reported that at least 800 ethnic
Albanian guerillas fighting in Macedonia are
members of the Kosovo Protection Corps, a
paramilitary police unit created by the UN from
the KLA. The Times says, "Hundreds of KPC
reservists were called up by their Albanian
commander Agim Ceku, in March. They subsequently
disappeared to former KLA training camps in
Albania and are now re-emerging in Macedonia."

Ceku, one of the top leaders of the KLA, along
with Hacim Thaci, was artillery chief of the
Croatian army when it launched a war in the
Krajina region of Croatia, which led to 250,000
Serbs being driven from their homes. Under the
KPC, 250,000 Serbs, and another 100,000 Roma,
Gorani, Turks and Jews have been driven from
Kosovo. Now, the KLA offshoot in Macedonia, the
NLA, seems intent on ethnically cleansing the
largely Albanian Tetovo region. Over 120,000
Macedonians have fled or have been driven from
their Tetovo area homes by guerillas. Ilir Hoxha,
a 25-year old ethnic Albanian said, "Let them
leave. They should never return. Tetovo is
Albanian and it will remain Albanian."

For years, many Albanians have dreamed of
resurrecting the greater Albania established
under the Italian fascists, and then under the
Nazis. It incorporated parts of Macedonia and
Greece, southern Serbia, and Kosovo into Albania
proper. Some reports say an ethnic Albanian
Liberation Army of Chameria will open a new front
in Greece soon.

Skopje has been hampered in its response to the
guerillas. NATO and the EU have warned Macedonia
not to crack down on the guerillas, and Ukraine,
which was providing equipment to the
under-equipped Macedonian army, was warned to
stop shipments of materiel. Meanwhile, press
reports in the West describe NATO and EU
diplomatic efforts as aimed at preventing a civil
war, though the intention appears to be to
prevent a strong Macedonian response.

The guerillas say they're fighting to win
language rights, but critics point out that an
armed attack is highly disproportional to the
NLA's stated aims. Moreover, the fact that the
guerillas have been recruited from Kosovo, pass
freely over a Kosovo-Macedonia border presumably
patrolled by NATO K-For forces, and have driven
non-Albanians from their homes in an apparent
effort to ethnically cleanse the Tetovo region,
points to the pursuit of other goals, fully
backed by NATO.

Taylor, who served in the Canadian Armed Forces,
says NATO's support of the guerillas is so
blatant "it is little wonder that the Macedonian
majority have staged violent anti-NATO riots."


Mr. Steve Gowans is a writer and political
activist who lives in Ottawa, Canada.


---

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Militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan

By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
03/16/00 1:04 AM Eastern

Following are some of the Islamic militant groups the
United States is pressuring Pakistan to close down or ban:


HARAKAT-UL-MUJAHEDEEN: Previously Harakat-ul-Ansar,
but changed its name after United States declared the
group a terrorist organization. Harakat-ul-Ansar was
founded by Masood Azhar, one of three Kashmiri
militants freed by India last December to end the
hijacking of an Indian Airlines jetliner.
Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen's leader is Fazal-ur-Rehman
Khalil. Headquartered in Pakistan, with a membership
believed to be in the hundreds, the group is committed
to fighting Indian soldiers in Indian-ruled Kashmir.
It's fighters, trained in Afghanistan, are believed to
have also fought in the breakaway republic of
Chechnya, Bosnia and Algeria.


HARAKAT-UL-JEHAD-E-ISLAMI: The parent organization of
Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, led by Qari Saifullah Akhtar,
who spends most of his time in Afghanistan. It is
believed to have thousands of fighters, who train in
Afghanistan and have fought in Chechnya and Bosnia.


LASHKAR-E-TAYYABA: Led by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, it is
based in Muridke, in Pakistan's eastern Punjab
province, and has a membership in the thousands, who
are trained in Afghanistan and in Pakistan-ruled
Kashmir.


AL QAIDA: Led by Osama bin Laden, Al Qaida is
committed to forcing the United States to withdraw its
army from Saudi Arabia, where two of Islam's holiest
sites are located. Its membership figure is unknown
but bin Laden is believed to have thousands of
followers. His popularity soared after 1998, when the
United States fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at
eastern Afghanistan where bin Laden is believed to
operate military training camps. Bin Laden, a
millionaire Saudi, also raises millions of dollars
from sympathizers throughout the Muslim world. Al
Qaida members fight alongside the Taliban in
Afghanistan and reportedly train militants to fight in
Indian-held Kashmir. Al Qaida also is known to have
sent fighters to Chechnya, Bosnia and Kosovo.

==========================================

Osama Bin Laden
Le ditte del terrorista islamico Bin Laden in tutta Europa

Un giornalista del giornale "Vecernji list" di Zagabria, ha soggiornato
segretamente nel segreto campo di addestramento dei seguaci del più
famoso e ricercato terrorista del mondo, Osam Bin Laden.
Il giornalista conferma che, questo ricchissimo estremista musulmano
ha delle ditte in tutta la Europa, comprese la Croazia e la Bosnia.

- Bin Laden i soldi li guadagna attraverso le sue ditte che sono
registrate con i nomi dei presta nomi, o con i nomi falsi.
Le ditte si trovano in Albania, Olanda, Gran Bretagna, Romania,
Croazia, Bosnia ...- ha dichiarato Abu Baker, uno dei più stretti
collaboratori di Bin Laden e aggiunge che, "durante la ultima guerra
in Zagabria operava una organizzazione pseudo-umanitaria di Bin Laden
"Moafak".

Nel testo del detto quotidiano si dice pure che, le ditte di Bin Laden
in Croazia sono abbastanza bene organizzate e funzionano molto bene, e
la maggioranza delle persone che fanno gli affari con queste ditte non
sanno con chi hanno che fare.

... e in lingua originale:

"VECERNJI LIST" O NAJTRA?ENIJEM TERORISTI

LADENOVE FIRME PO CELOJ EVROPI
Reporter zagrebackog "Vecernjeg lista" koji je boravio u tajnom kampu za

obuku sledbenika najtra?enijeg teroriste na svetu Osame Bin Ladena tvrdi

da ovaj bogati muslimanski ekstremista ima preduzeæa sirom Evrope,
ukljucujuci Bosnu i Hrvatsku.
- Bin Laden novac zaradjuje preko svojih preduzeæa koja su registrovana
na tudja i la?na imena koja su rasuta po celom svetu. Preduzeca su u
Albaniji, Holandiji, Britaniji, Rumuniji, Hrvatskoj, Bosni... - ka?e Abu

Baker, jedan od najbli?ih saradnika Bin Ladena i dodaje da je za vreme
poslednjeg rata u Zagrebu radila Ben Ladenova navodna humanitarna
organizacija "Moafak".
U tekstu se navodi da je Bin Ladenovo preduzece u Hrvatskoj veoma
razgranato i da vecina ljudi koja posluje sa njim nema pojma sa kim se
upusta u biznis.
V. Mt.

(tratto da Vecernji List, aprile 2000; comunicazione personale)

=================================================

Subject: [COMMUNISM LIST]Afghanistan background
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:15:58 +0100
From: "Karl Carlile" <dagda@...>
Reply-To: communism@...
Organization: Communism List
To: <communism@...>


Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
Afghanistan 1979-1992: America's Jihad

His followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of
women who refused to wear the veil. CIA and State Department
officials I have spoken with call him "a fascist," "definite
dictatorship material."

This did not prevent the United States government from showering the
man with large amounts of aid to fight against the Soviet-supported
government of Afghanistan. His name was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. He was
the head of the Islamic Party and he hated the United States almost
as much as he hated the Russians. His followers screamed "Death to
America" along with "Death to the Soviet Union'", only the Russians
were not showering him with large amounts of aid.

The United States began supporting Afghan Islamic fundamentalists in
1979 despite the fact that in February of that year some of them had
kidnapped the American ambassador in he capital city of Kabul,
leading to his death in the rescue attempt. The support continued
even after their brother Islamic fundamentalists in next-door Iran
seized the US Embassy in Teheran in November and held 55 Americans
hostage for over a year. Hekmatyar and his were, after all, in battle
against the Soviet Evil Empire; he was thus an important member of
those forces Ronald Reagan called "freedom fighters".

On 27 April 1978, a coup staged by the People's Democratic Party
(PDP) overthrew the government of Mohammad Daoud. Daoud, five years
earlier, had overthrown the monarchy and established a republic,
although he himself was a member of the royal family. He had been
supported by the left in this endeavor, but it turned out that
Daoud's royal blood was thicker than his progressive water. When the
Daoud regime had a PDP leader killed, arrested the rest of the
leadership, and purged hundreds of suspected party sympathizers from
government posts, the PDP, aided by its supporters in the army,
revolted and took power.

Afghanistan was a backward nation: a life expectancy of about 40,
infant mortality of at least 25 percent, absolutely primitive
sanitation, widespread malnutrition, illiteracy of more than 90
percent, very few highways, not one mile of railway, most people
living in nomadic tribes or as impoverished farmers in mud villages,
identifying more with ethnic groups than with a larger political
concept, a life scarcely different from many centuries earlier.

Reform with a socialist bent was the new government's ambition; land
reform (while still retaining private property), controls on prices
and profits, and strengthening of the public sector, as well as
separation of church and state, eradication of illiteracy,
legalization of trade unions, and the emancipation of women in a land
almost entirely Muslim.

Afghanistan's thousand-mile border with the Soviet Union had always
produced a special relationship. Even while it was a monarchy, the
country had been under the strong influence of its powerful northern
neighbor, which had long been its largest trading partner, aid donor,
and military supplier. But the country had never been gobbled up by
the Soviets, a fact that perhaps lends credence to the oft-repeated
Soviet claim that their hegemony over Eastern Europe was only created
as a buffer between themselves and the frequently-invading West.

Nevertheless, for decades Washington and the Shah of Iran tried to
pressure and bribe Afghanistan in order to roll back Russian
influence in the country. During the Daoud regime, Iran, encouraged
by the United States, sought to replace the Soviet Union as Kabul's
biggest donor with a $2 billion economic aid agreement, and urged
Afghanistan to join the Regional Cooperation for Development, which
consisted of Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. (This organization was
attacked by the Soviet Union and its friends in Afghanistan as being
"a branch of CENTO" the 1950s regional security pact that was part of
the US policy of containment of the Soviet Union.) At the same time,
Iran's infamous secret police SAVAK was busy fingering suspected
Communist sympathizers in the Afghan government. In September 1975,
prodded by Iran which was conditioning its aid on such policies,
Daoud gradually dismissed 40 Soviet-trained military officers and
moved to reduce future Afghan dependence on officer training in the
USSR by initiating training arrangements with India and Egypt. Most
important, in Soviet eyes, Daoud gradually broke off his alliance
with the PDP, announcing that he would start his own party and ban
all other political activity under a projected new constitution.

Selig Harrison, the Washington Post's South Asia specialist, wrote an
article in 1970 entitled "'The Shah, Not the Kremlin, Touched off
Afghan Coup", concluding:

"The Communist takeover in Kabul (April 1978] came about when it did,
and in the way that it did, because the Shah disturbed the tenuous
equilibrium that had existed in Afghanistan between the Soviet Union
and the West for neatly three decades. In Iranian and American eyes,
Teheran's offensive was merely- designed to make Kabul more truly
nonaligned, but it went far beyond that Given the unusually long
frontier with Afghanistan, the Soviet Union would clearly go to great
lengths to prevent Kabul from moving once again toward a pro-western
stance."

When the Shah was overthrown in January 1979, the United States lost
its chief ally and outpost in the Soviet-border region, as well as
its military installations and electronic monitoring stations aimed
at the Soviet Union. Washington's cold warriors could only eye
Afghanistan even more covetously than before.

After the April revolution, the new government under President Noor
Mohammed Taraki declared a commitment to Islam within a secular
state, and to non-alignment in foreign affairs. It maintained that
the coup had not been foreign inspired, that it was not a "Communist
takeover", and that they were not "Communists" but rather
nationalists and revolutionaries. (No official or traditional
Communist Party had ever existed in Afghanistan.) But because of its
radical reform program, its class-struggle and anti-imperialist-type
rhetoric, its support of all the usual suspects (Cuba, North Korea,
etc.), its signing of a friendship treaty and other cooperative
agreements with the Soviet Union, and an increased presence in the
country of Soviet civilian and military advisers (though probably
less than the US had in Iran at the time), it was labeled "communist"
by the world's media and by its domestic opponents.

Whether or not the new government in Afghanistan should properly have
been called communist, whether or not it made any difference what it
was called, the lines were now drawn for political, military, and
propaganda battle: a jihad (holy war) between fundamentalist Muslims
and "godless atheistic communists"; Afghan nationalism vs. a
"Soviet-run" government; large landowners, tribal chiefs,
businessmen, the extended royal family, and others vs. the
government's economic reforms. Said the new prime minister about this
elite, who were needed to keep the country running, "every effort
will be made to attract them. But we want to re-educate them in such
a manner that they should think about the people, and not, as
previously, just about themselves-to have a good house and a nice
car" while other people die of hunger."

The Afghan government was trying to drag the country into the 20th
century. In May 1979, British political scientist Fred Halliday
observed that "probably more has changed in the countryside over the
last year than in the two centuries since the state was established."
Peasant debts to landlords had been canceled, the system of usury (by
which peasant were forced to borrow money against future crops, were
left in perpetual debt to lenders) was abolished, and hundreds of
schools and medical clinics were being built in the countryside.
Halliday also reported that a substantial land-redistribution program
was underway, with many of the 200,000 rural families scheduled to
receive land under this reform already having done so. But this last
claim must be approached with caution. Revolutionary land reform is
always an extremely complex and precarious under the best of
conditions, and ultra-backward, tradition-hound Afghanistan in the
midst of nascent civil war hardly offered the best of conditions for
social experiment.

The reforms also encroached into the sensitive area of Islamic
subjugation of women by outlawing child marriage and the giving of a
woman in marriage in exchange for money or commodities, and teaching
women to read, at a time when certain Islamic sectors were openly
calling for reinforcement of 'purdah', the seclusion of women from
public observation.

Halliday noted that the People's Democratic Party saw the Soviet
Union as the only realistic source of support for the long-overdue
modernization. The illiterate Afghan peasant's ethnic cousins across
the border in the Soviet Union were, after all, often university
graduates and professionals.

The argument of the Moujahedeen ("holy warriors") rebels that the
"communist" government would curtail their religious freedom was
never borne out in practice. A year and a half after the change in
government, the conservative British magazine The Economist reported
that "no restrictions had been imposed on religious practice".
Earlier, the New York Times stated that the religious issue "is being
used by some Afghans who actually object more to President Taraki's
plans for land reforms and other changes in this feudal society."
Many of the Muslim clergy were in fact rich landowners. The rebels,
concluded a BBC reporter who spent four months with them, are
"fighting to retain their feudal system and stop the Kabul
government's left-wing reforms which [are] considered anti-Islamic."

The two other nations which shared a long border with Afghanistan,
and were closely allied to the United States, expressed their fears
of the new government. To the west, Iran, still under the Shah,
worried about "threats to oil-passage routes in the Persian Gulf".
Pakistan, to the south, spoke of "threats from a hostile and
expansionist Afghanistan." A former US ambassador to Afghanistan saw
it as part of a "gradually closing pincer movement aimed at Iran and
the oil regions of the Middle East." None of these alleged fears
turned out to have any substance or evidence to back them up, but to
the anti-communist mind this might prove only that the Russians and
their Afghan puppets had been stopped in time.

Two months after the April 1978 coup, an alliance formed by a number
of conservative Islamic factions was waging guerrilla war against the
government. By spring 1979, fighting was taking place on many fronts,
and the State Department was cautioning the Soviet Union that its
advisers in Afghanistan should not interfere militarily in the civil
strife. One such warning in the summer by State Department spokesman
Hodding Carter was another of those Washington monuments to chutzpah;
"We expect the principle of nonintervention to be respected by all
parties in the area, including the Soviet Union." This while the
Soviets were charging the CIA with arming Afghan exiles in Pakistan;
and the Afghanistan government was accusing Pakistan and Iran of also
aiding the guerrillas and even of crossing the border to take part in
the fighting. Pakistan had recently taken its own turn toward strict
Muslim orthodoxy, which the Afghan government deplored as a
"fanatic," while in January, Iran had established a Muslim state
after overthrowing the Shah. (As opposed to the Afghan fundamentalist
freedom fighters, the Iranian Islamic fundamentalists were regularly
described in the West as terrorists, ultra-conservatives, and
anti-democratic.)

A "favorite tactic" of the Afghan freedom fighters was "to torture
victims [often Russians] by first cutting off their noses, ears, and
genitals, then removing one slice of skin after another", producing
"a slow, very painful death". The Moujahedeen also killed a Canadian
tourist and six West Germans, including two children, and a U.S.
military attaché was dragged from his car and beaten; all due to the
rebels' apparent inability to distinguish Russians from other
Europeans.

In March 1979, Taraki went to Moscow to press the Soviets to send
ground troops to help the Afghan army put down the Moujahedeen. He
was promised military assistance, but ground troops could not be
committed. Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin told the Afghan leader:

"The entry of our troops into Afghanistan would outrage the
international community, triggering a string of extremely negative
consequences in many different areas. Our common enemies are just
waiting for the moment when Soviet troops appear in Afghanistan. This
will give them the excuse they need to send armed bands into the
country."

In September, the question became completely academic for Noor
Mohammed Taraki, for he was ousted (and his death soon announced) in
an intra -party struggle and replaced by his own deputy prime
minister, Hafizullah Amin. Although Taraki had sometimes been
heavy-handed in implementing the reform program, and had created
opposition even amongst the intended beneficiaries, he turned out to
be a moderate compared to Amin who tried to institute social change
by riding roughshod over tradition and tribal and ethnic autonomy.

The Kremlin was unhappy with Amin. The fact that he had been involved
in the overthrow and death of the much-favored Taraki was bad enough.
But the Soviets also regarded him as thoroughly unsuitable for the
task that was Moscow's sine qua non; preventing an anti-communist
Islamic state from arising in Afghanistan. Amin gave reform an
exceedingly bad name. The KGB station in Kabul, in pressing for
Amin's removal, stated that his usurpation of power would lead to
"harsh repressions and, as a reaction, the activation and
consolidation of the opposition". Moreover, as we shall see, the
Soviets were highly suspicious about Amin's ideological convictions.

Thus it was, that what in March had been unthinkable, in December
became a reality. Soviet troops began to arrive in Afghanistan around
the 8th of the month - to what extent at Amin's request or with his
approval, and, consequently, whether to call the action an "invasion"
or not, has been the subject of much discussion and controversy.

On the 23rd the Washington Post commented "There was no charge [by
the State Department] that the Soviets have invaded Afghanistan,
since the troops apparently were invited."

However, at a meeting with Soviet-bloc ambassadors in October, Amin's
foreign minister had openly criticized the Soviet Union for
interfering in Afghan affairs. Amin himself insisted that Moscow
replace its ambassador. Yet, on 26 December, while the main body of
Soviet troops was arriving in Afghanistan, Amin gave "a relaxed
interview" to an Arab journalist. "The Soviets," he said, "supply my
country with economic and military aid, but at the same time they
respect our independence and our sovereignty. They do not interfere
in our domestic affairs." He also spoke approvingly of the USSR's
willingness to accept his veto on military bases.

The very next day, a Soviet military force stormed the presidential
palace and shot Amin dead.

He was replaced by Babrak Karmal, who had been vice president and
deputy prime minister in the 1978 revolutionary government.

Moscow denied any part in Amin's death, though they didn't pretend to
be sorry about it, as Brezhnev made clear:

"The actions of the aggressors against Afghanistan were facilitated
by Amin who, on seizing power, started cruelly repressing broad
sections of Afghan society, party and military cadres, members of the
intelligentsia and of the Moslem clergy, that is, the very sections
on which the April revolution relied. And the people under the
leadership of the People's Democratic Party,' headed by Babrak
Karmal, rose against Amin's tyranny and put an end to it. Now in
Washington and some other capitals they are mourning Amin. This
exposes their hypocrisy with particular clarity. Where were these
mourners when Amin was conducting mass repressions, when he forcibly
removed and unlawfully killed Taraki, the founder of the new Afghan
state?"

After Amin's ouster and execution, the public thronged the streets in
"a holiday spirit". "If Karmal could have overthrown Amin without the
Russians," observed a Western diplomat, "he would have been seen as a
hero of the people."

The Soviet government and press repeatedly referred to Amin as a "CIA
agent", a charge which was greeted with great skepticism in the
United States and elsewhere. However, enough circumstantial evidence
supporting the charge exists so that it perhaps should not be
dismissed entirely out of hand.

During the late 1950s and early '60s, Amin had attended Columbia
University Teachers College and the University of Wisconsin. This was
a heyday period for the CIA-using impressive bribes and threats-to
regularly try to recruit foreign students in the United States to act
as agents for them when they returned home. During this period, at
least one president of the Afghanistan Students Association (ASA),
Zia H. Noorzay, was working with the CIA in the United States and
later became president of the Afghanistan state treasury. One of the
Afghan students whom Noorzay and the CIA tried in vain to recruit,
Abdul Latif Hotaki, declared in 1967 that a good number of the key
officials in the Afghanistan government who studied in the United
States "are either CIA trained or indoctrinated. Some are cabinet
level people." It has been reported that in 1963 Amin became head of
the ASA, but this has not been corroborated. However, it is known
that the ASA received part of its funding from the Asia Foundation,
the CIA's principal front in Asia for many years, and that at one
time Amin was associated with this organization.

In September 1979, the month that Amin took power, the American
charge d'affaires in Kabul, Bruce Amstutz, began to hold friendly
meetings with him to reassure him that he need not worry about his
unhappy Soviet allies as long as the US maintained a strong presence
in Afghanistan. The strategy may have worked, for later in the month,
Amin made a special appeal to Amstutz for improved relations with the
United States. Two days later in New York, the Afghan Foreign
Minister quietly expressed the same sentiments to State Department
officials. And at the end of October, the US Embassy in Kabul
reported that Amin was "painfully aware of the exiled leadership the
Soviets [were] keeping on the shelf" (a reference to Karmal who was
living in Czechoslovakia). Under normal circumstances, the Amin-US
meetings might be regarded as routine and innocent diplomatic
contact, but these were hardly normal circumstances-the Afghan
government was engaged in a civil war, and the United States was
supporting the other side.

Moreover, it can be said that Amin, by his ruthlessness, was doing
just what an American agent would be expected to do: discrediting the
People's Democratic Party, the Party's reforms, the idea of socialism
or communism, and the Soviet Union, all associated in one package.
Amin also conducted purges in the army officer corps which seriously
underlined the army's combat capabilities.

But why would Amin, if he were actually plotting with the Americans,
request Soviet military forces on several occasions? The main reason
appears to be that he was being pressed to do so by high levels of
the PDP and he had to comply for the sake of appearances. Babrak
Karmal has suggested other, more Machiavellian, scenarios.

"The Carter administration jumped on the issue of the Soviet
"invasion" and soon launched a campaign of righteous indignation,
imposing what President Carter called "Penalties"-from halting the
delivery of grain to the Soviet Union to keeping the US team out of
the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

The Russians countered that the US was enraged by the intervention
because Washington had been plotting to turn the country into an
American base to replace the loss of lran.

Unsurprisingly, on this seemingly clear-cut anti-communist issue, the
American public and media easily fell in line with the president. The
Wall Street Journal called for a "military" reaction, the
establishment of US bases in the Middle East, "reinstatement of draft
registration", development of a new missile, and giving the CIA more
leeway, adding "Clearly we ought to keep open the chance of covert
aid to Afghan rebels." The last, whether the newspaper knew it or
not, had actually been going on for some time. In February 1980, the
Washington Post disclosed that while the United States was now
supplying weapons to the guerrillas,

"U.S. covert aid prior to the December invasion, according to
sources, was limited to funneling small amounts of medical supplies
and communications equipment to scattered rebel tribes, plus what is
described as "technical advice" to the rebels about where they could
acquire arms on their own ."

US foreign service officers had been meeting with rebel leaders to
determine their need at least as early as April 1979, and the CIA had
been training guerrillas in Pakistan and beaming radio propaganda
into Afghanistan since the year before.

Intervention in the Afghan civil war by the United States, Iran,
Pakistan, China and others gave the Russians grave concern about who
was going to wield power next door. They consistently cited these
"aggressive imperialist forces" to rationalize their own intervention
into Afghanistan, which was the first time Soviet ground troops had
engaged in military action anywhere in the world outside its post-
World War II Eastern European borders. The potential establishment of
an anti-communist Islamic state on the borders of the Soviet Union's
own republics in Soviet Central Asia that were home to some 40
million Muslims could not be regarded with equanimity by the Kremlin
any more than Washington could be unruffled about a communist
takeover in Mexico.

As we have seen repeatedly, the United States did not limit its
defense perimeter to its immediate neighbors, or even to Western
Europe, but to the entire globe. President Carter declared that the
Persian Gulf area was "now threatened by Soviet troops in
Afghanistan," that this area was synonymous with US interests, and
that the United States would "defend" it against any threat by all
means necessary. He called the Soviet action "the greatest threat to
peace since the Second World War", a statement that required
overlooking a great deal of post-war history. But 1980 was an
election year.

Brezhnev, on the other hand, declared that "the national interests or
security of the United States of America and other states are in no
way affected by the events Afghanistan. All attempts to portray
matters otherwise are sheer nonsense."

The Carter administration was equally dismissive of Soviet concerns.
National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski later stated that "the
issue was not what might have Brezhnev's subjective motives in going
into Afghanistan but the objective consequences of a Soviet military
presence so much closer to the Persian Gulf."

The stage was now set for 12 long years of the most horrific kind of
warfare, a daily atrocity for the vast majority of the Afghan people
who never asked for or wanted this war.

But the Soviet Union was determined that its borders must be
unthreatening. The Afghan government was committed to its goal of a
secular, reformed Afghanistan. The United States was determined that,
at a minimum, this should be the Soviets' Vietnam that they should
slowly bleed as the Americans had at a minimum; at a maximum ... that
was perhaps not as well thought out but American policymakers could
not fail to understand - though they dared not say it publicly and
explicitly - that support of the Moujahedeen (many of whom carried
pictures of the Ayatollah Khomeini with them) could lead to a
fundamentalist Islamic state established in Afghanistan every bit as
repressive as in next-door Iran, which in the 1980s; was Public Enemy
Number One in America. Neither could the word "terrorist" cross the
lips of Washington officials in speaking of their new allies/clients,
though these same people shot down civilian airliners and planted
bombs at the airport. In 1986, British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher, whose emotional invectives against "terrorists" were second
to none, welcomed Abdul Haq, an Afghan rebel leader who admitted that
he had ordered the planting of a bomb at Kabul airport in 1984 which
killed at least 28 people. Such, then, were the scruples of cold-war
anti-communists in late 20th century. As Anastasio Somoza had been
"our son of a bitch", the Moujahedeen were now "our fanatic
terrorists". At the beginning there had been some thought given to
the morality of the policy. "The question here," a senior official in
the Carter administration said, "was whether it was morally
acceptable that, in order to keep the Soviets off balance, which was
the reason for the operation, it was permissible to use other lives
for our geopolitical interests."

But such sentiments could not survive. Afghanistan was a
cold-warrior's dream: The CIA and the Pentagon, finally, had one of
their proxy armies in direct confrontation with the forces of the
Evil Empire. There was no price too high to pay for this Super
Nintendo game, neither the hundreds of thousands of Afghan lives, nor
the destruction of Afghan society, nor three billion (sic) dollars of
American taxpayer money poured into a bottomless hole, much of it
going only to make a few Afghans and Pakistanis rich. Congress was
equally enthused-without even the moral uncertainty that made them
cautious about arming the Nicaraguan contras-and became a veritable
bipartisan horn of plenty as it allocated more and more money for the
effort each year. Rep. Charles Wilson of Texas expressed a
not-atypical sentiment of official Washington when he declared:

"There were 58,000 dead in Vietnam and we owe the Russians one ... I
have a slight obsession with it, because of Vietnam. I thought the
Soviets ought to get a dose of it ... I've been of the opinion that
this money was better spent to hurt our adversaries than other money
in the Defense Department budget."

--
Louis Proyect, lnp3@... on 09/16/2001

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