Informazione
Glas Javnosti, Belgrade, Yugoslavia
March 19, 2001
Balance sheet of the new government: Neither bread nor circuses
by Kosta Cavoski
More than 160 days have passed since the overturn of October 5, 2000 ad
80
days have passed since the overwhelming victory of the Democratic
Opposition
of Serbia (DOS) in the December elections - enough time to draw up the
first
balance sheet of the new government.
In the very beginning of this new democratic era, the greatest emphasis
was
placed on the ?EUR�thrill?EUR? of the foreign players with the new
government in
Belgrade. Cited in support of this is the quick acceptance of Yugoslavia
into the United Nations and OSCE. However, no mention is made of the
fact
that we were accepted as a completely new country which was created
yesterday, even though our membership in the United Nations was only
suspended; consequently, by submitting a request for acceptance as a new
country we practically co-validated the violation of the UN Charter
carried
out by that suspension.
An ugly shadow has been cast on this caring and benevolent approach of
the
so-called international community toward the new government by the
unexpected demand of Milo Djukanovic that Montenegro completely secede
as an
independent country and the incursion of Arbanas terrorists armed to the
teeth into the external safety zone, all with the unspoken and perhaps
the
direct support of the North Atlantic alliance.
For ordinary people who don?EUR�t care much about dignity or the
territorial
integrity of the state, far more significant is the economic progress
which
was promised and the longing desire for an improvement in life
conditions
which have become intolerable. On the eve of the elections, these hopes
were
fueled by the casual statements of DOS leaders such as Vladan Batic,
Mladjan
Dinkic and others to the effect that four to six billion marks of gifts,
assistance and favorable loans would pour into our country after their
election victory. It was even public talk that the NATO member countries
were prepared to compensate the damage they had caused by their
aggression
in the form of appropriate assistance.
It quickly became apparent that these were false promises and
transparent
deceptions. Instead of four to six billion marks, barely three hundred
million has arrived for the most part in merchandise, electricity and
other
basic needs, hardly any of it in the cash necessary to revitalize the
economy. And so the economy continues to stagnate, while prices,
especially
of food items and other expenses which are absolute necessities,
continue to
spiral upward. And what is worst of all, salaries are increasingly
losing
the race with prices which has an especially adverse effect on the
growing
ranks of the poor.
This has induced some groups of employed persons - the workers of
?EUR�Telecom?EUR?,
?EUR�Zastava?EUR? in Kragujevac and, most recently, education workers -
to begin
strikes and to demand significant increases in salary. By granting the
possibility of an initial twenty percent salary increase with successive
incremental increases thereafter the Serbian Government has managed to
stave
off the first strikes; however, it is highly questionable whether it
will be
able to continue to do so when health workers and other destitute groups
of
workers begin their own strikes. In other words, due to the almost
complete
lack of generous support previously promised from abroad, the new
government
has not been successful in revitalizing the economy and in securing
enough
bread and other needs for its citizens.
In addition to a full belly, which is always the highest priority,
ordinary
people also need some form of comfort and food for the soul: in these
modern
times, this is equivalent to an entertaining television program.
Milosevic?EUR�s
Socialists were not lacking in this respect; like true pirates (lest we
say
thieves) they broadcast the best and the newest films and television
series
for which they obviously paid nothing to their creators and producers.
Especially memorable were the exceptionally good film marathons run by
TV
Politika which were broadcast with the intent of discouraging people
from
going out into the streets. The new government doesn?EUR�t have the
knack for
this nor the money to pay copyrights; consequently, it is compensating
for
the huge lack of good films with an almost repulsive excess of public
appearances by its leaders.
During the time of imperial Rome social peace was preserved according to
the
dictate: bread and circuses! It would appear that our new government is
incapable of providing us with either.
by Kosta Cavoski
More than 160 days have passed since the overturn of October 5, 2000 ad
80
days have passed since the overwhelming victory of the Democratic
Opposition
of Serbia (DOS) in the December elections - enough time to draw up the
first
balance sheet of the new government.
In the very beginning of this new democratic era, the greatest emphasis
was
placed on the ?EUR�thrill?EUR? of the foreign players with the new
government in
Belgrade. Cited in support of this is the quick acceptance of Yugoslavia
into the United Nations and OSCE. However, no mention is made of the
fact
that we were accepted as a completely new country which was created
yesterday, even though our membership in the United Nations was only
suspended; consequently, by submitting a request for acceptance as a new
country we practically co-validated the violation of the UN Charter
carried
out by that suspension.
An ugly shadow has been cast on this caring and benevolent approach of
the
so-called international community toward the new government by the
unexpected demand of Milo Djukanovic that Montenegro completely secede
as an
independent country and the incursion of Arbanas terrorists armed to the
teeth into the external safety zone, all with the unspoken and perhaps
the
direct support of the North Atlantic alliance.
For ordinary people who don?EUR�t care much about dignity or the
territorial
integrity of the state, far more significant is the economic progress
which
was promised and the longing desire for an improvement in life
conditions
which have become intolerable. On the eve of the elections, these hopes
were
fueled by the casual statements of DOS leaders such as Vladan Batic,
Mladjan
Dinkic and others to the effect that four to six billion marks of gifts,
assistance and favorable loans would pour into our country after their
election victory. It was even public talk that the NATO member countries
were prepared to compensate the damage they had caused by their
aggression
in the form of appropriate assistance.
It quickly became apparent that these were false promises and
transparent
deceptions. Instead of four to six billion marks, barely three hundred
million has arrived for the most part in merchandise, electricity and
other
basic needs, hardly any of it in the cash necessary to revitalize the
economy. And so the economy continues to stagnate, while prices,
especially
of food items and other expenses which are absolute necessities,
continue to
spiral upward. And what is worst of all, salaries are increasingly
losing
the race with prices which has an especially adverse effect on the
growing
ranks of the poor.
This has induced some groups of employed persons - the workers of
?EUR�Telecom?EUR?,
?EUR�Zastava?EUR? in Kragujevac and, most recently, education workers -
to begin
strikes and to demand significant increases in salary. By granting the
possibility of an initial twenty percent salary increase with successive
incremental increases thereafter the Serbian Government has managed to
stave
off the first strikes; however, it is highly questionable whether it
will be
able to continue to do so when health workers and other destitute groups
of
workers begin their own strikes. In other words, due to the almost
complete
lack of generous support previously promised from abroad, the new
government
has not been successful in revitalizing the economy and in securing
enough
bread and other needs for its citizens.
In addition to a full belly, which is always the highest priority,
ordinary
people also need some form of comfort and food for the soul: in these
modern
times, this is equivalent to an entertaining television program.
Milosevic?EUR�s
Socialists were not lacking in this respect; like true pirates (lest we
say
thieves) they broadcast the best and the newest films and television
series
for which they obviously paid nothing to their creators and producers.
Especially memorable were the exceptionally good film marathons run by
TV
Politika which were broadcast with the intent of discouraging people
from
going out into the streets. The new government doesn?EUR�t have the
knack for
this nor the money to pay copyrights; consequently, it is compensating
for
the huge lack of good films with an almost repulsive excess of public
appearances by its leaders.
During the time of imperial Rome social peace was preserved according to
the
dictate: bread and circuses! It would appear that our new government is
incapable of providing us with either.
---
Questa lista e' provvisoriamente curata da componenti
dell'ex Coordinamento Nazionale "La Jugoslavia Vivra'",
oggi "Comitato Promotore dell'Assemblea Antimperialista":
> http://www.tuttinlotta.org
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente le
opinioni delle realta' che compongono questa struttura, ma
vengono fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al
solo scopo di segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only").
Per iscriversi al bollettino: <jugoinfo-subscribe@...>
Per cancellarsi: <jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...>
Per inviare materiali e commenti: <jugocoord@...>
Archivio:
> http://www.domeus.it/circles/jugoinfo
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/messages
Sito WEB (non aggiornato):
> http://digilander.iol.it/lajugoslaviavivra
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Le liste + calde!! Il meglio di Domeus!!!
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March 19, 2001
Balance sheet of the new government: Neither bread nor circuses
by Kosta Cavoski
More than 160 days have passed since the overturn of October 5, 2000 ad
80
days have passed since the overwhelming victory of the Democratic
Opposition
of Serbia (DOS) in the December elections - enough time to draw up the
first
balance sheet of the new government.
In the very beginning of this new democratic era, the greatest emphasis
was
placed on the ?EUR�thrill?EUR? of the foreign players with the new
government in
Belgrade. Cited in support of this is the quick acceptance of Yugoslavia
into the United Nations and OSCE. However, no mention is made of the
fact
that we were accepted as a completely new country which was created
yesterday, even though our membership in the United Nations was only
suspended; consequently, by submitting a request for acceptance as a new
country we practically co-validated the violation of the UN Charter
carried
out by that suspension.
An ugly shadow has been cast on this caring and benevolent approach of
the
so-called international community toward the new government by the
unexpected demand of Milo Djukanovic that Montenegro completely secede
as an
independent country and the incursion of Arbanas terrorists armed to the
teeth into the external safety zone, all with the unspoken and perhaps
the
direct support of the North Atlantic alliance.
For ordinary people who don?EUR�t care much about dignity or the
territorial
integrity of the state, far more significant is the economic progress
which
was promised and the longing desire for an improvement in life
conditions
which have become intolerable. On the eve of the elections, these hopes
were
fueled by the casual statements of DOS leaders such as Vladan Batic,
Mladjan
Dinkic and others to the effect that four to six billion marks of gifts,
assistance and favorable loans would pour into our country after their
election victory. It was even public talk that the NATO member countries
were prepared to compensate the damage they had caused by their
aggression
in the form of appropriate assistance.
It quickly became apparent that these were false promises and
transparent
deceptions. Instead of four to six billion marks, barely three hundred
million has arrived for the most part in merchandise, electricity and
other
basic needs, hardly any of it in the cash necessary to revitalize the
economy. And so the economy continues to stagnate, while prices,
especially
of food items and other expenses which are absolute necessities,
continue to
spiral upward. And what is worst of all, salaries are increasingly
losing
the race with prices which has an especially adverse effect on the
growing
ranks of the poor.
This has induced some groups of employed persons - the workers of
?EUR�Telecom?EUR?,
?EUR�Zastava?EUR? in Kragujevac and, most recently, education workers -
to begin
strikes and to demand significant increases in salary. By granting the
possibility of an initial twenty percent salary increase with successive
incremental increases thereafter the Serbian Government has managed to
stave
off the first strikes; however, it is highly questionable whether it
will be
able to continue to do so when health workers and other destitute groups
of
workers begin their own strikes. In other words, due to the almost
complete
lack of generous support previously promised from abroad, the new
government
has not been successful in revitalizing the economy and in securing
enough
bread and other needs for its citizens.
In addition to a full belly, which is always the highest priority,
ordinary
people also need some form of comfort and food for the soul: in these
modern
times, this is equivalent to an entertaining television program.
Milosevic?EUR�s
Socialists were not lacking in this respect; like true pirates (lest we
say
thieves) they broadcast the best and the newest films and television
series
for which they obviously paid nothing to their creators and producers.
Especially memorable were the exceptionally good film marathons run by
TV
Politika which were broadcast with the intent of discouraging people
from
going out into the streets. The new government doesn?EUR�t have the
knack for
this nor the money to pay copyrights; consequently, it is compensating
for
the huge lack of good films with an almost repulsive excess of public
appearances by its leaders.
During the time of imperial Rome social peace was preserved according to
the
dictate: bread and circuses! It would appear that our new government is
incapable of providing us with either.
by Kosta Cavoski
More than 160 days have passed since the overturn of October 5, 2000 ad
80
days have passed since the overwhelming victory of the Democratic
Opposition
of Serbia (DOS) in the December elections - enough time to draw up the
first
balance sheet of the new government.
In the very beginning of this new democratic era, the greatest emphasis
was
placed on the ?EUR�thrill?EUR? of the foreign players with the new
government in
Belgrade. Cited in support of this is the quick acceptance of Yugoslavia
into the United Nations and OSCE. However, no mention is made of the
fact
that we were accepted as a completely new country which was created
yesterday, even though our membership in the United Nations was only
suspended; consequently, by submitting a request for acceptance as a new
country we practically co-validated the violation of the UN Charter
carried
out by that suspension.
An ugly shadow has been cast on this caring and benevolent approach of
the
so-called international community toward the new government by the
unexpected demand of Milo Djukanovic that Montenegro completely secede
as an
independent country and the incursion of Arbanas terrorists armed to the
teeth into the external safety zone, all with the unspoken and perhaps
the
direct support of the North Atlantic alliance.
For ordinary people who don?EUR�t care much about dignity or the
territorial
integrity of the state, far more significant is the economic progress
which
was promised and the longing desire for an improvement in life
conditions
which have become intolerable. On the eve of the elections, these hopes
were
fueled by the casual statements of DOS leaders such as Vladan Batic,
Mladjan
Dinkic and others to the effect that four to six billion marks of gifts,
assistance and favorable loans would pour into our country after their
election victory. It was even public talk that the NATO member countries
were prepared to compensate the damage they had caused by their
aggression
in the form of appropriate assistance.
It quickly became apparent that these were false promises and
transparent
deceptions. Instead of four to six billion marks, barely three hundred
million has arrived for the most part in merchandise, electricity and
other
basic needs, hardly any of it in the cash necessary to revitalize the
economy. And so the economy continues to stagnate, while prices,
especially
of food items and other expenses which are absolute necessities,
continue to
spiral upward. And what is worst of all, salaries are increasingly
losing
the race with prices which has an especially adverse effect on the
growing
ranks of the poor.
This has induced some groups of employed persons - the workers of
?EUR�Telecom?EUR?,
?EUR�Zastava?EUR? in Kragujevac and, most recently, education workers -
to begin
strikes and to demand significant increases in salary. By granting the
possibility of an initial twenty percent salary increase with successive
incremental increases thereafter the Serbian Government has managed to
stave
off the first strikes; however, it is highly questionable whether it
will be
able to continue to do so when health workers and other destitute groups
of
workers begin their own strikes. In other words, due to the almost
complete
lack of generous support previously promised from abroad, the new
government
has not been successful in revitalizing the economy and in securing
enough
bread and other needs for its citizens.
In addition to a full belly, which is always the highest priority,
ordinary
people also need some form of comfort and food for the soul: in these
modern
times, this is equivalent to an entertaining television program.
Milosevic?EUR�s
Socialists were not lacking in this respect; like true pirates (lest we
say
thieves) they broadcast the best and the newest films and television
series
for which they obviously paid nothing to their creators and producers.
Especially memorable were the exceptionally good film marathons run by
TV
Politika which were broadcast with the intent of discouraging people
from
going out into the streets. The new government doesn?EUR�t have the
knack for
this nor the money to pay copyrights; consequently, it is compensating
for
the huge lack of good films with an almost repulsive excess of public
appearances by its leaders.
During the time of imperial Rome social peace was preserved according to
the
dictate: bread and circuses! It would appear that our new government is
incapable of providing us with either.
---
Questa lista e' provvisoriamente curata da componenti
dell'ex Coordinamento Nazionale "La Jugoslavia Vivra'",
oggi "Comitato Promotore dell'Assemblea Antimperialista":
> http://www.tuttinlotta.org
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente le
opinioni delle realta' che compongono questa struttura, ma
vengono fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al
solo scopo di segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only").
Per iscriversi al bollettino: <jugoinfo-subscribe@...>
Per cancellarsi: <jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...>
Per inviare materiali e commenti: <jugocoord@...>
Archivio:
> http://www.domeus.it/circles/jugoinfo
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/messages
Sito WEB (non aggiornato):
> http://digilander.iol.it/lajugoslaviavivra
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I gruppi di discussione + interessanti e divertenti!
Le liste + calde!! Il meglio di Domeus!!!
Iscriviti a listparade-subscribe@...
e visita il sito del momento:
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Se vuoi cancellarti da questo gruppo, clicca qui: http://www.domeus.it/info/unsubscribe
MILOSEVIC'S ARREST OCCASION FOR MORE NATO LIES AND HYPOCRISY
by Stephen Gowans
"We cannot and must not forget the chilling images of...mass graves
unearthed by UN investigators," said President George W. Bush, on the
occasion of Slobodan Milosevic's arrest over the weekend.
And as Milosevic was beginning his first day in a Belgrade jail, British
Foreign Secretary Robin Cook reminded us that he had visited some of the
mass graves himself.
One newspaper remarked, "[T]his is only the beginning of what could be a
long procedure leading to Mr. Milosevic's being tried for war crimes
committed two years ago in Kosovo, where an estimated 10,000 ethnic
Albanian civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands driven from
their
homes."
Images of mass graves are indeed chilling. But has anyone ever seen the
mass graves in Kosovo? Did Robin Cook really visit them? And were there
10,000 Albanian civilians killed in Kosovo?
If you want to be spectacularly misinformed, said author Henry Miller,
buy
a newspaper.
George Orwell, in his famous essay, Politics and the English Language,
complained that a lot of political writing consisted of gumming together
phrases like the sections of a prefabricated hen house, an easy way of
writing, he said, once you had the habit. Reach into a handy grab-bag of
weathered phrases, and you don't have to think critically about what
you're
writing. To journalists spoon fed copy by government sources, tacking
together ready made, prefabricated phrases and ideas is an easy way to
meet
deadlines without a lot of effort.
Dutifully reporting the words of political figures, without questioning
even the most conspicuous deviations from the truth, goes along way too
toward effortlessly filing copy.
Press coverage of Milosevic's arrest has been very much like the
building
of prefabricated hen houses. The words of Bush, Cook and former US
Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, are reported uncritically, while
Milosevic, just as uncritically, is denounced as a "tyrant,"
"cold-blooded
autocrat," "war-lord," "strongman," and "iron-fisted dictator."
He's also "terrifying," "ruthless," "brutal," "the mastermind of the
worst
European wars since the Nazis."
Altogether a bad egg. Certainly, someone who could exterminate 10,000
Albanians and have their corpses dumped into mass graves, say, at the
bottom of the infamous Trepca mines, the repository it, is said, of the
remains of tens of thousands of brutally murdered ethnic Albanian
Kosovars.
Certainly someone who could be responsible for the mass graves Bush is
chilled by and Cook remembers visiting.
But take apart the cairn of ready made phrases to see what lies below
and
you'll find little more than what Orwell said you'd find behind
prefabricated phrases -- pure wind. And little more than what was found
at
the bottom of the Trepca mines, once pathologists were dispatched to
excavate the site -- some rubble and a few scattered animal bones.
Nothing
more.
But that's not the only bit of nothingness that has been found.
Operation Horseshoe, the alleged Milosevic plan to ethnically cleanse
Kosovo, turned out to be a hoax.
The Racak massacre, the slaughter of some forty ethnic Albanian
civilians
by Serb security forces -- said to have provided the impetus for Nato to
bomb Yugoslavia -- looks, now, after the release of a Finnish forensic
pathology report, to have been faked by the KLA.
One hundred thousand Kosovars were said to have been killed by
Milosevic's
forces, a number later revised downward to 10,000, and then, after
pathologists rushed to Kosovo at the end of Nato's 78-day air war ready
to
inspect dozens of alleged mass graves, was revised downward further
still,
when pathologists failed to uncover what Nato darkly warned the world
they'd find. Fewer than 2,000 autopsies were performed. Bodies were
found
buried alone or in pairs -- not in the mass graves Cook says he visited
or
Bush remembers chilling images of. Whether the corpses were Serb or
Albanian, indeed whether they met their deaths at the hands of Serb
security forces or KLA guerillas, was never certain.
What then are we to make of this? Most of the atrocities Milosevic stood
initially accused of turn out never to have happened, which may be why
the
first press reports of Milosevic's arrest steered clear of the specifics
of
the reasons for his apprehension, preferring instead Orwell's
prefabricated
phrases. Being a strongman, ruthless and iron-fisted, seemed reason
enough
for his arrest. About as concrete as anyone got was in attributing "the
worst European wars since the Nazis" to Milosevic, an accusation that
could
only be made by turning a blind eye to what was truly one of the worst
post
World War II European wars -- the Nato air strikes on Yugoslavia. And it
was hardly Milosevic who initiated that war, although I suppose, in some
perverted twist of logic it could be said that Milosevic was
responsible,
in the same way that a kid who refuses to relinquish his lunch money to
the
school yard bully is responsible for his own bloodied nose.
Largely unreported is that Nato's bombing of Yugoslavia was precipitated
by
Milosevic's refusal to allow Nato to occupy the entire country -- one of
the ultimata Nato issued at Rambouilett. Milosevic was ready to agree to
a
UN force in Kosovo, something, it will be recalled, Nato finally agreed
to,
but only after turning the country into a polluted desert.
Nato's pummelling of Yugoslavia, with its toll of hundreds, if not
thousands of civilians killed, and many more thousands injured,
apparently
doesn't count as one of the worst European wars since the Nazis, though
it
might be recalled that before Nato it was the Nazis who last bombed
Yugoslavia.
The flexing of Nato's military muscle was called a humanitarian
intervention, not a war, and therefore doesn't count. Goebbels would
have
admired the audacity. The euphemistic evasion "humanitarian
intervention"
calls to mind the Fuggs' 1966 underground hit, Kill for Peace.
Kill, it will give you the mental ease
Kill it will give you a big release
Kill, kill, kill for peace.
It also calls to mind Orwell's charge that political language is
designed
to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.
Human Rights Watch says that Nato bombs killed 500 civilians.
The total body count for which Milosevic stands indicted on war crimes
is
391, not 100,000 and not 10,000. Less than the number of Yugoslav
civilians
killed by a humanitarian Nato. That's never mentioned by the media.
And all of the incidents cited in the indictment against Milosevic but
one
-- the phoney Racak incident -- happened after Nato's bombs started
their
ugly exercise of ushering Serb civilians to an early grave or to a life
of
permanent disability. Which is curious, because Nato said it needed to
bomb
Yugoslavia to stop Serb atrocities.
So what exactly is George W. Bush talking about when he mentions the
chilling images of mass graves? And exactly what graves did Robin Cook
visit anyway?
Chilling images of mass killing, indeed, are something we should never
forget. The near genocide of the East Timorese by Indonesia, which went
on
for decades under the eyes of successive US administrations; the burning
of
Kurd villages by Turkish security forces, both in Turkey, and across its
border, in Northern Iraq, where American and British patrols supposedly
fly
to protect the Kurd minority -- except when Turkish jet fighters loaded
with bombs, generously paid for by US military aid, are razing Kurd
villages; Colombian peasants driven from their homes and murdered by
death
squads linked to the Colombian military the US has given $1.3 billion
to;
the hundreds of Palestinians killed by the Israeli Defence Forces, and
the
thousands injured and permanently disabled, in the latest intifada;
these
are chilling images we should begin to notice, much less never forget.
And what of the chilling images of thousands of Iraqi children dying
every
month because of the US-led sanctions regime, or Serb hospitals,
schools,
bridges, factories, destroyed by Nato bombs -- can they be forgotten?
Nor should we overlook -- or forget -- the complicity of the press in
lending the appearance of solidity to the emptiness of the words of the
likes of Bush and Cook, a press which boasts of being free and
independent,
yet allows itself to be spoon-fed mendacious drivel which it neither
questions nor parses.
And we shouldn't forget the troubling lies that roll so easily off the
tongues of Nato leaders -- about massacres that didn't happen, and
master
plans for ethnic cleansing that never existed, and death tolls that are
wildly exaggerated.
Mr. Steve Gowans is a writer and political activist who lives in Ottawa,
Canada.
Source: Antiwar.com
---
STATEMENT OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF SERBIA
Belgrade, April 4, 2001
Socialist Party of Serbia has requested the competent authorities that
Party President Slobodan Milosevic is released from detention and given
possibility to legally defend himself free. Slobodan Milosevic is symbol
of
defending dignity of Serbian nation, national and state interests as
well
as of cooperation based on equality with all countries and peoples.
Milosevic had organized and united citizens of Yugoslavia in resisting
NATO
armed aggression which provoked thousands of human victims, destruction
of
the country and which led Balkans, Europe and whole world the heritage
of
unpredictable lasting dangers. Let nobody stay with illusions that
history
and truth can be changed by detaining Slobodan Milosevic.
Socialist Party of Serbia is grateful to numerous friendly parties,
statesmen and world public personalities, who condemned detention of
Slobodan Milosevic as an attempt to amnesty those who have been
destroying
Yugoslavia and committing genocide over Serbian nation and blame victims
of
the crimes - defenders of legitimate interests of Yugoslavia and Serbian
people.
Socialist Party of Serbia urges the competent state authorities to
prevent
Democratic Party from being headquarters for public lynches,
orchestration
of political trials and ransom detention of political opponents.
The new DOS authorities succeed in only one election promise: freeing
from
jails Albanian terrorists and filing jails with Serbian patriots. These
authorities having no national and state policy, neglecting dignity and
interest of Serbia - have accepted to negotiate with Albanian terrorists
about Serbian territories in Southern Serbia, thus offering time to
terrorists to amass, build fortifications from which they kill every day
Serbian citizens, policemen and soldiers. Separatism program of DOS
leaders
in Vojvodina and Raska region is publicly destroying Serbian state as
the
only pillar of the whole Serbian nation and all citizens of Serbia.
In these conditions the Socialist Party of Serbia will continue to
resolutely defend interest of Serbia and its citizens, safeguarding
Yugoslavia as the Balkans and European state, the most important factor
of
peace, stability and cooperation based on equality in the region.
To join or help this struggle, visit:
http://www.sps.org.yu/ (official SPS website)
http://www.belgrade-forum.org/ (forum for the world of equals)
http://www.24casa.co.yu/ (the only free daily newspaper in Yugoslavia)
---
SPS ON MILUTINOVIC RESIGNATION
Belgrade, April 4, 2001
President of the Republic of Serbia Milan Milutinovic submitted
yesterday
his resignation from the posts of vice-chairman and of the member of
Head
Committee of the Socialist Party of Serbia, the principal opposition
party
on both - Serbian and Federal levels. His letter to the Head Committee
followed only a day after the President of the Party Slobodan Milosevic
was
put in detention by Serbian authorities. Milutinovic who has acquired
extraordinary political carrier being one of the closest friends of
Milosevic and who won Serbian presidential elections as the candidate of
Socialist Party, has kept him self completely away from public political
life ever since Democratic opposition took power in Yugoslavia and in
Serbia towards the end of last year.
Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Serbia has issued today a
statement reacting to complaints of Mr. Milutinovic that he has been
asked
in various occasions to act beyond his powers. The statement says that
Socialist Party has been expecting President Milutinovic to publicly
condemn escalation of Albanian terrorism in Kosovo and Metohija and
southern districts of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja as it is his
principal duty to defend peace, stability, integrity of the Republic and
human rights of all citizens. He has been asked to visit those regions,
the
same way as many other less competent officials have been doing.
The statement confirms that Milutinovic has been urged by his Party
colleagues to use his constitutional powers and refrain from signing
certain laws considered by the Party to be contrary to the interest of
the
Republic, such as Amnesty law and law on abolishing the Law on
privatization. He was also asked to amnesty Dragoljub Milanovic, former
director of the state television (RTS), who was accused and detained two
months ago under accusation of being responsible for the death of
sixteen
RTS employees, who were killed by NATO bomb on April 23, 1999.
All these expectations and initiatives of Socialist Party of Serbia have
been ignored by Mr. Milutinovic.
The Socialist Party of Serbia has strongly criticized Milutinovic's
move,
reminding him that he has never been dissatisfied while exploiting the
Party and friendship with Milosevic for very fast and privilege
rendering
rising-up to the top of the power - first Ambassador to Athens, then
Minister of Foreign Affairs and finally President of Serbia.
Milutinovic's resignation will soon be considered by the Head Committee
of
the Party.
---
http://serbianunity.net/index.html
Serbian Unity Congress
MARCH 24th 1999
REMEMBER KOSOVO
March 24, 1999 - a day that will live in infamy. On
that day, NATO fired the opening shots of what was to
be a 78-day war against Yugoslavia. In the following
eleven weeks, thousands of people were killed as
civilian infrastructure was systematically targeted by
NATO's air force. Using forbidden and toxic weapons,
such as cluster bombs and depleted uranium rounds,
NATO hit marketplaces and hospitals, oil refineries,
the power grid, chemical plants, bridges, apartment
buildings, passenger trains, refugee columns and
camps, two television stations, and an embassy of a
neutral foreign country.
Justifications for the attack were alleged Serb
atrocities against Albanian population in Kosovo,
which NATO claimed were part of a systematic plan of
ethnic cleansing. Some US officials claimed that
100,000 Albanians were murdered. The world press
agreed on 10,000. Two years later, these accusations
have been proven false. There was no massacre of
civilians at the village of Racak. There was no
"Operation Horseshoe." There was no crematorium in the
Trepca mines. There were no death camps. There were no
mass graves. There was no genocide.
Investigators of the International Criminal Tribunal
found less than three thousand dead, in individual
graves, without disclosing the manner of death or even
the ethnicity of the exhumed.
In the end, Yugoslavia accepted NATO's temporary
control of Kosovo in exchange for guarantees of safety
for all its citizens in the province. Within two
months of NATO's entry, most non-Albanians had been
expelled from the province at gunpoint, their homes
burned, looted or expropriated by the KLA, a militant
organization trained and equipped by the United States
and other NATO members. One American officer, a
veteran of World War Two, Korea and Viet Nam,
described them as "one of the most cutthroat gangs of
terrorists in the world."
But the KLA's terror did not stop there. Over a
hundred Orthodox churches were dynamited, torched or
otherwise demolished. Hundreds of non-Albanians were
brutally murdered, on the streets, in their offices,
in their fields, or in buses under NATO's armed
escort. Over 1800 are missing. Kosovo's remaining
non-Albanians - Serbs, Roma, Jews, Turks, Bosniaks and
Gorani - live in ghettos, surrounded by barbed-wire
fences and armed guards. Anyone speaking Serbian on
the street risks being murdered, even UN employees.
Kosovo is ruled by violence and terror, despite the
presence of almost 40,000 NATO troops, about 5000 of
which are Americans.
Furthermore, NATO trained some KLA members for further
attacks on Serbs. These Albanians are currently
occupying villages in Serbia's Presevo valley, and
attacking the second largest city in Macedonia - the
same country that generously gave refuge to thousands
of Albanians trying to escape the bombing and the war
in Kosovo. Today's Balkans is still feeling the
consequences of what started on March 24, 1999.
By attacking Yugoslavia, NATO violated the UN Charter,
its own Charter, the Geneva Convention, the Helsinki
Final Act and a series of other conventions and
agreements its members had signed. Its bombs destroyed
the rule of law and the international order NATO
claimed to have been defending.
On this day, Serbs and their friends across the world
will light candles and say prayers in memory of NATO's
victims - both the people, and the peace, that the
bombs of March 24 so brutally killed.
March 24, 2001
Serbian Unity Congress
Washington, DC
---
Subject: from chris soda
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 08:27:33 -0500
From: Chris Soda <chriss12@...>
Open letter to Serbian churches and organizations in Canada
Thank you for the opportunity to share a few thoughts at this solemn
occasion. This weekend marks the
second anniversary of our government's murder of innocent people in
Yugoslavia. As a Canadian citizen born
and raised in this country I and my family have been lucky enough to
have never suffered from a foreign
military aggression. Consequently, I didn't have a personal common
history nor a personal common
experience with many of you until two years ago; now, we all live
together in a country whose government has
broken our laws and stolen our money to murder both the helpless and the
honourable.
We all read the same lies here in our newspapers, listened to the same
lies on radio. We still do.
We all waited for the same Russian cavalry which never arrived.
Who amongst you gathered here today didn't watch CNN ask, "What's wrong
with our society?" as children
shot each other at Columbine High School- while it reported the
justification of adults from the same country
bombing children in high schools overseas?
I'm still waiting for an answer as to how directing a cluster bomb near
a World Heritage Site or a marketplace
or a bus station helps to save the lives of innocent people hundreds of
miles away who are running from
those same types of bombs- all dropped by the same so-called
'humanitarians'. I'm still waiting for an answer
as to how yesterday's terrorists who killed the innocent became Canadian
allies, freedom fighters, and the
police force of Kosovo all wrapped into one- while still killing the
innocent even as you are gathered here
today.
I'm asking myself how a government that agrees to autonomy during
meetings at Rambouillet can be
accused of plotting something called "Operation Horseshoe" at the same
time. I'm wondering how
Canadians could murder the children of a country that at the same place
and at the same time just asked our
country if they could join their NATO alliance. I'm wondering about why
anyone anywhere would believe
accusations of this so-called 'ethnic cleansing' coming from a country
that not that long ago systematically
deployed racial segregation. And I'm wondering how our country can allow
'language laws'.
And it puzzles me how both the US and Canada can point the finger at
anyone after forcing their own natives
onto reservations. I also wonder how a 'dictatorship' using 'repressive'
means can guarantee education,
health, and employment in over twenty languages to those it is
'repressing'- or how a 'human rights violator'
somehow allows the schools, hospitals, and churches of those it is
'ethnically cleansing' to remain intact; in
fact, the 'violating' state even pays for most of it.
I wonder how so-called 'ethnic cleansing' involves riding an
air-conditioned bus to safety, escorted by none
other than what our government calls the 'Serb aggressors'.
I wonder how defending your country constitutes 'aggression'. I wonder
how those who paid for and
perpetrated the real aggression are known as 'peacekeepers'.
Since our beloved CBC found the time and resources to produce an
award-winning documentary of a KLA
woman whose sister was 'murdered by the Serbs', I'm wondering two
things: why this sister turned up alive
and well and unharmed- but the CBC still kept their award anyway; and
secondly, why couldn't this same
CBC find the time and resources to interview and film some of the many
hundreds of thousands of Muslims
who fled north from Kosovo- to Belgrade, which welcomed them with open
arms- for safety during what we
are still being told was a 'humanitarian intervention' to save
them..........................from Belgrade.
I'm puzzled by the silence of the Globe and Mails and National Posts of
Canada who watch as Agim Ceku
first tries to murder Canadians in Croatia, then is protected by
Canadians in Kosovo as the new police chief.
I'm puzzled as to why none of our mainstream media comment as to why the
Germans have to force back to
Kosovo so-called 'victims of the Serbs' long after these 'Serb
aggressors' have left.
There are also two other things we have in common now. We have many
questions that we ask of the
bombers, and we have no truthful answers from any of them.
Try to get a truthful answer from Canadian child killers and their
superiors by asking how someone who
suffered tuberculosis and is sheltered, fed, and cared for by Serbs
suddenly becomes 'a victim of Serb death
camps' photographed by trickery to appear to be imprisoned behind barbed
wire- followed shortly after by
NATO bombings of innocent people. Try to get a truthful answer from the
cripplers of ordinary hard-working,
law-abiding people by asking how "a massacre of innocent civilians at
Racak, forced to kneel in the mud and
beg for their lives" really means gunpowder residue on the hands of
armed insurrectionists shot while firing
weapons at the police- after refusing to surrender.
Then ask how this "massacre" was attended by film crews invited to watch
by "the perpetrators of this
massacre" before the "massacre" even took place - followed shortly
thereafter by yet another NATO bombing
of innocent people.
Ask anyone of our 'independant' news media or anyone of our country's
political leaders from any of our
political parties in the House of Commons how a regularly-scheduled
passenger train is bombed twice within
minutes by "accident"- the first time to cripple the machine, the second
time to kill the defenceless people
trapped inside- when this "accident" involves manually using a joystick
to divert missiles AWAY from the
unoccupied part of a bridge and TOWARDS the target.
We all know this particular event was also filmed- and shown to us at
three times normal speed, also by
"accident" according to our government's real spokesmen: Jamie Shea,
Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Madeleine
Albright (herself saved by Serbs, the very same people whose friends and
relatives she orders murdered
years later) and the other savages in NATO.
The questions are innumerable but all of them have only one answer. The
same answer. This answer can be
found at a press conference given by this same Jamie Shea in April/99,
in which he congratulates his fellow
NATO personnel for "...another very effective day of operations..."
Less than 24 hours earlier, NATO had just murdered hundreds of ordinary
people in and around Korisa-
ordinary people moving in different groups and in different directions.
Ordinary people in Yugoslavia who
were moving to begin with because hours earlier NATO had bombed them out
of their homes in what
everyone tells us was an example of "protection" from the Serbs who had
defended them while they were still
in their homes.
That answers any of my questions, and any of yours I'm sure. For me, it
answers how 19 countries can share
the technology to sit on the edge of outer space and read a license
plate miles below, and yet tell us that they
can't read the correct address of an embassy listed in a phone book an
inch away from their faces. It
answers how a TV station can be bombed because they tell us it's
reporters are a propaganda machine of
Milosevic, while the same types of bombers sit together with the
reporters at CNN and invite an elected
Yugoslav Member of Parliament to an interview in that same TV station-
at the exact time the station is
scheduled to be bombed- by those who are sitting at those same desks at
CNN.
We all know what has happened here. We all know that there is no shame
amongst the plotters of murder,
theft, and deception. We all know that I'm speaking of the highest
elected officials of this country. We all know
who elected them and we all know most of those don't bear any shame
either.
The best thing we can do is to keep asking the questions for which we
already know the answers to; only by
embarassing the electors can we hope to unsettle the elected. Ask your
police chiefs and your police officers
why those who fought cold-blooded murderers and drug traffickers are
considered 'criminals' by those whom
the same police chiefs and their officers are sworn to protect. Ask the
representatives of all religious
denominations in this country why their leaders have not come out with
ongoing, direct statements
condemning the targeting of innocents. Ask your school boards why they
can't find the will to author a joint
statement condemning the theft of taxpayer dollars that should have been
used for education here, rather than
being stolen and then used for the destruction of buildings of learning
in Yugoslavia. Ask your medical boards
and the federal Health Ministry why money could not be found by the
Canadian federal government to keep
hospitals open in this country, while at the same time revenue was
stolen to finance the bombing of hospitals
overseas.
Put them all on the spot. Ask your elected Members of Parliament why
they have always been silent on these
issues except to patronize us and insult our intelligence with
propaganda. Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis may
prove to be an exception if approached with written questions in this
regard- he's the only one I've found who
(once, and I believe it was in the House of Commons, May 10/99) decried
this government's targeting of
civilians during those 78 days of murder.
Commemoration of the dead means remembering the honourable, the
innocent, and the perpetrators. Let's
remember-and remind- the guilty with our questions.
Ask these same federal MPs what their definition of a 'two-tier' health
system means in practice. Ask them
why their 'two-tier' actions have supported one level of health safety
here, and one level of health destruction
elsewhere.
Ask your Globe and Mails and your National Posts and your local papers
how they can call something
'collateral damage' when it is planned many years ahead of time, and how
this 'collateral damage' is caused
by repeatedly and deliberately circling over a target before firing.
Call your CBC office and inquire as to when they plan to do an
'exclusive interview' with the Spanish Air
Force pilot who told us early on in these Canadian-sponsored atrocities
in Yugoslavia that the ordinary
people were the target from Day One.
And ask all of these people this: if our government embarked on such a
noble cause, then why is it that they
still have to keep lying to us?
Thank you again for your time today. I hope to meet some of you one day
and shake the hands of those with
such spirit and determination.
Sincerely, Chris Soda
---
WORLDNETDAILY, Saturday, February 10, 2001
How the New World Order is 'helping' Serbia
By Aleksandar Pavic
(C) 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
The way things are going, it seems that it's just a matter
of time
before Bill Clinton, the man who ordered the NATO bombing
of Yugoslavia
in 1999 will come to Belgrade offering "help." For, this
past week, the
country was a positive place of pilgrimage for all those
who had
previously contributed to its ruin in one way or another.
It started a week ago when U.S. Senators Biden and McCain
led a
delegation of senators and representatives to Belgrade to
wave the
carrot and stick. Back in 1999, Biden was one of the
louder proponents
of arming the Albanian KLA guerilla force fighting the
Serb population
and police in Kosovo - the same force that effectively
cleared the
region of its Serb population, in the wake of the bombing,
and went on
to transform Kosovo into the main European center of drug
smuggling,
white slavery and prostitution. John McCain, on the other
hand, was a
fierce advocate of launching a ground invasion of
Yugoslavia when the
bombing failed to give the expected "results."
Now, these two gentlemen have come humbly to Belgrade to
offer to do
their part so that Yugoslavia would recover a fraction of
a percent of
the estimated damage from the bombing and the resulting
after effects --
but not so humbly as to make the offer unconditional. No,
the generous
gift of $100 million was conditioned on the country's
leadership
agreeing to turn over ex-president Slobodan Milosevic to
the Hague "war
crimes tribunal." Thus, one man who openly called for the
arming of a
guerilla insurgency inside a sovereign country -- who
openly called for
an invasion of that same sovereign country without even a
formal
declaration of war -- came to that country asking for
"international
justice" to be satisfied.
At the beginning of the week, a second great "helper"
appeared on the
scene a little further south -- in the Presevo and
Bujanovac region of
Serbia -- where the Kosovo Albanians "disarmed" by the
50,000-strong
NATO-led force are trying to import the virtues of the
newly
"democratized" Kosovo to the south of Serbia by starting a
brand new
guerilla insurgency. The man in question was U.S. diplomat
James Pardew,
now "U.S. Special Envoy to the Balkans," but a man far
better known for
running the "arm-and-train" program in neighboring Bosnia
(formerly a
part of Yugoslavia) during that country's civil war. Under
this program,
U.S. arms and training were used to "level the playing
field" in that
country by arming the Bosnian Muslims and Croats until
they eventually
became twice as well-armed as the Bosnian Serbs. Now,
Pardew's sense of
sportsmanship was set on firmer legal ground than was
Biden's. For,
although the Bosnian Croats and Muslims also had their
beginnings as
illegal secessionist paramilitary units within a sovereign
country, by
the time Pardew came on the scene, Bosnia had already been
recognized as
a newly sovereign country by the "international
community." (That's the
way things are done according to international law
nowadays. As soon as
recognition came in the spring of 1992, the Yugoslav Army
troops on the
territory of Bosnia all of a sudden became the
"aggressors," while
yesterday's illegal guerillas became a legitimate army
worthy of Western
support and arms.)
Anyway, Mr. Pardew was in the south of Serbia offering his
good offices
at the beginning of the week. He publicly called for the
KLA-backed
insurgents to "seriously consider" the Serbian
government's call for a
peaceful settlement of the problem. Coincidentally or not,
a couple of
days later came a statement from NATO and U.S. Admiral
Ellis, saying
that the "international community" should appoint some
sort of a "Peace
Minister" to mediate between the legally-elected
government of Serbia
and the illegal guerilla force. This possibly shed light
on the "Special
Envoy's" earlier visit: to help the negotiations along,
could Mr. Pardew
once again do something to "level the playing field?"
Then on Thursday, the influx of peace pilgrims reached its
height when
the present E.U. Commissioner for Security, Javier Solana,
made his way
to Belgrade. Before his present position, Solana held the
post of NATO's
Secretary-General, which made him the formal number one
during that
military organization's illegal bombing campaign of
Yugoslavia. But now
he had come to "help." He wouldn't have come if he didn't
think he could
help, he said, adding that he was very happy to be in
Belgrade and that
the visit personally meant a great deal to him. After
Solana, nothing
less than Bill Clinton will do -- except, perhaps, for
Madeleine
Albright.
It would be too easy to say that these were cases of
criminals returning
to the scene of the crime. It has more to do with the
further
development of Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil" -- evil
that has
become so banal as to become unrecognizable to many of its
bearers. So
unrecognizable, in fact, that they have started seeing it
as something
that is, in fact, good. "Leveling the playing field,"
"arming the
oppressed," "bombing to prevent (unproven) genocide,"
demanding
"international justice." It is under these abstract,
noble-on-the-surface battle-cries that the Devil is
currently doing his
finest work.
It is no surprise that Javier Solana was once a fierce
left-wing
opponent of NATO, as was Joschka Fisher, the current
German Defense
Minister and another supporter of the NATO bombing. In
their youthful
projections of heaven-on-earth, NATO was something evil,
something
militaristic that openly contradicted the ideals of their
own,
peace-and-flower generation. Having come to positions of
substantial
political power -- where they could actually help mold the
ideal world
with their own hands -- the raw military power of NATO had
become their
instrument for bringing good and righting the world's
wrongs. And, of
course, in this way, anything and everything can be
justified. Even
NATO's aggressive march eastward can be portrayed as the
advancement of
the benefits of Western democracy. The hunger to gain
control of natural
resources can also be seen as a way to bring "prosperity"
to previously
poor regions.
Of course, not all the mavens of intervention and carriers
of the New
World Order's institutionalized cynicism are secularized
do-gooders
blinded by their own hubris and lack of humility. What is
sad is that
they are the best of the bunch and that they actually
believe many of
the things that come out of their mouths.
Aleksandar Pavic in Belgrade has covered Yugoslavia's
historic election
and its dramatic aftermath for WorldNetDaily.com.
---
The url for this article
http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/djindjic.htm
'These Djindjic people are brown shirts!'
An Interview with a Serbian political activist, by Jared Israel
www.tenc.net
[Emperor's Clothes]
The following interview took place several days after the October 5 coup
in Belgrade. The person interviewed has been a member of the Serbian
Radical party, a nationalist group. When I conducted the interview, I
had the impression she was still a member but she has informed me that
now she is in no party.
**
Jared: What's going on?
Gordana: Some very aggressive people from the opposition are grabbing
everything around here, in particular taking the institutions that have
some money, for instance the telecommunications company. They are
scaring people and beating people.
They want to destroy the results of previous elections by declaring that
new elections have to be held for the Serbian Parliament. Elections are
not supposed to be held for a year but they want them this fall. That
would mean the Serbian people would lose their representatives because
the elections would be held in an impossible situation. Whole groups of
political parties have no access to media. In the past we had many
viewpoints because we had government media and even more widespread was
various shades of opposition media. Now only one view. And there is day
to day terrorizing of people. Mr. Djindjic hopes that people will be too
scared to run as candidates from those parties which stand in his way.
Jared: You say there is "day to day terrorizing"?.
Gordana: Take this example. A friend of mine is intellectual. Every time
her phone rings she gets a threat from the other side. They stop her car
in traffic to threaten her, and so on. And this is a professional woman,
the daughter of a well-known professor. Even these people who are well
known are subject to threats. Another such woman, a reporter, visits me,
and she is afraid to go home alone and stays over - and this is in
Belgrade! Can you imagine how the common people feel? They are even more
afraid. I was on a bus full of tired, worried working people and one of
these Otpor types got on and demanded that the bus stands still and he
says: "Listen! We have the power now and you will see what we do!"
Jared: So you think that people will be afraid to vote for the Socialist
or Radical parties or other parties that oppose the coup?
Gordana: No, I think that people may be afraid to run as candidates for
these parties.
The Djindjic people took over all the radio stations and TV stations and
newspapers. On TV now you can't see even the regular old shows. It is
propaganda. The old ladies in Serbia like to watch soap operas from
South America but now they can't do that. You see they are poor and they
have such a hard life and now they don't have even this small pleasure.
Instead we have to watch stupid American government lies, even about the
wars in Bosnia and Croatia and so on. They have programs that blame the
Serbs, for everything. Can you believe this? Do they think we are
morons, not to know our own history. But the purpose here is also a kind
of terror, to break the spirit. To make people feel hope is lost.
Today they had a show on the television telling lies about Dubrovnik,
showing pictures to prove it was burned down in 1991 by the Yugoslav
army. But Dubrovnik has all the old buildings in perfect condition and I
know this because friends have been back to see the town, and it was not
damaged.
And these movies they now show to prove to us that the Serbs were
responsible for the wars this past decade. Why? Did we try to secede?
Doesn't Yugoslavia have a right to exist? .Would other countries allow
secessionists and foreign factors to destroy their nation? I have never
seen such lies. Can you imagine, having a situation where you can't
stand to watch the TV or read the papers.
Jared: I'm afraid I can imagine. What we mainly do on Emperor's Clothes
is expose lies. They create 'em faster than we can expose them. All I do
is expose fiction.
Gordana: Today is 1941 in Yugoslavia. If there are people who don't
know, well, they will know it very soon. Even some people I spoke to who
were supporting the DOS now see this violence that is going on and they
say, "These Djindjic people are brown shirts."
[Brown shirts is a term for Fascists or Nazi's - E-C]
***
Afterthoughts - The lies they now tell in Serbia
I am writing a book on Western media lies about Yugoslavia. As part of
the research, I've read news reports written in 1991 about Dubrovnik. As
Gordana says, the Western claim is that the Yugoslavs (read: Serbs)
burned down the priceless Old City. This lie was broadcast in the
Western mass media in order to prove the Serbs were ruthless monsters.
When the first stories broke describing the (in fact fictitious) burning
of the Old City, they produced popular anti-Serb response. So, wanting
to make the most of a good thing, the controllers of the media has the
lie repeated.
But there is only so much mileage you can get from a single burning; so
they burned it down several times.
The first time Dubrovnik was fictitiously burned down, a decent interval
was allowed, whereupon it was fictitiously burned to the ground a second
time, and then a third, and so on. Dubrovnik is Burning, Redux.
The London "Independent" reported that Dubrovnik was burned to the
ground no less than five times over a four months period. These reports
were mostly signed by one Phil Davison.
Despite multiple burnings, Prof. Peter Maher, a knowledgeable witness,
shot a film of the Old City in March, 1992. Dubrovnik was still
standing, untouched by Yugoslav shells. It remains a prime tourist
attraction.
(I have seen the film.)
So what DID happen in Dubrovnik in 1991? There was indeed fighting. But
the Yugoslav Army deliberately avoided shelling the Old City. (This is
not surprising because, after all, they viewed it as a Yugoslav
treasure!)
Actually it was the secessionists who deliberately put Old Dubrovnik at
risk, trying to trick Yugoslav loyalist forces into shelling it. In this
they failed, so the media made it up.
Here is the basic sequence of events.
Croatian secessionist troops attacked Yugoslav Army barracks near
Dubrovnik. The Yugoslav Army gave chase. The secessionists retreated
behind the old city digging in areas dangerously close to hotels in
which they had housed refugees from the fighting . In a moment of
candor, Phil Davison, the reporter from the British "Independent" who
holds the record for reporting total destructions of Dubrovnik the most
times, admitted that by setting up near the hotels, the secessionist
army virtually guaranteed that hotels would get hit:
"The Croats have set up a mortar close to our hotel, just as they have
next to hospitals and refugee centres. This may make us a target for the
army. Sooner or later, they are going to lay a couple of rounds on us.
The army is zapping Lokrum island, 300 yards from my hotel. Mortars,
machineguns, ack-ack guns. It is deafening. A machinegun barrage rattles
my windows. It is just a matter of time."
(The 'Independent' November 17, 1991)
Other than this single, honest report, the Western media was full of
stories about how the heartless Yugoslav Army was shelling hotels that
housed refugees.
Did the secessionists set up their positions behind the Old City and
near hotels in order to get the Yugoslav Army and Navy to shell the Old
City and the hotels and thus provide ammunition for anti-Yugoslav
propaganda? Common sense suggests they did. And more than common sense:
consider the following, which appeared in only two English language
newspapers:
"Women And Children Barred From Leaving Croatian Town
"The six-member Dubrovnik crisis committee decided six days ago that the
defense of this coastal Adriatic city required the presence of all the
remaining women and children. UNICEF was informed of the decree three
days ago, and on Tuesday, it was first implemented when 200 people were
prevented from leaving the city on a UNICEF relief vessel that had
brought supplies to the city.
"First, he said, if the women and children stay, it will mean that the
attacking army would be shooting at them and not just at a walled city.
"Second, he said, their presence might force the army to hesitate before
shooting.
"Third, if there is an attack, the international public reaction to such
an attack would be a public-relations coup for Croatia, which has been
trying desperately for months to get diplomatic and military support
from the West…
"Only 100 of 300 people scheduled to leave on a ship Tuesday were
allowed to depart, and UNICEF was told by Dubrovnik officials that no
one else would be able to leave."(My emphasis, 'The Orange County
Register,' December 5, 1991.)
Note that the story was not covered by the 'N.Y.Times' .
***
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[Emperor's Clothes]
by Stephen Gowans
"We cannot and must not forget the chilling images of...mass graves
unearthed by UN investigators," said President George W. Bush, on the
occasion of Slobodan Milosevic's arrest over the weekend.
And as Milosevic was beginning his first day in a Belgrade jail, British
Foreign Secretary Robin Cook reminded us that he had visited some of the
mass graves himself.
One newspaper remarked, "[T]his is only the beginning of what could be a
long procedure leading to Mr. Milosevic's being tried for war crimes
committed two years ago in Kosovo, where an estimated 10,000 ethnic
Albanian civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands driven from
their
homes."
Images of mass graves are indeed chilling. But has anyone ever seen the
mass graves in Kosovo? Did Robin Cook really visit them? And were there
10,000 Albanian civilians killed in Kosovo?
If you want to be spectacularly misinformed, said author Henry Miller,
buy
a newspaper.
George Orwell, in his famous essay, Politics and the English Language,
complained that a lot of political writing consisted of gumming together
phrases like the sections of a prefabricated hen house, an easy way of
writing, he said, once you had the habit. Reach into a handy grab-bag of
weathered phrases, and you don't have to think critically about what
you're
writing. To journalists spoon fed copy by government sources, tacking
together ready made, prefabricated phrases and ideas is an easy way to
meet
deadlines without a lot of effort.
Dutifully reporting the words of political figures, without questioning
even the most conspicuous deviations from the truth, goes along way too
toward effortlessly filing copy.
Press coverage of Milosevic's arrest has been very much like the
building
of prefabricated hen houses. The words of Bush, Cook and former US
Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, are reported uncritically, while
Milosevic, just as uncritically, is denounced as a "tyrant,"
"cold-blooded
autocrat," "war-lord," "strongman," and "iron-fisted dictator."
He's also "terrifying," "ruthless," "brutal," "the mastermind of the
worst
European wars since the Nazis."
Altogether a bad egg. Certainly, someone who could exterminate 10,000
Albanians and have their corpses dumped into mass graves, say, at the
bottom of the infamous Trepca mines, the repository it, is said, of the
remains of tens of thousands of brutally murdered ethnic Albanian
Kosovars.
Certainly someone who could be responsible for the mass graves Bush is
chilled by and Cook remembers visiting.
But take apart the cairn of ready made phrases to see what lies below
and
you'll find little more than what Orwell said you'd find behind
prefabricated phrases -- pure wind. And little more than what was found
at
the bottom of the Trepca mines, once pathologists were dispatched to
excavate the site -- some rubble and a few scattered animal bones.
Nothing
more.
But that's not the only bit of nothingness that has been found.
Operation Horseshoe, the alleged Milosevic plan to ethnically cleanse
Kosovo, turned out to be a hoax.
The Racak massacre, the slaughter of some forty ethnic Albanian
civilians
by Serb security forces -- said to have provided the impetus for Nato to
bomb Yugoslavia -- looks, now, after the release of a Finnish forensic
pathology report, to have been faked by the KLA.
One hundred thousand Kosovars were said to have been killed by
Milosevic's
forces, a number later revised downward to 10,000, and then, after
pathologists rushed to Kosovo at the end of Nato's 78-day air war ready
to
inspect dozens of alleged mass graves, was revised downward further
still,
when pathologists failed to uncover what Nato darkly warned the world
they'd find. Fewer than 2,000 autopsies were performed. Bodies were
found
buried alone or in pairs -- not in the mass graves Cook says he visited
or
Bush remembers chilling images of. Whether the corpses were Serb or
Albanian, indeed whether they met their deaths at the hands of Serb
security forces or KLA guerillas, was never certain.
What then are we to make of this? Most of the atrocities Milosevic stood
initially accused of turn out never to have happened, which may be why
the
first press reports of Milosevic's arrest steered clear of the specifics
of
the reasons for his apprehension, preferring instead Orwell's
prefabricated
phrases. Being a strongman, ruthless and iron-fisted, seemed reason
enough
for his arrest. About as concrete as anyone got was in attributing "the
worst European wars since the Nazis" to Milosevic, an accusation that
could
only be made by turning a blind eye to what was truly one of the worst
post
World War II European wars -- the Nato air strikes on Yugoslavia. And it
was hardly Milosevic who initiated that war, although I suppose, in some
perverted twist of logic it could be said that Milosevic was
responsible,
in the same way that a kid who refuses to relinquish his lunch money to
the
school yard bully is responsible for his own bloodied nose.
Largely unreported is that Nato's bombing of Yugoslavia was precipitated
by
Milosevic's refusal to allow Nato to occupy the entire country -- one of
the ultimata Nato issued at Rambouilett. Milosevic was ready to agree to
a
UN force in Kosovo, something, it will be recalled, Nato finally agreed
to,
but only after turning the country into a polluted desert.
Nato's pummelling of Yugoslavia, with its toll of hundreds, if not
thousands of civilians killed, and many more thousands injured,
apparently
doesn't count as one of the worst European wars since the Nazis, though
it
might be recalled that before Nato it was the Nazis who last bombed
Yugoslavia.
The flexing of Nato's military muscle was called a humanitarian
intervention, not a war, and therefore doesn't count. Goebbels would
have
admired the audacity. The euphemistic evasion "humanitarian
intervention"
calls to mind the Fuggs' 1966 underground hit, Kill for Peace.
Kill, it will give you the mental ease
Kill it will give you a big release
Kill, kill, kill for peace.
It also calls to mind Orwell's charge that political language is
designed
to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.
Human Rights Watch says that Nato bombs killed 500 civilians.
The total body count for which Milosevic stands indicted on war crimes
is
391, not 100,000 and not 10,000. Less than the number of Yugoslav
civilians
killed by a humanitarian Nato. That's never mentioned by the media.
And all of the incidents cited in the indictment against Milosevic but
one
-- the phoney Racak incident -- happened after Nato's bombs started
their
ugly exercise of ushering Serb civilians to an early grave or to a life
of
permanent disability. Which is curious, because Nato said it needed to
bomb
Yugoslavia to stop Serb atrocities.
So what exactly is George W. Bush talking about when he mentions the
chilling images of mass graves? And exactly what graves did Robin Cook
visit anyway?
Chilling images of mass killing, indeed, are something we should never
forget. The near genocide of the East Timorese by Indonesia, which went
on
for decades under the eyes of successive US administrations; the burning
of
Kurd villages by Turkish security forces, both in Turkey, and across its
border, in Northern Iraq, where American and British patrols supposedly
fly
to protect the Kurd minority -- except when Turkish jet fighters loaded
with bombs, generously paid for by US military aid, are razing Kurd
villages; Colombian peasants driven from their homes and murdered by
death
squads linked to the Colombian military the US has given $1.3 billion
to;
the hundreds of Palestinians killed by the Israeli Defence Forces, and
the
thousands injured and permanently disabled, in the latest intifada;
these
are chilling images we should begin to notice, much less never forget.
And what of the chilling images of thousands of Iraqi children dying
every
month because of the US-led sanctions regime, or Serb hospitals,
schools,
bridges, factories, destroyed by Nato bombs -- can they be forgotten?
Nor should we overlook -- or forget -- the complicity of the press in
lending the appearance of solidity to the emptiness of the words of the
likes of Bush and Cook, a press which boasts of being free and
independent,
yet allows itself to be spoon-fed mendacious drivel which it neither
questions nor parses.
And we shouldn't forget the troubling lies that roll so easily off the
tongues of Nato leaders -- about massacres that didn't happen, and
master
plans for ethnic cleansing that never existed, and death tolls that are
wildly exaggerated.
Mr. Steve Gowans is a writer and political activist who lives in Ottawa,
Canada.
Source: Antiwar.com
---
STATEMENT OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF SERBIA
Belgrade, April 4, 2001
Socialist Party of Serbia has requested the competent authorities that
Party President Slobodan Milosevic is released from detention and given
possibility to legally defend himself free. Slobodan Milosevic is symbol
of
defending dignity of Serbian nation, national and state interests as
well
as of cooperation based on equality with all countries and peoples.
Milosevic had organized and united citizens of Yugoslavia in resisting
NATO
armed aggression which provoked thousands of human victims, destruction
of
the country and which led Balkans, Europe and whole world the heritage
of
unpredictable lasting dangers. Let nobody stay with illusions that
history
and truth can be changed by detaining Slobodan Milosevic.
Socialist Party of Serbia is grateful to numerous friendly parties,
statesmen and world public personalities, who condemned detention of
Slobodan Milosevic as an attempt to amnesty those who have been
destroying
Yugoslavia and committing genocide over Serbian nation and blame victims
of
the crimes - defenders of legitimate interests of Yugoslavia and Serbian
people.
Socialist Party of Serbia urges the competent state authorities to
prevent
Democratic Party from being headquarters for public lynches,
orchestration
of political trials and ransom detention of political opponents.
The new DOS authorities succeed in only one election promise: freeing
from
jails Albanian terrorists and filing jails with Serbian patriots. These
authorities having no national and state policy, neglecting dignity and
interest of Serbia - have accepted to negotiate with Albanian terrorists
about Serbian territories in Southern Serbia, thus offering time to
terrorists to amass, build fortifications from which they kill every day
Serbian citizens, policemen and soldiers. Separatism program of DOS
leaders
in Vojvodina and Raska region is publicly destroying Serbian state as
the
only pillar of the whole Serbian nation and all citizens of Serbia.
In these conditions the Socialist Party of Serbia will continue to
resolutely defend interest of Serbia and its citizens, safeguarding
Yugoslavia as the Balkans and European state, the most important factor
of
peace, stability and cooperation based on equality in the region.
To join or help this struggle, visit:
http://www.sps.org.yu/ (official SPS website)
http://www.belgrade-forum.org/ (forum for the world of equals)
http://www.24casa.co.yu/ (the only free daily newspaper in Yugoslavia)
---
SPS ON MILUTINOVIC RESIGNATION
Belgrade, April 4, 2001
President of the Republic of Serbia Milan Milutinovic submitted
yesterday
his resignation from the posts of vice-chairman and of the member of
Head
Committee of the Socialist Party of Serbia, the principal opposition
party
on both - Serbian and Federal levels. His letter to the Head Committee
followed only a day after the President of the Party Slobodan Milosevic
was
put in detention by Serbian authorities. Milutinovic who has acquired
extraordinary political carrier being one of the closest friends of
Milosevic and who won Serbian presidential elections as the candidate of
Socialist Party, has kept him self completely away from public political
life ever since Democratic opposition took power in Yugoslavia and in
Serbia towards the end of last year.
Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Serbia has issued today a
statement reacting to complaints of Mr. Milutinovic that he has been
asked
in various occasions to act beyond his powers. The statement says that
Socialist Party has been expecting President Milutinovic to publicly
condemn escalation of Albanian terrorism in Kosovo and Metohija and
southern districts of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja as it is his
principal duty to defend peace, stability, integrity of the Republic and
human rights of all citizens. He has been asked to visit those regions,
the
same way as many other less competent officials have been doing.
The statement confirms that Milutinovic has been urged by his Party
colleagues to use his constitutional powers and refrain from signing
certain laws considered by the Party to be contrary to the interest of
the
Republic, such as Amnesty law and law on abolishing the Law on
privatization. He was also asked to amnesty Dragoljub Milanovic, former
director of the state television (RTS), who was accused and detained two
months ago under accusation of being responsible for the death of
sixteen
RTS employees, who were killed by NATO bomb on April 23, 1999.
All these expectations and initiatives of Socialist Party of Serbia have
been ignored by Mr. Milutinovic.
The Socialist Party of Serbia has strongly criticized Milutinovic's
move,
reminding him that he has never been dissatisfied while exploiting the
Party and friendship with Milosevic for very fast and privilege
rendering
rising-up to the top of the power - first Ambassador to Athens, then
Minister of Foreign Affairs and finally President of Serbia.
Milutinovic's resignation will soon be considered by the Head Committee
of
the Party.
---
http://serbianunity.net/index.html
Serbian Unity Congress
MARCH 24th 1999
REMEMBER KOSOVO
March 24, 1999 - a day that will live in infamy. On
that day, NATO fired the opening shots of what was to
be a 78-day war against Yugoslavia. In the following
eleven weeks, thousands of people were killed as
civilian infrastructure was systematically targeted by
NATO's air force. Using forbidden and toxic weapons,
such as cluster bombs and depleted uranium rounds,
NATO hit marketplaces and hospitals, oil refineries,
the power grid, chemical plants, bridges, apartment
buildings, passenger trains, refugee columns and
camps, two television stations, and an embassy of a
neutral foreign country.
Justifications for the attack were alleged Serb
atrocities against Albanian population in Kosovo,
which NATO claimed were part of a systematic plan of
ethnic cleansing. Some US officials claimed that
100,000 Albanians were murdered. The world press
agreed on 10,000. Two years later, these accusations
have been proven false. There was no massacre of
civilians at the village of Racak. There was no
"Operation Horseshoe." There was no crematorium in the
Trepca mines. There were no death camps. There were no
mass graves. There was no genocide.
Investigators of the International Criminal Tribunal
found less than three thousand dead, in individual
graves, without disclosing the manner of death or even
the ethnicity of the exhumed.
In the end, Yugoslavia accepted NATO's temporary
control of Kosovo in exchange for guarantees of safety
for all its citizens in the province. Within two
months of NATO's entry, most non-Albanians had been
expelled from the province at gunpoint, their homes
burned, looted or expropriated by the KLA, a militant
organization trained and equipped by the United States
and other NATO members. One American officer, a
veteran of World War Two, Korea and Viet Nam,
described them as "one of the most cutthroat gangs of
terrorists in the world."
But the KLA's terror did not stop there. Over a
hundred Orthodox churches were dynamited, torched or
otherwise demolished. Hundreds of non-Albanians were
brutally murdered, on the streets, in their offices,
in their fields, or in buses under NATO's armed
escort. Over 1800 are missing. Kosovo's remaining
non-Albanians - Serbs, Roma, Jews, Turks, Bosniaks and
Gorani - live in ghettos, surrounded by barbed-wire
fences and armed guards. Anyone speaking Serbian on
the street risks being murdered, even UN employees.
Kosovo is ruled by violence and terror, despite the
presence of almost 40,000 NATO troops, about 5000 of
which are Americans.
Furthermore, NATO trained some KLA members for further
attacks on Serbs. These Albanians are currently
occupying villages in Serbia's Presevo valley, and
attacking the second largest city in Macedonia - the
same country that generously gave refuge to thousands
of Albanians trying to escape the bombing and the war
in Kosovo. Today's Balkans is still feeling the
consequences of what started on March 24, 1999.
By attacking Yugoslavia, NATO violated the UN Charter,
its own Charter, the Geneva Convention, the Helsinki
Final Act and a series of other conventions and
agreements its members had signed. Its bombs destroyed
the rule of law and the international order NATO
claimed to have been defending.
On this day, Serbs and their friends across the world
will light candles and say prayers in memory of NATO's
victims - both the people, and the peace, that the
bombs of March 24 so brutally killed.
March 24, 2001
Serbian Unity Congress
Washington, DC
---
Subject: from chris soda
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 08:27:33 -0500
From: Chris Soda <chriss12@...>
Open letter to Serbian churches and organizations in Canada
Thank you for the opportunity to share a few thoughts at this solemn
occasion. This weekend marks the
second anniversary of our government's murder of innocent people in
Yugoslavia. As a Canadian citizen born
and raised in this country I and my family have been lucky enough to
have never suffered from a foreign
military aggression. Consequently, I didn't have a personal common
history nor a personal common
experience with many of you until two years ago; now, we all live
together in a country whose government has
broken our laws and stolen our money to murder both the helpless and the
honourable.
We all read the same lies here in our newspapers, listened to the same
lies on radio. We still do.
We all waited for the same Russian cavalry which never arrived.
Who amongst you gathered here today didn't watch CNN ask, "What's wrong
with our society?" as children
shot each other at Columbine High School- while it reported the
justification of adults from the same country
bombing children in high schools overseas?
I'm still waiting for an answer as to how directing a cluster bomb near
a World Heritage Site or a marketplace
or a bus station helps to save the lives of innocent people hundreds of
miles away who are running from
those same types of bombs- all dropped by the same so-called
'humanitarians'. I'm still waiting for an answer
as to how yesterday's terrorists who killed the innocent became Canadian
allies, freedom fighters, and the
police force of Kosovo all wrapped into one- while still killing the
innocent even as you are gathered here
today.
I'm asking myself how a government that agrees to autonomy during
meetings at Rambouillet can be
accused of plotting something called "Operation Horseshoe" at the same
time. I'm wondering how
Canadians could murder the children of a country that at the same place
and at the same time just asked our
country if they could join their NATO alliance. I'm wondering about why
anyone anywhere would believe
accusations of this so-called 'ethnic cleansing' coming from a country
that not that long ago systematically
deployed racial segregation. And I'm wondering how our country can allow
'language laws'.
And it puzzles me how both the US and Canada can point the finger at
anyone after forcing their own natives
onto reservations. I also wonder how a 'dictatorship' using 'repressive'
means can guarantee education,
health, and employment in over twenty languages to those it is
'repressing'- or how a 'human rights violator'
somehow allows the schools, hospitals, and churches of those it is
'ethnically cleansing' to remain intact; in
fact, the 'violating' state even pays for most of it.
I wonder how so-called 'ethnic cleansing' involves riding an
air-conditioned bus to safety, escorted by none
other than what our government calls the 'Serb aggressors'.
I wonder how defending your country constitutes 'aggression'. I wonder
how those who paid for and
perpetrated the real aggression are known as 'peacekeepers'.
Since our beloved CBC found the time and resources to produce an
award-winning documentary of a KLA
woman whose sister was 'murdered by the Serbs', I'm wondering two
things: why this sister turned up alive
and well and unharmed- but the CBC still kept their award anyway; and
secondly, why couldn't this same
CBC find the time and resources to interview and film some of the many
hundreds of thousands of Muslims
who fled north from Kosovo- to Belgrade, which welcomed them with open
arms- for safety during what we
are still being told was a 'humanitarian intervention' to save
them..........................from Belgrade.
I'm puzzled by the silence of the Globe and Mails and National Posts of
Canada who watch as Agim Ceku
first tries to murder Canadians in Croatia, then is protected by
Canadians in Kosovo as the new police chief.
I'm puzzled as to why none of our mainstream media comment as to why the
Germans have to force back to
Kosovo so-called 'victims of the Serbs' long after these 'Serb
aggressors' have left.
There are also two other things we have in common now. We have many
questions that we ask of the
bombers, and we have no truthful answers from any of them.
Try to get a truthful answer from Canadian child killers and their
superiors by asking how someone who
suffered tuberculosis and is sheltered, fed, and cared for by Serbs
suddenly becomes 'a victim of Serb death
camps' photographed by trickery to appear to be imprisoned behind barbed
wire- followed shortly after by
NATO bombings of innocent people. Try to get a truthful answer from the
cripplers of ordinary hard-working,
law-abiding people by asking how "a massacre of innocent civilians at
Racak, forced to kneel in the mud and
beg for their lives" really means gunpowder residue on the hands of
armed insurrectionists shot while firing
weapons at the police- after refusing to surrender.
Then ask how this "massacre" was attended by film crews invited to watch
by "the perpetrators of this
massacre" before the "massacre" even took place - followed shortly
thereafter by yet another NATO bombing
of innocent people.
Ask anyone of our 'independant' news media or anyone of our country's
political leaders from any of our
political parties in the House of Commons how a regularly-scheduled
passenger train is bombed twice within
minutes by "accident"- the first time to cripple the machine, the second
time to kill the defenceless people
trapped inside- when this "accident" involves manually using a joystick
to divert missiles AWAY from the
unoccupied part of a bridge and TOWARDS the target.
We all know this particular event was also filmed- and shown to us at
three times normal speed, also by
"accident" according to our government's real spokesmen: Jamie Shea,
Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Madeleine
Albright (herself saved by Serbs, the very same people whose friends and
relatives she orders murdered
years later) and the other savages in NATO.
The questions are innumerable but all of them have only one answer. The
same answer. This answer can be
found at a press conference given by this same Jamie Shea in April/99,
in which he congratulates his fellow
NATO personnel for "...another very effective day of operations..."
Less than 24 hours earlier, NATO had just murdered hundreds of ordinary
people in and around Korisa-
ordinary people moving in different groups and in different directions.
Ordinary people in Yugoslavia who
were moving to begin with because hours earlier NATO had bombed them out
of their homes in what
everyone tells us was an example of "protection" from the Serbs who had
defended them while they were still
in their homes.
That answers any of my questions, and any of yours I'm sure. For me, it
answers how 19 countries can share
the technology to sit on the edge of outer space and read a license
plate miles below, and yet tell us that they
can't read the correct address of an embassy listed in a phone book an
inch away from their faces. It
answers how a TV station can be bombed because they tell us it's
reporters are a propaganda machine of
Milosevic, while the same types of bombers sit together with the
reporters at CNN and invite an elected
Yugoslav Member of Parliament to an interview in that same TV station-
at the exact time the station is
scheduled to be bombed- by those who are sitting at those same desks at
CNN.
We all know what has happened here. We all know that there is no shame
amongst the plotters of murder,
theft, and deception. We all know that I'm speaking of the highest
elected officials of this country. We all know
who elected them and we all know most of those don't bear any shame
either.
The best thing we can do is to keep asking the questions for which we
already know the answers to; only by
embarassing the electors can we hope to unsettle the elected. Ask your
police chiefs and your police officers
why those who fought cold-blooded murderers and drug traffickers are
considered 'criminals' by those whom
the same police chiefs and their officers are sworn to protect. Ask the
representatives of all religious
denominations in this country why their leaders have not come out with
ongoing, direct statements
condemning the targeting of innocents. Ask your school boards why they
can't find the will to author a joint
statement condemning the theft of taxpayer dollars that should have been
used for education here, rather than
being stolen and then used for the destruction of buildings of learning
in Yugoslavia. Ask your medical boards
and the federal Health Ministry why money could not be found by the
Canadian federal government to keep
hospitals open in this country, while at the same time revenue was
stolen to finance the bombing of hospitals
overseas.
Put them all on the spot. Ask your elected Members of Parliament why
they have always been silent on these
issues except to patronize us and insult our intelligence with
propaganda. Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis may
prove to be an exception if approached with written questions in this
regard- he's the only one I've found who
(once, and I believe it was in the House of Commons, May 10/99) decried
this government's targeting of
civilians during those 78 days of murder.
Commemoration of the dead means remembering the honourable, the
innocent, and the perpetrators. Let's
remember-and remind- the guilty with our questions.
Ask these same federal MPs what their definition of a 'two-tier' health
system means in practice. Ask them
why their 'two-tier' actions have supported one level of health safety
here, and one level of health destruction
elsewhere.
Ask your Globe and Mails and your National Posts and your local papers
how they can call something
'collateral damage' when it is planned many years ahead of time, and how
this 'collateral damage' is caused
by repeatedly and deliberately circling over a target before firing.
Call your CBC office and inquire as to when they plan to do an
'exclusive interview' with the Spanish Air
Force pilot who told us early on in these Canadian-sponsored atrocities
in Yugoslavia that the ordinary
people were the target from Day One.
And ask all of these people this: if our government embarked on such a
noble cause, then why is it that they
still have to keep lying to us?
Thank you again for your time today. I hope to meet some of you one day
and shake the hands of those with
such spirit and determination.
Sincerely, Chris Soda
---
WORLDNETDAILY, Saturday, February 10, 2001
How the New World Order is 'helping' Serbia
By Aleksandar Pavic
(C) 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
The way things are going, it seems that it's just a matter
of time
before Bill Clinton, the man who ordered the NATO bombing
of Yugoslavia
in 1999 will come to Belgrade offering "help." For, this
past week, the
country was a positive place of pilgrimage for all those
who had
previously contributed to its ruin in one way or another.
It started a week ago when U.S. Senators Biden and McCain
led a
delegation of senators and representatives to Belgrade to
wave the
carrot and stick. Back in 1999, Biden was one of the
louder proponents
of arming the Albanian KLA guerilla force fighting the
Serb population
and police in Kosovo - the same force that effectively
cleared the
region of its Serb population, in the wake of the bombing,
and went on
to transform Kosovo into the main European center of drug
smuggling,
white slavery and prostitution. John McCain, on the other
hand, was a
fierce advocate of launching a ground invasion of
Yugoslavia when the
bombing failed to give the expected "results."
Now, these two gentlemen have come humbly to Belgrade to
offer to do
their part so that Yugoslavia would recover a fraction of
a percent of
the estimated damage from the bombing and the resulting
after effects --
but not so humbly as to make the offer unconditional. No,
the generous
gift of $100 million was conditioned on the country's
leadership
agreeing to turn over ex-president Slobodan Milosevic to
the Hague "war
crimes tribunal." Thus, one man who openly called for the
arming of a
guerilla insurgency inside a sovereign country -- who
openly called for
an invasion of that same sovereign country without even a
formal
declaration of war -- came to that country asking for
"international
justice" to be satisfied.
At the beginning of the week, a second great "helper"
appeared on the
scene a little further south -- in the Presevo and
Bujanovac region of
Serbia -- where the Kosovo Albanians "disarmed" by the
50,000-strong
NATO-led force are trying to import the virtues of the
newly
"democratized" Kosovo to the south of Serbia by starting a
brand new
guerilla insurgency. The man in question was U.S. diplomat
James Pardew,
now "U.S. Special Envoy to the Balkans," but a man far
better known for
running the "arm-and-train" program in neighboring Bosnia
(formerly a
part of Yugoslavia) during that country's civil war. Under
this program,
U.S. arms and training were used to "level the playing
field" in that
country by arming the Bosnian Muslims and Croats until
they eventually
became twice as well-armed as the Bosnian Serbs. Now,
Pardew's sense of
sportsmanship was set on firmer legal ground than was
Biden's. For,
although the Bosnian Croats and Muslims also had their
beginnings as
illegal secessionist paramilitary units within a sovereign
country, by
the time Pardew came on the scene, Bosnia had already been
recognized as
a newly sovereign country by the "international
community." (That's the
way things are done according to international law
nowadays. As soon as
recognition came in the spring of 1992, the Yugoslav Army
troops on the
territory of Bosnia all of a sudden became the
"aggressors," while
yesterday's illegal guerillas became a legitimate army
worthy of Western
support and arms.)
Anyway, Mr. Pardew was in the south of Serbia offering his
good offices
at the beginning of the week. He publicly called for the
KLA-backed
insurgents to "seriously consider" the Serbian
government's call for a
peaceful settlement of the problem. Coincidentally or not,
a couple of
days later came a statement from NATO and U.S. Admiral
Ellis, saying
that the "international community" should appoint some
sort of a "Peace
Minister" to mediate between the legally-elected
government of Serbia
and the illegal guerilla force. This possibly shed light
on the "Special
Envoy's" earlier visit: to help the negotiations along,
could Mr. Pardew
once again do something to "level the playing field?"
Then on Thursday, the influx of peace pilgrims reached its
height when
the present E.U. Commissioner for Security, Javier Solana,
made his way
to Belgrade. Before his present position, Solana held the
post of NATO's
Secretary-General, which made him the formal number one
during that
military organization's illegal bombing campaign of
Yugoslavia. But now
he had come to "help." He wouldn't have come if he didn't
think he could
help, he said, adding that he was very happy to be in
Belgrade and that
the visit personally meant a great deal to him. After
Solana, nothing
less than Bill Clinton will do -- except, perhaps, for
Madeleine
Albright.
It would be too easy to say that these were cases of
criminals returning
to the scene of the crime. It has more to do with the
further
development of Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil" -- evil
that has
become so banal as to become unrecognizable to many of its
bearers. So
unrecognizable, in fact, that they have started seeing it
as something
that is, in fact, good. "Leveling the playing field,"
"arming the
oppressed," "bombing to prevent (unproven) genocide,"
demanding
"international justice." It is under these abstract,
noble-on-the-surface battle-cries that the Devil is
currently doing his
finest work.
It is no surprise that Javier Solana was once a fierce
left-wing
opponent of NATO, as was Joschka Fisher, the current
German Defense
Minister and another supporter of the NATO bombing. In
their youthful
projections of heaven-on-earth, NATO was something evil,
something
militaristic that openly contradicted the ideals of their
own,
peace-and-flower generation. Having come to positions of
substantial
political power -- where they could actually help mold the
ideal world
with their own hands -- the raw military power of NATO had
become their
instrument for bringing good and righting the world's
wrongs. And, of
course, in this way, anything and everything can be
justified. Even
NATO's aggressive march eastward can be portrayed as the
advancement of
the benefits of Western democracy. The hunger to gain
control of natural
resources can also be seen as a way to bring "prosperity"
to previously
poor regions.
Of course, not all the mavens of intervention and carriers
of the New
World Order's institutionalized cynicism are secularized
do-gooders
blinded by their own hubris and lack of humility. What is
sad is that
they are the best of the bunch and that they actually
believe many of
the things that come out of their mouths.
Aleksandar Pavic in Belgrade has covered Yugoslavia's
historic election
and its dramatic aftermath for WorldNetDaily.com.
---
The url for this article
http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/djindjic.htm
'These Djindjic people are brown shirts!'
An Interview with a Serbian political activist, by Jared Israel
www.tenc.net
[Emperor's Clothes]
The following interview took place several days after the October 5 coup
in Belgrade. The person interviewed has been a member of the Serbian
Radical party, a nationalist group. When I conducted the interview, I
had the impression she was still a member but she has informed me that
now she is in no party.
**
Jared: What's going on?
Gordana: Some very aggressive people from the opposition are grabbing
everything around here, in particular taking the institutions that have
some money, for instance the telecommunications company. They are
scaring people and beating people.
They want to destroy the results of previous elections by declaring that
new elections have to be held for the Serbian Parliament. Elections are
not supposed to be held for a year but they want them this fall. That
would mean the Serbian people would lose their representatives because
the elections would be held in an impossible situation. Whole groups of
political parties have no access to media. In the past we had many
viewpoints because we had government media and even more widespread was
various shades of opposition media. Now only one view. And there is day
to day terrorizing of people. Mr. Djindjic hopes that people will be too
scared to run as candidates from those parties which stand in his way.
Jared: You say there is "day to day terrorizing"?.
Gordana: Take this example. A friend of mine is intellectual. Every time
her phone rings she gets a threat from the other side. They stop her car
in traffic to threaten her, and so on. And this is a professional woman,
the daughter of a well-known professor. Even these people who are well
known are subject to threats. Another such woman, a reporter, visits me,
and she is afraid to go home alone and stays over - and this is in
Belgrade! Can you imagine how the common people feel? They are even more
afraid. I was on a bus full of tired, worried working people and one of
these Otpor types got on and demanded that the bus stands still and he
says: "Listen! We have the power now and you will see what we do!"
Jared: So you think that people will be afraid to vote for the Socialist
or Radical parties or other parties that oppose the coup?
Gordana: No, I think that people may be afraid to run as candidates for
these parties.
The Djindjic people took over all the radio stations and TV stations and
newspapers. On TV now you can't see even the regular old shows. It is
propaganda. The old ladies in Serbia like to watch soap operas from
South America but now they can't do that. You see they are poor and they
have such a hard life and now they don't have even this small pleasure.
Instead we have to watch stupid American government lies, even about the
wars in Bosnia and Croatia and so on. They have programs that blame the
Serbs, for everything. Can you believe this? Do they think we are
morons, not to know our own history. But the purpose here is also a kind
of terror, to break the spirit. To make people feel hope is lost.
Today they had a show on the television telling lies about Dubrovnik,
showing pictures to prove it was burned down in 1991 by the Yugoslav
army. But Dubrovnik has all the old buildings in perfect condition and I
know this because friends have been back to see the town, and it was not
damaged.
And these movies they now show to prove to us that the Serbs were
responsible for the wars this past decade. Why? Did we try to secede?
Doesn't Yugoslavia have a right to exist? .Would other countries allow
secessionists and foreign factors to destroy their nation? I have never
seen such lies. Can you imagine, having a situation where you can't
stand to watch the TV or read the papers.
Jared: I'm afraid I can imagine. What we mainly do on Emperor's Clothes
is expose lies. They create 'em faster than we can expose them. All I do
is expose fiction.
Gordana: Today is 1941 in Yugoslavia. If there are people who don't
know, well, they will know it very soon. Even some people I spoke to who
were supporting the DOS now see this violence that is going on and they
say, "These Djindjic people are brown shirts."
[Brown shirts is a term for Fascists or Nazi's - E-C]
***
Afterthoughts - The lies they now tell in Serbia
I am writing a book on Western media lies about Yugoslavia. As part of
the research, I've read news reports written in 1991 about Dubrovnik. As
Gordana says, the Western claim is that the Yugoslavs (read: Serbs)
burned down the priceless Old City. This lie was broadcast in the
Western mass media in order to prove the Serbs were ruthless monsters.
When the first stories broke describing the (in fact fictitious) burning
of the Old City, they produced popular anti-Serb response. So, wanting
to make the most of a good thing, the controllers of the media has the
lie repeated.
But there is only so much mileage you can get from a single burning; so
they burned it down several times.
The first time Dubrovnik was fictitiously burned down, a decent interval
was allowed, whereupon it was fictitiously burned to the ground a second
time, and then a third, and so on. Dubrovnik is Burning, Redux.
The London "Independent" reported that Dubrovnik was burned to the
ground no less than five times over a four months period. These reports
were mostly signed by one Phil Davison.
Despite multiple burnings, Prof. Peter Maher, a knowledgeable witness,
shot a film of the Old City in March, 1992. Dubrovnik was still
standing, untouched by Yugoslav shells. It remains a prime tourist
attraction.
(I have seen the film.)
So what DID happen in Dubrovnik in 1991? There was indeed fighting. But
the Yugoslav Army deliberately avoided shelling the Old City. (This is
not surprising because, after all, they viewed it as a Yugoslav
treasure!)
Actually it was the secessionists who deliberately put Old Dubrovnik at
risk, trying to trick Yugoslav loyalist forces into shelling it. In this
they failed, so the media made it up.
Here is the basic sequence of events.
Croatian secessionist troops attacked Yugoslav Army barracks near
Dubrovnik. The Yugoslav Army gave chase. The secessionists retreated
behind the old city digging in areas dangerously close to hotels in
which they had housed refugees from the fighting . In a moment of
candor, Phil Davison, the reporter from the British "Independent" who
holds the record for reporting total destructions of Dubrovnik the most
times, admitted that by setting up near the hotels, the secessionist
army virtually guaranteed that hotels would get hit:
"The Croats have set up a mortar close to our hotel, just as they have
next to hospitals and refugee centres. This may make us a target for the
army. Sooner or later, they are going to lay a couple of rounds on us.
The army is zapping Lokrum island, 300 yards from my hotel. Mortars,
machineguns, ack-ack guns. It is deafening. A machinegun barrage rattles
my windows. It is just a matter of time."
(The 'Independent' November 17, 1991)
Other than this single, honest report, the Western media was full of
stories about how the heartless Yugoslav Army was shelling hotels that
housed refugees.
Did the secessionists set up their positions behind the Old City and
near hotels in order to get the Yugoslav Army and Navy to shell the Old
City and the hotels and thus provide ammunition for anti-Yugoslav
propaganda? Common sense suggests they did. And more than common sense:
consider the following, which appeared in only two English language
newspapers:
"Women And Children Barred From Leaving Croatian Town
"The six-member Dubrovnik crisis committee decided six days ago that the
defense of this coastal Adriatic city required the presence of all the
remaining women and children. UNICEF was informed of the decree three
days ago, and on Tuesday, it was first implemented when 200 people were
prevented from leaving the city on a UNICEF relief vessel that had
brought supplies to the city.
"First, he said, if the women and children stay, it will mean that the
attacking army would be shooting at them and not just at a walled city.
"Second, he said, their presence might force the army to hesitate before
shooting.
"Third, if there is an attack, the international public reaction to such
an attack would be a public-relations coup for Croatia, which has been
trying desperately for months to get diplomatic and military support
from the West…
"Only 100 of 300 people scheduled to leave on a ship Tuesday were
allowed to depart, and UNICEF was told by Dubrovnik officials that no
one else would be able to leave."(My emphasis, 'The Orange County
Register,' December 5, 1991.)
Note that the story was not covered by the 'N.Y.Times' .
***
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[Emperor's Clothes]
Subject: WHAT THE US IS ACTUALLY AFTER IN YUGOSLAVIA?
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 00:28:44 EST
From: Pelkinsin@...
For Your Information and Contemplation.
Tika Jankovic
Part II
7. Badguys and Quislings
Professor Vukotic is the brains behind the secession of Montenegro.
His
former student, Milo Djukanovic, is the President of Montenegro.
Djukanovic
employed the good professor to hasten the privatization of state
property in
Montenegro. He was ubiquitous; Professor Vukotic marched into Kosovo
with
NATO forces in June 1999, at the height of Kosovar expulsions of ethnic
Serbs
and Gypsies (ROM) (who are by now 90% ethnically cleansed from the
province.)
(NATO remains mum about that.)
The IMF sent another G 17 member, Dr. Zeliko Bogetic, who oversaw
the
transition to capitalism in Bulgaria, to Montenegro. Recently, following
Bogetic's advice, Montenegro adopted the Deutchmark as its currency,
placing
the province, which claims to desire independence, in the hands of its
creditors. Dr. Bogetic is in line to become the director of Yugoslavia's
Central Bank. Yugoslavia would cease to be an economically sovereign
entity
if Dr. Bogetic follows the same policies in Belgrade as he did in
Montenegro.
29
Veselin Vukotic was on the "News Hour" with Jim Lehrer, on Public
television,
on Bastille Day, 1999 and said, "We want to be an open colony and an
open
society."
Although the West reassured Kostunica and his supporters that
Montenegro
and Kosovo were to remain Yugoslav provinces, powerful forces in the
United
States have other ideas.
Morton Abromowitz was Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence
and
Research in the Reagan administration. I'm sure we'll see more of him
under
George W. He supported the arming of the Afghan Mujahaddin that served
to
discredit and destabilize the Soviet Union in the 1980s. He was part of
the
Council on Foreign Relations panel that advised the Clinton
administration
to
loosen restrictions on CIA operations dealing with criminals, using
journalists, and targeting unfriendly heads of state. He now works for a
right-wing think tank called The Century Foundation." In a recent
Washington
Post op ed. piece Mr. Abromowitz asserted, "the federal republic is
Serbia.
After the December 23rd elections-which should produce a government free
of
Mr. Milosovic's flunkies- fresh talks can be held between Montenegro and
Serbia." Abromowitz later in the article urged, "Effective management
of
Kosovo's own affairs . . . Prospects . . . would be better if the west
stopped encouraging Belgrade to believe it still has a future in ruling
Kosovo." 30
That is the future Kostunica faces: Yugoslavia, its people
impoverished
and trapped in an IMF/World Bank straightjacket, pared down to Serbia,
with
incursions on its territories encouraged and protected by NATO. With
Montenegro gone, it will become land-locked. It will be a Yugoslavia
forced
to borrow money to pay for the destruction of NATO bombings, and
finally,
faced with the decimation of its once productive economy.
And who is waiting in the wings? Every western corporations who see
"crucial assets for sale, includ(ing)the huge tobacco factory in Nis,
electric, oil, and gas companies, cement factories, and the government's
51%
stake in Telecom Srbja." McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Heineken are all
salivating
at
the prospects of investment and trade. Milan Panic, tossed out by
Milosovic,
is back at his old pharmaceutical company, which was nationalized by
Milosovic. 31
8. What is Vojislav Kostunica, really?
At the Serb Unity Congress in Toronto in October, the victory of
Kostunica was greeted with joy and celebration. But who is this fellow,
this
professor of law, this so-called leader of the Democratic Opposition of
Serbia?
Kostunica is a pathetic creature. In October he visited Republika
Srpska
in Bosnia. This Serbian enclave is the 49% of the land the Serbs were
allowed to keep in Bosnia after the war. The United States Institute of
Peace, closely associated with the likes of Madeline Albright, Jamie
Rubin,
and Richard Holbrooke, in their most recent publication urged that,
"Serbia
(under Kostunica) should end support to all political forces in Bosnia.
.
.and should recognize Bosnia's territorial integrity," and "the European
Union should . . . make the country a single economic space. . . with a
single integrated (intelligence and military) command." 32 Several
weeks
after Kostunica's visit, James Cunningham, deputy US representative to
the
United Nations rejected the election of candidates from the Serb
Democratic
Party in Republika Srpska saying "obstructionists should be kept out of
government." 33 .
(This was kind of funny since the Gore campaign was saying the same
thing
about the Bush "victory" in Florida.)
Kostunica is constrained by his financial supporters to "recognize
Bosnian sovereignty." And "conditional independence for Kosovo."34 But
there
was Vojislav, visiting the grave of a Yugoslav poet on his way to a
meeting
in Biarritz, France, at the European summit.
Greeted with cheers and congratulations in France, Kostunica was
the
man
of the hour. But his "welcome to the European family", was tempered with
the
knowledge that he was the front man for another more sinister fellow by
the
name of Zoran Djindjic. It is he who will probably become Prime Minister
of
Serbia 35 , and he who united the many dissident groups and managed
Kostunica's campaign, under the watchful eye of Madeline Albright. He
was a
founder of the Yugoslav Democratic Party, and worked for many years to
end
socialism in his own country.36 Djindjic is prepared to sink Yugoslavia
under the indebtedness of its previous IMF loans, which amount to $128
million, and a World Bank debt of $1.7 billion.37
But Djindjic, the G-17, OTPOR, D.O.S., all these shady characters,
including Kostunica, are just marionettes. The puppeteers reside
elsewhere,
in Washington and Bonn predominantly, pulling the strings, dismantling
what
is left of Yugoslavia. Slobodan Milosovic is down, but not out, having
just
been elected to lead the Socialist party. And the West fears that the
upcoming December 23rd elections might go well for the Socialists. After
all,
the IMF and World Bank have been voted out of Yugoslavia before.
9. What are the Prospects for the Future?
It is instructive to look at another country for a moment, the
Republic
of Belarus. No sooner had Slobodan Milosovic been dispatched, the US
and
the
European press began another assault, this time on Alexander Lukashenko
as
Europe's last Communist-style leader." 38 Belarus is facing the same
kinds
of
so called "nationalist" opposition that Yugoslavia faced. "Lukashenko's
security forces were gearing up to meet "provocations" by "foreign
agents"
with "Harsh measures,"39 reported the Boston Globe. The State
Department,
commenting on a recent election called it, "undemocratic." And
Lukashenko,
who swept to power in a landslide in 1994, said, "We have our own way to
travel."
That way includes his appreciation for Fidel Castro whom he visited
in
September, calling Castro, "a legendary figure."40 That way includes
opposition to loans from the International Monetary Fund, and proposing
to
Russia to build a large force in Belarus to defend against NATO.41 The
Belarus way is a socialist economy under which unemployment is 1.7%,
hunger
is non-existent, though everyone is poor, and the wage gap between rich
and
poor is nothing like that found in Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, or the
Ukraine.
Education and medical care are still free, and cultural events are low
priced. 42
So here is another Yugoslavia in the making. Only this time we need
to
be
ready to counter the attacks of those who will swear up and down that
this
"dictator" has to go because he is so ruthless. Because if we say
nothing,
NATO forces, which are already in former Yugoslavia, Hungary, Albania,
Azerbajan, Czech Republic . . . will move east to counter the "threat"
of
another leader who dares to oppose the International Monetary Fund, NATO
and
"democratic liberal economic reforms."
10. What it is Really All About
When we read the economic news lately, we worry that the economic
"boom"
(which has really been good for only the top 20 percent of the
population,)
is about to end. My late husband, Sean Gervasi wrote a document, five
months
before he died in 1996, which was published in the book, NATO in the
Balkans
and disseminated widely in Europe (as the Prague Declaration). It was
called, "Why is NATO in Yugoslavia," and in his brilliant prescience, he
noted, "the Western system is experiencing a profound economic, social,
and
political crisis, . . . and sees the exploitation of the East as the
only
large scale project which might stimulate growth. . ." And he asked,
"will
the world accept the risks of East-West conflict and nuclear war" to
protect
this system?43
Sean was warning about a war for resources, a war for markets, a war
between Europe and America. Russia opposes NATO expansion. Germany, as
the
most powerful economy of the European Union is both coactive and
dangerously
competitive with Washington for power in the East. In 1996, Volker Ruhe,
German Defense Minister said, "Bonn is not counting on remaining number
two
forever."44 Reading recent articles about the European Union's
development
of
a large military strike force, Germany's financial dominance in Western
and
Eastern Europe, and German statements that are aggressive in tone,
remind us
of history. They remind us that this is a perilous world, a world of
nuclear
powers, and a world which is now facing the final race for resources.
And that is what this has always been about. The west has used
revanchist
nationalists as their pawns. The American and German strategy has been
to
splinter existing nations, demonize states which oppose the "Grand
Plan,"
and
support pro-capitalist forces. The purpose of this military, ideological
and
economic onslaught is to secure the exploitation of the East, with the
incredible natural resources including the cheap (and desperate) labor
of
the
Eurasian continent. But Germany and the United States are rivals for all
of
this. And inter-imperial rivalry means war. It always has.
Russia alone has $28 trillion dollars worth of resources!
Azerbaijan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, plus Russian Astrakhan have oil
and
gas. In these regions, Islam is the major religion. In these republics,
the
United States is once again supporting reactionary Islamic
Fundamentalist
nationalists just as they did in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Albania, Bosnia,
and
Kosovo.
In his book, The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski spoke of a
long-term strategy for Eurasia. He urged the United States to establish
"global hegemony," and warned that there were only ten to 20 years to
take
control "before the door is closed."45 Brzezinski wrote of controlling
the
Eurasian corridor, from . . . the Balkans to Xinjiang and Tibet. Sean
Gervasi, a few days before he died, said that the US would try to push
NATO
all the way to China.
On November 19, 2000, a New York Times article on Xinjiang Province
in
western China described the Uighurs, a "Muslim majority (which) lives
restively under Chinese rule. " They "are well versed in the NATO
bombing
of
Yugoslavia last year which some celebrate for liberating the Muslims in
Kosovo; they fantasize about a similar 'rescue' here." 46 In last
week's
Times Magazine, the recipe for Xinjiang cabbage salad contained some
very
interesting information rarely found in most recipes, and NOT found in
the
news story from November 19th. "Recent discoveries of oil have made
Xinjiang
extremely attractive to international trade", it noted while comparing
the
conditions for its indigenous population to those in Tibet. (We are all
familiar with the Western media campaign to delegitimize China's control
over
Tibet, the recipe even alludes to the Richard Gere movie which swayed
filmgoers against the policies of the Peoples Republic of China in
Tibet).
The recipe cites Amnesty International's report on the Chinese
mistreatment
of Xinjiang's Moslem majority, and then advises cooks to buy Sichuan
peppers
for the recipe which "numb your tongue."47
11. What can we do?
Our tongues are not numb. Our eyes can see. Our minds are clearing.
This
is a moment for the Peace Movement to surge back into existence. With
the
international perspective of those who understand the political,
economic,
and military nature of these issues along with the tremendous vitality
of
the
ew generation of anti World Trade Organizations-, anti-IMF/World Bank
activists, I believe we are on the brink of a new and extraordinarily
vital
movement. And we are not alone, because these truths are clear to people
throughout the entire world.
Yugoslavia has been our teacher on American millennial treachery in
Eastern Europe, much as Vietnam was our textbook on 20th Century
American
foreign policy in the Third World. But the Vietnamese won their
confrontation
with the US and Yugoslavs- and the Serbs as a people- appear to have
lost.
The fall of Yugoslavia happened in part because the Peace Movement was
manipulated and misguided, and people thought that US foreign policy
could
be
benevolent. That was a big mistake.
The 21st Century may seem to be the zenith for American world
domination, but the contradictions within this system are too great, and
the
lies are just too transparent. Courageous people, need to join together
to
understand and counter this menace to the human race. Time is of the
essence.
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 00:28:44 EST
From: Pelkinsin@...
For Your Information and Contemplation.
Tika Jankovic
Part II
7. Badguys and Quislings
Professor Vukotic is the brains behind the secession of Montenegro.
His
former student, Milo Djukanovic, is the President of Montenegro.
Djukanovic
employed the good professor to hasten the privatization of state
property in
Montenegro. He was ubiquitous; Professor Vukotic marched into Kosovo
with
NATO forces in June 1999, at the height of Kosovar expulsions of ethnic
Serbs
and Gypsies (ROM) (who are by now 90% ethnically cleansed from the
province.)
(NATO remains mum about that.)
The IMF sent another G 17 member, Dr. Zeliko Bogetic, who oversaw
the
transition to capitalism in Bulgaria, to Montenegro. Recently, following
Bogetic's advice, Montenegro adopted the Deutchmark as its currency,
placing
the province, which claims to desire independence, in the hands of its
creditors. Dr. Bogetic is in line to become the director of Yugoslavia's
Central Bank. Yugoslavia would cease to be an economically sovereign
entity
if Dr. Bogetic follows the same policies in Belgrade as he did in
Montenegro.
29
Veselin Vukotic was on the "News Hour" with Jim Lehrer, on Public
television,
on Bastille Day, 1999 and said, "We want to be an open colony and an
open
society."
Although the West reassured Kostunica and his supporters that
Montenegro
and Kosovo were to remain Yugoslav provinces, powerful forces in the
United
States have other ideas.
Morton Abromowitz was Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence
and
Research in the Reagan administration. I'm sure we'll see more of him
under
George W. He supported the arming of the Afghan Mujahaddin that served
to
discredit and destabilize the Soviet Union in the 1980s. He was part of
the
Council on Foreign Relations panel that advised the Clinton
administration
to
loosen restrictions on CIA operations dealing with criminals, using
journalists, and targeting unfriendly heads of state. He now works for a
right-wing think tank called The Century Foundation." In a recent
Washington
Post op ed. piece Mr. Abromowitz asserted, "the federal republic is
Serbia.
After the December 23rd elections-which should produce a government free
of
Mr. Milosovic's flunkies- fresh talks can be held between Montenegro and
Serbia." Abromowitz later in the article urged, "Effective management
of
Kosovo's own affairs . . . Prospects . . . would be better if the west
stopped encouraging Belgrade to believe it still has a future in ruling
Kosovo." 30
That is the future Kostunica faces: Yugoslavia, its people
impoverished
and trapped in an IMF/World Bank straightjacket, pared down to Serbia,
with
incursions on its territories encouraged and protected by NATO. With
Montenegro gone, it will become land-locked. It will be a Yugoslavia
forced
to borrow money to pay for the destruction of NATO bombings, and
finally,
faced with the decimation of its once productive economy.
And who is waiting in the wings? Every western corporations who see
"crucial assets for sale, includ(ing)the huge tobacco factory in Nis,
electric, oil, and gas companies, cement factories, and the government's
51%
stake in Telecom Srbja." McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Heineken are all
salivating
at
the prospects of investment and trade. Milan Panic, tossed out by
Milosovic,
is back at his old pharmaceutical company, which was nationalized by
Milosovic. 31
8. What is Vojislav Kostunica, really?
At the Serb Unity Congress in Toronto in October, the victory of
Kostunica was greeted with joy and celebration. But who is this fellow,
this
professor of law, this so-called leader of the Democratic Opposition of
Serbia?
Kostunica is a pathetic creature. In October he visited Republika
Srpska
in Bosnia. This Serbian enclave is the 49% of the land the Serbs were
allowed to keep in Bosnia after the war. The United States Institute of
Peace, closely associated with the likes of Madeline Albright, Jamie
Rubin,
and Richard Holbrooke, in their most recent publication urged that,
"Serbia
(under Kostunica) should end support to all political forces in Bosnia.
.
.and should recognize Bosnia's territorial integrity," and "the European
Union should . . . make the country a single economic space. . . with a
single integrated (intelligence and military) command." 32 Several
weeks
after Kostunica's visit, James Cunningham, deputy US representative to
the
United Nations rejected the election of candidates from the Serb
Democratic
Party in Republika Srpska saying "obstructionists should be kept out of
government." 33 .
(This was kind of funny since the Gore campaign was saying the same
thing
about the Bush "victory" in Florida.)
Kostunica is constrained by his financial supporters to "recognize
Bosnian sovereignty." And "conditional independence for Kosovo."34 But
there
was Vojislav, visiting the grave of a Yugoslav poet on his way to a
meeting
in Biarritz, France, at the European summit.
Greeted with cheers and congratulations in France, Kostunica was
the
man
of the hour. But his "welcome to the European family", was tempered with
the
knowledge that he was the front man for another more sinister fellow by
the
name of Zoran Djindjic. It is he who will probably become Prime Minister
of
Serbia 35 , and he who united the many dissident groups and managed
Kostunica's campaign, under the watchful eye of Madeline Albright. He
was a
founder of the Yugoslav Democratic Party, and worked for many years to
end
socialism in his own country.36 Djindjic is prepared to sink Yugoslavia
under the indebtedness of its previous IMF loans, which amount to $128
million, and a World Bank debt of $1.7 billion.37
But Djindjic, the G-17, OTPOR, D.O.S., all these shady characters,
including Kostunica, are just marionettes. The puppeteers reside
elsewhere,
in Washington and Bonn predominantly, pulling the strings, dismantling
what
is left of Yugoslavia. Slobodan Milosovic is down, but not out, having
just
been elected to lead the Socialist party. And the West fears that the
upcoming December 23rd elections might go well for the Socialists. After
all,
the IMF and World Bank have been voted out of Yugoslavia before.
9. What are the Prospects for the Future?
It is instructive to look at another country for a moment, the
Republic
of Belarus. No sooner had Slobodan Milosovic been dispatched, the US
and
the
European press began another assault, this time on Alexander Lukashenko
as
Europe's last Communist-style leader." 38 Belarus is facing the same
kinds
of
so called "nationalist" opposition that Yugoslavia faced. "Lukashenko's
security forces were gearing up to meet "provocations" by "foreign
agents"
with "Harsh measures,"39 reported the Boston Globe. The State
Department,
commenting on a recent election called it, "undemocratic." And
Lukashenko,
who swept to power in a landslide in 1994, said, "We have our own way to
travel."
That way includes his appreciation for Fidel Castro whom he visited
in
September, calling Castro, "a legendary figure."40 That way includes
opposition to loans from the International Monetary Fund, and proposing
to
Russia to build a large force in Belarus to defend against NATO.41 The
Belarus way is a socialist economy under which unemployment is 1.7%,
hunger
is non-existent, though everyone is poor, and the wage gap between rich
and
poor is nothing like that found in Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, or the
Ukraine.
Education and medical care are still free, and cultural events are low
priced. 42
So here is another Yugoslavia in the making. Only this time we need
to
be
ready to counter the attacks of those who will swear up and down that
this
"dictator" has to go because he is so ruthless. Because if we say
nothing,
NATO forces, which are already in former Yugoslavia, Hungary, Albania,
Azerbajan, Czech Republic . . . will move east to counter the "threat"
of
another leader who dares to oppose the International Monetary Fund, NATO
and
"democratic liberal economic reforms."
10. What it is Really All About
When we read the economic news lately, we worry that the economic
"boom"
(which has really been good for only the top 20 percent of the
population,)
is about to end. My late husband, Sean Gervasi wrote a document, five
months
before he died in 1996, which was published in the book, NATO in the
Balkans
and disseminated widely in Europe (as the Prague Declaration). It was
called, "Why is NATO in Yugoslavia," and in his brilliant prescience, he
noted, "the Western system is experiencing a profound economic, social,
and
political crisis, . . . and sees the exploitation of the East as the
only
large scale project which might stimulate growth. . ." And he asked,
"will
the world accept the risks of East-West conflict and nuclear war" to
protect
this system?43
Sean was warning about a war for resources, a war for markets, a war
between Europe and America. Russia opposes NATO expansion. Germany, as
the
most powerful economy of the European Union is both coactive and
dangerously
competitive with Washington for power in the East. In 1996, Volker Ruhe,
German Defense Minister said, "Bonn is not counting on remaining number
two
forever."44 Reading recent articles about the European Union's
development
of
a large military strike force, Germany's financial dominance in Western
and
Eastern Europe, and German statements that are aggressive in tone,
remind us
of history. They remind us that this is a perilous world, a world of
nuclear
powers, and a world which is now facing the final race for resources.
And that is what this has always been about. The west has used
revanchist
nationalists as their pawns. The American and German strategy has been
to
splinter existing nations, demonize states which oppose the "Grand
Plan,"
and
support pro-capitalist forces. The purpose of this military, ideological
and
economic onslaught is to secure the exploitation of the East, with the
incredible natural resources including the cheap (and desperate) labor
of
the
Eurasian continent. But Germany and the United States are rivals for all
of
this. And inter-imperial rivalry means war. It always has.
Russia alone has $28 trillion dollars worth of resources!
Azerbaijan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, plus Russian Astrakhan have oil
and
gas. In these regions, Islam is the major religion. In these republics,
the
United States is once again supporting reactionary Islamic
Fundamentalist
nationalists just as they did in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Albania, Bosnia,
and
Kosovo.
In his book, The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski spoke of a
long-term strategy for Eurasia. He urged the United States to establish
"global hegemony," and warned that there were only ten to 20 years to
take
control "before the door is closed."45 Brzezinski wrote of controlling
the
Eurasian corridor, from . . . the Balkans to Xinjiang and Tibet. Sean
Gervasi, a few days before he died, said that the US would try to push
NATO
all the way to China.
On November 19, 2000, a New York Times article on Xinjiang Province
in
western China described the Uighurs, a "Muslim majority (which) lives
restively under Chinese rule. " They "are well versed in the NATO
bombing
of
Yugoslavia last year which some celebrate for liberating the Muslims in
Kosovo; they fantasize about a similar 'rescue' here." 46 In last
week's
Times Magazine, the recipe for Xinjiang cabbage salad contained some
very
interesting information rarely found in most recipes, and NOT found in
the
news story from November 19th. "Recent discoveries of oil have made
Xinjiang
extremely attractive to international trade", it noted while comparing
the
conditions for its indigenous population to those in Tibet. (We are all
familiar with the Western media campaign to delegitimize China's control
over
Tibet, the recipe even alludes to the Richard Gere movie which swayed
filmgoers against the policies of the Peoples Republic of China in
Tibet).
The recipe cites Amnesty International's report on the Chinese
mistreatment
of Xinjiang's Moslem majority, and then advises cooks to buy Sichuan
peppers
for the recipe which "numb your tongue."47
11. What can we do?
Our tongues are not numb. Our eyes can see. Our minds are clearing.
This
is a moment for the Peace Movement to surge back into existence. With
the
international perspective of those who understand the political,
economic,
and military nature of these issues along with the tremendous vitality
of
the
ew generation of anti World Trade Organizations-, anti-IMF/World Bank
activists, I believe we are on the brink of a new and extraordinarily
vital
movement. And we are not alone, because these truths are clear to people
throughout the entire world.
Yugoslavia has been our teacher on American millennial treachery in
Eastern Europe, much as Vietnam was our textbook on 20th Century
American
foreign policy in the Third World. But the Vietnamese won their
confrontation
with the US and Yugoslavs- and the Serbs as a people- appear to have
lost.
The fall of Yugoslavia happened in part because the Peace Movement was
manipulated and misguided, and people thought that US foreign policy
could
be
benevolent. That was a big mistake.
The 21st Century may seem to be the zenith for American world
domination, but the contradictions within this system are too great, and
the
lies are just too transparent. Courageous people, need to join together
to
understand and counter this menace to the human race. Time is of the
essence.
ON HATE-MONGERING AND THE GUILTY SERBS
A Case of non-Justifiable Retribution
R.K.Kent
Emeritus Professor of History
University of California at Berkeley
27 March 2001
If there is a dominant feature of the Clinton era involvement in the
Balkans it can be summed-up with the saying that "the enemy of my
enemy is my friend." Science has abandoned "Reasoning by Analogy" for
at least two centuries but, than, there was nothing remotely
"scientific" involved in the Clintonite foreign "policy."despite the
pretensions of a Magister Dixit Dr. Seceratry of State. For a number
of complex reasons, the Serbs became the selected "enemy" of the
"West" as a whole through NATO, and even of Civilization itself. Ipso
facto, all other ethno-religious groups within the ex-Yugoslav space
became our "allies." The Croats, the Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo’s
ethnic Albanians ---all three were also transformed into "victims."
It was a "status" condition for which the Serbs were not allowed to
qualify. The "victims" had all the rights and deserved all the external
support. The "aggressors" had no rights. The Serbs were gradually
dehumanized through the Western media and governmental propaganda. They
were subjected to crippling and long-lasting economic sanctions.
NATO bombed the Serbs twice, once in Bosnia for three weeks and the
second time for eleven weeks in Serbia proper and Kosovo.
A Bogus Enemy and a War without Precedent
The 78-day attack had several unique features. First and foremost it
had no popular support at home. None of the "explanations" for it
seemed convincing enough. . Inter alia, it was regularly served to
the American People as a "humanitarian intervention." Few continued to
see it as such as the war went on and on. Anti-war activists began to
organize as it became clear that the American People had been simply
by-passed. Demonstrations were slated for 5th June 1999. It may be a
coincidence but the actual bombings stopped the day before while the
war’s "official end" was announced a week later.
Although it was presented as a joint Euro-American endeavor the U.S.
was the driving force and an 80 percent contributor to the total war
effort. It was the largest military undertaking in Europe since World
War II. It was launched without a declaration of war which the U.S.
Congress, for example, would not grant the President even 26 days into
the bombing campaign. For the first time, through control of NATO, the
U.S. bombed a state inside Europe and not in Asia, Africa
or Latin America. Yet, the United States was under no attack. The Serbs
had even been its allies in two World Wars. It had no economic
positions to defend in the Balkans. It was physically absent from the
Balkans in both World Wars, although it did bomb Roumania’s Ploesti
Oil Fields in 1944 as well as Belgrade, eleven times, at the request of
the Communist Tito, then trying to conquer Serbia. As others would do
more recently in ex-Yugoslavia, Tito "borrowed" the USAF to "soften"
Serbia. .
In a language reminiscent of Orwell, the "Air War" over Serbia
and Kosovo suggested air combat but it was nothing of the kind. .
Basically, the USAF, within NATO dropped bombs, Tomahawk and Cruise
missiles (and cluster bombs) firing shells dipped in depleted uranium
on a virtually defenseless nation. Another first, no single U.S. soldier
was lost in the Air War.
In the media drive to impose cerebral terror on "the Serbs," few
bona fide reporters made serious attempts to verify and fine- tune
into all the charges and horrors swirling about, in gore, on TV
screens, in articles dripping with blood, in pious postures of the
we-must-do-something hawks. The parlor-room Moral Giants, who own
and dominate most of the scribal and audio-visual media in the U.S.,
set up a political agenda. It was hardly advertised but it came into
view anyway. .The Serbs must not only be punished. They must be
humiliated, brought down on their knees. They must be "taught a
lesson." They are "collectively sick." They suffer from "pernicious
nationalism" and need to be "cured." They are the harbingers of another
Holocaust.. They should even be "hit in the genes" to induce collective
remorse through physical mutations in their yet-to-be-born children.
As that might take some time, a faster lane in which the Guardians of
Civilization could come to travel in their "justifiable retribution" was
to create a "special" Tribunal with another unstated but clear-cut
mission. By indicting and trying mainly and constantly "the Serbs,"
with a few cosmetic exceptions of several low and mid-ranking Croats
plus a Bosnian Muslim or two, "the Serbs" would continue to be "roasted"
on the spit of public opinion even long after the fratricidal wars had
stopped in ex-Yugoslavia. Needless to stress, this "Tribunal" is the
greatest violator of civilized laws, one step removed from a Kangaroo
Court and is even in constant violation of its own mandate’s provision
that it cannot accept funds from individuals (like George Soros) or be
supported by considerable aid from a single country, like the Unietd
States. In practice, if not widely known or understood, the Tribunal has
been basically a political arm of the State Department.
While all sorts of "indignant" hawks lambasted "the Serbs" for being
the "prisoners of their past," others accused them of failure to "face
their own past." Few could ask such a "sophisticated" question as
"where does one start or cut-off the Serb past?" To give an example, had
the "International Community" taken a long and hard look at Kosovo
between, say, 1974 and 1984 it would have iscovered that the Serb
minority was actually being victimized by the ethnic Albanian majority.
This happened because in 1974 the Federal Constitution of Yugoslavia was
changed radically to give virtually all powers to majorities in all the
Republics and Autonomous Regions. A decade later, the Serb minority got
the upper hand. To put it another way, why should the Serbs have to
accept and even favor external "explanations" of "Serb History," much
of it hardly a product of serious scholarship. Much of it has also been
"constructed" in haste, suffering from what professional historians
call "backward projection." This is an all-too prevalent habit to look,
usually with a strong partisan bias, at a given present and THEN
"explain it" by forcing the past to "fit" into it. The stronger
Victors are usually ‘VIRTUOUS" and apt to demand that only their
versions of History be perceived and accepted as valid.
The fall of "Milosevic" who was used as a substitute for the real
target, namely the Serb people and their Nationalism as defined
externally (but no one else’s in ex-Yugoslavia) did not eliminate the
political agenda. The entire Serb leadership from both Pale and
Belgrade has been on top of the Tribunal’s list of indicted war
criminals. The new Serb Government and its President Kostunica are now
being blackmailed. Unless they deliver Milosevic and his Cabinet to
the Hague Tribunal (ICTY) a Serbia that was bombed back into the
Nineteenth Century will not get the aid it needs to pull its people out
of economic and social misery. Why is an "international" trial of
alleged top Serb "war criminals" relative to Kosovo in 1998-1999, a
matter of such priority and urgency since there is no statute of
limitations for war crimes.?
What did the Serbs really do to deserve all the punishments? .Their
first "sin" was to attempt to preserve a Federal Yugoslavia threatened
at the same time from within and without by hardly new enemies. Strange
as it may seem today , the foreign-policy team of George Bush Senior
initially agreed with the Serb position. They were afraid of what could
happen if, by contagion, a dissolutioin of the USSR became too
violent. But, they all yielded to powerful and well-financed pressures
to crack-up Yugoslavia for good. These pressures came first from an
aggressive Croatian Lobby in Washington. It was reported to have spent
as much as $55 million to literally buy certain targeted U.S.
legislators, especially those considered to be "conservative." Germany’s
Chancellor Kohl also persuaded President Bush, Sr. to abandon any
defense of Federal Yugoslavia.
An American Public Relations firm (Ruder Finn) was hired to smear the
Serbs politically. Its CEO later bragged that his work turned the
Jewish organizations in the U.S .against the Serbs. He simply passed
on to them propaganda emanating from extreme Croat nationalist sources
in Zagreb and in the North American diaspora. In fact, Ruder Finn was
able to GLOBALIZE the pathological hate of the Serbs which had united
and is still the only sure-fire glue holding together the otherwise
disunited Croat nationalists everywhere..
The Earliest Victims in Disintegrating
Yugoslavia
Hardly anyone in the West knew that between August 1991 and February
1992 the new Croat Army and the para-military carried out the first
"ethnic cleansing" campaign in ex-Yugoslavia since WWII. It took place
in Western Slavonia as some 40,000 Serb civilians fled in panic, as all
of the elderly who remained behind were killed, as all of the Serb
Orthodox Churches were systematically destroyed. Hardly anyone knew in
the West that "human rights" of the Serbs in Krajina and Croatia in
general were being grossly violated in the newly Independent Croat
State under Franjo Tudjman. He had been a Communist General in Tito’s
Yugoslavia. His main job, at least until he went into opposition as a
Croat Nationalist, was to indoctrinate troops in the Yugoslav Federal
Army.
As that Army lost its non-Serb officers and tried to prevent Croatia’s
violent exit from the Yugoslav Federation, two YFA helicopters were shot
down by small arms ground fire from the Croat side. All of the two
dozen low-ranking YFA officers were wounded in the crashes. None died
from the impact but all of their heads were simply cut-off. The
"incident" never "reached" the Western media either. Similarly, as the
YFA was losing its Bosnian Muslim components, one of its Serb units,
600-men strong, negotiated a safe passage in exchange for not fighting
its way out of the Muslim -controlled area in Bosnia. Instead, half were
simply slaughtered and the few survivors from the other half stated that
the dead soldiers had a better deal in comparison what was done to the
survivors.
In short, the Serbs were the EARLIEST VICTIMS of post-WWII ethnic
cleansing and atrocities but the Western Governments and media did not
want to know or hear or report. The new "ethos" in the West was to smear
and keep smearing the Serbs and the Serbs only. Let us now review the
war crimes with which "the Serbs" have been charged in public and let
us try to provide some idea of context.
Arkan.
These fall into several categories. There are "war crimes" (actually
civil war crimes despite the international rhetoric to the contrary) of
which individual Serbs
and/or a specific Serb para- military group were actually guilty.
Here, the Serb warlord, Zeljko Raznjatovic or Arkan, and his "Tigers,"
mostly men released from jails in Serbia, top the list as the worst of
Serb wartime criminals. They committed initial atrocities in Eastern
Bosnia and later in parts of Croatia. To borrow Bernard Kouchner’s
twisted phrase at Kosovo, they saw their bloody work as "justifiable
retribution." This was not only for what was happening to
contemnporary Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia. It was also in memory of
what was done to hundreds of thousands of Serbs between 1941-1944 in
the "Independent State of Croatia" run by local Nazis, the Ustashe.
Bosnia was at the time under their rule as well. It was a gift from
Adolf Hitler for joining Nazi Germany in WWII. That is how it was. All
justifications aside, a crime is a crime, collective or individual. Two
Wrongs do not make a single Right, something that will be recalled in
connection with NATO’s "Humanitarian Intervention."
The First and Second Market-Place Massacres at
Sarajevo
Another category consists of crimes alleged to have been committed by
the Serbs without any real evidence. Such are the first and second
market-place "massacres at Sarajevo". After the first one, President
George Bush Senior was quoted as having said at a social gathering that
"the Serbs didn’t do it." Yet, no one supplied any solid evidence one
way or another. The Western media, parroting the Sarajevo
Government, accused the Serbs anyway. It is hard to believe, however,
that an American President, who had also been Director of the CIA,
would be uninformed about realities on the ground. .
Still, the Media optics were, in the case of Sarajevo, doubly skewed
against the Serbs. This is so because the Bosnian Serb Army attained no
victories at Sarajevo while shelling a very particular city from
adjacent hills. Even a part of Sarajevo inhabited mostly by the Serbs
was shelled from time to time. The hill gunners did not grasp the fact
that Sarajevo had endeared itself to the outside world because of
recently held Olympics. It had become everyone’s town. It was
constantly filmed by TV crews as the shelling went on.
The Sarajevo Government understood the context. It deliberately
provoked much of the shelling to gain more international support. In a
single move, it was able to gain the political loyalty of an entire
foreign press corps, residing in the local Hilton. A Bosnian Muslim
battery was positioned behind the Hotel and repeatedly drew ripostes
from the hills. Thereafter, no reporter in residence could adhere to
any effort that would resemble the craft of journalism. It all became
pure advocacy. .Like their bosses at home they WANTED to accept the
fare which came from the old hands of Tito’s Yugoslavia. They now
specialized
in disinformation working for the new Bosnian Ministries of Interior
and Information.
The Massacre at Srebrenica
Another category of war crimes and crimes against humanity leads into
those which are either deliberately severed from conext to remove
serious provocation or else exaggerated to gain international support..
The most poignant example of this kind, repeatedly brought-up in the
media, even six years later, is Srebrenica. It did not "surface" when
it was evolving but later, or more precisely at a particular moment in
time. It was in August 1995 that Madeleine Albright , then U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations, unveiled at the meeting of its
General Assembly an enlarged and dated CIA aereal photograph. . In it
was a freshly ploughed field that could have been anywhere but she
placed it at Srebrenica, a silver-mining town in Eastern Bosnia
inhabited mostly by Muslims. With a hint of a CIA in possession of
photographic evidence, she claimed that the field contained the buried
bodies of some 4,000 Muslim men, massacred in cold blood by the Bosnian
Serb Army. No such evidence ever surfaced.
Later, with the "help" of the Sarajevo Government, the figure
"escalated" to 7,000 and even 8,000, with added claims of "genocide."
It became by convention the worst blood-bath of the war in Bosnia.
Strictly speaking, this is not true. The entire Elite 5th Corps of the
Bosnian Muslim Army, trained by a retired U.S. General, was trapped by
the Bosnian Serbs and lost about 10,000 men to enfilade machine-gun,
tank and cannon fire, in a single encounter. For the record, this
happened inside the part of Bosnia under Serb control, now in Republika
Srpaska. The significance of the event and its location will be brought
out further below. At this point, it must be stressed that none of the
Western media involved in the heavy coverage of events in Bosnia
reported several aspects that would make the "Srebrenica Story"
considerably less one-sided with the local Muslims as the usual
"victims" and the Serbs as the perennial neo-Nazi "butchers."
Srebrenica had been declared a "Safe Zone," protected by U.N. Dutch
contingent, and containing presumably no armed Bosnian Muslim men. They
had been theoretically "disarmed." In fact, a local warlord, Nasir Oric
(a huge man and one-time Milosevic’s bodyguard) and his para-military
raided routinely the local countryside inhabited by the Serbs. This was
done over a period of months and it resulted in the looting and torching
of 42 Serb villages. Estimates vary for the civilians killed by Oric
and his men but the minimal one is 1,800 and the largest is 3,000. Oric
went even as far as to show to two Western reporters ( from Canada and
from Boston) a video tape of his own mayhem, bragging openly about his
"exploits."
The two top Generals of the Serb Bosnian Army that took Srebrenica manu
militare are now indicted war criminals at the Hague’s Tribunal for
Yugoslavia. Oric is running a disco for American G.I.s.in Tuzla. The
main General, Ratko Mladic, is accused even of "genocide" despite the
fact that he had ordered the busing out of Srebrenica all of the
Bosnian Muslim women and children. A rather sharp contrast in
comparison with what Oric did to the Serb women and children.
A tragic-comic story illustrates just how exclusively anti-Serb the
Tribunal has been. Two Serb university professors approached an
American who had gained some notoriety in "reporting" the miseries of
Bosnia. With simulated confidentiality, they revealed to him the
existence of a horrible Serb war criminal who had escaped attention.
They gave him a name. Within weeks, it appeared on the list of war
criminals wanted at the Tribunal. The only problem was that the man
never existed. It was a deliberate hoax to test "the channels." This was
still at the time when the Tribunal issued open indictments. Later,
these became secret.
Using an educated Mulsim intermediary, General Mladic demanded that
the Bosnian Muslim men hidden in the woods around Srebrenica surrender.
Instead, they made a run for Tuzla, a Bosnian Muslim stronghold. This is
when the Serb tanks began to shell and machinegun the woods
indiscriminately, killing in the view of its low-ranking commanders men
of a fleeing enemy army. It did not matter that most of hose in flight
did not carry any weapons. This is because, in civil wars, a man with a
rifle is a fighter. One without it is a civilian and they are and have
been entirely interchangeable. Suffice it to say that, at the end of the
Gulf War, USAF jets strafed the fleeing Iraqi soldiers much in the
same way. There was however one major difference.
At Srebernica, many of those in flight who had been caught were executed
in a summary fashion. This is where the real war crime comes in. Only
here Oric, by association, and as yet undesignated Bosnian Serb Army
soldiers, are the dual culprits in this the tragedy. The fleeing men
were afraid of reprisals for what Oric had done to the Serbs. The Serb
soldiers did not look only for the men that Oric used to exterminate
Srebrenica’s rural Serbs. All men of fighting age were automatically
regarded as Oric’s men. There remains the question of figures.
One needs to bring in some new elements up. Nasir Oric and his "elite
army" left Srebrenica a few days before the Bosnian Serbs went into
attack. They were incorporated into the Bosnian Muslim Army with the
request that it be kept a secret. There was even a Pentagon "angle"
here in that its strategists had concluded that Bosnian Muslim enclaves
like Srebrenica and Zepa were
indefensible and should be abandoned to the Serbs. Nasir Oric and his
para-military were almost certainly tipped-off about the impending Serb
Army invasion. Next, in the first municipal elections for Srebrenica,
after the Serbs took over, the names of 3003 Bosnian Muslim men listed
as "killed" showed up on the electoral rolls.
This writer was present at the University of California panel recently
on which a Bosnian Muslim politician without scholarly credentials
claimed, with a poker face, that no one from Srebrenica did any harm to
the rural Serbs because all were disarmed. He went further, all the
bodies found in the Serb part of Bosnia were those of Muslim men
"slaughtered in cold blood," within Serb territory, forgetting that
there were about 10,000 Muslim combatants’ bodies in there, from the 5th
Corps’ military disaster. He even claimed that 4,000 bodies had their
hands "tied" behind their backs. One was tempted to ask if they might
not have been tied after the excavations, even without imagining the
logistics involved in tying 8,000 hands for executions. Se non e
vero.
So, how many Bosnian Muslim men from Srebrenica were killed while
fleeing as against those killed execution style? It may take a
decade plus a Truth- and- Reconcilliation Commission to arrive at an
accurate number. At this time, if pre-departures and flights that
succeded are taken into account, the global figure of 4,000 dead, if
accepted by convention, needs to be sub-divided , with probably
one-third for the executed men. This is not very far from the Serb
victims of Oric to be found nowhere in the annals constructed by the
Moral Giants and their often breathless . "reporters." . The
"unreconstructed" Serb haters who read the present text will almost
certainly attempt to smear this writer for "trying to whitewash Serb
crimes." Nothing could be farther from such an endeavor. . It is an
attempt to confront the hysteria which blocks all serious inquiry into
the nitty-gritty of it all. One does get tired of having to read the
uninformed human parrots who keep repeating the same bogus "verdict"
in which the Bosnian Muslims are the innocent "lambs" " slaughtered" by
Bosnian Serb "Nazis" at Srebrenica.
One more item on Srebrenica. The reason why Madeleine Albright decided
to produce the CIA aereal fotograph that proved nothing visually by
itself, is that t the Croat Army "cleansed" out of Krajina some 250,000
Serbs, killing over 5,000 who could not flee and systematically looting
and torching their properties. Madeleine Albright and the National
Security Adviser, Anthony Lake, had given the green light to the Croat
Army knowing full-well what the result would be. After the NATO troops
occupied Bosnia without a shot, no bodies were found in the field made
famous by "Dr." Albright, as the New York
Times tried to boost her dubious "expertise" regarding the Balkans as
a whole. There is yet another and last category to be dealt with.
There are distinct war crimes for which the Serbs had been accused but
which they almost certainly did not commit. This is not the reference
to "minor" accusations. Among them, the sending of a bus full of
children through Sarajevo’s "Sniper Alley" and claiming that the Serbs
shoot children because a Bosnian Muslim girl was killed by an
apparently stray bullet. It mattered little that the victim was a Serb.
Or, a TV picture of a graveyard with tomb stones while the commentator
stated with assurance that it was the burial place of Bosnian Muslims
killed by the Serbs. The only problem was that the inscriptions were in
the Cyrillic alphabet and the tombs had crosses over them. It was, with
no chance of error, a Serb graveyard. No, reference here is to two
PIVOTAL "massacres." One led, in a few hours, to a three-week
bombing campaign against the Bosnian Serbs by the USAF within NATO. The
other was actually the triggering mechanism for eleven weeks of
U.S./NATO destruction of Serbia (and Kosovo).
The Massacre at Markale
The reference is to the Markale market- place massacre at Sarajevo
(sometimes called the Third Market-place massacre) and to the "massacre
at Racak.," Kosovo.It so happened that an ABC –TV crew was in place to
film the Markale massacre. It so happened also that a detailed U.N.
Report exculpated the Serbs, attributing this massacre to the Muslim
side. Enter again Madeleine Albright. She demanded that the U.N. Report
be kept under wraps. It remains secret to this day but the gist of its
findings leaked out through a respected Japanese U.N. official, Mr.
Akashi. Ambassador Albright had once told him arrogantly "to mind his
own business." Her Czech Jewish family was twice given shelter and
warm reception by the Serbs. Yet, she became the foremost Serb
hate-monger of the Clinton Administration. A case worth the extended
sessions that Sigmund Freud had with Frau Lou. After the Serb Army
took the town of Vukovar through intense fighting with the Croat
forces, she visited Vukovar to PUBLICIZE "yet another Serb atrocity."
It was the killing of some 300 wounded Croats, yanked out of the local
hospital and shot by "the Serbs." The killing was real but it was Arkan
and his Tigers who did the killings again, not the Serb Army and not
"the Serbs" collectively. She "neglected" to "tell the World" two other
very pertinent aspects. One was that an entire Serb population of
Vukovar under Croat control had disappeared without a trace but signs
of torture and killings were found by the Serb Army in the old Austrian
catacombs under Vukovar. Moreover, it would
appear that the 300 or so hospital "patients" turned out to have been
the extreme nationalist defenders of Vukovar who had kicked out the real
patients in
order to avoid being executed. But, that was Arkan’s claim. It may have
been true or not is the only rational assessment, the kind that has
been a rarity in the psychological bashing of "the Serbs" in the Western
and especially U.S. and German media.
The Massacre at Racak
.
The "massacre" at Racak differed significantly from the Markale
antecedent. Racak was a stronghold of the Albanian Kosovo Liberation
Army. It was attacked by the Serb police units on November 15 1999. The
next day , a special U.S. Envoy , Richard Walker, former U.S.
Ambassador to el-Salvador led a group of journalists and a TV crew to
a would-be "mass" grave filled with 47 bodies, all men, but left
completely open. It "was a massacre ," said Walker. Within hours, the
media across the globe had repeated his words. As Madeleine Albright
would say after the "air war," this ‘Serb atrocity’ did "galvanize the
International Community." It led to the talks at Rambouillet, France,
where the Serbs were set-up to take a fall big enough to justify the air
war itself. No one bothered to ask if there really was a mass execution
and whether the Serbs were really guilty. The verdict was carved in
stone before a jury of experts could convene. It still repeated from
time to time.
A forensic team led by a Finnish Doctor examined the bodies and the
site and produced 20 kilograms of research plus 3,000 photographs. The
lengthy report was never released but a summary did reach the media.
There were no spent cartridges at the site. The bodies had to be brought
from somewhere else. Only a single person in the all-male grave had been
shot at close range. Since the Serbs had been accused of hiding bodies
in Bosnia, why would they leave a "mass grave" open and deliberately
provoke an even more unfavorable opinion abroad that could lead to
military reprisals? But the clincher for an obvious "montage" was in the
record of Mr. Walker. He had close ties with both the CIA and the
Central American right-wing death squads. A French journal stated even
that he was "running them," all in character with his reputation as an
ardent anti-Communist warrior of long standing. Given that the day
before the "mass" grave was "discovered" there was heavy fighting at
Racak between the KLA and the Serb police, it would appear that the 47
bodies were those of the KLA soldiers fallen in battle. There was no
reason why they could not serve the KLA cause again even in death,
especially with Mr. Walker around So much for the "Racak massacre." One
thing is undeniable. Both the Markale and Racak massacres, one real and
the other unreal, provided the U.S.- led and dominated NATO with enough
"legitimacy" to respond with "justifiable retributions."
It would be claimed later that NATO’s intervention in Bosnia forced the
Serbs to come to the negotiating table at Dayton. Wrong again. Bosnian
Serbs in authority, both military and civilian, had been asking for
negotiations for almost a year before being bombed by NATO. But, the
Izetbegovic Government kept refusing until it secured the deadly
services of the USAF. It was the Bosnian Muslm Army Commander Rasim
Delic who selected its targets. With the U.S. air might behind them, a
brigade composed of grandmothers could beat "the Serbs." This was
essentially true at Kosovo as well.
Back in 1998, at Geneva, a U.S. diplomat met with members of the Kosovo
Liberation Army. For some time, the Clinton Administration wanted to
go to war against "Milosevic" but without using the American ground
troops. A "deal" was struck at Geneva. What had been an essentially
localized and containable guerrilla activity by a shadowy KLA, once
defined as "terrorists," would soon escalate. At home in the U.S, the
KLA was laundered away from its ties with the drug traffic and
transformed into a Freedom Fighting but under-armed outfit. The Pentagon
and the CIA had been in Albania itself for almost a decade, training and
supplying its army with weapons. It was never clear why? But, Albania
even became a "Cooperating Associate of NATO" and gave the U.S. its
first military base in the Balkans. It was thus hardly difficult to
extend this "alliance" to the KLA.within a Kosovo dominated by the
Albanian demographic majority. This alliance has not broken down to this
very day while the media are serving "splinter groups" of the KLA in the
"neutral zone" of southern Serbia and inside Macedonia. At the same
time, the Albanian Lobby in the U.S. has an unbreakable lock-in on
Congress. There is even an "Albanian Caucus" within it. But, the
American People have no voice in such matters.
By the time 1999 rolled-in, the KLA had killed, mostly from ambush, some
300 Serb policemen. Its tactic was "hit-and-run- and- melt" into their
clans thereafter. When Serb police managed to pinpoint and surround
the KLA fighters in a clan compound, the result would invariably be the
same. Some women and children would be killed along with the men with
guns. Such events only served to boost the level of international
indignation about the Serb atrocities against the ethnic Albanian
civilians. The KLA was almost never even mentioned, let alone the
right of every state to defend itself against insurgency. All civil
and guerrilla wars are particularly nasty but this perception was lost
entirely in the plethora of one-way accusations against the "guilty
Serbs." This would have ensued, most likely, even if the Serb police
had fought the KLA with sling-shots.
Psychological Warfare against the Serbs
Part I – Croatia and Bosnia
When all the dust had settled from various battles, massacres and
interventions in the ex-Yugoslav space the Serbs were left with a
wrecked economy and a bunch of toxins and mutants in their air, water
and soil. They had "become" the neo-Nazis of the Fin du Siecle, unable
to live with other ethnicities by virtue of the "fact" that they were
the "greatest" of "ethnic cleansers" within old Yugoslavia Yet, the
simple willingness to take a somewhat closer look would show a couple of
STARTLING revelations to those who cultivate their gnorance in order to
remain perpetually "indignant." At the height of shootings in
Croatia, some 60,000 Croats lived in Belgrade unmolested. No one ever
booted them out of Serbia. At the height of the Serb-KLA fighting, some
200,000 Albanians lived unmolested in Serbia, 80,000 of them inhabit
TODAY the Greater Belgrade. Not a few pro-Yugoslav Albanians, as yet
"unradicalized" by the KLA, had fled Kosovo into SERBIA and into the
hands of the Serb Red Cross. Serbia alone incorporates 26 different
ethnicities and is the only multi-ethnic state left in ex-Yugoslavia. As
such, Serbia should receive all the support possible, including war
reparations, from the champion of plural societies, the United States of
America. Instead, pure Croatia, pure Slovenia and pure Kosovo are today
the "good guys."
The second "surprise" comes from another set of figures. Ethnic Serbs
made up about 14% of Croatia’s total population. About 40,000 Serbs
were "cleansed" out of Western Slavonia and another 250,000 from
Krajina. Bosnia produced about 400,000 Serb refugees. Most recently,
after the "air war," some 150,000-200,000 Serb were cleansed out by a
supposedly "disarmed" KLA Today, there are almost a million Serbs in
Serbia proper that had been "cleansed" out of the rest of
ex-Yugoslavia.The Western media have conveniently covered this fact by
omission (it is hardly ever mentioned) and by psychological ploy found
in the following and endlessly repeated statement: "Milosevic lost four
wars." When the actually HEAVIEST "ethnic cleansing" affected the
Serbs who became refugees that is because they "lost wars." The
"winners," of course did not do anything so there are no Serb "victims"
only casualties of wars "the Serbs themselves had started." Really?
When the Yugoslav Army attempted to prevent Slovenia from orbiting out
of the Federation, there was relatively little fighting. In fact, YFA
troops and tanks were blocked in urban settings, going nowhere. There
was, however, no bad blood between the Serbs and the Slovenes deriving
from World War II. In fact, busloads of Serb mothers came to Slovenia
to take their sons back into Serbia, Neither the Serbs nor the Slovenes
were looking for a war. There were hardly any large numbers of Serbs in
Slovenia to be "cleansed out" either.
The case of Croatia was different entirely because the Croat Nazis
killed hundreds of thousands of Serb civilians (between 1941-1944),
many in the most bestial manner that offended even some of the German
officers. The Serbs of Krajina attempted simply to escape a Croat
State in the process of becoming independent from the Federal
Yugoslavia. Bad memories were a major factor but both the Western
media and the Croat Nationalists "helped" to revive them. Instead of
reporting the on-going and constantly escalating violations of Human
Rights of the Serb minority in Croatia, the Western media served another
psychological "canard." The Serbs wanted to create a "Greater Serbia."
In that way, no one needed to worry about what was being done to the
Serbs in the New Croatia. The Croats became the "certified" "victims"
of "the Serbs" collectively again.
Krajina was on its way to become a Croat Kosovo when local Serbs
refused to accept Croat over-rule. Only here, the Clinton Administration
helped the newly sovereign State of Croatia against the rebelling Serbs.
It saw to it that a U.S. General and other officers trained the new army
and modernized it. Electronic intelligence was given to Croatia’s Army
as well. When it launched Operation Storm in August 1995, U.S. jets
strafed the Serb radar positions around Knin, Krajina’s capital. This
was direct intervention without naming it. The U.S. General who trained
the new Army feigned utter surprise that it would come to expel by
terror and war a quarter of a million people, killing several thousand
in the process, with all the properties looted and torched. Given the
"American factor," Milosevic’s Yugoslav Army did not interfere and
Croatia became, at long last, ethnically pure one more time.It was
assisted in a major way by the Clinton Administration. In fact, the
Green Light for the Operation Storm was given by none other than
Madeleine Albright and Anthony Lake, then National Security Adviser.
Serbia itself did not lose this war because it did not enter it. But,
the Krajina Serbs lost a home which their ancestors began to settle
some three centuries earlier.
The situation in Bosnia, at end-game, left the local Serbs in
possession of about 40 percent of the real estate, having lost about 20
percent . They had legally owned about 62 percent of Bosnia, mostly
rural for a historical reason. Under the occupation of Ottoman Turks,
local Muslim overlords occupied the towns and the Christian raja got
the countryside. What ended the war in Bosnia was
Nothing that resembled anyone’s decisive military victory or defeat.
But, the war in Bosnia provided the Western media and some "publicity
scavengers" and "hogs" with a gold mine for sensationalism and
hate-mongering against the Serbs. There was the famous picture of an
emasciated Bosnian Muslim man in a Serb camp immediately "diagnosed"
as a "death camp." He was ostensibly behind the wire and he had a
gentle look in his face. The picture brough back immediately the
Holocaust and went Around the World. Newsweek had it as its
frontispiece. Beind all of this was a hoax. The Serbs allowed a British
TV crew and the producer to film the camp because they had nothing to
hide. It was a detention camp, noting more sinister. A closer look
inside the picture reveals a whole group of men who appeared well-fed
and well-dressed. A Serb TV crew was also filming their British guests
and it turned out that the emasciated man was in front of the wire, not
behind it. It also came out that he was suffering from Tuberculosis. The
producer saw the possibilities of a major media coup with which to pay
back the Serb hospitality and openness by a blow aiming to incite
forever against the Serb People men and women of Jewish faith in the
U.S. and Western Europe.
When fatigue was setting in among the Western publics about the war
crimes in Bosnia, there came out of Sarajevo the story of systematic
mass rapes of Muslim Women by Serb soldiers and para-military. Figures
of 20,000 to 40,000 were cited with assurances that can only accompany
the lack of any accuracy. A French TV reporter went to Tuzla,
Bosniuan Muslim stronghold, to verify the claim that some 4,000 of the
raped Bosnian women were in a large soccer field and vicinity.Half way
to Tuzla the numbers came down to 400. Near Tuzla they went down to 40.
In Tuzla, he found just 4. While the "mass rapes" of Muslim women were
circulated even in Muslim countries for an obvious reason, the
Yugoslav Government presented to the United Nations a formal dossier and
evidence. It revealed that hundreds of Serbian girls and women were
being abducted, brought into Sarajevo and put into brothels called"
troop entertainment centers." No one took notice. To get the "flavor "
also of non-Serb cruelty to alien women, herewith is briefly a story
that never reached the U.S. media. A young and idealistic woman from
Milan, Italy, went to Sarajevo to "help Bosnia." She was persuaded to go
with a man to Srebrenica where her help was "even more needed." Once
there, she was gang raped several times, sold and re-sold for a pack of
cigarettes. When the Serb Bosnian Army took Srebrenica its soldiers
found her in a dark cellar, in rags, chained to a wall and so
traumatized that she lost the power to speak. It took a week of hospital
care and a female social
worker to get her to talk and reveal what had happened. Some of the
reports from Kosovo reveal even more harrowing tales of cruelty to women
and girls "imported" by the Albanian freedom fighters and Mafiosi from
Albania, But, they are U.S. allies and who wants to diminish the great
achievement of NATO by revealing just how really out of hand the
situation inside Kosovo has gotten under the benevolent Gaulaiter
Bernard Kouchner and 40,000 NATO troops.
Out of the propaganda mill at Sarajevo came yet another set of figures
widely circulated. It concerned some 250,000 to 500,000 Bosnian Muslims
killed by the Serbs (this was BEFORE Srebrenica). A State Departmenbt
official who resigned his post reduced the figure down to about
40,000, a more realistic one. A few media sources did pick this up
because of his correct political pedigree but it was hardly enough to
prevent endless parroting of the higher mortality figures, for effect.
Psychological War Against the Serbs
Part II – Kosovo
For Kosovo, most of the fellow-Americans are still unaware of the
extent to which they had been savagely manipulated by the Clinton
Administration and the corporate media trying to "outrun" the White
House, the CIA and the Pentagon. After the bogus "massacre" at Racak,
there came the Rambouillet Conference in February 1999. The Big Lie that
came out of it was that the Serbs walked out and refused to sign the
"Peace Plan." There was "no alternative" but to "let" NATO bomb
Serbia. Facts tell otherwise. The Serbs were willing to restore Kosovo’s
autonomy, the original main provision of the "Peace Plan," and even
allow foreign troops to be stationed there under U.N. authority without
a fight. In return, the KLA was to be disarmed. The KLA’s political
head would not sign without the promise of formal independence for
Kosovo. Than came the con-game switch that hardly renders honor to the
American People or American professional Diplomacy. An Appendix (B) was
added in the last minute. Stripped of its meandering language, it simply
meant that the Serbs must accept the NATO occupation of Serbia,
including Belgrade. As Madeleine Albright would quip after the eleven
weeks of destruction and killing from the air, "we raised the bar so
Milosevic could not jump over it. Yugoslavia needed a little bombing."
Once assured by General Wesley Clark that it would de facto "borrow" the
USAF services over Serbia and the Serb Army positions at Kosovo, the
KLA signed the "Peace Plan" for war against Serbia. On 24 March 1999,
the U.S. (inside of NATO) went into action after having pre-planned
aerial attacks against Serbia since at least 1997. Now the propaganda
and the hate-mongering in full bloom.
A "humanitarian disaster" was being worked out in Belgrade to affect
ethnic Albanians. In a TV discussion, Senator Joseph Biden, was almost
foaming at the mouth while stressing the claim. The Serbs had beefed-up
their Third Army in order to carry this plan out..Shortly after the NATO
bombs and missiles began to fall on Serbia and Kosovo and the "Kosovars"
started to come out in large numbers, the German secret services came up
with the "discovery" of a would-be top secret Serb Plan to empty Kosovo
out of its Albanian majority. This was an ex-post-facto hoax as
documented in Germany itself. There never was such a plan. The reality
of it was that the Serb Third Army had been pulled out of Kosovo as a
resul of direct negotiations between Milosevic and Richard Holbrooke.
But, Holbrooke did not lift a finger to prevent the KLA from moving into
the power vacuum created by the Third Army’s removal from Kosovo. It was
now moving to retake the territories and put an end to the KLA. It did
not need anyone’s "permission" to so do.
Ah, but the Kosovars were fleeing Kosovo en masse. Proof positive of
"Operation Horseshoe," as the hoax was called.The difficulty was
obvious. No such flights occurred before 24th March 1999, the day of
NATO’s "humanitarian intervention" to "save the Kosovars." They were
leaving Kosovo for the first time in huge numbers to escape from
escalated fighting between Serb units and the KLA as well as from the
NATO bombs At that point Jewish Organizations in the U.S. ran a huge
picture in the New York Times of trainloads of European Jews being taken
to death camps in Nazi-occupied Europe, with Kosovo on the point and the
highlight of "Never Again." The analogy was pure emotional anti-Serb
hate-mongering because the fleeing Kosovars were going into the safety
of refugee camps across the borders. They were not going into the gas
chambers. Moreover, they were actually helped to do so by the Serb
military and were urged to leave Kosovo in big numbers by the KLA
itself.
Ah, but the Serbs had killed 100,000 Albanian men assured Secretary
of Defense Cohen. This was later scaled down to 10,000 but still with
"mass graves" populating the countryside at Kosovo. After the NATO
occupation a total of 2008 bodies had been excavated by forensic teams.
There was one particular
grave containing 150 bodies. They were quickly re-buried under the eyes
of NATO commanders when it was found that the bodies were those of
Serbs. The very near- crime of re-burial was committed to again deny the
Serbs even the right to be the victims of someone else in death. With
all the outcries about "mass graves" at Kosovo, the Spanish forensic
team walked out in frustration since the claim had outpaced the reality
by an unbearable distance. The desire to unearth a real mass grave
containing Albanian ethnic bodies was intense in June 1999 that a TV
crew offered a reward of $250,000 for such a bona fide find. The Medium
is the Message and no one did more to uphold this simulated reality than
CNN. It was the first TV outfit to second and surpass the propaganda
emanating
from the Clinton team and its lower-ranking associates. It even allowed
the Government’s psychological warfare personnel to be at the Network,
ostensibly for "training purposes," another canard served to the public.
Even after twenty-one months of NATO and U.N. presence at Kosovo, after
the expulsion of not only the Serbs from most of it but also all the
other minorities,after the kidnappings and murders of over 1,000 Serb
civilians, the "psy-ops" are "publicizing" the would-be gruesome
incinerations of 1,500 ethnic Albanian men in the smelter furnace of
the Trepca mine during the air war. This has been refuted by foreign
experts who went into the mine and examined the furnace. It is further
documented as another attempt to keep smearing the Serbs –now
"inconvenient" because Milosevic has been replaced by a democratic
Government—by the fact that the Serbs had shut the smelter furnace and
the mine during the whole period of NATO’s air war. But, no matter what
evidence is presented to the contrary by real experts who are neither
Serbs nor pro-Serb, the human parrots are constantly at work.
. As a result of a decade of hate-mongering against the Serbs the
Clinton Administration and the corporate media have spawned several
hundred clerks whose career advances are inter-linked with continued
cerebral bashing of "the Serbs." They are to be found on newspaper
staffs, in editorial rooms, in various NGOs and Governmental agencies
and nothing apparently delights many of them more than to "develop"
same new "variant" of the same bashing endeavor. But that is only one
duct into protracted smearing of a single ethnicity.. There are two
others with far greater influence in the corridors of power. One can be
called the "anti-Serb brigade." It populates various think tanks,
peace institutes, human rights centers, Congressional staffs and the
like. Time and time again, these are the same people who are called upon
by Congressional Committees to "testify" and "inform" what policies
should be pursued in respect to ex-Yugoslavia as a whole. It is a
replica of Catch-22.
The Serbs invariably get the short end of the stick without much by
way of real carrots. We had real wars with the Japanese and the Germans
and we rebuilt their economies. Even an unreal war of our own making
has not produced anything close as yet. Just three months after the new
Government was elected in Belgrade, the same coterie of real
intellectual pygmies and a few phoney Moral Giants is shedding
crocodile tears about the slow pace into Democracy and capitalist
underpinnings within Serbia They keep insisting that Belgrade MUST
deliver Milosevic and his Cabinet to the Hague in order to "prove" that
"real" reforms are taking place. Against the background of NATO
destruction and a million refugees, the Serbs are not even allowed to
set their own priorities, a given in any valid concept of Democracy. It
cannot be IMPOSED from outside. In an unguarded moment, even Morton
Abramowitz conceded that the Serbs are the pivotal people of
ex-Yugoslavia. Negotiating and siding with the KLA insurgents against
the Serbs sets a most destabilizing example of reckless risk- taking.
There are some 5,000 ethnicities in about 150 countries. If their
sovereignty is downgraded and even non-existent there will be no end to
an imploding and un-manageable international chaos but it is a sure
bet that neither the U.S. nor NATO will wish to attain another
Kosovo-like "victory." Had they not internationalized a local and minor
guerrilla it would have been eliminated by now and foreign troops would
not have been necessary along with a U.N. Trusteeship. To say nothing of
pouring billions of dollars don the drain. Some 1300 European (OSCE)
Observers at Kosovo just beore the air war had concluded that the Serb
units at Kosovo did NOT TARGET ethnic Albanians as a people but the KLA
instead. The Clinton Administration would not listen. It did not even
wish to make the massive report of OSCE Observers available to the
public. As a prominent ethnic Albanian in Macedonia said aptly, foreign
intervention at Kosovo allowed the Genie to "get out of the bottle."
The coterie does not see it that way.
Some in it are "Senior Fellows," like Morton Abramowitz who had been a
Political Adviser to the KLA at Rambouillet and has a long anti-Serb and
anti-Armenian record. He is now the most vocal and influential
point-man for the Kosovo Albanians in demands that Kosovo be given
independence from Yugoslavia. He argues that there is "no other way."
But, someone should remind him that, in the Balkans, the unspoken rule
of politics is that hardly anybody gets everything they would wish to
have. An internationally backed partition of Kosovo, with the northern
and much smaller area remaining Serb and the rest free to be independent
or unite with Albania could be a possible resolution of the "Kosovo
Problem" that would allow our troops to come home instead of staying
there for a generation.
But, this cannot happen as long as the "ex-KLA" "factions" are not
disarmed completely by a NATO able and willing to show its teeth. This
goal was one of the three main provisions in the "Peace Plan" at
Rambouillet. The KLA even signed it. . It cannot happen as long as the
same people keep "testifying" and "informing " repeatedly a Congress
that is already "captured" by the Albanian Lobby. It cannot happen
while NATO looks the other way. The political head of the "e-KLA," the
main general of the KLA{who is an attested war crimnal for what he did
in Croatia to the Serbs) and the ONCE-MODERATE leader of most Kosovo
Albanians are all in accord that ethnic Albanians in southern Serbia,
western Macedonia and eastern Montenegro "deserve" self-determination.
There is a third level at home in the U.S., the one that really counts
because it is composed of the actual decision makers who command the
military, political, and economic resources of the United States. They
define strategic objectives without communicating with the American
People that ultimately pays the bills and will come to benefit or to
harm for what they do or not do abroad. Until the change in Presidency,
many in this group defined themselves through the Holocaust. It is a
powerful influence, just like the World War II, which impacted an
entire generation in Europe and the U.S. But, as was pointed earlier,
the analogy with what happened at Kosovo does not work. It may even be
extremely counter-productive to the U.S. National Interest.
The preceding "determinators" have been replaced by what one could call
the "oil men," a practical, hard-ball bunch ready to be real tough only
when clear and widely discernible aspects of the National Interest are
at stake. It is too early to tell what this group, now in-charge, will
come up with but whatever it does come up with it will fail ultimately
unless it develops a real respect for facts and contexts in which these
devolve. In short, until they avoid the tendency to dupe the American
People in pursuit of "geo-political strategies" and "higher goals" that
only they grasp and for which they are ultimately not accountable even
in cases of egregious errors. They can learn a most profitable lesson by
a close and real look at what has been done to "the Serbs." It should
ring the bell on how NOT to deal with peoples out there and avoid, at
the same time, a Balkanization of America in the belief that they can
promote Democracy abroad while losing it at home.
Raymond K. Kent
History Department,
University of California,
Berkeley, Ca. 97720
(510/642-1971)
A Case of non-Justifiable Retribution
R.K.Kent
Emeritus Professor of History
University of California at Berkeley
27 March 2001
If there is a dominant feature of the Clinton era involvement in the
Balkans it can be summed-up with the saying that "the enemy of my
enemy is my friend." Science has abandoned "Reasoning by Analogy" for
at least two centuries but, than, there was nothing remotely
"scientific" involved in the Clintonite foreign "policy."despite the
pretensions of a Magister Dixit Dr. Seceratry of State. For a number
of complex reasons, the Serbs became the selected "enemy" of the
"West" as a whole through NATO, and even of Civilization itself. Ipso
facto, all other ethno-religious groups within the ex-Yugoslav space
became our "allies." The Croats, the Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo’s
ethnic Albanians ---all three were also transformed into "victims."
It was a "status" condition for which the Serbs were not allowed to
qualify. The "victims" had all the rights and deserved all the external
support. The "aggressors" had no rights. The Serbs were gradually
dehumanized through the Western media and governmental propaganda. They
were subjected to crippling and long-lasting economic sanctions.
NATO bombed the Serbs twice, once in Bosnia for three weeks and the
second time for eleven weeks in Serbia proper and Kosovo.
A Bogus Enemy and a War without Precedent
The 78-day attack had several unique features. First and foremost it
had no popular support at home. None of the "explanations" for it
seemed convincing enough. . Inter alia, it was regularly served to
the American People as a "humanitarian intervention." Few continued to
see it as such as the war went on and on. Anti-war activists began to
organize as it became clear that the American People had been simply
by-passed. Demonstrations were slated for 5th June 1999. It may be a
coincidence but the actual bombings stopped the day before while the
war’s "official end" was announced a week later.
Although it was presented as a joint Euro-American endeavor the U.S.
was the driving force and an 80 percent contributor to the total war
effort. It was the largest military undertaking in Europe since World
War II. It was launched without a declaration of war which the U.S.
Congress, for example, would not grant the President even 26 days into
the bombing campaign. For the first time, through control of NATO, the
U.S. bombed a state inside Europe and not in Asia, Africa
or Latin America. Yet, the United States was under no attack. The Serbs
had even been its allies in two World Wars. It had no economic
positions to defend in the Balkans. It was physically absent from the
Balkans in both World Wars, although it did bomb Roumania’s Ploesti
Oil Fields in 1944 as well as Belgrade, eleven times, at the request of
the Communist Tito, then trying to conquer Serbia. As others would do
more recently in ex-Yugoslavia, Tito "borrowed" the USAF to "soften"
Serbia. .
In a language reminiscent of Orwell, the "Air War" over Serbia
and Kosovo suggested air combat but it was nothing of the kind. .
Basically, the USAF, within NATO dropped bombs, Tomahawk and Cruise
missiles (and cluster bombs) firing shells dipped in depleted uranium
on a virtually defenseless nation. Another first, no single U.S. soldier
was lost in the Air War.
In the media drive to impose cerebral terror on "the Serbs," few
bona fide reporters made serious attempts to verify and fine- tune
into all the charges and horrors swirling about, in gore, on TV
screens, in articles dripping with blood, in pious postures of the
we-must-do-something hawks. The parlor-room Moral Giants, who own
and dominate most of the scribal and audio-visual media in the U.S.,
set up a political agenda. It was hardly advertised but it came into
view anyway. .The Serbs must not only be punished. They must be
humiliated, brought down on their knees. They must be "taught a
lesson." They are "collectively sick." They suffer from "pernicious
nationalism" and need to be "cured." They are the harbingers of another
Holocaust.. They should even be "hit in the genes" to induce collective
remorse through physical mutations in their yet-to-be-born children.
As that might take some time, a faster lane in which the Guardians of
Civilization could come to travel in their "justifiable retribution" was
to create a "special" Tribunal with another unstated but clear-cut
mission. By indicting and trying mainly and constantly "the Serbs,"
with a few cosmetic exceptions of several low and mid-ranking Croats
plus a Bosnian Muslim or two, "the Serbs" would continue to be "roasted"
on the spit of public opinion even long after the fratricidal wars had
stopped in ex-Yugoslavia. Needless to stress, this "Tribunal" is the
greatest violator of civilized laws, one step removed from a Kangaroo
Court and is even in constant violation of its own mandate’s provision
that it cannot accept funds from individuals (like George Soros) or be
supported by considerable aid from a single country, like the Unietd
States. In practice, if not widely known or understood, the Tribunal has
been basically a political arm of the State Department.
While all sorts of "indignant" hawks lambasted "the Serbs" for being
the "prisoners of their past," others accused them of failure to "face
their own past." Few could ask such a "sophisticated" question as
"where does one start or cut-off the Serb past?" To give an example, had
the "International Community" taken a long and hard look at Kosovo
between, say, 1974 and 1984 it would have iscovered that the Serb
minority was actually being victimized by the ethnic Albanian majority.
This happened because in 1974 the Federal Constitution of Yugoslavia was
changed radically to give virtually all powers to majorities in all the
Republics and Autonomous Regions. A decade later, the Serb minority got
the upper hand. To put it another way, why should the Serbs have to
accept and even favor external "explanations" of "Serb History," much
of it hardly a product of serious scholarship. Much of it has also been
"constructed" in haste, suffering from what professional historians
call "backward projection." This is an all-too prevalent habit to look,
usually with a strong partisan bias, at a given present and THEN
"explain it" by forcing the past to "fit" into it. The stronger
Victors are usually ‘VIRTUOUS" and apt to demand that only their
versions of History be perceived and accepted as valid.
The fall of "Milosevic" who was used as a substitute for the real
target, namely the Serb people and their Nationalism as defined
externally (but no one else’s in ex-Yugoslavia) did not eliminate the
political agenda. The entire Serb leadership from both Pale and
Belgrade has been on top of the Tribunal’s list of indicted war
criminals. The new Serb Government and its President Kostunica are now
being blackmailed. Unless they deliver Milosevic and his Cabinet to
the Hague Tribunal (ICTY) a Serbia that was bombed back into the
Nineteenth Century will not get the aid it needs to pull its people out
of economic and social misery. Why is an "international" trial of
alleged top Serb "war criminals" relative to Kosovo in 1998-1999, a
matter of such priority and urgency since there is no statute of
limitations for war crimes.?
What did the Serbs really do to deserve all the punishments? .Their
first "sin" was to attempt to preserve a Federal Yugoslavia threatened
at the same time from within and without by hardly new enemies. Strange
as it may seem today , the foreign-policy team of George Bush Senior
initially agreed with the Serb position. They were afraid of what could
happen if, by contagion, a dissolutioin of the USSR became too
violent. But, they all yielded to powerful and well-financed pressures
to crack-up Yugoslavia for good. These pressures came first from an
aggressive Croatian Lobby in Washington. It was reported to have spent
as much as $55 million to literally buy certain targeted U.S.
legislators, especially those considered to be "conservative." Germany’s
Chancellor Kohl also persuaded President Bush, Sr. to abandon any
defense of Federal Yugoslavia.
An American Public Relations firm (Ruder Finn) was hired to smear the
Serbs politically. Its CEO later bragged that his work turned the
Jewish organizations in the U.S .against the Serbs. He simply passed
on to them propaganda emanating from extreme Croat nationalist sources
in Zagreb and in the North American diaspora. In fact, Ruder Finn was
able to GLOBALIZE the pathological hate of the Serbs which had united
and is still the only sure-fire glue holding together the otherwise
disunited Croat nationalists everywhere..
The Earliest Victims in Disintegrating
Yugoslavia
Hardly anyone in the West knew that between August 1991 and February
1992 the new Croat Army and the para-military carried out the first
"ethnic cleansing" campaign in ex-Yugoslavia since WWII. It took place
in Western Slavonia as some 40,000 Serb civilians fled in panic, as all
of the elderly who remained behind were killed, as all of the Serb
Orthodox Churches were systematically destroyed. Hardly anyone knew in
the West that "human rights" of the Serbs in Krajina and Croatia in
general were being grossly violated in the newly Independent Croat
State under Franjo Tudjman. He had been a Communist General in Tito’s
Yugoslavia. His main job, at least until he went into opposition as a
Croat Nationalist, was to indoctrinate troops in the Yugoslav Federal
Army.
As that Army lost its non-Serb officers and tried to prevent Croatia’s
violent exit from the Yugoslav Federation, two YFA helicopters were shot
down by small arms ground fire from the Croat side. All of the two
dozen low-ranking YFA officers were wounded in the crashes. None died
from the impact but all of their heads were simply cut-off. The
"incident" never "reached" the Western media either. Similarly, as the
YFA was losing its Bosnian Muslim components, one of its Serb units,
600-men strong, negotiated a safe passage in exchange for not fighting
its way out of the Muslim -controlled area in Bosnia. Instead, half were
simply slaughtered and the few survivors from the other half stated that
the dead soldiers had a better deal in comparison what was done to the
survivors.
In short, the Serbs were the EARLIEST VICTIMS of post-WWII ethnic
cleansing and atrocities but the Western Governments and media did not
want to know or hear or report. The new "ethos" in the West was to smear
and keep smearing the Serbs and the Serbs only. Let us now review the
war crimes with which "the Serbs" have been charged in public and let
us try to provide some idea of context.
Arkan.
These fall into several categories. There are "war crimes" (actually
civil war crimes despite the international rhetoric to the contrary) of
which individual Serbs
and/or a specific Serb para- military group were actually guilty.
Here, the Serb warlord, Zeljko Raznjatovic or Arkan, and his "Tigers,"
mostly men released from jails in Serbia, top the list as the worst of
Serb wartime criminals. They committed initial atrocities in Eastern
Bosnia and later in parts of Croatia. To borrow Bernard Kouchner’s
twisted phrase at Kosovo, they saw their bloody work as "justifiable
retribution." This was not only for what was happening to
contemnporary Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia. It was also in memory of
what was done to hundreds of thousands of Serbs between 1941-1944 in
the "Independent State of Croatia" run by local Nazis, the Ustashe.
Bosnia was at the time under their rule as well. It was a gift from
Adolf Hitler for joining Nazi Germany in WWII. That is how it was. All
justifications aside, a crime is a crime, collective or individual. Two
Wrongs do not make a single Right, something that will be recalled in
connection with NATO’s "Humanitarian Intervention."
The First and Second Market-Place Massacres at
Sarajevo
Another category consists of crimes alleged to have been committed by
the Serbs without any real evidence. Such are the first and second
market-place "massacres at Sarajevo". After the first one, President
George Bush Senior was quoted as having said at a social gathering that
"the Serbs didn’t do it." Yet, no one supplied any solid evidence one
way or another. The Western media, parroting the Sarajevo
Government, accused the Serbs anyway. It is hard to believe, however,
that an American President, who had also been Director of the CIA,
would be uninformed about realities on the ground. .
Still, the Media optics were, in the case of Sarajevo, doubly skewed
against the Serbs. This is so because the Bosnian Serb Army attained no
victories at Sarajevo while shelling a very particular city from
adjacent hills. Even a part of Sarajevo inhabited mostly by the Serbs
was shelled from time to time. The hill gunners did not grasp the fact
that Sarajevo had endeared itself to the outside world because of
recently held Olympics. It had become everyone’s town. It was
constantly filmed by TV crews as the shelling went on.
The Sarajevo Government understood the context. It deliberately
provoked much of the shelling to gain more international support. In a
single move, it was able to gain the political loyalty of an entire
foreign press corps, residing in the local Hilton. A Bosnian Muslim
battery was positioned behind the Hotel and repeatedly drew ripostes
from the hills. Thereafter, no reporter in residence could adhere to
any effort that would resemble the craft of journalism. It all became
pure advocacy. .Like their bosses at home they WANTED to accept the
fare which came from the old hands of Tito’s Yugoslavia. They now
specialized
in disinformation working for the new Bosnian Ministries of Interior
and Information.
The Massacre at Srebrenica
Another category of war crimes and crimes against humanity leads into
those which are either deliberately severed from conext to remove
serious provocation or else exaggerated to gain international support..
The most poignant example of this kind, repeatedly brought-up in the
media, even six years later, is Srebrenica. It did not "surface" when
it was evolving but later, or more precisely at a particular moment in
time. It was in August 1995 that Madeleine Albright , then U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations, unveiled at the meeting of its
General Assembly an enlarged and dated CIA aereal photograph. . In it
was a freshly ploughed field that could have been anywhere but she
placed it at Srebrenica, a silver-mining town in Eastern Bosnia
inhabited mostly by Muslims. With a hint of a CIA in possession of
photographic evidence, she claimed that the field contained the buried
bodies of some 4,000 Muslim men, massacred in cold blood by the Bosnian
Serb Army. No such evidence ever surfaced.
Later, with the "help" of the Sarajevo Government, the figure
"escalated" to 7,000 and even 8,000, with added claims of "genocide."
It became by convention the worst blood-bath of the war in Bosnia.
Strictly speaking, this is not true. The entire Elite 5th Corps of the
Bosnian Muslim Army, trained by a retired U.S. General, was trapped by
the Bosnian Serbs and lost about 10,000 men to enfilade machine-gun,
tank and cannon fire, in a single encounter. For the record, this
happened inside the part of Bosnia under Serb control, now in Republika
Srpaska. The significance of the event and its location will be brought
out further below. At this point, it must be stressed that none of the
Western media involved in the heavy coverage of events in Bosnia
reported several aspects that would make the "Srebrenica Story"
considerably less one-sided with the local Muslims as the usual
"victims" and the Serbs as the perennial neo-Nazi "butchers."
Srebrenica had been declared a "Safe Zone," protected by U.N. Dutch
contingent, and containing presumably no armed Bosnian Muslim men. They
had been theoretically "disarmed." In fact, a local warlord, Nasir Oric
(a huge man and one-time Milosevic’s bodyguard) and his para-military
raided routinely the local countryside inhabited by the Serbs. This was
done over a period of months and it resulted in the looting and torching
of 42 Serb villages. Estimates vary for the civilians killed by Oric
and his men but the minimal one is 1,800 and the largest is 3,000. Oric
went even as far as to show to two Western reporters ( from Canada and
from Boston) a video tape of his own mayhem, bragging openly about his
"exploits."
The two top Generals of the Serb Bosnian Army that took Srebrenica manu
militare are now indicted war criminals at the Hague’s Tribunal for
Yugoslavia. Oric is running a disco for American G.I.s.in Tuzla. The
main General, Ratko Mladic, is accused even of "genocide" despite the
fact that he had ordered the busing out of Srebrenica all of the
Bosnian Muslim women and children. A rather sharp contrast in
comparison with what Oric did to the Serb women and children.
A tragic-comic story illustrates just how exclusively anti-Serb the
Tribunal has been. Two Serb university professors approached an
American who had gained some notoriety in "reporting" the miseries of
Bosnia. With simulated confidentiality, they revealed to him the
existence of a horrible Serb war criminal who had escaped attention.
They gave him a name. Within weeks, it appeared on the list of war
criminals wanted at the Tribunal. The only problem was that the man
never existed. It was a deliberate hoax to test "the channels." This was
still at the time when the Tribunal issued open indictments. Later,
these became secret.
Using an educated Mulsim intermediary, General Mladic demanded that
the Bosnian Muslim men hidden in the woods around Srebrenica surrender.
Instead, they made a run for Tuzla, a Bosnian Muslim stronghold. This is
when the Serb tanks began to shell and machinegun the woods
indiscriminately, killing in the view of its low-ranking commanders men
of a fleeing enemy army. It did not matter that most of hose in flight
did not carry any weapons. This is because, in civil wars, a man with a
rifle is a fighter. One without it is a civilian and they are and have
been entirely interchangeable. Suffice it to say that, at the end of the
Gulf War, USAF jets strafed the fleeing Iraqi soldiers much in the
same way. There was however one major difference.
At Srebernica, many of those in flight who had been caught were executed
in a summary fashion. This is where the real war crime comes in. Only
here Oric, by association, and as yet undesignated Bosnian Serb Army
soldiers, are the dual culprits in this the tragedy. The fleeing men
were afraid of reprisals for what Oric had done to the Serbs. The Serb
soldiers did not look only for the men that Oric used to exterminate
Srebrenica’s rural Serbs. All men of fighting age were automatically
regarded as Oric’s men. There remains the question of figures.
One needs to bring in some new elements up. Nasir Oric and his "elite
army" left Srebrenica a few days before the Bosnian Serbs went into
attack. They were incorporated into the Bosnian Muslim Army with the
request that it be kept a secret. There was even a Pentagon "angle"
here in that its strategists had concluded that Bosnian Muslim enclaves
like Srebrenica and Zepa were
indefensible and should be abandoned to the Serbs. Nasir Oric and his
para-military were almost certainly tipped-off about the impending Serb
Army invasion. Next, in the first municipal elections for Srebrenica,
after the Serbs took over, the names of 3003 Bosnian Muslim men listed
as "killed" showed up on the electoral rolls.
This writer was present at the University of California panel recently
on which a Bosnian Muslim politician without scholarly credentials
claimed, with a poker face, that no one from Srebrenica did any harm to
the rural Serbs because all were disarmed. He went further, all the
bodies found in the Serb part of Bosnia were those of Muslim men
"slaughtered in cold blood," within Serb territory, forgetting that
there were about 10,000 Muslim combatants’ bodies in there, from the 5th
Corps’ military disaster. He even claimed that 4,000 bodies had their
hands "tied" behind their backs. One was tempted to ask if they might
not have been tied after the excavations, even without imagining the
logistics involved in tying 8,000 hands for executions. Se non e
vero.
So, how many Bosnian Muslim men from Srebrenica were killed while
fleeing as against those killed execution style? It may take a
decade plus a Truth- and- Reconcilliation Commission to arrive at an
accurate number. At this time, if pre-departures and flights that
succeded are taken into account, the global figure of 4,000 dead, if
accepted by convention, needs to be sub-divided , with probably
one-third for the executed men. This is not very far from the Serb
victims of Oric to be found nowhere in the annals constructed by the
Moral Giants and their often breathless . "reporters." . The
"unreconstructed" Serb haters who read the present text will almost
certainly attempt to smear this writer for "trying to whitewash Serb
crimes." Nothing could be farther from such an endeavor. . It is an
attempt to confront the hysteria which blocks all serious inquiry into
the nitty-gritty of it all. One does get tired of having to read the
uninformed human parrots who keep repeating the same bogus "verdict"
in which the Bosnian Muslims are the innocent "lambs" " slaughtered" by
Bosnian Serb "Nazis" at Srebrenica.
One more item on Srebrenica. The reason why Madeleine Albright decided
to produce the CIA aereal fotograph that proved nothing visually by
itself, is that t the Croat Army "cleansed" out of Krajina some 250,000
Serbs, killing over 5,000 who could not flee and systematically looting
and torching their properties. Madeleine Albright and the National
Security Adviser, Anthony Lake, had given the green light to the Croat
Army knowing full-well what the result would be. After the NATO troops
occupied Bosnia without a shot, no bodies were found in the field made
famous by "Dr." Albright, as the New York
Times tried to boost her dubious "expertise" regarding the Balkans as
a whole. There is yet another and last category to be dealt with.
There are distinct war crimes for which the Serbs had been accused but
which they almost certainly did not commit. This is not the reference
to "minor" accusations. Among them, the sending of a bus full of
children through Sarajevo’s "Sniper Alley" and claiming that the Serbs
shoot children because a Bosnian Muslim girl was killed by an
apparently stray bullet. It mattered little that the victim was a Serb.
Or, a TV picture of a graveyard with tomb stones while the commentator
stated with assurance that it was the burial place of Bosnian Muslims
killed by the Serbs. The only problem was that the inscriptions were in
the Cyrillic alphabet and the tombs had crosses over them. It was, with
no chance of error, a Serb graveyard. No, reference here is to two
PIVOTAL "massacres." One led, in a few hours, to a three-week
bombing campaign against the Bosnian Serbs by the USAF within NATO. The
other was actually the triggering mechanism for eleven weeks of
U.S./NATO destruction of Serbia (and Kosovo).
The Massacre at Markale
The reference is to the Markale market- place massacre at Sarajevo
(sometimes called the Third Market-place massacre) and to the "massacre
at Racak.," Kosovo.It so happened that an ABC –TV crew was in place to
film the Markale massacre. It so happened also that a detailed U.N.
Report exculpated the Serbs, attributing this massacre to the Muslim
side. Enter again Madeleine Albright. She demanded that the U.N. Report
be kept under wraps. It remains secret to this day but the gist of its
findings leaked out through a respected Japanese U.N. official, Mr.
Akashi. Ambassador Albright had once told him arrogantly "to mind his
own business." Her Czech Jewish family was twice given shelter and
warm reception by the Serbs. Yet, she became the foremost Serb
hate-monger of the Clinton Administration. A case worth the extended
sessions that Sigmund Freud had with Frau Lou. After the Serb Army
took the town of Vukovar through intense fighting with the Croat
forces, she visited Vukovar to PUBLICIZE "yet another Serb atrocity."
It was the killing of some 300 wounded Croats, yanked out of the local
hospital and shot by "the Serbs." The killing was real but it was Arkan
and his Tigers who did the killings again, not the Serb Army and not
"the Serbs" collectively. She "neglected" to "tell the World" two other
very pertinent aspects. One was that an entire Serb population of
Vukovar under Croat control had disappeared without a trace but signs
of torture and killings were found by the Serb Army in the old Austrian
catacombs under Vukovar. Moreover, it would
appear that the 300 or so hospital "patients" turned out to have been
the extreme nationalist defenders of Vukovar who had kicked out the real
patients in
order to avoid being executed. But, that was Arkan’s claim. It may have
been true or not is the only rational assessment, the kind that has
been a rarity in the psychological bashing of "the Serbs" in the Western
and especially U.S. and German media.
The Massacre at Racak
.
The "massacre" at Racak differed significantly from the Markale
antecedent. Racak was a stronghold of the Albanian Kosovo Liberation
Army. It was attacked by the Serb police units on November 15 1999. The
next day , a special U.S. Envoy , Richard Walker, former U.S.
Ambassador to el-Salvador led a group of journalists and a TV crew to
a would-be "mass" grave filled with 47 bodies, all men, but left
completely open. It "was a massacre ," said Walker. Within hours, the
media across the globe had repeated his words. As Madeleine Albright
would say after the "air war," this ‘Serb atrocity’ did "galvanize the
International Community." It led to the talks at Rambouillet, France,
where the Serbs were set-up to take a fall big enough to justify the air
war itself. No one bothered to ask if there really was a mass execution
and whether the Serbs were really guilty. The verdict was carved in
stone before a jury of experts could convene. It still repeated from
time to time.
A forensic team led by a Finnish Doctor examined the bodies and the
site and produced 20 kilograms of research plus 3,000 photographs. The
lengthy report was never released but a summary did reach the media.
There were no spent cartridges at the site. The bodies had to be brought
from somewhere else. Only a single person in the all-male grave had been
shot at close range. Since the Serbs had been accused of hiding bodies
in Bosnia, why would they leave a "mass grave" open and deliberately
provoke an even more unfavorable opinion abroad that could lead to
military reprisals? But the clincher for an obvious "montage" was in the
record of Mr. Walker. He had close ties with both the CIA and the
Central American right-wing death squads. A French journal stated even
that he was "running them," all in character with his reputation as an
ardent anti-Communist warrior of long standing. Given that the day
before the "mass" grave was "discovered" there was heavy fighting at
Racak between the KLA and the Serb police, it would appear that the 47
bodies were those of the KLA soldiers fallen in battle. There was no
reason why they could not serve the KLA cause again even in death,
especially with Mr. Walker around So much for the "Racak massacre." One
thing is undeniable. Both the Markale and Racak massacres, one real and
the other unreal, provided the U.S.- led and dominated NATO with enough
"legitimacy" to respond with "justifiable retributions."
It would be claimed later that NATO’s intervention in Bosnia forced the
Serbs to come to the negotiating table at Dayton. Wrong again. Bosnian
Serbs in authority, both military and civilian, had been asking for
negotiations for almost a year before being bombed by NATO. But, the
Izetbegovic Government kept refusing until it secured the deadly
services of the USAF. It was the Bosnian Muslm Army Commander Rasim
Delic who selected its targets. With the U.S. air might behind them, a
brigade composed of grandmothers could beat "the Serbs." This was
essentially true at Kosovo as well.
Back in 1998, at Geneva, a U.S. diplomat met with members of the Kosovo
Liberation Army. For some time, the Clinton Administration wanted to
go to war against "Milosevic" but without using the American ground
troops. A "deal" was struck at Geneva. What had been an essentially
localized and containable guerrilla activity by a shadowy KLA, once
defined as "terrorists," would soon escalate. At home in the U.S, the
KLA was laundered away from its ties with the drug traffic and
transformed into a Freedom Fighting but under-armed outfit. The Pentagon
and the CIA had been in Albania itself for almost a decade, training and
supplying its army with weapons. It was never clear why? But, Albania
even became a "Cooperating Associate of NATO" and gave the U.S. its
first military base in the Balkans. It was thus hardly difficult to
extend this "alliance" to the KLA.within a Kosovo dominated by the
Albanian demographic majority. This alliance has not broken down to this
very day while the media are serving "splinter groups" of the KLA in the
"neutral zone" of southern Serbia and inside Macedonia. At the same
time, the Albanian Lobby in the U.S. has an unbreakable lock-in on
Congress. There is even an "Albanian Caucus" within it. But, the
American People have no voice in such matters.
By the time 1999 rolled-in, the KLA had killed, mostly from ambush, some
300 Serb policemen. Its tactic was "hit-and-run- and- melt" into their
clans thereafter. When Serb police managed to pinpoint and surround
the KLA fighters in a clan compound, the result would invariably be the
same. Some women and children would be killed along with the men with
guns. Such events only served to boost the level of international
indignation about the Serb atrocities against the ethnic Albanian
civilians. The KLA was almost never even mentioned, let alone the
right of every state to defend itself against insurgency. All civil
and guerrilla wars are particularly nasty but this perception was lost
entirely in the plethora of one-way accusations against the "guilty
Serbs." This would have ensued, most likely, even if the Serb police
had fought the KLA with sling-shots.
Psychological Warfare against the Serbs
Part I – Croatia and Bosnia
When all the dust had settled from various battles, massacres and
interventions in the ex-Yugoslav space the Serbs were left with a
wrecked economy and a bunch of toxins and mutants in their air, water
and soil. They had "become" the neo-Nazis of the Fin du Siecle, unable
to live with other ethnicities by virtue of the "fact" that they were
the "greatest" of "ethnic cleansers" within old Yugoslavia Yet, the
simple willingness to take a somewhat closer look would show a couple of
STARTLING revelations to those who cultivate their gnorance in order to
remain perpetually "indignant." At the height of shootings in
Croatia, some 60,000 Croats lived in Belgrade unmolested. No one ever
booted them out of Serbia. At the height of the Serb-KLA fighting, some
200,000 Albanians lived unmolested in Serbia, 80,000 of them inhabit
TODAY the Greater Belgrade. Not a few pro-Yugoslav Albanians, as yet
"unradicalized" by the KLA, had fled Kosovo into SERBIA and into the
hands of the Serb Red Cross. Serbia alone incorporates 26 different
ethnicities and is the only multi-ethnic state left in ex-Yugoslavia. As
such, Serbia should receive all the support possible, including war
reparations, from the champion of plural societies, the United States of
America. Instead, pure Croatia, pure Slovenia and pure Kosovo are today
the "good guys."
The second "surprise" comes from another set of figures. Ethnic Serbs
made up about 14% of Croatia’s total population. About 40,000 Serbs
were "cleansed" out of Western Slavonia and another 250,000 from
Krajina. Bosnia produced about 400,000 Serb refugees. Most recently,
after the "air war," some 150,000-200,000 Serb were cleansed out by a
supposedly "disarmed" KLA Today, there are almost a million Serbs in
Serbia proper that had been "cleansed" out of the rest of
ex-Yugoslavia.The Western media have conveniently covered this fact by
omission (it is hardly ever mentioned) and by psychological ploy found
in the following and endlessly repeated statement: "Milosevic lost four
wars." When the actually HEAVIEST "ethnic cleansing" affected the
Serbs who became refugees that is because they "lost wars." The
"winners," of course did not do anything so there are no Serb "victims"
only casualties of wars "the Serbs themselves had started." Really?
When the Yugoslav Army attempted to prevent Slovenia from orbiting out
of the Federation, there was relatively little fighting. In fact, YFA
troops and tanks were blocked in urban settings, going nowhere. There
was, however, no bad blood between the Serbs and the Slovenes deriving
from World War II. In fact, busloads of Serb mothers came to Slovenia
to take their sons back into Serbia, Neither the Serbs nor the Slovenes
were looking for a war. There were hardly any large numbers of Serbs in
Slovenia to be "cleansed out" either.
The case of Croatia was different entirely because the Croat Nazis
killed hundreds of thousands of Serb civilians (between 1941-1944),
many in the most bestial manner that offended even some of the German
officers. The Serbs of Krajina attempted simply to escape a Croat
State in the process of becoming independent from the Federal
Yugoslavia. Bad memories were a major factor but both the Western
media and the Croat Nationalists "helped" to revive them. Instead of
reporting the on-going and constantly escalating violations of Human
Rights of the Serb minority in Croatia, the Western media served another
psychological "canard." The Serbs wanted to create a "Greater Serbia."
In that way, no one needed to worry about what was being done to the
Serbs in the New Croatia. The Croats became the "certified" "victims"
of "the Serbs" collectively again.
Krajina was on its way to become a Croat Kosovo when local Serbs
refused to accept Croat over-rule. Only here, the Clinton Administration
helped the newly sovereign State of Croatia against the rebelling Serbs.
It saw to it that a U.S. General and other officers trained the new army
and modernized it. Electronic intelligence was given to Croatia’s Army
as well. When it launched Operation Storm in August 1995, U.S. jets
strafed the Serb radar positions around Knin, Krajina’s capital. This
was direct intervention without naming it. The U.S. General who trained
the new Army feigned utter surprise that it would come to expel by
terror and war a quarter of a million people, killing several thousand
in the process, with all the properties looted and torched. Given the
"American factor," Milosevic’s Yugoslav Army did not interfere and
Croatia became, at long last, ethnically pure one more time.It was
assisted in a major way by the Clinton Administration. In fact, the
Green Light for the Operation Storm was given by none other than
Madeleine Albright and Anthony Lake, then National Security Adviser.
Serbia itself did not lose this war because it did not enter it. But,
the Krajina Serbs lost a home which their ancestors began to settle
some three centuries earlier.
The situation in Bosnia, at end-game, left the local Serbs in
possession of about 40 percent of the real estate, having lost about 20
percent . They had legally owned about 62 percent of Bosnia, mostly
rural for a historical reason. Under the occupation of Ottoman Turks,
local Muslim overlords occupied the towns and the Christian raja got
the countryside. What ended the war in Bosnia was
Nothing that resembled anyone’s decisive military victory or defeat.
But, the war in Bosnia provided the Western media and some "publicity
scavengers" and "hogs" with a gold mine for sensationalism and
hate-mongering against the Serbs. There was the famous picture of an
emasciated Bosnian Muslim man in a Serb camp immediately "diagnosed"
as a "death camp." He was ostensibly behind the wire and he had a
gentle look in his face. The picture brough back immediately the
Holocaust and went Around the World. Newsweek had it as its
frontispiece. Beind all of this was a hoax. The Serbs allowed a British
TV crew and the producer to film the camp because they had nothing to
hide. It was a detention camp, noting more sinister. A closer look
inside the picture reveals a whole group of men who appeared well-fed
and well-dressed. A Serb TV crew was also filming their British guests
and it turned out that the emasciated man was in front of the wire, not
behind it. It also came out that he was suffering from Tuberculosis. The
producer saw the possibilities of a major media coup with which to pay
back the Serb hospitality and openness by a blow aiming to incite
forever against the Serb People men and women of Jewish faith in the
U.S. and Western Europe.
When fatigue was setting in among the Western publics about the war
crimes in Bosnia, there came out of Sarajevo the story of systematic
mass rapes of Muslim Women by Serb soldiers and para-military. Figures
of 20,000 to 40,000 were cited with assurances that can only accompany
the lack of any accuracy. A French TV reporter went to Tuzla,
Bosniuan Muslim stronghold, to verify the claim that some 4,000 of the
raped Bosnian women were in a large soccer field and vicinity.Half way
to Tuzla the numbers came down to 400. Near Tuzla they went down to 40.
In Tuzla, he found just 4. While the "mass rapes" of Muslim women were
circulated even in Muslim countries for an obvious reason, the
Yugoslav Government presented to the United Nations a formal dossier and
evidence. It revealed that hundreds of Serbian girls and women were
being abducted, brought into Sarajevo and put into brothels called"
troop entertainment centers." No one took notice. To get the "flavor "
also of non-Serb cruelty to alien women, herewith is briefly a story
that never reached the U.S. media. A young and idealistic woman from
Milan, Italy, went to Sarajevo to "help Bosnia." She was persuaded to go
with a man to Srebrenica where her help was "even more needed." Once
there, she was gang raped several times, sold and re-sold for a pack of
cigarettes. When the Serb Bosnian Army took Srebrenica its soldiers
found her in a dark cellar, in rags, chained to a wall and so
traumatized that she lost the power to speak. It took a week of hospital
care and a female social
worker to get her to talk and reveal what had happened. Some of the
reports from Kosovo reveal even more harrowing tales of cruelty to women
and girls "imported" by the Albanian freedom fighters and Mafiosi from
Albania, But, they are U.S. allies and who wants to diminish the great
achievement of NATO by revealing just how really out of hand the
situation inside Kosovo has gotten under the benevolent Gaulaiter
Bernard Kouchner and 40,000 NATO troops.
Out of the propaganda mill at Sarajevo came yet another set of figures
widely circulated. It concerned some 250,000 to 500,000 Bosnian Muslims
killed by the Serbs (this was BEFORE Srebrenica). A State Departmenbt
official who resigned his post reduced the figure down to about
40,000, a more realistic one. A few media sources did pick this up
because of his correct political pedigree but it was hardly enough to
prevent endless parroting of the higher mortality figures, for effect.
Psychological War Against the Serbs
Part II – Kosovo
For Kosovo, most of the fellow-Americans are still unaware of the
extent to which they had been savagely manipulated by the Clinton
Administration and the corporate media trying to "outrun" the White
House, the CIA and the Pentagon. After the bogus "massacre" at Racak,
there came the Rambouillet Conference in February 1999. The Big Lie that
came out of it was that the Serbs walked out and refused to sign the
"Peace Plan." There was "no alternative" but to "let" NATO bomb
Serbia. Facts tell otherwise. The Serbs were willing to restore Kosovo’s
autonomy, the original main provision of the "Peace Plan," and even
allow foreign troops to be stationed there under U.N. authority without
a fight. In return, the KLA was to be disarmed. The KLA’s political
head would not sign without the promise of formal independence for
Kosovo. Than came the con-game switch that hardly renders honor to the
American People or American professional Diplomacy. An Appendix (B) was
added in the last minute. Stripped of its meandering language, it simply
meant that the Serbs must accept the NATO occupation of Serbia,
including Belgrade. As Madeleine Albright would quip after the eleven
weeks of destruction and killing from the air, "we raised the bar so
Milosevic could not jump over it. Yugoslavia needed a little bombing."
Once assured by General Wesley Clark that it would de facto "borrow" the
USAF services over Serbia and the Serb Army positions at Kosovo, the
KLA signed the "Peace Plan" for war against Serbia. On 24 March 1999,
the U.S. (inside of NATO) went into action after having pre-planned
aerial attacks against Serbia since at least 1997. Now the propaganda
and the hate-mongering in full bloom.
A "humanitarian disaster" was being worked out in Belgrade to affect
ethnic Albanians. In a TV discussion, Senator Joseph Biden, was almost
foaming at the mouth while stressing the claim. The Serbs had beefed-up
their Third Army in order to carry this plan out..Shortly after the NATO
bombs and missiles began to fall on Serbia and Kosovo and the "Kosovars"
started to come out in large numbers, the German secret services came up
with the "discovery" of a would-be top secret Serb Plan to empty Kosovo
out of its Albanian majority. This was an ex-post-facto hoax as
documented in Germany itself. There never was such a plan. The reality
of it was that the Serb Third Army had been pulled out of Kosovo as a
resul of direct negotiations between Milosevic and Richard Holbrooke.
But, Holbrooke did not lift a finger to prevent the KLA from moving into
the power vacuum created by the Third Army’s removal from Kosovo. It was
now moving to retake the territories and put an end to the KLA. It did
not need anyone’s "permission" to so do.
Ah, but the Kosovars were fleeing Kosovo en masse. Proof positive of
"Operation Horseshoe," as the hoax was called.The difficulty was
obvious. No such flights occurred before 24th March 1999, the day of
NATO’s "humanitarian intervention" to "save the Kosovars." They were
leaving Kosovo for the first time in huge numbers to escape from
escalated fighting between Serb units and the KLA as well as from the
NATO bombs At that point Jewish Organizations in the U.S. ran a huge
picture in the New York Times of trainloads of European Jews being taken
to death camps in Nazi-occupied Europe, with Kosovo on the point and the
highlight of "Never Again." The analogy was pure emotional anti-Serb
hate-mongering because the fleeing Kosovars were going into the safety
of refugee camps across the borders. They were not going into the gas
chambers. Moreover, they were actually helped to do so by the Serb
military and were urged to leave Kosovo in big numbers by the KLA
itself.
Ah, but the Serbs had killed 100,000 Albanian men assured Secretary
of Defense Cohen. This was later scaled down to 10,000 but still with
"mass graves" populating the countryside at Kosovo. After the NATO
occupation a total of 2008 bodies had been excavated by forensic teams.
There was one particular
grave containing 150 bodies. They were quickly re-buried under the eyes
of NATO commanders when it was found that the bodies were those of
Serbs. The very near- crime of re-burial was committed to again deny the
Serbs even the right to be the victims of someone else in death. With
all the outcries about "mass graves" at Kosovo, the Spanish forensic
team walked out in frustration since the claim had outpaced the reality
by an unbearable distance. The desire to unearth a real mass grave
containing Albanian ethnic bodies was intense in June 1999 that a TV
crew offered a reward of $250,000 for such a bona fide find. The Medium
is the Message and no one did more to uphold this simulated reality than
CNN. It was the first TV outfit to second and surpass the propaganda
emanating
from the Clinton team and its lower-ranking associates. It even allowed
the Government’s psychological warfare personnel to be at the Network,
ostensibly for "training purposes," another canard served to the public.
Even after twenty-one months of NATO and U.N. presence at Kosovo, after
the expulsion of not only the Serbs from most of it but also all the
other minorities,after the kidnappings and murders of over 1,000 Serb
civilians, the "psy-ops" are "publicizing" the would-be gruesome
incinerations of 1,500 ethnic Albanian men in the smelter furnace of
the Trepca mine during the air war. This has been refuted by foreign
experts who went into the mine and examined the furnace. It is further
documented as another attempt to keep smearing the Serbs –now
"inconvenient" because Milosevic has been replaced by a democratic
Government—by the fact that the Serbs had shut the smelter furnace and
the mine during the whole period of NATO’s air war. But, no matter what
evidence is presented to the contrary by real experts who are neither
Serbs nor pro-Serb, the human parrots are constantly at work.
. As a result of a decade of hate-mongering against the Serbs the
Clinton Administration and the corporate media have spawned several
hundred clerks whose career advances are inter-linked with continued
cerebral bashing of "the Serbs." They are to be found on newspaper
staffs, in editorial rooms, in various NGOs and Governmental agencies
and nothing apparently delights many of them more than to "develop"
same new "variant" of the same bashing endeavor. But that is only one
duct into protracted smearing of a single ethnicity.. There are two
others with far greater influence in the corridors of power. One can be
called the "anti-Serb brigade." It populates various think tanks,
peace institutes, human rights centers, Congressional staffs and the
like. Time and time again, these are the same people who are called upon
by Congressional Committees to "testify" and "inform" what policies
should be pursued in respect to ex-Yugoslavia as a whole. It is a
replica of Catch-22.
The Serbs invariably get the short end of the stick without much by
way of real carrots. We had real wars with the Japanese and the Germans
and we rebuilt their economies. Even an unreal war of our own making
has not produced anything close as yet. Just three months after the new
Government was elected in Belgrade, the same coterie of real
intellectual pygmies and a few phoney Moral Giants is shedding
crocodile tears about the slow pace into Democracy and capitalist
underpinnings within Serbia They keep insisting that Belgrade MUST
deliver Milosevic and his Cabinet to the Hague in order to "prove" that
"real" reforms are taking place. Against the background of NATO
destruction and a million refugees, the Serbs are not even allowed to
set their own priorities, a given in any valid concept of Democracy. It
cannot be IMPOSED from outside. In an unguarded moment, even Morton
Abramowitz conceded that the Serbs are the pivotal people of
ex-Yugoslavia. Negotiating and siding with the KLA insurgents against
the Serbs sets a most destabilizing example of reckless risk- taking.
There are some 5,000 ethnicities in about 150 countries. If their
sovereignty is downgraded and even non-existent there will be no end to
an imploding and un-manageable international chaos but it is a sure
bet that neither the U.S. nor NATO will wish to attain another
Kosovo-like "victory." Had they not internationalized a local and minor
guerrilla it would have been eliminated by now and foreign troops would
not have been necessary along with a U.N. Trusteeship. To say nothing of
pouring billions of dollars don the drain. Some 1300 European (OSCE)
Observers at Kosovo just beore the air war had concluded that the Serb
units at Kosovo did NOT TARGET ethnic Albanians as a people but the KLA
instead. The Clinton Administration would not listen. It did not even
wish to make the massive report of OSCE Observers available to the
public. As a prominent ethnic Albanian in Macedonia said aptly, foreign
intervention at Kosovo allowed the Genie to "get out of the bottle."
The coterie does not see it that way.
Some in it are "Senior Fellows," like Morton Abramowitz who had been a
Political Adviser to the KLA at Rambouillet and has a long anti-Serb and
anti-Armenian record. He is now the most vocal and influential
point-man for the Kosovo Albanians in demands that Kosovo be given
independence from Yugoslavia. He argues that there is "no other way."
But, someone should remind him that, in the Balkans, the unspoken rule
of politics is that hardly anybody gets everything they would wish to
have. An internationally backed partition of Kosovo, with the northern
and much smaller area remaining Serb and the rest free to be independent
or unite with Albania could be a possible resolution of the "Kosovo
Problem" that would allow our troops to come home instead of staying
there for a generation.
But, this cannot happen as long as the "ex-KLA" "factions" are not
disarmed completely by a NATO able and willing to show its teeth. This
goal was one of the three main provisions in the "Peace Plan" at
Rambouillet. The KLA even signed it. . It cannot happen as long as the
same people keep "testifying" and "informing " repeatedly a Congress
that is already "captured" by the Albanian Lobby. It cannot happen
while NATO looks the other way. The political head of the "e-KLA," the
main general of the KLA{who is an attested war crimnal for what he did
in Croatia to the Serbs) and the ONCE-MODERATE leader of most Kosovo
Albanians are all in accord that ethnic Albanians in southern Serbia,
western Macedonia and eastern Montenegro "deserve" self-determination.
There is a third level at home in the U.S., the one that really counts
because it is composed of the actual decision makers who command the
military, political, and economic resources of the United States. They
define strategic objectives without communicating with the American
People that ultimately pays the bills and will come to benefit or to
harm for what they do or not do abroad. Until the change in Presidency,
many in this group defined themselves through the Holocaust. It is a
powerful influence, just like the World War II, which impacted an
entire generation in Europe and the U.S. But, as was pointed earlier,
the analogy with what happened at Kosovo does not work. It may even be
extremely counter-productive to the U.S. National Interest.
The preceding "determinators" have been replaced by what one could call
the "oil men," a practical, hard-ball bunch ready to be real tough only
when clear and widely discernible aspects of the National Interest are
at stake. It is too early to tell what this group, now in-charge, will
come up with but whatever it does come up with it will fail ultimately
unless it develops a real respect for facts and contexts in which these
devolve. In short, until they avoid the tendency to dupe the American
People in pursuit of "geo-political strategies" and "higher goals" that
only they grasp and for which they are ultimately not accountable even
in cases of egregious errors. They can learn a most profitable lesson by
a close and real look at what has been done to "the Serbs." It should
ring the bell on how NOT to deal with peoples out there and avoid, at
the same time, a Balkanization of America in the belief that they can
promote Democracy abroad while losing it at home.
Raymond K. Kent
History Department,
University of California,
Berkeley, Ca. 97720
(510/642-1971)
