Natasa Kandic & the Propaganda War against Yugoslavia
The nineteen Nato countries that attacked the sovereign state of Yugoslavia
in 1999 had a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 1300 times that of
Yugoslavia.
Similarly with the respective media outlets the same imbalance applied, namely
1300 to 1.
(Given the universality of the English and French languages the relative
world wide impact of the media from the Nato countries could be said to be
much more).
Following the Nato destruction of Yugoslavia?s RTS television station the
media ratio between aggressor and victim became 1300 to zero.
Consequently it became relatively easy to promote anti-Yugoslav propaganda,
because after all who would counter it?
"Under these conditions", wrote Edward Herman in his work, Propaganda System
Number One,
"remarkable structures of disinformation can be built, institutionalised,
and remain parts of historic memory even in the face of ex post confutation?s,
which are kept out of sight."
Out of this propaganda onslaught came shocking stories which ranged from
?Serb concentration camps?, ?ethnic cleansing? and ?genocide?, to the childish
claim that Yugoslav soldiers were deliberately killing dogs because the Albanian
population were devoted to their pets. This story, aired by the BBC, was
aimed directly and exclusively at Britain, on the grounds of its impact on
a pet loving nation. Of course none of it was true but the adage that ?a
lie can be half way around the block before the truth has even got its shoes
on? served the Nato countries well.
At the outset of the break- up of the sovereign state of Yugoslavia, the
Washington based public relations firm, Ruder and Finn Global Public Affairs,
was handed the task of demonising the Serbs and their leadership.
Given the advantage, as outlined above, of 1300 to zero, Ruder and Finn managed
to turn the truth onto its head. It was the Serbs who were now incredibly
decreed as being guilty of systematic ethnic cleansing, a policy that no
one more than the Serbs had suffered from. Indeed the aim of Serbia was the
preservation of the Yugoslav federation, not its disintegration, thus opposing
the very essence of ethnic cleansing.
James Harff, director of Ruder Finn, when boasting of his propaganda achievements
to French TV2, stated, "Speed is vital, it is the first assertion that really
counts. All future denials are entirely ineffective." Ruder Finn uses several
hundred journalists, politicians, representatives of humanitarian associations
and academics to create public opinion. When asked of his proudest public
relation endeavours Harff responded, "To have managed to put Jewish opinion
on our side. Tens of thousands of Jews perished in Croatian camps yet we
succeeded masterfully."
Harff later clarified that his firm never actually claimed that ?genocide?
or ?ethnic cleansing? was taking place, but merely publicised the fact that
someone, somewhere, had made such claims. However these two charges in particular
are still today the overriding impressions of the Yugoslav conflict in the
mind of much of the western world.
That the western media readily accepted these claims without seeking any
confirmation was a reflection of their subservience to the requirements of
their own governments. That we now have ?embedded? reporters in Iraq, broadcasting
government and military hand outs as if they were independently verified
news, is merely a further example of this journalistic degeneration.
This propaganda success allowed Nato to claim that the bombing was justified
on the grounds of ?humanitarian intervention?. In reality it enabled Nato
and particularly the United States to pursue long held foreign policy objectives.
In her book, ?Fool?s Gold? author Diana Johnstone clarifies it this way:
"Apparently, many people on the left, who would normally defend peace and
justice, were fooled or confused by the claim that the "Kosovo war" was waged
for purely humanitarian reasons. The altruistic pretensions of NATO's Kosovo
war served to gain public acceptance of war as the appropriate instrument
of policy. This opened the way for the United States, in the wake of 11 September
2001, to attack Afghanistan as the opening phase of a new, long-term "war
against terrorism".
The bombing of Yugoslavia marked a turning point in the expansion of U.S.
military hegemony. For the first time, a European country was subjected to
the type of U.S. intervention usually reserved for Central America. It also
marked the end of Germany's postwar inhibition about foreign military intervention,
and saw Germans returning to the scene of Nazi crimes with a clear conscience.
For the first time, NATO abandoned its defensive posture and attacked a country
that posed no threat to its member states, outside the NATO treaty area,
and without seeking UN Security Council authorization.
International law was circumvented in the name of an alleged higher moral
imperative. A precedent was set. When the United States subsequently arrogated
the right to bomb and invade Afghanistan on moral grounds, its NATO allies
could only meekly offer to tag along. In a world with no more legal barriers
to might proclaiming itself right, there was nothing to stop a U.S. president
from using military force to crush every conceivable adversary".
In his opening statement at the beginning of his defence case President Milosevic
explained what happened in Kosovo prior to the NATO aggression, establishing
the truth about the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, which was in fact a
terrorist organization aiming for the creation of an ethnically pure and
independent Kosovo that would later be associated with Albania to create
a Greater Albania.
He also exposed the fact that the KLA was funded and trained by the West
and exercised a murderous regime over Serbs and Albanians in all areas of
Kosovo and Metohija where it managed to take over control.
The prosecution, of course, now denies all this. Yet the fact is that the
US and Britain knew the true situation in Yugoslavia before the 1999 bombing
campaign, particularly the situation in Kosovo, and had known for some considerable
time. This can be seen from the following quotes:
"The Albanian nationalists have a two point platform,??first to establish
what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the merger
with Albania to form a greater Albania?"
(New York Times 12th July 1982).
"In reality, the Albanians control every phase of life in Kosovo: the police,
the courts, agriculture, the factories, the villages and the cities. . .
At present, the Serbs are fleeing, faced with growing Albanian violence.
Twenty thousand among them have left Kosovo in the last seven years. . ."
(The New York Times 10th November 1987)
On February 22, 1998, Special US envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, declared
publicly:
"I know a terrorist when I see one. And I'm telling you, these guys in the
KLA are terrorists."
Only later, when their objectives had been achieved would politicians from
within the Nato countries, in rare moments of candour, occasionally admit
that the propaganda was merely a cover for their aggression.
Former cabinet minister in the Blair government, Michael Meacher, wrote an
article in the Guardian newspaper of 27th March 2004 where he revealed the
following:
"The 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999, directed by the
US general Wesley Clark, was said to be stopping an alleged "genocide" by
the Serbs in Kosovo (some 2,000 bodies were later exhumed, a horrifying number
but far short of the 100,000 the US predicted). The US goal was to assist
the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Yet the year before, the US state department
had branded the KLA a terrorist organisation, financing its operations from
the heroin trade and funds from Islamic countries and individuals, including
Osama bin Laden".
In June 2001, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea admitted " there was no genocide
in Kosovo."
Moreover, two weeks before the war, an official report of the German foreign
ministry declared: "There was no ethnic persecution of the Albanians as a
group. Only the confrontations between two armies."
And on the eve of the Nato bombing campaign Bill Clinton informed a group
of federal employees;
"If we want solid economic relations, permitting us to sell in the whole
world, Europe must be the key. . This is what the thing in Kosovo is about."
(Monopoly - NATO and the Conquest of the World. Michel Collon EPO, 2000 Brussels).
PROPAGANDA.
It would be reasonable to assume that a media imbalance of 1300 to zero against
Yugoslavia could not get any worse. However if you assumed that then you
would be wrong.
At the end of Nato?s 78 day bombing campaign information revealing the truth
of the break-up of Yugoslavia did appear in limited form, mostly thanks to
independent media outlets. However the mainstream media continued to promote
the Nato propaganda version, not least because of the requirements of The
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), an organ,
although illegally created and purely a political tool of the western powers,
portrayed itself as a legitimate legal body. Its task being to exonerate
the aggression of the Nato countries and criminalise the victims of that
aggression, an objective that would need a considerable amount of deceit
and hypocrisy.
In addition to the overwhelming dominance of Nato propaganda, and since the
5th October 2000 western backed coup against the government of Slobodan Milosevic,
the new leadership of the now named Serbia and Montenegro, with their position
totally dependent on the grace of the United States, became an echo within
the country for the propaganda of the very people who had bombed them. Furthermore
the Serbian media was now being used to broadcast this same propaganda and
began to actively encourage the handing over of their own citizens to the
ICTY in The Hague.
This incredible state of affairs, treason is the only word that is suitable
to use, was exacerbated further by the activities of prominent individuals
within Serbia, individuals who fully supported this prostration before the
might of the United States.
One such individual is Natasa Kandic.
NATASA KANDIC.
In his article ?The Fabrication and Dissemination of Deception? from 2001
Gilles d?Aymery notes the following:
"Many news reports of atrocities and "genocide" allegedly committed by the
Serbs and widely disseminated in the Western main media have originated with
a little known NGO in Belgrade, Serbia, the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC).
The story of the refrigerated truck filled with corpses that was purportedly
dumped in the [river] Danube in April 1999 is a good example.
The HLC was created in 1992 by Natasa Kandic, its present Executive Director.
It has been funded by George Soros as well as the National Endowment for
Democracy and this year the Ford Foundation provided HLC with a $80,000 grant.
Kandic is a darling of the Western Human Rights crowd. She's received tons
of awards and was conferred an honorary doctorate by the University of Valencia,
Spain, for "her longstanding work in the field of human rights and her humanitarian
activities."
According to a July 18 editorial by Justin Raimundo of Antiwar.com, "It was
Kandic who, as the organizer of an OSCE media conference held in Montenegro,
told Serbian journalists who walked out in protest at the NATO-crats' high-handedness:
'They pay you and have the right to question your conduct during the war.'
Heavily subsidized by interventionist sugar-daddy George Soros, Kandic is
a weird, isolated figure in Serbian politics, one of the few who openly sided
with NATO during the bombing."
So, one could entertain the idea that if "they" pay, "they" also have the
right and the expectation to a return on their investment. Natasa Kandic
has undoubtedly been quite a profitable investment!"
Here are some examples of the work of Natasa Kandic and her HLC:
At the ICTY on the 6th April 2005 defence witness Danica Marinkovic, the
Investigating Judge who led the inquiry into events at the Kosovo village
of Racak, was cross-examined by prosecutor Geoffrey Nice.
Having failed to refute Mrs Marinkovoc?s testimony on the Racak incident
Mr Nice attempted a character assassination of the defence witness. His claim
that Mrs Marinkovoc had ordered the Serbian police to commit murder was so
outrageous that even the Nato judges asked him for corroborating evidence.
Mr Nice had to withdraw the accusation because his one and only source was
an article written by Natasa Kandic which was only notable precisely because
it offered no supporting evidence for the accusation.
The New York Times of January 26, 2004 published a report commenting on the
resignation of USA Today correspondent Jack Kelley over an article he had
written in 1999.
The Times report commented:
"In his July 1999 article, Mr. Kelley referred to a three-ring notebook with
a black vinyl cover that contained a direct order "typed on army stationery
and stamped by the Supreme Defense Council of the Yugoslav Army Headquarters
in Belgrade, which is headed by Milosevic." The order, which Mr. Kelley said
was typed in Cyrillic letters and intended for a lieutenant, read: "The aim
of the military activity should be to cleanse Cusk and the surrounding villages
and terrain."
And further:
"In the article, Mr. Kelley wrote about a Yugoslav Army notebook that had
a typed order to "cleanse" a Kosovo village, although he did not identify
the person who showed him the notebook. He added that United Nations investigators
considered this "the strongest and most direct evidence linking the government
of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to 'ethnic cleansing' in Kosovo."
Announcing Kelley?s resignation, the USA Today issue of 13th January 2004
stated that they had concluded a seven-month investigation into "whether
Kelley might have embellished or fabricated stories."
According to the New York Times Kelley had claimed as his source for the
story, "A human rights advocate" and confirmed that source as "The rights
advocate, Natasa Kandic, the executive director of the Humanitarian Law Center
in Belgrade"
On 30th April 2001, what later became known as ?the freezer truck hoax? broke
in the western press through Associated Press who under the headline, "Rights
Activist Says Yugoslav Army, Police Destroyed Evidence Of Kosovo Atrocities."
stated:
"?[Natasa] Kandic [from the Humanitarian Law Center]?cited a report in a
local magazine in the eastern Serbian Negotin region, describing how on the
night of April 6, 1999, a refrigerated trailer truck was lifted out of the
Danube near Kladovo, at the border with Romania"
"The vehicle bore license plates from Pec, a western Kosovo city, and allegedly
contained 50 bodies. According to Kandic?s center, the bodies were subsequently
transferred to a truck with Belgrade plates and driven away."
And the piece continued:
"?Our investigations produced witnesses who can testify that many people
were killed, their bodies buried only to be dug up again and later moved
to another place,? said Natasa Kandic of the Humanitarian Law Center, a leading
human rights watchdog organization in Yugoslavia"
The point of this story was to claim that Mr Milosevic had ordered a cover-up
of the alleged atrocities in Kosovo and was removing the evidence, but unfortunately
for him a truck carrying Albanian bodies from Kosovo had crashed into the
Danube.
This story was very timely for Nato and the new Serbian government because
at the time Nato was demanding the transfer of Mr Milosevic to the ICTY and
as the Independent newspaper commented approvingly, "The bodies are the evidence
the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague needs to prove its charge
of crimes against humanity against Mr Milosevic."
The story was published worldwide and the BBC even presented a 45-minute
documentary on it, on the 27th January 2002 as part of their holocaust memorial
season.
However subsequent investigations into this story revealed the following:
The local magazine quoted in the AP article was Timocka Kriminala Revija
(criminal review) owned by Dragan Vitomirovic.
Timocka published two articles about a refrigerator truck full of bodies.
The first article, dated 15th September 1999, stated that the truck contained
dead Kurds and that the licence plates were Swiss.
However, the second story, published 1st May 2001 the one that Natasa Kandic
presented to the world and the source of the allegations against Slobodan
Milosevic, the dead Kurds had become the dead Albanians and the Swiss licence
plates had become Kosovo license plates.
It further transpired that Dragan Vitomirovic had a brother with a record
of smuggling illegal aliens across the Romanian border and moreover, had
been encouraged to write the second article by Interior Minister Mihajlovic,
a member of the newly installed Nato backed Serbian government.
In regard to Kandic?s claim that, "Our investigations produced witnesses
who can testify that many people were killed, their bodies buried only to
be dug up again and later moved to another place" it is important to note
the following:
Police officer Captain Dragan Karleusa, who was appointed to investigate
the allegations, appeared in July 2002 as a prosecution witness at The Hague
against Mr Milosevic and admitted that not a single witness deposition had
ever been taken. (Trial transcript).
Given that as of July 2002 the investigating officers had not taken a single
witness deposition and had not a shred of evidence to substantiate the allegation,
how was it possible for the BBC to broadcast six months earlier, on the 27th
January 2002, their ?factual? documentary programme ?Mass Killings in Kosovo??
Noting the above examples of the work of Kandic?s Humanitarian Law Center
it is laughable, if not tragic, to hear Hague prosecutor Geoffrey Nice along
with the mainstream media describe this HLC as "a very reliable human rights
organisation." One wonders what an unreliable one would be like!
Let us just recap for a moment and reflect on Kandic?s history as cited in
the few samples above.
She sided with Nato as the bombs dropped on her own people and it was she
who berated Serbian journalists for not showing respect to their Nato masters,
claiming they pay their wages. It was she who was named as the source for
the USA article originally printed in 1999 which forced the resignation of
Jack Kelley after an investigation that USA Today held to determine, "whether
Kelley might have embellished or fabricated stories."
In 2001 it was she who supplied The Hague with the Freezer Truck Story, second
version, the rewritten second version naturally. Also, at The Hague this
year Prosecutor Nice was forced to drop his character assassination attempt
against a defence witness as his one and only source was an article written
by Kandic.
You would think that given this history any self-respecting newspaper, when
confronted by a new allegation from this same source, would immediately realise
that some corroborating evidence would be needed before publication. One
would like to think that the editor?s thoughts would be something like this:
"Oh dear, it?s that fairy tale queen again. Hold the presses while I get
this checked and double checked."
Moreover, bearing in mind the history of previous HLC accusations it should
at the very least have given the media a degree of suspicion concerning future
?stories?supplied by this NGO. However in June 2005 this ?very reliable human
rights organisation? was at it again, riding to the rescue of a desperate,
not to say disastrous, prosecution case with a story instantly embraced by
a subservient media.
On Wednesday 1st June 2005 the prosecution in the Slobodan Milosevic case
at The Hague introduced a video tape, apparently showing the execution of
six people by a ?Serbian unit? known as the ?Scorpions? which it is claimed
occurred in 1995. The ?Scorpions?, the prosecution alleges, were under the
command of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), which oversaw
state security and policing in Serbia. The tape was then broadcast on Serbian
television. The tape was supplied by, you?ve guessed it, Natasa Kandic.
Yet The Hague court already had prior knowledge of the so-called ?Scorpion?
unit, and knew they were not under the command of the MUP.
Milan Milanovic, the Deputy Defense Minister of the Republic of Serbian Krajina
(RSK) testified as a prosecution witness at The Hague on October 14, 2003
where he confirmed the unit was subordinated to the command of the Army of
the Republic of Serbian Krajina.
They used them initially in 1992 as security guards for the Krajina Petroleum
Industries oil company.
Furthermore, a viewing of the video in full would reveal that this was the
case. The prosecution showed a few minutes of the two-hour long video, whereas
a full viewing would indeed confirm by the insignia on their vehicles that
Milanovic?s testimony was correct. Therefore there is no connection with
this, essentially mercenary unit, to the Belgrade government whatsoever.
The prosecution should have learned that lesson from the testimony of their
own witness, Milanovic, in 2003, yet they chose not to heed the satirical
maxim, "If at first you don?t succeed give up, it?s no use making a complete
fool of yourself."
We are dealing here, once again, with a complete red herring. Of course it
is the first blast of media propaganda that will be embedded in people?s
minds, and not the later refutations. As James Harff, director of Ruder Finn,
boasted, "Speed is vital, it is the first assertion that really counts. All
future denials are entirely ineffective."
Despite this Mr Milosevic made some telling points about the videotape. While
stating that if the tape was authentic, this was indeed an ?horrific? act,
he noted however that the video had some technical irregularities which gave
rise for concern and pointed out that although the prosecution is linking
this tape with Srebrenica and claiming the killings took place in Trnovo,
the two places are more that 160km apart, and that there was nothing on the
tape to suggest a link, nor anything on the tape to confirm where it was
actually filmed.
In regard to the ?discovery? of this video and its showing at The Hague,
it should be noted that the prosecution case concluded last year, yet the
prosecution was allowed to present it six months later, and furthermore,
present it without disclosing its existence to the defence, thus breaking
all legal norms and even breaking the Hague tribunal?s own rules of procedure.
Before leaving the issue of this tape it is interesting to note two news
reports which purported to give some background details. The first report
is from Reuters and the second from The Observer, written by one Tim Judah,
who for those not aware, comes from the London-based IWPR (International
War & Peace Reporting) stable, an organisation known for its previous collaboration
with Kandic and an organisation about as trustworthy as a rattlesnake with
a headache.
Reuters dispatch of 4th June 4th 2005 stated:
"The video was obtained last December from an unnamed and now protected source
by Hague prosecutors and Natasa Kandic, a Serbian human rights activist.
They spent months authenticating it and investigating the men it showed.
It was shown to Serbian war crimes prosecutors a week ago and its broadcast
to a national audience was coordinated with the government of Prime Minister
Vojislav Kostunica."
The Observer of 5th June 2005 included this passage:
"On 23 May she (Kandic) gave it to Serbia's own war crimes prosecutor. He
promised to investigate, but no arrests were made. She also gave it to The
Hague's prosecution team, who showed it on Wednesday. Immediately afterwards
she gave it to Serbian TV".
The Reuters report claims ?They spent months authenticating it and investigating
the men it showed.?
Yet the Observer report states that Kandic gave it to the Serbian authorities
and The Hague prosecution team on 23rd May, just eight days prior to its
showing. So who ?spent months authenticating it.?
FUNDING.
To understand the workings of an organisation, its intentions and philosophy,
it is necessary to examine where its funding comes from.
As documented, both the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and American
billionaire financier George Soros have provided funding for Kandic?s Humanitarian
Law Center.
The National Endowment for Democracy is a United States government agency.
Founded in 1983, the NED took over functions that were once the responsibility
of the CIA. Unlike the CIA however the NED receives open congressional appropriations,
as opposed to the previously covert funding, and thus their activities are
more openly documented. For instance NED programme operator Paul McCarthy
revealed in his testimony to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in
Europe that the NED, in 1998, was responsible in Yugoslavia for, amongst
other things, the newspapers Nasa Borba, Vreme and Danas, the TV station
Negotin, the news agency BETA and the Belgrade station Radio B-92.
It is worth noting that among the directors who have served on the board
of the National Endowment for Democracy are: Wesley Clark, former Supreme
Commander of Nato, Richard Holbrooke former Assistant Secretary of State,
and Francis Fukuyama, author of the anti-communist diatribe, ?The End of
History.?
George Soros is responsible for the creation of many organisations, one such
being the Open Society Institute. Journalist Neil Clark commented in the
New Statesman magazine that:
"Soros deems a society `open' not if it respects human rights and basic freedoms,
but if it is `open' for him and his associates to make money. And, indeed,
Soros has made money in every country he has helped to prise `open.' In Kosovo,
for example, he has invested $50m in an attempt to gain control of the Trepca
mine complex, where there are vast reserves of gold, silver, lead and other
minerals estimated to be worth in the region of $5bn. He thus copied a pattern
he has deployed to great effect over the whole of eastern Europe: of advocating
`shock therapy' and `economic reform,' then swooping in with his associates
to buy valuable state assets at knockdown prices."
In her article ?George Soros ? Imperial Wizard? published in the autumn 2002
issue of Covert Action Quarterly, Heather Coffin quoted Soros as saying:
"In each country I identified a group of people, some leading personalities,
others less well known - who share my belief..."
Coffin also noted:
"He was part of the full court press that dismantled Yugoslavia. Calling
himself a philanthropist, billionaire George Soros' role is to tighten the
ideological stranglehold of globalization and the New World Order while promoting
his own financial gain. Soros' commercial and "philanthropic" operations
are clandestine, contradictory and coactive. And as far as his economic activities
are concerned, by his own admission, he is without conscience; a capitalist
who functions with absolute amorality."
Gilles d?Amery reported further details on Soros in ?The Fabrication and
Dissemination of Deception?:
"A prominent hawk on Yugoslavia, Soros pressured Bill Clinton, as early as
1993, to escalate the war by lifting an arms embargo against Bosnian separatists.
Emboldened by U.S. support, separatist rebels launched "ethnic cleansing"
campaigns against Serb civilians living in the territories they claimed.
The bloodiest such action was Operation Storm, an August 1995 offensive by
Croatian forces, in which as many as 300,000 Serbs were driven from Krajina,
and an unknown number of Serb civilians slaughtered."
The blood was not dry in Krajina before Soros and his fellow hawks confronted
Congress in December 1995 with a petition, signed by 40 prominent policy
makers, urging massive U.S. intervention in the Balkans -- not to protect
Serbs from further atrocities, but to escalate the war by intensifying support
for separatist rebels.
George Soros is also a notable contributor to the funding of the ICTY itself.
Another organisation that supports the ICTY is the Coalition for International
Justice (CIJ), which was founded and funded by Soros and it is the CIJ that
supplies many of the ICTY?s legal staff. Moreover the ICTY also has provision
for the obtaining of evidence by, among others, George Soros? Open Society
Foundation.
Between them the NED and Soros can be said to fund the ?human rights? organisations
(Soros is also involved with HRW) that highlight ?atrocities?, they also
control large parts of the Serbian media that publicises these ?atrocities?
and they contribute to the ICTY who conduct the resulting trials. A tidy
circle indeed and within this circle where is the allowance for any opposing
voice?
These then are the masters that Natasa Kandic and her HLC serve. In essence
Kandic is merely a Nato foot soldier.
EVIDENCE.
As for the accusations of ?ethnic cleansing? and ?genocide? levelled against
Slobodan Milosevic the ICTY have not a scrap of credible evidence. They have
not got one single document or other exhibit that suggests Mr Milosevic or
the Yugoslav government are guilty of these grave charges.
On the contrary, the ICTY have in their possession a mass of documents and
sworn testimonies to confirm that the Milosevic government and the Yugoslav
authorities took all available steps to prevent any possible crimes against
civilians.
For instance, General Gojovic, who was the head of the Legal Directorate
at the Yugoslav Defense Ministry during the 1999 Kosovo war, testified in
March this year that war crimes were severely punished by the Yugoslav Army.
He exhibited a large file of documents laying out the work of the Yugoslav
military justice system. These documents detailed the type of crime committed,
whether this be robbery or a more serious offence, the files identified the
soldiers who committed the crimes, and the relevant action taken by the Yugoslav
courts as of 2001. For example the Yugoslav authorities successfully convicted
over 2000 perpetrators in Kosovo alone with some soldiers receiving the death
penalty for their crimes.
Further, the ICTY have in their possession copies of the orders from the
Yugoslav Supreme Command that instructed soldiers to abide by the Geneva
Conventions.
Also, during General Gojovic?s testimony Slobodan Milosevic exhibited numerous
pamphlets containing codes of conduct that were distributed to the personnel
of the Yugoslav Army, which clearly stated that all personnel were ordered
to respect civilians, treat enemy prisoners humanely and observe the laws
of war.
That the Yugoslav government did this while engaged in a life and death struggle
against internal and external enemies is to their everlasting credit and
proves that the charge against them of a "Joint Criminal Enterprise" of President
Milosevic and others to ethnically cleanse Kosovo and Metohija of non-Serbs,
on which the "indictment" relies, is inapplicable, and a complete and utter
nonsense.
Of course all this would be relevant if the aim of the ICTY was to objectively
establish the truth about the break-up of Yugoslavia and punish those responsible
for any crimes committed. However this is not the case.
The ICTY is a political tool. It is a creation of the United States and its
function is to justify the Nato aggression and to punish the victims of that
aggression. The real guilt of the Yugoslav prisoners is that they defied
Nato and fought for the independence of their country. Moreover, the ICTY
exists to serve as a warning to anyone who thinks of trying to resist US
foreign policy in the future.
The tribunal?s rules are unique and have nothing to do with justice or discovering
the truth about the break-up of Yugoslavia.
It has 1300 employees, it has lawyers, legal secretaries, investigators and
judges who are all primarily from the Nato countries that attacked Yugoslavia.
It has assistance from the governments and intelligence services of those
countries that attacked Yugoslavia.
It is therefore hardly neutral.
When commenting on the illegal weapons used by Nato against Yugoslavia, weapons
that are forbidden by the Geneva Convention such as fragmentation bombs,
graphite bombs, used to paralyse the electrical grid and weapons of Depleted
Uranium which cause cancer and birth defects,
US Congressman Lester Munson stated:
"You will never see these NATO pilots brought before a UN tribunal. NATO
is the accuser, the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the executioner,
because it is NATO that pays the bills for the ICTY. NATO does not have to
submit to international law. It is international law."
(Monopoly - NATO and the Conquest of the World. Michel Collon EPO, 2000 Brussels).
Given this scenario it is easy to see people such as Natasa Kandic as an
obedient servant of Nato, and every ?smoking gun? story that is produced
by her ilk is not only testimony to the fact that the prosecution lacks any
factual evidence, but testimony to the correctness of the battle for justice
and historical truth being undertaken by Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague
today.
And even a media advantage of 1300 to zero will ultimately not be enough
to conceal the truth about the destruction of Yugoslavia and the false demonising
of its people.
Ian Johnson
June 2005
__________________________________________________________________
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The nineteen Nato countries that attacked the sovereign state of Yugoslavia
in 1999 had a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 1300 times that of
Yugoslavia.
Similarly with the respective media outlets the same imbalance applied, namely
1300 to 1.
(Given the universality of the English and French languages the relative
world wide impact of the media from the Nato countries could be said to be
much more).
Following the Nato destruction of Yugoslavia?s RTS television station the
media ratio between aggressor and victim became 1300 to zero.
Consequently it became relatively easy to promote anti-Yugoslav propaganda,
because after all who would counter it?
"Under these conditions", wrote Edward Herman in his work, Propaganda System
Number One,
"remarkable structures of disinformation can be built, institutionalised,
and remain parts of historic memory even in the face of ex post confutation?s,
which are kept out of sight."
Out of this propaganda onslaught came shocking stories which ranged from
?Serb concentration camps?, ?ethnic cleansing? and ?genocide?, to the childish
claim that Yugoslav soldiers were deliberately killing dogs because the Albanian
population were devoted to their pets. This story, aired by the BBC, was
aimed directly and exclusively at Britain, on the grounds of its impact on
a pet loving nation. Of course none of it was true but the adage that ?a
lie can be half way around the block before the truth has even got its shoes
on? served the Nato countries well.
At the outset of the break- up of the sovereign state of Yugoslavia, the
Washington based public relations firm, Ruder and Finn Global Public Affairs,
was handed the task of demonising the Serbs and their leadership.
Given the advantage, as outlined above, of 1300 to zero, Ruder and Finn managed
to turn the truth onto its head. It was the Serbs who were now incredibly
decreed as being guilty of systematic ethnic cleansing, a policy that no
one more than the Serbs had suffered from. Indeed the aim of Serbia was the
preservation of the Yugoslav federation, not its disintegration, thus opposing
the very essence of ethnic cleansing.
James Harff, director of Ruder Finn, when boasting of his propaganda achievements
to French TV2, stated, "Speed is vital, it is the first assertion that really
counts. All future denials are entirely ineffective." Ruder Finn uses several
hundred journalists, politicians, representatives of humanitarian associations
and academics to create public opinion. When asked of his proudest public
relation endeavours Harff responded, "To have managed to put Jewish opinion
on our side. Tens of thousands of Jews perished in Croatian camps yet we
succeeded masterfully."
Harff later clarified that his firm never actually claimed that ?genocide?
or ?ethnic cleansing? was taking place, but merely publicised the fact that
someone, somewhere, had made such claims. However these two charges in particular
are still today the overriding impressions of the Yugoslav conflict in the
mind of much of the western world.
That the western media readily accepted these claims without seeking any
confirmation was a reflection of their subservience to the requirements of
their own governments. That we now have ?embedded? reporters in Iraq, broadcasting
government and military hand outs as if they were independently verified
news, is merely a further example of this journalistic degeneration.
This propaganda success allowed Nato to claim that the bombing was justified
on the grounds of ?humanitarian intervention?. In reality it enabled Nato
and particularly the United States to pursue long held foreign policy objectives.
In her book, ?Fool?s Gold? author Diana Johnstone clarifies it this way:
"Apparently, many people on the left, who would normally defend peace and
justice, were fooled or confused by the claim that the "Kosovo war" was waged
for purely humanitarian reasons. The altruistic pretensions of NATO's Kosovo
war served to gain public acceptance of war as the appropriate instrument
of policy. This opened the way for the United States, in the wake of 11 September
2001, to attack Afghanistan as the opening phase of a new, long-term "war
against terrorism".
The bombing of Yugoslavia marked a turning point in the expansion of U.S.
military hegemony. For the first time, a European country was subjected to
the type of U.S. intervention usually reserved for Central America. It also
marked the end of Germany's postwar inhibition about foreign military intervention,
and saw Germans returning to the scene of Nazi crimes with a clear conscience.
For the first time, NATO abandoned its defensive posture and attacked a country
that posed no threat to its member states, outside the NATO treaty area,
and without seeking UN Security Council authorization.
International law was circumvented in the name of an alleged higher moral
imperative. A precedent was set. When the United States subsequently arrogated
the right to bomb and invade Afghanistan on moral grounds, its NATO allies
could only meekly offer to tag along. In a world with no more legal barriers
to might proclaiming itself right, there was nothing to stop a U.S. president
from using military force to crush every conceivable adversary".
In his opening statement at the beginning of his defence case President Milosevic
explained what happened in Kosovo prior to the NATO aggression, establishing
the truth about the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, which was in fact a
terrorist organization aiming for the creation of an ethnically pure and
independent Kosovo that would later be associated with Albania to create
a Greater Albania.
He also exposed the fact that the KLA was funded and trained by the West
and exercised a murderous regime over Serbs and Albanians in all areas of
Kosovo and Metohija where it managed to take over control.
The prosecution, of course, now denies all this. Yet the fact is that the
US and Britain knew the true situation in Yugoslavia before the 1999 bombing
campaign, particularly the situation in Kosovo, and had known for some considerable
time. This can be seen from the following quotes:
"The Albanian nationalists have a two point platform,??first to establish
what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the merger
with Albania to form a greater Albania?"
(New York Times 12th July 1982).
"In reality, the Albanians control every phase of life in Kosovo: the police,
the courts, agriculture, the factories, the villages and the cities. . .
At present, the Serbs are fleeing, faced with growing Albanian violence.
Twenty thousand among them have left Kosovo in the last seven years. . ."
(The New York Times 10th November 1987)
On February 22, 1998, Special US envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, declared
publicly:
"I know a terrorist when I see one. And I'm telling you, these guys in the
KLA are terrorists."
Only later, when their objectives had been achieved would politicians from
within the Nato countries, in rare moments of candour, occasionally admit
that the propaganda was merely a cover for their aggression.
Former cabinet minister in the Blair government, Michael Meacher, wrote an
article in the Guardian newspaper of 27th March 2004 where he revealed the
following:
"The 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999, directed by the
US general Wesley Clark, was said to be stopping an alleged "genocide" by
the Serbs in Kosovo (some 2,000 bodies were later exhumed, a horrifying number
but far short of the 100,000 the US predicted). The US goal was to assist
the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Yet the year before, the US state department
had branded the KLA a terrorist organisation, financing its operations from
the heroin trade and funds from Islamic countries and individuals, including
Osama bin Laden".
In June 2001, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea admitted " there was no genocide
in Kosovo."
Moreover, two weeks before the war, an official report of the German foreign
ministry declared: "There was no ethnic persecution of the Albanians as a
group. Only the confrontations between two armies."
And on the eve of the Nato bombing campaign Bill Clinton informed a group
of federal employees;
"If we want solid economic relations, permitting us to sell in the whole
world, Europe must be the key. . This is what the thing in Kosovo is about."
(Monopoly - NATO and the Conquest of the World. Michel Collon EPO, 2000 Brussels).
PROPAGANDA.
It would be reasonable to assume that a media imbalance of 1300 to zero against
Yugoslavia could not get any worse. However if you assumed that then you
would be wrong.
At the end of Nato?s 78 day bombing campaign information revealing the truth
of the break-up of Yugoslavia did appear in limited form, mostly thanks to
independent media outlets. However the mainstream media continued to promote
the Nato propaganda version, not least because of the requirements of The
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), an organ,
although illegally created and purely a political tool of the western powers,
portrayed itself as a legitimate legal body. Its task being to exonerate
the aggression of the Nato countries and criminalise the victims of that
aggression, an objective that would need a considerable amount of deceit
and hypocrisy.
In addition to the overwhelming dominance of Nato propaganda, and since the
5th October 2000 western backed coup against the government of Slobodan Milosevic,
the new leadership of the now named Serbia and Montenegro, with their position
totally dependent on the grace of the United States, became an echo within
the country for the propaganda of the very people who had bombed them. Furthermore
the Serbian media was now being used to broadcast this same propaganda and
began to actively encourage the handing over of their own citizens to the
ICTY in The Hague.
This incredible state of affairs, treason is the only word that is suitable
to use, was exacerbated further by the activities of prominent individuals
within Serbia, individuals who fully supported this prostration before the
might of the United States.
One such individual is Natasa Kandic.
NATASA KANDIC.
In his article ?The Fabrication and Dissemination of Deception? from 2001
Gilles d?Aymery notes the following:
"Many news reports of atrocities and "genocide" allegedly committed by the
Serbs and widely disseminated in the Western main media have originated with
a little known NGO in Belgrade, Serbia, the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC).
The story of the refrigerated truck filled with corpses that was purportedly
dumped in the [river] Danube in April 1999 is a good example.
The HLC was created in 1992 by Natasa Kandic, its present Executive Director.
It has been funded by George Soros as well as the National Endowment for
Democracy and this year the Ford Foundation provided HLC with a $80,000 grant.
Kandic is a darling of the Western Human Rights crowd. She's received tons
of awards and was conferred an honorary doctorate by the University of Valencia,
Spain, for "her longstanding work in the field of human rights and her humanitarian
activities."
According to a July 18 editorial by Justin Raimundo of Antiwar.com, "It was
Kandic who, as the organizer of an OSCE media conference held in Montenegro,
told Serbian journalists who walked out in protest at the NATO-crats' high-handedness:
'They pay you and have the right to question your conduct during the war.'
Heavily subsidized by interventionist sugar-daddy George Soros, Kandic is
a weird, isolated figure in Serbian politics, one of the few who openly sided
with NATO during the bombing."
So, one could entertain the idea that if "they" pay, "they" also have the
right and the expectation to a return on their investment. Natasa Kandic
has undoubtedly been quite a profitable investment!"
Here are some examples of the work of Natasa Kandic and her HLC:
At the ICTY on the 6th April 2005 defence witness Danica Marinkovic, the
Investigating Judge who led the inquiry into events at the Kosovo village
of Racak, was cross-examined by prosecutor Geoffrey Nice.
Having failed to refute Mrs Marinkovoc?s testimony on the Racak incident
Mr Nice attempted a character assassination of the defence witness. His claim
that Mrs Marinkovoc had ordered the Serbian police to commit murder was so
outrageous that even the Nato judges asked him for corroborating evidence.
Mr Nice had to withdraw the accusation because his one and only source was
an article written by Natasa Kandic which was only notable precisely because
it offered no supporting evidence for the accusation.
The New York Times of January 26, 2004 published a report commenting on the
resignation of USA Today correspondent Jack Kelley over an article he had
written in 1999.
The Times report commented:
"In his July 1999 article, Mr. Kelley referred to a three-ring notebook with
a black vinyl cover that contained a direct order "typed on army stationery
and stamped by the Supreme Defense Council of the Yugoslav Army Headquarters
in Belgrade, which is headed by Milosevic." The order, which Mr. Kelley said
was typed in Cyrillic letters and intended for a lieutenant, read: "The aim
of the military activity should be to cleanse Cusk and the surrounding villages
and terrain."
And further:
"In the article, Mr. Kelley wrote about a Yugoslav Army notebook that had
a typed order to "cleanse" a Kosovo village, although he did not identify
the person who showed him the notebook. He added that United Nations investigators
considered this "the strongest and most direct evidence linking the government
of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to 'ethnic cleansing' in Kosovo."
Announcing Kelley?s resignation, the USA Today issue of 13th January 2004
stated that they had concluded a seven-month investigation into "whether
Kelley might have embellished or fabricated stories."
According to the New York Times Kelley had claimed as his source for the
story, "A human rights advocate" and confirmed that source as "The rights
advocate, Natasa Kandic, the executive director of the Humanitarian Law Center
in Belgrade"
On 30th April 2001, what later became known as ?the freezer truck hoax? broke
in the western press through Associated Press who under the headline, "Rights
Activist Says Yugoslav Army, Police Destroyed Evidence Of Kosovo Atrocities."
stated:
"?[Natasa] Kandic [from the Humanitarian Law Center]?cited a report in a
local magazine in the eastern Serbian Negotin region, describing how on the
night of April 6, 1999, a refrigerated trailer truck was lifted out of the
Danube near Kladovo, at the border with Romania"
"The vehicle bore license plates from Pec, a western Kosovo city, and allegedly
contained 50 bodies. According to Kandic?s center, the bodies were subsequently
transferred to a truck with Belgrade plates and driven away."
And the piece continued:
"?Our investigations produced witnesses who can testify that many people
were killed, their bodies buried only to be dug up again and later moved
to another place,? said Natasa Kandic of the Humanitarian Law Center, a leading
human rights watchdog organization in Yugoslavia"
The point of this story was to claim that Mr Milosevic had ordered a cover-up
of the alleged atrocities in Kosovo and was removing the evidence, but unfortunately
for him a truck carrying Albanian bodies from Kosovo had crashed into the
Danube.
This story was very timely for Nato and the new Serbian government because
at the time Nato was demanding the transfer of Mr Milosevic to the ICTY and
as the Independent newspaper commented approvingly, "The bodies are the evidence
the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague needs to prove its charge
of crimes against humanity against Mr Milosevic."
The story was published worldwide and the BBC even presented a 45-minute
documentary on it, on the 27th January 2002 as part of their holocaust memorial
season.
However subsequent investigations into this story revealed the following:
The local magazine quoted in the AP article was Timocka Kriminala Revija
(criminal review) owned by Dragan Vitomirovic.
Timocka published two articles about a refrigerator truck full of bodies.
The first article, dated 15th September 1999, stated that the truck contained
dead Kurds and that the licence plates were Swiss.
However, the second story, published 1st May 2001 the one that Natasa Kandic
presented to the world and the source of the allegations against Slobodan
Milosevic, the dead Kurds had become the dead Albanians and the Swiss licence
plates had become Kosovo license plates.
It further transpired that Dragan Vitomirovic had a brother with a record
of smuggling illegal aliens across the Romanian border and moreover, had
been encouraged to write the second article by Interior Minister Mihajlovic,
a member of the newly installed Nato backed Serbian government.
In regard to Kandic?s claim that, "Our investigations produced witnesses
who can testify that many people were killed, their bodies buried only to
be dug up again and later moved to another place" it is important to note
the following:
Police officer Captain Dragan Karleusa, who was appointed to investigate
the allegations, appeared in July 2002 as a prosecution witness at The Hague
against Mr Milosevic and admitted that not a single witness deposition had
ever been taken. (Trial transcript).
Given that as of July 2002 the investigating officers had not taken a single
witness deposition and had not a shred of evidence to substantiate the allegation,
how was it possible for the BBC to broadcast six months earlier, on the 27th
January 2002, their ?factual? documentary programme ?Mass Killings in Kosovo??
Noting the above examples of the work of Kandic?s Humanitarian Law Center
it is laughable, if not tragic, to hear Hague prosecutor Geoffrey Nice along
with the mainstream media describe this HLC as "a very reliable human rights
organisation." One wonders what an unreliable one would be like!
Let us just recap for a moment and reflect on Kandic?s history as cited in
the few samples above.
She sided with Nato as the bombs dropped on her own people and it was she
who berated Serbian journalists for not showing respect to their Nato masters,
claiming they pay their wages. It was she who was named as the source for
the USA article originally printed in 1999 which forced the resignation of
Jack Kelley after an investigation that USA Today held to determine, "whether
Kelley might have embellished or fabricated stories."
In 2001 it was she who supplied The Hague with the Freezer Truck Story, second
version, the rewritten second version naturally. Also, at The Hague this
year Prosecutor Nice was forced to drop his character assassination attempt
against a defence witness as his one and only source was an article written
by Kandic.
You would think that given this history any self-respecting newspaper, when
confronted by a new allegation from this same source, would immediately realise
that some corroborating evidence would be needed before publication. One
would like to think that the editor?s thoughts would be something like this:
"Oh dear, it?s that fairy tale queen again. Hold the presses while I get
this checked and double checked."
Moreover, bearing in mind the history of previous HLC accusations it should
at the very least have given the media a degree of suspicion concerning future
?stories?supplied by this NGO. However in June 2005 this ?very reliable human
rights organisation? was at it again, riding to the rescue of a desperate,
not to say disastrous, prosecution case with a story instantly embraced by
a subservient media.
On Wednesday 1st June 2005 the prosecution in the Slobodan Milosevic case
at The Hague introduced a video tape, apparently showing the execution of
six people by a ?Serbian unit? known as the ?Scorpions? which it is claimed
occurred in 1995. The ?Scorpions?, the prosecution alleges, were under the
command of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), which oversaw
state security and policing in Serbia. The tape was then broadcast on Serbian
television. The tape was supplied by, you?ve guessed it, Natasa Kandic.
Yet The Hague court already had prior knowledge of the so-called ?Scorpion?
unit, and knew they were not under the command of the MUP.
Milan Milanovic, the Deputy Defense Minister of the Republic of Serbian Krajina
(RSK) testified as a prosecution witness at The Hague on October 14, 2003
where he confirmed the unit was subordinated to the command of the Army of
the Republic of Serbian Krajina.
They used them initially in 1992 as security guards for the Krajina Petroleum
Industries oil company.
Furthermore, a viewing of the video in full would reveal that this was the
case. The prosecution showed a few minutes of the two-hour long video, whereas
a full viewing would indeed confirm by the insignia on their vehicles that
Milanovic?s testimony was correct. Therefore there is no connection with
this, essentially mercenary unit, to the Belgrade government whatsoever.
The prosecution should have learned that lesson from the testimony of their
own witness, Milanovic, in 2003, yet they chose not to heed the satirical
maxim, "If at first you don?t succeed give up, it?s no use making a complete
fool of yourself."
We are dealing here, once again, with a complete red herring. Of course it
is the first blast of media propaganda that will be embedded in people?s
minds, and not the later refutations. As James Harff, director of Ruder Finn,
boasted, "Speed is vital, it is the first assertion that really counts. All
future denials are entirely ineffective."
Despite this Mr Milosevic made some telling points about the videotape. While
stating that if the tape was authentic, this was indeed an ?horrific? act,
he noted however that the video had some technical irregularities which gave
rise for concern and pointed out that although the prosecution is linking
this tape with Srebrenica and claiming the killings took place in Trnovo,
the two places are more that 160km apart, and that there was nothing on the
tape to suggest a link, nor anything on the tape to confirm where it was
actually filmed.
In regard to the ?discovery? of this video and its showing at The Hague,
it should be noted that the prosecution case concluded last year, yet the
prosecution was allowed to present it six months later, and furthermore,
present it without disclosing its existence to the defence, thus breaking
all legal norms and even breaking the Hague tribunal?s own rules of procedure.
Before leaving the issue of this tape it is interesting to note two news
reports which purported to give some background details. The first report
is from Reuters and the second from The Observer, written by one Tim Judah,
who for those not aware, comes from the London-based IWPR (International
War & Peace Reporting) stable, an organisation known for its previous collaboration
with Kandic and an organisation about as trustworthy as a rattlesnake with
a headache.
Reuters dispatch of 4th June 4th 2005 stated:
"The video was obtained last December from an unnamed and now protected source
by Hague prosecutors and Natasa Kandic, a Serbian human rights activist.
They spent months authenticating it and investigating the men it showed.
It was shown to Serbian war crimes prosecutors a week ago and its broadcast
to a national audience was coordinated with the government of Prime Minister
Vojislav Kostunica."
The Observer of 5th June 2005 included this passage:
"On 23 May she (Kandic) gave it to Serbia's own war crimes prosecutor. He
promised to investigate, but no arrests were made. She also gave it to The
Hague's prosecution team, who showed it on Wednesday. Immediately afterwards
she gave it to Serbian TV".
The Reuters report claims ?They spent months authenticating it and investigating
the men it showed.?
Yet the Observer report states that Kandic gave it to the Serbian authorities
and The Hague prosecution team on 23rd May, just eight days prior to its
showing. So who ?spent months authenticating it.?
FUNDING.
To understand the workings of an organisation, its intentions and philosophy,
it is necessary to examine where its funding comes from.
As documented, both the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and American
billionaire financier George Soros have provided funding for Kandic?s Humanitarian
Law Center.
The National Endowment for Democracy is a United States government agency.
Founded in 1983, the NED took over functions that were once the responsibility
of the CIA. Unlike the CIA however the NED receives open congressional appropriations,
as opposed to the previously covert funding, and thus their activities are
more openly documented. For instance NED programme operator Paul McCarthy
revealed in his testimony to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in
Europe that the NED, in 1998, was responsible in Yugoslavia for, amongst
other things, the newspapers Nasa Borba, Vreme and Danas, the TV station
Negotin, the news agency BETA and the Belgrade station Radio B-92.
It is worth noting that among the directors who have served on the board
of the National Endowment for Democracy are: Wesley Clark, former Supreme
Commander of Nato, Richard Holbrooke former Assistant Secretary of State,
and Francis Fukuyama, author of the anti-communist diatribe, ?The End of
History.?
George Soros is responsible for the creation of many organisations, one such
being the Open Society Institute. Journalist Neil Clark commented in the
New Statesman magazine that:
"Soros deems a society `open' not if it respects human rights and basic freedoms,
but if it is `open' for him and his associates to make money. And, indeed,
Soros has made money in every country he has helped to prise `open.' In Kosovo,
for example, he has invested $50m in an attempt to gain control of the Trepca
mine complex, where there are vast reserves of gold, silver, lead and other
minerals estimated to be worth in the region of $5bn. He thus copied a pattern
he has deployed to great effect over the whole of eastern Europe: of advocating
`shock therapy' and `economic reform,' then swooping in with his associates
to buy valuable state assets at knockdown prices."
In her article ?George Soros ? Imperial Wizard? published in the autumn 2002
issue of Covert Action Quarterly, Heather Coffin quoted Soros as saying:
"In each country I identified a group of people, some leading personalities,
others less well known - who share my belief..."
Coffin also noted:
"He was part of the full court press that dismantled Yugoslavia. Calling
himself a philanthropist, billionaire George Soros' role is to tighten the
ideological stranglehold of globalization and the New World Order while promoting
his own financial gain. Soros' commercial and "philanthropic" operations
are clandestine, contradictory and coactive. And as far as his economic activities
are concerned, by his own admission, he is without conscience; a capitalist
who functions with absolute amorality."
Gilles d?Amery reported further details on Soros in ?The Fabrication and
Dissemination of Deception?:
"A prominent hawk on Yugoslavia, Soros pressured Bill Clinton, as early as
1993, to escalate the war by lifting an arms embargo against Bosnian separatists.
Emboldened by U.S. support, separatist rebels launched "ethnic cleansing"
campaigns against Serb civilians living in the territories they claimed.
The bloodiest such action was Operation Storm, an August 1995 offensive by
Croatian forces, in which as many as 300,000 Serbs were driven from Krajina,
and an unknown number of Serb civilians slaughtered."
The blood was not dry in Krajina before Soros and his fellow hawks confronted
Congress in December 1995 with a petition, signed by 40 prominent policy
makers, urging massive U.S. intervention in the Balkans -- not to protect
Serbs from further atrocities, but to escalate the war by intensifying support
for separatist rebels.
George Soros is also a notable contributor to the funding of the ICTY itself.
Another organisation that supports the ICTY is the Coalition for International
Justice (CIJ), which was founded and funded by Soros and it is the CIJ that
supplies many of the ICTY?s legal staff. Moreover the ICTY also has provision
for the obtaining of evidence by, among others, George Soros? Open Society
Foundation.
Between them the NED and Soros can be said to fund the ?human rights? organisations
(Soros is also involved with HRW) that highlight ?atrocities?, they also
control large parts of the Serbian media that publicises these ?atrocities?
and they contribute to the ICTY who conduct the resulting trials. A tidy
circle indeed and within this circle where is the allowance for any opposing
voice?
These then are the masters that Natasa Kandic and her HLC serve. In essence
Kandic is merely a Nato foot soldier.
EVIDENCE.
As for the accusations of ?ethnic cleansing? and ?genocide? levelled against
Slobodan Milosevic the ICTY have not a scrap of credible evidence. They have
not got one single document or other exhibit that suggests Mr Milosevic or
the Yugoslav government are guilty of these grave charges.
On the contrary, the ICTY have in their possession a mass of documents and
sworn testimonies to confirm that the Milosevic government and the Yugoslav
authorities took all available steps to prevent any possible crimes against
civilians.
For instance, General Gojovic, who was the head of the Legal Directorate
at the Yugoslav Defense Ministry during the 1999 Kosovo war, testified in
March this year that war crimes were severely punished by the Yugoslav Army.
He exhibited a large file of documents laying out the work of the Yugoslav
military justice system. These documents detailed the type of crime committed,
whether this be robbery or a more serious offence, the files identified the
soldiers who committed the crimes, and the relevant action taken by the Yugoslav
courts as of 2001. For example the Yugoslav authorities successfully convicted
over 2000 perpetrators in Kosovo alone with some soldiers receiving the death
penalty for their crimes.
Further, the ICTY have in their possession copies of the orders from the
Yugoslav Supreme Command that instructed soldiers to abide by the Geneva
Conventions.
Also, during General Gojovic?s testimony Slobodan Milosevic exhibited numerous
pamphlets containing codes of conduct that were distributed to the personnel
of the Yugoslav Army, which clearly stated that all personnel were ordered
to respect civilians, treat enemy prisoners humanely and observe the laws
of war.
That the Yugoslav government did this while engaged in a life and death struggle
against internal and external enemies is to their everlasting credit and
proves that the charge against them of a "Joint Criminal Enterprise" of President
Milosevic and others to ethnically cleanse Kosovo and Metohija of non-Serbs,
on which the "indictment" relies, is inapplicable, and a complete and utter
nonsense.
Of course all this would be relevant if the aim of the ICTY was to objectively
establish the truth about the break-up of Yugoslavia and punish those responsible
for any crimes committed. However this is not the case.
The ICTY is a political tool. It is a creation of the United States and its
function is to justify the Nato aggression and to punish the victims of that
aggression. The real guilt of the Yugoslav prisoners is that they defied
Nato and fought for the independence of their country. Moreover, the ICTY
exists to serve as a warning to anyone who thinks of trying to resist US
foreign policy in the future.
The tribunal?s rules are unique and have nothing to do with justice or discovering
the truth about the break-up of Yugoslavia.
It has 1300 employees, it has lawyers, legal secretaries, investigators and
judges who are all primarily from the Nato countries that attacked Yugoslavia.
It has assistance from the governments and intelligence services of those
countries that attacked Yugoslavia.
It is therefore hardly neutral.
When commenting on the illegal weapons used by Nato against Yugoslavia, weapons
that are forbidden by the Geneva Convention such as fragmentation bombs,
graphite bombs, used to paralyse the electrical grid and weapons of Depleted
Uranium which cause cancer and birth defects,
US Congressman Lester Munson stated:
"You will never see these NATO pilots brought before a UN tribunal. NATO
is the accuser, the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the executioner,
because it is NATO that pays the bills for the ICTY. NATO does not have to
submit to international law. It is international law."
(Monopoly - NATO and the Conquest of the World. Michel Collon EPO, 2000 Brussels).
Given this scenario it is easy to see people such as Natasa Kandic as an
obedient servant of Nato, and every ?smoking gun? story that is produced
by her ilk is not only testimony to the fact that the prosecution lacks any
factual evidence, but testimony to the correctness of the battle for justice
and historical truth being undertaken by Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague
today.
And even a media advantage of 1300 to zero will ultimately not be enough
to conceal the truth about the destruction of Yugoslavia and the false demonising
of its people.
Ian Johnson
June 2005
__________________________________________________________________
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