Informazione
(english / italiano)
IRAQ = JUGOSLAVIJA
3: Mercenariato per le colonie
A - La privatizzazione della guerra (M. Dinucci)
B - Cosa e' e cosa fa Dyncorp/CSC in Colombia e con l'Azienda Trasporti
Milanese (Ass. Mi Ranchito, 10 marzo 2003)
C - The privatisation of war
(Ian Traynor, Dec. 10, 2003 - The Guardian) : "... The biggest US
military base built since Vietnam, Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, was
constructed and continues to be serviced by private contractors. At
Tuzla in northern Bosnia, headquarters for US peacekeepers, everything
that can be farmed out to private businesses has been... In the Balkans
MPRI are playing an incredibly critical role. The balance of power in
the region was altered by a private company..."
---
LINK: tutto quello che avreste sempre voluto sapere sul MPRI, military
professional resources, inc e non avete mai osato chiedere...
http://www.serbianna.com/columns/vaknin/035.shtml
--- A ---
La privatizzazione della guerra
In Iraq l'uso dei mercenari dimostra il fallimento
dell'«irachizzazione» del conflitto
MANLIO DINUCCI
Il manifesto, 14 aprile 2004
La Dts Security, per la quale lavorano i quattro italiani catturati in
Iraq, ha il proprio quartier generale a Newington in Virginia. Da lì
fornisce «sicurezza» ai propri clienti, soprattutto grosse
multinazionali, dagli Stati uniti all'Oman, dall'Uzbekistan all'Iraq.
Poiché essa garantisce i suoi servizi in qualsiasi situazione, anche di
guerra, il suo personale è composto di specialisti provenienti dalle
forze scelte di vari eserciti. A simbolo della sua efficienza, la Dts
Security, che vanta oltre vent'anni diesperienza, ha messo nel suo
sito, al posto del solito puntatore del mouse, quello di un mirino
telescopico di un fucile di alta precisione. In Iraq, essa fa parte
della quindicina di compagnie fornitrici di «sicurezza», assoldate
direttamente o indirettamente dal Pentagono come «contrattiste militari
private» per sorvegliare installazioni, scortare convogli e addestrare
il «nuovo esercito iracheno». La maggiore è la statunitense Blackwater
che, composta di cinque compagnie specializzate, «ha stabilito una
presenza globale, fornendo addestramento e soluzioni tattiche per il
21mo secolo». Tra i suoi clienti, oltre a società multinazionali, vanta
il Dipartimento della difesa e il Dipartimento di stato degli Stati
uniti d'America.
Un'altra importante compagniache opera in Iraq per conto del Pentagono
è la Vinnell Corp., affiliata della Northrop Grumman, una delle
principali industrie belliche. Avendo molti compiti da svolgere, ha
subappaltato l'addestramento delle truppe irachene a Kirkush a un'altra
società statunitense, la Mpri di Alexandria (Virginia), che ha già
partecipato alla formazione dei nuovi eserciti di Croazia e Bosnia.
Operano in Iraq anche compagnie britanniche, come laErinys, il cui
compito è la sorveglianza delle installazioni petrolifere, e la Global
Risk, che fornisce «protezione armata» alla «Autorità provvisoria della
coalizione».
Nessuno conosce con esattezza il numero dei «moderni mercenari» (come
li definisceThe New York Times) che operano in Iraq per conto di queste
compagnie private. Le stime vanno da 15 a 20 mila, ma potrebbero essere
anche di più. Molti sono stati reclutati, soprattutto dalla Blackwater,
in Cile: tra questi vi sono «commandos addestrati, sotto il governo
militare diAugusto Pinochet, in speciali campi a Santiago e in North
Carolina negli Usa» (The Guardian, 5 marzo). Le loro paghe annue vanno
da 70 a 250mila dollari, ma sicuramente ricevono anche premi extra.
Essi vengonoinfatti impiegati in vere e proprie azioni di
combattimento. Lo conferma il fatto che, il 4 aprile, «un attacco della
milizia irachena contro il quartier generale del governo Usa a Najaf è
stato respinto non dai militari statunitensi, ma dai commandos della
Blackwater» (TheWashington Post, 6 aprile).
Tale impiego dei commandos delle compagnie private sta crescendo, di
pari passo con la disgregazione del «nuovo esercito iracheno». Alla
cerimonia di fine corso del secondo battaglione iracheno (620 uomini),
il 6 gennaio, il generale Sanchez, comandante statunitense delle forze
terrestri, aveva affermato: «Questi soldati sono molto fieri, molto
impegnati. Ho alte aspettative che contribuiranno a riportare la
sicurezza e la stabilità in Iraq». Ma quando il secondo battaglione ha
ricevuto qualche giorno fa l'ordine di andare a combattere contro gli
insorti di Fallujah, si è rifiutato dichiarando: «Non siamo stati
reclutati per combattere gli iracheni». SecondoThe Washington Post(11
aprile), negli ultimi giorni il 20-25% dell'esercito e della polizia
irachena ha disertato o è addirittura passato dalla parte di chi
avrebbe dovuto combattere. Da qui la crescente importanza dei «moderni
mercenari» delle compagnie private, cui vengono affidati compiti che
avrebbero dovuto svolgere gli iracheni reclutati.
Questa «privatizzazione della guerra» rappresenta però il fallimento
della strategia dell'amministrazione Bush: il piano di creare un
governo ossequiente che, con un proprio esercito, avrebbe dovuto
«ripristinare la sicurezza e la stabilità» in un Iraq sotto il
controllo politico, militare ed economico degli Stati uniti, sta
crollando come un castello di carte. E le stesse forze statunitensi
sono sempre più in difficoltà. In questo clima, in cui il morale dei
soldati sta visibilmente calando, molti hanno solo il desiderio di
tornare a casa. Altri, sapendo qual è la busta paga dei commandos delle
compagnie private, pensano sicuramente che, se si deve rischiare, è
meglio farlo con un contratto da oltre 200mila dollari di una delle
moderne compagnie di ventura.
--- B ---
Data: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 15:43:12 +0100 (CET)
Da: "as. int. mi ranchito"
A: Ova adresa el. pošte je zaštićena od spambotova. Omogućite JavaScript da biste je videli.
Oggetto: Cosa e' e cosa fa Dyncorp/CSC in Colombia e ATM.
10 marzo 2003
Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC) ha completato l’acquisizione
di DynCorp, con l’avvenuta approvazione da parte degli azionisti di
maggioranza di DynCorp.
CSC si aspetta che l’acquisizione possa dare i suoi frutti sin dal
prossimo anno fiscale (il FY 2004 CSC inizia l’1 aprile 2003),
superando i carichi finanziari relativi alla transazione.
“Siamo lieti di aver concluso l’acquisizione, che potenzia notevolmente
la nostra leadership nel mercato della pubblica amministrazione e
supporta i nostri obiettivi strategici di crescita e incremento del
valore delle nostre azioni,” ha affermato il presidente e CEO di CSC,
Van B. Honeycutt. “Questa transazione supporta CSC nella crescente
richiesta di servizi IT nel settore pubblico e ci aiuterà a
incrementare le nostre capacità di delivery. Ora CSC è posizionata in
modo ideale ed è ancora più pronta a fornire una vasta gamma di
soluzioni end-to-end su basi globali, ivi comprese quelle per il
Dipartimento della Difesa”.
DynCorp, posizionata tra le public company americane nel settore
tecnologico e dell’outsourcing, in seguito all’acquisizione diventa
parte della divisione CSC dedicata agli enti pubblici, la cui sede
centrale è a Falls Church (Usa). L’organizzazione Federal Sector CSC si
aspetta di arrivare circa a 6 miliardi di dollari di ricavi annuali,
derivanti dal governo federale (come stima di entrate relative al FY
2003), con circa 40.000 addetti al servizio del governo statunitense,
dislocati in circa 750 postazioni in tutto il mondo.
“Quello di oggi è un momento molto importante nella storia di DynCorp
nonchè nella vita professionale delle migliaia di persone che sono, e
sono state, parte integrante di questa grande società”, ha dichiarato
il CEO di DynCorp, Paul Lombardi. “Con il completamento della fusione,
ora possiamo guardare a nuove, stimolanti opportunità di carriera per i
nostri professionisti, e disporre di un’offerta di soluzioni vasta e
ineguagliabile per i nostri clienti”.
L’offerta di servizi e tecnologia di CSC nei confronti del settore
pubblico si è infatti arricchita, ampliando e ottimizzando le già vaste
competenze messe a disposizione del nuovo Department of Homeland
Security statunitense. L’acquisizione, inoltre, va a rafforzare le
competenze e la presenza nelle attività di outsourcing per i settori
telecomunicazioni e sanità.
Sono circa 26.000 i professionisti che si aggiungono all'organico CSC,
in base a questa acquisizione.
“Tutta CSC è lieta di dare il benvenuto ai professionisti di DynCorp”
ha aggiunto Paul Cofoni, presidente della divisione Federal Sector CSC.
“Quasi il 50 per cento degli addetti CSC, me compreso, sono in CSC in
seguito a fusioni, acquisizioni o accordi di outsourcing. Siamo quindi
in grado di assicurare che questa transizione non comporterà
contraccolpi negativi ne’ per i clienti sia ne’ per la forza lavoro”.
“La fusione tra CSC e DynCorp” ha sottolineato Cofoni, “crea una
organizzazione che si posiziona al terzo posto tra i fornitori IT del
mercato governativo statunitense e al vertice di quelli del
Dipartimento della Difesa”.
Fondata nel 1959, Computer Sciences Corporation è una delle compagnie
leader mondiali nei servizi IT. La sua missione è quella di supportare
le aziende dei settori pubblico e privato con soluzioni specifiche per
le loro peculiari esigenze, consentendo alle imprese di trarre profitto
dall’uso della tecnologia.
Con circa 90.000 addetti (comprendendo gli oltre 26.000 che dal 7 marzo
2003 si sono uniti a CSC in seguito all’acquisizione di DynCorp) CSC
fornisce soluzioni innovative per i suoi clienti in tutto il mondo,
combinando le migliori tecnologie con le proprie consolidate capacità
in molteplici ambiti. Tra questi: progettazione e integrazione di
sistemi; outsourcing IT e di processi di business; sviluppo di software
applicativo; Web e application hosting; consulenza.
Nell’anno solare 2002, CSC ha conseguito ricavi per 11,3 miliardi di
dollari. La sede corporate si trova a El Segundo, California; la sede
europea è a Farnborough, in Gran Bretagna.
In Italia, CSC è protagonista ai massimi livelli nel mercato ICT, con
una offerta specifica e strategica nei settori finance, industria e
commercio, pubblica amministrazione, telecomunicazioni, servizi. Opera
nel nostro Paese con circa 2.600 addetti e sedi a Milano (direzione
generale), Bologna, Firenze, Padova, Ravenna, Roma e Torino
A.T.M. - Azienda Trasporti Milanesi
Il cliente
L'Azienda Trasporti Milanesi (ATM) opera nel settore del Trasporto
Pubblico Locale (Tpl) nell'area metropolitana, offrendo ai cittadini
della Grande Milano una rete di trasporto pubblico costituita da tre
linee metropolitane e centoventi linee tranviarie, filoviarie e
automobilistiche.
Complessivamente la rete si sviluppa per quasi 1400 chilometri e
raggiunge Milano e altri 85 comuni.
Oltre al trasporto pubblico ATM gestisce i parcheggi di interscambio e
la sosta sulle strade del centro storico e delle zone commerciali con
il sistema SostaMilano.
Come già avvenuto per altri settori dei servizi pubblici
(telecomunicazioni, energia, gas), il business del Tpl si trova in una
fase di forte evoluzione e cambiamento a seguito della definizione di
un nuovo quadro normativo teso a introdurre elementi di
concorrenzialità e liberalizzazione.
Il progetto
Il progetto ha interessato l’implementazione di SAP R/3 (moduli
coinvolti: PM – PS - PP).
In seguito dell’aggiudicazione di un bando di gara, CSC è occupata
della configurazione del sistema SAP R/3 nelle aree riguardanti la
manutenzione dei mezzi (superficie e metropolitana) e delle
infrastrutture (patrimonio) dell’Azienda Trasporti Milanesi.
Il ruolo di CSC
CSC ha realizzato l’implementazione per tutti i depositi , officine,
impianti gestiti da ATM.
CSC ha inoltre progettato gli sviluppi delle personalizzazioni
necessarie a tenere conto delle peculiarità di gestione e definito le
regole di caricamento dati.
Il progetto nel suo complesso ha visto il coinvolgimento di altri
partner nella fase di progettazione e di formazione utenti.
Benefici per il cliente
Curare la qualità del servizio offerto è uno dei cardini su cui
poggiano le attività di ATM; ed una maggiore qualità la si può
esprimere principalmente attraverso un controllo diretto della
manutenzione e degli investimenti, in modo da ridurre gli sprechi, e di
conseguenza i costi, indirizzando in questo modo gli investimenti al
miglioramento del servizio.
Questo progetto ha avuto come obiettivo l’introduzione di strumenti in
grado di dare un valido supporto alle attività di manutenzione: maggior
controllo delle scorte, analisi tecniche puntuali delle singole
componenti di veicoli e impianti, valutazione dei fornitori e,
soprattutto, una più precisa quantificazione economica degli interventi
manutentivi, in modo da permettere un’oculata valutazione, da parte del
personale competente, sull'effettiva convenienza di realizzare
l’intervento di manutenzione.
Questo progetto ha introdotto un vero e proprio sistema di controllo
nell’ambito delle attività di manutenzione effettuate in ATM. In
pratica è stato realizzato un servizio che misura la propria efficienza
in termini di qualità, costi e prestazioni temporali e che permetterà
di introdurre sempre di più dei nuovi fattori correttivi.
Con questo progetto si genererà un nuovo propellente la cui miscela è
costituita dal miglioramento dell’efficienza.
Vantaggi che, uniti al cambiamento organizzativo, incrementeranno la
cultura aziendale e aiuteranno il management ad avere un maggior
controllo dei costi migliorando contestualmente la qualità.
L’omogeneizzazione dei sistemi informativi aziendali ed una loro
perfetta integrazione renderanno più semplici ed immediati i processi
decisionali.
La manutenzione come elemento fondamentale per ottimizzare sicurezza e
affidabilità, ma anche la realizzazione di una banca dati in grado di
evidenziare i tassi di guasto di singoli sottosistemi ed infine la
certificazione degli interventi effettuati, rappresenta per un’Azienda
di servizi, che ha il suo “core business” nelle attività di trasporti
dei passeggeri, uno dei principali punti di attenzione.
Secondo il settimanale Newsweek, tra i 300 effettivi statunitensi
presenti in Colombia, vi sarebbero "almeno un centinaio di agenti della
Dea e della Cia"; Nesweek segnala inoltre come gli avieri dell’RC-7 non
sarebbero le prime vittime Usa della ‘guerra alla coca’: "A partire dal
1997 sono morti tre piloti della società privata DynCorp (Virginia)
contattata dal Pentagono per missioni di intercettazione anti-droga. La
DynCorp che conta in Colombia 90 impiegati, in coordinamento con la
Polizia nazionale ha lanciato tonnellate di defoglianti chimici sulla
selva e ha effettuato incursioni in elicottero contro i laboratori di
trasformazione". La DynCorp, che impiega piloti di elicottero veterani
della guerra in Vietnam, fornisce inoltre la manutenzione dei velivoli
della polizia impegnati in operazioni anti-coca.
L’impatto socio-ambientale della campagna finanziata attraverso
l’International Narcotics Control del Dipartimento di stato avrebbe
avuto effetti devastanti. Nel solo ‘98 gli aerei T-65 e Ov-10 ‘Bronco’
della DynCorp avrebbero fumigato oltre 65.000 ettari di terra nei
dipartimenti meridionali di Guaviare e Caquetà, utilizzando il
glisosfato, un’erbicida cancerogeno solubile in acqua. Solo lo scorso
anno all’impresa privata il Dipartimento avrebbe versato 68 milioni di
dollari, tre volte e mezzo in più dei 19,6 milioni spesi nel ’96 per
fumigare la Colombia.
In realtà l’’affaire Colombia’ si tra strasformando in un immenso
business per le aziende private statunitensi che operano nel settore
militare. I colossi United Technologies e Bell competono per
assicurarsi la megacommessa per la componente elicotteristica; accanto
alla DynCorp stanno inserendosi in Colombia altre aziende specializzate
nel fornire ‘assistenza tecnica’ e ‘consiglieri militari’ alle forze
armate colombiane, favorite dal Pentagono che così può eludere le
limitazioni degli emendamenti del Congresso che fissano il personale
statunitense in Colombia a non oltre i 250 addetti militari e 100
impiegati civili. L’ultima di queste società ‘di servizio’ ad aprire
una filiale a Bogotà è stata la Mpri (Military Professional Resources
Inc.), anch’essa con sede in Virginia, contattata per il sostegno
logistico e l’addestramento ‘supplemenatre’ della polizia e delle forze
armate colombiane. La Mpri, il cui manager è il generale in pensione
dell’Us Army Ed Soyster, gia direttore della Dia (la Defense
Intelligence Agency), è una delle società più note nelle aree di
conflitto internazionali: essa ha fornito supporto logistico per una
serie di operazioni militari nei Balcani, in Medio Oriente e in Africa.
Fondata appena 12 anni fa nella città di Alexandria conta su un giro
d’affari annuo di circa 12 milioni di dollari, con 160 dipendenti
full-time, tra cui una serie di ex alti ufficiali delle forze armate
statunitensi, come i generali Carl Vuono, che guidò l’esercito durante
l’operazione Desert Storm e Crosbie ‘Butch’ Saint, che fu uno dei
comandanti delle operazioni Usa in Europa.
La Mpri, in particolare, è stata impegnata nel rifornimento di
munizioni e nel sostegno operativo degli eserciti croato e bosniaco
durante le loro controffensive contro le unità serbe. Così come in
Colombia, le attività della Mpri si sono incrociate con quelle della
DynCorp nel teatro di guerra dei Balcani; a quest’ultima società,
infatti, gli Stati Uniti hanno affidato nell’autunno ‘98 il compito di
verificare il ritiro delle unità serbe dal territorio del Kosovo, in
seguito al rifiuto del leader yugoslavo Slobodan Milosevic di ammettere
la presenza di monitor ‘militari’. I dati di ‘intelligence’ raccolti
dai 150 uomini contrattati dalla DynCorp sono stati determinanti per
l’operazione Nato di bombardamento in Kosovo e Serbia la primavera
successiva.
--- C ---
Special investigation
The privatisation of war
· $30bn goes to private military
· Fears over 'hired guns' policy
· British firms get big slice of contracts
· Deals in Baghdad, Kabul and Balkans
Ian Traynor
Wednesday December 10, 2003
The Guardian
Private corporations have penetrated western warfare so deeply that
they are now the second biggest contributor to coalition forces in Iraq
after the Pentagon, a Guardian investigation has established.
While the official coalition figures list the British as the second
largest contingent with around 9,900 troops, they are narrowly
outnumbered by the 10,000 private military contractors now on the
ground.
The investigation has also discovered that the proportion of contracted
security personnel in the firing line is 10 times greater than during
the first Gulf war. In 1991, for every private contractor, there were
about 100 servicemen and women; now there are 10.
The private sector is so firmly embedded in combat, occupation and
peacekeeping duties that the phenomenon may have reached the point of
no return: the US military would struggle to wage war without it.
While reliable figures are difficult to come by and governmental
accounting and monitoring of the contracts are notoriously shoddy, the
US army estimates that of the $87bn (£50.2bn) earmarked this year for
the broader Iraqi campaign, including central Asia and Afghanistan, one
third of that, nearly $30bn, will be spent on contracts to private
companies.
The myriad military and security companies thriving on this largesse
are at the sharp end of a revolution in military affairs that is taking
us into unknown territory - the partial privatisation of war.
"This is a trend that is growing and Iraq is the high point of the
trend," said Peter Singer, a security analyst at Washington's Brookings
Institution. "This is a sea change in the way we prosecute warfare.
There are historical parallels, but we haven't seen them for 250 years."
When America launched its invasion in March, the battleships in the
Gulf were manned by US navy personnel. But alongside them sat civilians
from four companies operating some of the world's most sophisticated
weapons systems.
When the unmanned Predator drones, the Global Hawks, and the B-2
stealth bombers went into action, their weapons systems, too, were
operated and maintained by non-military personnel working for private
companies.
The private sector is even more deeply involved in the war's aftermath.
A US company has the lucrative contracts to train the new Iraqi army,
another to recruit and train an Iraqi police force.
But this is a field in which British companies dominate, with nearly
half of the dozen or so private firms in Iraq coming from the UK.
The big British player in Iraq is Global Risk International, based in
Hampton, Middlesex. It is supplying hired Gurkhas, Fijian
paramilitaries and, it is believed, ex-SAS veterans, to guard the
Baghdad headquarters of Paul Bremer, the US overlord, according to
analysts.
It is a trend that has been growing worldwide since the end of the cold
war, a booming business which entails replacing soldiers wherever
possible with highly paid civilians and hired guns not subject to
standard military disciplinary procedures.
The biggest US military base built since Vietnam, Camp Bondsteel in
Kosovo, was constructed and continues to be serviced by private
contractors. At Tuzla in northern Bosnia, headquarters for US
peacekeepers, everything that can be farmed out to private businesses
has been. The bill so far runs to more than $5bn. The contracts include
those to the US company ITT, which supplies the armed guards,
overwhelmingly US private citizens, at US installations.
In Israel, a US company supplies the security for American diplomats, a
very risky business. In Colombia, a US company flies the planes
destroying the coca plantations and the helicopter gunships protecting
them, in what some would characterise as a small undeclared war.
In Kabul, a US company provides the bodyguards to try to save President
Hamid Karzai from assassination, raising questions over whether they
are combatants in a deepening conflict with emboldened Taliban
insurgents.
And in the small town of Hadzici west of Sarajevo, a military compound
houses the latest computer technology, the war games simulations
challenging the Bosnian army's brightest young officers.
Crucial to transforming what was an improvised militia desperately
fighting for survival into a modern army fit eventually to join Nato,
the army computer centre was established by US officers who structured,
trained, and armed the Bosnian military. The Americans accomplished a
similar mission in Croatia and are carrying out the same job in
Macedonia.
The input from the US military has been so important that the US
experts can credibly claim to have tipped the military balance in a
region ravaged by four wars in a decade. But the American officers,
including several four-star generals, are retired, not serving. They
work, at least directly, not for the US government, but for a private
company, Military Professional Resources Inc.
"In the Balkans MPRI are playing an incredibly critical role. The
balance of power in the region was altered by a private company. That's
one measure of the sea change," said Mr Singer, the author of a recent
book on the subject, Corporate Warriors.
The surge in the use of private companies should not be confused with
the traditional use of mercenaries in armed conflicts. The use of
mercenaries is outlawed by the Geneva conventions, but no one is
accusing the Pentagon, while awarding more than 3,000 contracts to
private companies over the past decade, of violating the laws of war.
The Pentagon will "pursue additional opportunities to outsource and
privatise", the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, pledged last
year and military analysts expect him to try to cut a further 200,000
jobs in the armed forces.
It is this kind of "downsizing" that has fed the growth of the military
private sector.
Since the end of the cold war it is reckoned that six million
servicemen have been thrown on to the employment market with little to
peddle but their fighting and military skills. The US military is 60%
the size of a decade ago, the Soviet collapse wrecked the colossal Red
Army, the East German military melted away, the end of apartheid
destroyed the white officer class in South Africa. The British armed
forces, notes Mr Singer, are at their smallest since the Napoleonic
wars.
The booming private sector has soaked up much of this manpower and
expertise.
It also enables the Americans, in particular, to wage wars by proxy and
without the kind of congressional and media oversight to which
conventional deployments are subject.
From the level of the street or the trenches to the rarefied corridors
of strategic analysis and policy-making, however, the problems
surfacing are immense and complex.
One senior British officer complains that his driver was recently
approached and offered a fortune to move to a "rather dodgy outfit".
Ex-SAS veterans in Iraq can charge up to $1,000 a day.
"There's an explosion of these companies attracting our servicemen
financially," said Rear Admiral Hugh Edleston, a Royal Navy officer who
is just completing three years as chief military adviser to the
international administration running Bosnia.
He said that outside agencies were sometimes better placed to provide
training and resources. "But you should never mix serving military with
security operations. You need to be absolutely clear on the division
between the military and the paramilitary."
"If these things weren't privatised, uniformed men would have to do it
and that draws down your strength," said another senior retired officer
engaged in the private sector. But he warned: "There is a slight risk
that things can get out of hand and these companies become small armies
themselves."
And in Baghdad or Bogota, Kabul or Tuzla, there are armed company
employees effectively licensed to kill. On the job, say guarding a
peacekeepers' compound in Tuzla, the civilian employees are subject to
the same rules of engagement as foreign troops.
But if an American GI draws and uses his weapon in an off-duty bar
brawl, he will be subject to the US judicial military code. If an
American guard employed by the US company ITT in Tuzla does the same,
he answers to Bosnian law. By definition these companies are frequently
operating in "failed states" where national law is notional. The risk
is the employees can literally get away with murder.
Or lesser, but appalling crimes. Dyncorp, for example, a Pentagon
favourite, has the contract worth tens of millions of dollars to train
an Iraqi police force. It also won the contracts to train the Bosnian
police and was implicated in a grim sex slavery scandal, with its
employees accused of rape and the buying and selling of girls as young
as 12. A number of employees were fired, but never prosecuted. The only
court cases to result involved the two whistleblowers who exposed the
episode and were sacked.
"Dyncorp should never have been awarded the Iraqi police contract,"
said Madeleine Rees, the chief UN human rights officer in Sarajevo.
Of the two court cases, one US police officer working for Dyncorp in
Bosnia, Kathryn Bolkovac, won her suit for wrongful dismissal. The
other involving a mechanic, Ben Johnston, was settled out of court. Mr
Johnston's suit against Dyncorp charged that he "witnessed co-workers
and supervisors literally buying and selling women for their own
personal enjoyment, and employees would brag about the various ages and
talents of the individual slaves they had purchased".
There are other formidable problems surfacing in what is uncharted
territory - issues of loyalty, accountability, ideology, and national
interest. By definition, a private military company is in Iraq or
Bosnia not to pursue US, UN, or EU policy, but to make money.
The growing clout of the military services corporations raises
questions about an insidious, longer-term impact on governments'
planning, strategy and decision-taking.
Mr Singer argues that for the first time in the history of the modern
nation state, governments are surrendering one of the essential and
defining attributes of statehood, the state's monopoly on the
legitimate use of force.
But for those on the receiving end, there seems scant alternative.
"I had some problems with some of the American generals," said Enes
Becirbasic, a Bosnian military official who managed the Bosnian side of
the MPRI projects to build and arm a Bosnian army. "It's a conflict of
interest. I represent our national interest, but they're businessmen. I
would have preferred direct cooperation with state organisations like
Nato or the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. But we
had no choice. We had to use MPRI."
IRAQ = JUGOSLAVIJA
3: Mercenariato per le colonie
A - La privatizzazione della guerra (M. Dinucci)
B - Cosa e' e cosa fa Dyncorp/CSC in Colombia e con l'Azienda Trasporti
Milanese (Ass. Mi Ranchito, 10 marzo 2003)
C - The privatisation of war
(Ian Traynor, Dec. 10, 2003 - The Guardian) : "... The biggest US
military base built since Vietnam, Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, was
constructed and continues to be serviced by private contractors. At
Tuzla in northern Bosnia, headquarters for US peacekeepers, everything
that can be farmed out to private businesses has been... In the Balkans
MPRI are playing an incredibly critical role. The balance of power in
the region was altered by a private company..."
---
LINK: tutto quello che avreste sempre voluto sapere sul MPRI, military
professional resources, inc e non avete mai osato chiedere...
http://www.serbianna.com/columns/vaknin/035.shtml
--- A ---
La privatizzazione della guerra
In Iraq l'uso dei mercenari dimostra il fallimento
dell'«irachizzazione» del conflitto
MANLIO DINUCCI
Il manifesto, 14 aprile 2004
La Dts Security, per la quale lavorano i quattro italiani catturati in
Iraq, ha il proprio quartier generale a Newington in Virginia. Da lì
fornisce «sicurezza» ai propri clienti, soprattutto grosse
multinazionali, dagli Stati uniti all'Oman, dall'Uzbekistan all'Iraq.
Poiché essa garantisce i suoi servizi in qualsiasi situazione, anche di
guerra, il suo personale è composto di specialisti provenienti dalle
forze scelte di vari eserciti. A simbolo della sua efficienza, la Dts
Security, che vanta oltre vent'anni diesperienza, ha messo nel suo
sito, al posto del solito puntatore del mouse, quello di un mirino
telescopico di un fucile di alta precisione. In Iraq, essa fa parte
della quindicina di compagnie fornitrici di «sicurezza», assoldate
direttamente o indirettamente dal Pentagono come «contrattiste militari
private» per sorvegliare installazioni, scortare convogli e addestrare
il «nuovo esercito iracheno». La maggiore è la statunitense Blackwater
che, composta di cinque compagnie specializzate, «ha stabilito una
presenza globale, fornendo addestramento e soluzioni tattiche per il
21mo secolo». Tra i suoi clienti, oltre a società multinazionali, vanta
il Dipartimento della difesa e il Dipartimento di stato degli Stati
uniti d'America.
Un'altra importante compagniache opera in Iraq per conto del Pentagono
è la Vinnell Corp., affiliata della Northrop Grumman, una delle
principali industrie belliche. Avendo molti compiti da svolgere, ha
subappaltato l'addestramento delle truppe irachene a Kirkush a un'altra
società statunitense, la Mpri di Alexandria (Virginia), che ha già
partecipato alla formazione dei nuovi eserciti di Croazia e Bosnia.
Operano in Iraq anche compagnie britanniche, come laErinys, il cui
compito è la sorveglianza delle installazioni petrolifere, e la Global
Risk, che fornisce «protezione armata» alla «Autorità provvisoria della
coalizione».
Nessuno conosce con esattezza il numero dei «moderni mercenari» (come
li definisceThe New York Times) che operano in Iraq per conto di queste
compagnie private. Le stime vanno da 15 a 20 mila, ma potrebbero essere
anche di più. Molti sono stati reclutati, soprattutto dalla Blackwater,
in Cile: tra questi vi sono «commandos addestrati, sotto il governo
militare diAugusto Pinochet, in speciali campi a Santiago e in North
Carolina negli Usa» (The Guardian, 5 marzo). Le loro paghe annue vanno
da 70 a 250mila dollari, ma sicuramente ricevono anche premi extra.
Essi vengonoinfatti impiegati in vere e proprie azioni di
combattimento. Lo conferma il fatto che, il 4 aprile, «un attacco della
milizia irachena contro il quartier generale del governo Usa a Najaf è
stato respinto non dai militari statunitensi, ma dai commandos della
Blackwater» (TheWashington Post, 6 aprile).
Tale impiego dei commandos delle compagnie private sta crescendo, di
pari passo con la disgregazione del «nuovo esercito iracheno». Alla
cerimonia di fine corso del secondo battaglione iracheno (620 uomini),
il 6 gennaio, il generale Sanchez, comandante statunitense delle forze
terrestri, aveva affermato: «Questi soldati sono molto fieri, molto
impegnati. Ho alte aspettative che contribuiranno a riportare la
sicurezza e la stabilità in Iraq». Ma quando il secondo battaglione ha
ricevuto qualche giorno fa l'ordine di andare a combattere contro gli
insorti di Fallujah, si è rifiutato dichiarando: «Non siamo stati
reclutati per combattere gli iracheni». SecondoThe Washington Post(11
aprile), negli ultimi giorni il 20-25% dell'esercito e della polizia
irachena ha disertato o è addirittura passato dalla parte di chi
avrebbe dovuto combattere. Da qui la crescente importanza dei «moderni
mercenari» delle compagnie private, cui vengono affidati compiti che
avrebbero dovuto svolgere gli iracheni reclutati.
Questa «privatizzazione della guerra» rappresenta però il fallimento
della strategia dell'amministrazione Bush: il piano di creare un
governo ossequiente che, con un proprio esercito, avrebbe dovuto
«ripristinare la sicurezza e la stabilità» in un Iraq sotto il
controllo politico, militare ed economico degli Stati uniti, sta
crollando come un castello di carte. E le stesse forze statunitensi
sono sempre più in difficoltà. In questo clima, in cui il morale dei
soldati sta visibilmente calando, molti hanno solo il desiderio di
tornare a casa. Altri, sapendo qual è la busta paga dei commandos delle
compagnie private, pensano sicuramente che, se si deve rischiare, è
meglio farlo con un contratto da oltre 200mila dollari di una delle
moderne compagnie di ventura.
--- B ---
Data: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 15:43:12 +0100 (CET)
Da: "as. int. mi ranchito"
A: Ova adresa el. pošte je zaštićena od spambotova. Omogućite JavaScript da biste je videli.
Oggetto: Cosa e' e cosa fa Dyncorp/CSC in Colombia e ATM.
10 marzo 2003
Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC) ha completato l’acquisizione
di DynCorp, con l’avvenuta approvazione da parte degli azionisti di
maggioranza di DynCorp.
CSC si aspetta che l’acquisizione possa dare i suoi frutti sin dal
prossimo anno fiscale (il FY 2004 CSC inizia l’1 aprile 2003),
superando i carichi finanziari relativi alla transazione.
“Siamo lieti di aver concluso l’acquisizione, che potenzia notevolmente
la nostra leadership nel mercato della pubblica amministrazione e
supporta i nostri obiettivi strategici di crescita e incremento del
valore delle nostre azioni,” ha affermato il presidente e CEO di CSC,
Van B. Honeycutt. “Questa transazione supporta CSC nella crescente
richiesta di servizi IT nel settore pubblico e ci aiuterà a
incrementare le nostre capacità di delivery. Ora CSC è posizionata in
modo ideale ed è ancora più pronta a fornire una vasta gamma di
soluzioni end-to-end su basi globali, ivi comprese quelle per il
Dipartimento della Difesa”.
DynCorp, posizionata tra le public company americane nel settore
tecnologico e dell’outsourcing, in seguito all’acquisizione diventa
parte della divisione CSC dedicata agli enti pubblici, la cui sede
centrale è a Falls Church (Usa). L’organizzazione Federal Sector CSC si
aspetta di arrivare circa a 6 miliardi di dollari di ricavi annuali,
derivanti dal governo federale (come stima di entrate relative al FY
2003), con circa 40.000 addetti al servizio del governo statunitense,
dislocati in circa 750 postazioni in tutto il mondo.
“Quello di oggi è un momento molto importante nella storia di DynCorp
nonchè nella vita professionale delle migliaia di persone che sono, e
sono state, parte integrante di questa grande società”, ha dichiarato
il CEO di DynCorp, Paul Lombardi. “Con il completamento della fusione,
ora possiamo guardare a nuove, stimolanti opportunità di carriera per i
nostri professionisti, e disporre di un’offerta di soluzioni vasta e
ineguagliabile per i nostri clienti”.
L’offerta di servizi e tecnologia di CSC nei confronti del settore
pubblico si è infatti arricchita, ampliando e ottimizzando le già vaste
competenze messe a disposizione del nuovo Department of Homeland
Security statunitense. L’acquisizione, inoltre, va a rafforzare le
competenze e la presenza nelle attività di outsourcing per i settori
telecomunicazioni e sanità.
Sono circa 26.000 i professionisti che si aggiungono all'organico CSC,
in base a questa acquisizione.
“Tutta CSC è lieta di dare il benvenuto ai professionisti di DynCorp”
ha aggiunto Paul Cofoni, presidente della divisione Federal Sector CSC.
“Quasi il 50 per cento degli addetti CSC, me compreso, sono in CSC in
seguito a fusioni, acquisizioni o accordi di outsourcing. Siamo quindi
in grado di assicurare che questa transizione non comporterà
contraccolpi negativi ne’ per i clienti sia ne’ per la forza lavoro”.
“La fusione tra CSC e DynCorp” ha sottolineato Cofoni, “crea una
organizzazione che si posiziona al terzo posto tra i fornitori IT del
mercato governativo statunitense e al vertice di quelli del
Dipartimento della Difesa”.
Fondata nel 1959, Computer Sciences Corporation è una delle compagnie
leader mondiali nei servizi IT. La sua missione è quella di supportare
le aziende dei settori pubblico e privato con soluzioni specifiche per
le loro peculiari esigenze, consentendo alle imprese di trarre profitto
dall’uso della tecnologia.
Con circa 90.000 addetti (comprendendo gli oltre 26.000 che dal 7 marzo
2003 si sono uniti a CSC in seguito all’acquisizione di DynCorp) CSC
fornisce soluzioni innovative per i suoi clienti in tutto il mondo,
combinando le migliori tecnologie con le proprie consolidate capacità
in molteplici ambiti. Tra questi: progettazione e integrazione di
sistemi; outsourcing IT e di processi di business; sviluppo di software
applicativo; Web e application hosting; consulenza.
Nell’anno solare 2002, CSC ha conseguito ricavi per 11,3 miliardi di
dollari. La sede corporate si trova a El Segundo, California; la sede
europea è a Farnborough, in Gran Bretagna.
In Italia, CSC è protagonista ai massimi livelli nel mercato ICT, con
una offerta specifica e strategica nei settori finance, industria e
commercio, pubblica amministrazione, telecomunicazioni, servizi. Opera
nel nostro Paese con circa 2.600 addetti e sedi a Milano (direzione
generale), Bologna, Firenze, Padova, Ravenna, Roma e Torino
A.T.M. - Azienda Trasporti Milanesi
Il cliente
L'Azienda Trasporti Milanesi (ATM) opera nel settore del Trasporto
Pubblico Locale (Tpl) nell'area metropolitana, offrendo ai cittadini
della Grande Milano una rete di trasporto pubblico costituita da tre
linee metropolitane e centoventi linee tranviarie, filoviarie e
automobilistiche.
Complessivamente la rete si sviluppa per quasi 1400 chilometri e
raggiunge Milano e altri 85 comuni.
Oltre al trasporto pubblico ATM gestisce i parcheggi di interscambio e
la sosta sulle strade del centro storico e delle zone commerciali con
il sistema SostaMilano.
Come già avvenuto per altri settori dei servizi pubblici
(telecomunicazioni, energia, gas), il business del Tpl si trova in una
fase di forte evoluzione e cambiamento a seguito della definizione di
un nuovo quadro normativo teso a introdurre elementi di
concorrenzialità e liberalizzazione.
Il progetto
Il progetto ha interessato l’implementazione di SAP R/3 (moduli
coinvolti: PM – PS - PP).
In seguito dell’aggiudicazione di un bando di gara, CSC è occupata
della configurazione del sistema SAP R/3 nelle aree riguardanti la
manutenzione dei mezzi (superficie e metropolitana) e delle
infrastrutture (patrimonio) dell’Azienda Trasporti Milanesi.
Il ruolo di CSC
CSC ha realizzato l’implementazione per tutti i depositi , officine,
impianti gestiti da ATM.
CSC ha inoltre progettato gli sviluppi delle personalizzazioni
necessarie a tenere conto delle peculiarità di gestione e definito le
regole di caricamento dati.
Il progetto nel suo complesso ha visto il coinvolgimento di altri
partner nella fase di progettazione e di formazione utenti.
Benefici per il cliente
Curare la qualità del servizio offerto è uno dei cardini su cui
poggiano le attività di ATM; ed una maggiore qualità la si può
esprimere principalmente attraverso un controllo diretto della
manutenzione e degli investimenti, in modo da ridurre gli sprechi, e di
conseguenza i costi, indirizzando in questo modo gli investimenti al
miglioramento del servizio.
Questo progetto ha avuto come obiettivo l’introduzione di strumenti in
grado di dare un valido supporto alle attività di manutenzione: maggior
controllo delle scorte, analisi tecniche puntuali delle singole
componenti di veicoli e impianti, valutazione dei fornitori e,
soprattutto, una più precisa quantificazione economica degli interventi
manutentivi, in modo da permettere un’oculata valutazione, da parte del
personale competente, sull'effettiva convenienza di realizzare
l’intervento di manutenzione.
Questo progetto ha introdotto un vero e proprio sistema di controllo
nell’ambito delle attività di manutenzione effettuate in ATM. In
pratica è stato realizzato un servizio che misura la propria efficienza
in termini di qualità, costi e prestazioni temporali e che permetterà
di introdurre sempre di più dei nuovi fattori correttivi.
Con questo progetto si genererà un nuovo propellente la cui miscela è
costituita dal miglioramento dell’efficienza.
Vantaggi che, uniti al cambiamento organizzativo, incrementeranno la
cultura aziendale e aiuteranno il management ad avere un maggior
controllo dei costi migliorando contestualmente la qualità.
L’omogeneizzazione dei sistemi informativi aziendali ed una loro
perfetta integrazione renderanno più semplici ed immediati i processi
decisionali.
La manutenzione come elemento fondamentale per ottimizzare sicurezza e
affidabilità, ma anche la realizzazione di una banca dati in grado di
evidenziare i tassi di guasto di singoli sottosistemi ed infine la
certificazione degli interventi effettuati, rappresenta per un’Azienda
di servizi, che ha il suo “core business” nelle attività di trasporti
dei passeggeri, uno dei principali punti di attenzione.
Secondo il settimanale Newsweek, tra i 300 effettivi statunitensi
presenti in Colombia, vi sarebbero "almeno un centinaio di agenti della
Dea e della Cia"; Nesweek segnala inoltre come gli avieri dell’RC-7 non
sarebbero le prime vittime Usa della ‘guerra alla coca’: "A partire dal
1997 sono morti tre piloti della società privata DynCorp (Virginia)
contattata dal Pentagono per missioni di intercettazione anti-droga. La
DynCorp che conta in Colombia 90 impiegati, in coordinamento con la
Polizia nazionale ha lanciato tonnellate di defoglianti chimici sulla
selva e ha effettuato incursioni in elicottero contro i laboratori di
trasformazione". La DynCorp, che impiega piloti di elicottero veterani
della guerra in Vietnam, fornisce inoltre la manutenzione dei velivoli
della polizia impegnati in operazioni anti-coca.
L’impatto socio-ambientale della campagna finanziata attraverso
l’International Narcotics Control del Dipartimento di stato avrebbe
avuto effetti devastanti. Nel solo ‘98 gli aerei T-65 e Ov-10 ‘Bronco’
della DynCorp avrebbero fumigato oltre 65.000 ettari di terra nei
dipartimenti meridionali di Guaviare e Caquetà, utilizzando il
glisosfato, un’erbicida cancerogeno solubile in acqua. Solo lo scorso
anno all’impresa privata il Dipartimento avrebbe versato 68 milioni di
dollari, tre volte e mezzo in più dei 19,6 milioni spesi nel ’96 per
fumigare la Colombia.
In realtà l’’affaire Colombia’ si tra strasformando in un immenso
business per le aziende private statunitensi che operano nel settore
militare. I colossi United Technologies e Bell competono per
assicurarsi la megacommessa per la componente elicotteristica; accanto
alla DynCorp stanno inserendosi in Colombia altre aziende specializzate
nel fornire ‘assistenza tecnica’ e ‘consiglieri militari’ alle forze
armate colombiane, favorite dal Pentagono che così può eludere le
limitazioni degli emendamenti del Congresso che fissano il personale
statunitense in Colombia a non oltre i 250 addetti militari e 100
impiegati civili. L’ultima di queste società ‘di servizio’ ad aprire
una filiale a Bogotà è stata la Mpri (Military Professional Resources
Inc.), anch’essa con sede in Virginia, contattata per il sostegno
logistico e l’addestramento ‘supplemenatre’ della polizia e delle forze
armate colombiane. La Mpri, il cui manager è il generale in pensione
dell’Us Army Ed Soyster, gia direttore della Dia (la Defense
Intelligence Agency), è una delle società più note nelle aree di
conflitto internazionali: essa ha fornito supporto logistico per una
serie di operazioni militari nei Balcani, in Medio Oriente e in Africa.
Fondata appena 12 anni fa nella città di Alexandria conta su un giro
d’affari annuo di circa 12 milioni di dollari, con 160 dipendenti
full-time, tra cui una serie di ex alti ufficiali delle forze armate
statunitensi, come i generali Carl Vuono, che guidò l’esercito durante
l’operazione Desert Storm e Crosbie ‘Butch’ Saint, che fu uno dei
comandanti delle operazioni Usa in Europa.
La Mpri, in particolare, è stata impegnata nel rifornimento di
munizioni e nel sostegno operativo degli eserciti croato e bosniaco
durante le loro controffensive contro le unità serbe. Così come in
Colombia, le attività della Mpri si sono incrociate con quelle della
DynCorp nel teatro di guerra dei Balcani; a quest’ultima società,
infatti, gli Stati Uniti hanno affidato nell’autunno ‘98 il compito di
verificare il ritiro delle unità serbe dal territorio del Kosovo, in
seguito al rifiuto del leader yugoslavo Slobodan Milosevic di ammettere
la presenza di monitor ‘militari’. I dati di ‘intelligence’ raccolti
dai 150 uomini contrattati dalla DynCorp sono stati determinanti per
l’operazione Nato di bombardamento in Kosovo e Serbia la primavera
successiva.
--- C ---
Special investigation
The privatisation of war
· $30bn goes to private military
· Fears over 'hired guns' policy
· British firms get big slice of contracts
· Deals in Baghdad, Kabul and Balkans
Ian Traynor
Wednesday December 10, 2003
The Guardian
Private corporations have penetrated western warfare so deeply that
they are now the second biggest contributor to coalition forces in Iraq
after the Pentagon, a Guardian investigation has established.
While the official coalition figures list the British as the second
largest contingent with around 9,900 troops, they are narrowly
outnumbered by the 10,000 private military contractors now on the
ground.
The investigation has also discovered that the proportion of contracted
security personnel in the firing line is 10 times greater than during
the first Gulf war. In 1991, for every private contractor, there were
about 100 servicemen and women; now there are 10.
The private sector is so firmly embedded in combat, occupation and
peacekeeping duties that the phenomenon may have reached the point of
no return: the US military would struggle to wage war without it.
While reliable figures are difficult to come by and governmental
accounting and monitoring of the contracts are notoriously shoddy, the
US army estimates that of the $87bn (£50.2bn) earmarked this year for
the broader Iraqi campaign, including central Asia and Afghanistan, one
third of that, nearly $30bn, will be spent on contracts to private
companies.
The myriad military and security companies thriving on this largesse
are at the sharp end of a revolution in military affairs that is taking
us into unknown territory - the partial privatisation of war.
"This is a trend that is growing and Iraq is the high point of the
trend," said Peter Singer, a security analyst at Washington's Brookings
Institution. "This is a sea change in the way we prosecute warfare.
There are historical parallels, but we haven't seen them for 250 years."
When America launched its invasion in March, the battleships in the
Gulf were manned by US navy personnel. But alongside them sat civilians
from four companies operating some of the world's most sophisticated
weapons systems.
When the unmanned Predator drones, the Global Hawks, and the B-2
stealth bombers went into action, their weapons systems, too, were
operated and maintained by non-military personnel working for private
companies.
The private sector is even more deeply involved in the war's aftermath.
A US company has the lucrative contracts to train the new Iraqi army,
another to recruit and train an Iraqi police force.
But this is a field in which British companies dominate, with nearly
half of the dozen or so private firms in Iraq coming from the UK.
The big British player in Iraq is Global Risk International, based in
Hampton, Middlesex. It is supplying hired Gurkhas, Fijian
paramilitaries and, it is believed, ex-SAS veterans, to guard the
Baghdad headquarters of Paul Bremer, the US overlord, according to
analysts.
It is a trend that has been growing worldwide since the end of the cold
war, a booming business which entails replacing soldiers wherever
possible with highly paid civilians and hired guns not subject to
standard military disciplinary procedures.
The biggest US military base built since Vietnam, Camp Bondsteel in
Kosovo, was constructed and continues to be serviced by private
contractors. At Tuzla in northern Bosnia, headquarters for US
peacekeepers, everything that can be farmed out to private businesses
has been. The bill so far runs to more than $5bn. The contracts include
those to the US company ITT, which supplies the armed guards,
overwhelmingly US private citizens, at US installations.
In Israel, a US company supplies the security for American diplomats, a
very risky business. In Colombia, a US company flies the planes
destroying the coca plantations and the helicopter gunships protecting
them, in what some would characterise as a small undeclared war.
In Kabul, a US company provides the bodyguards to try to save President
Hamid Karzai from assassination, raising questions over whether they
are combatants in a deepening conflict with emboldened Taliban
insurgents.
And in the small town of Hadzici west of Sarajevo, a military compound
houses the latest computer technology, the war games simulations
challenging the Bosnian army's brightest young officers.
Crucial to transforming what was an improvised militia desperately
fighting for survival into a modern army fit eventually to join Nato,
the army computer centre was established by US officers who structured,
trained, and armed the Bosnian military. The Americans accomplished a
similar mission in Croatia and are carrying out the same job in
Macedonia.
The input from the US military has been so important that the US
experts can credibly claim to have tipped the military balance in a
region ravaged by four wars in a decade. But the American officers,
including several four-star generals, are retired, not serving. They
work, at least directly, not for the US government, but for a private
company, Military Professional Resources Inc.
"In the Balkans MPRI are playing an incredibly critical role. The
balance of power in the region was altered by a private company. That's
one measure of the sea change," said Mr Singer, the author of a recent
book on the subject, Corporate Warriors.
The surge in the use of private companies should not be confused with
the traditional use of mercenaries in armed conflicts. The use of
mercenaries is outlawed by the Geneva conventions, but no one is
accusing the Pentagon, while awarding more than 3,000 contracts to
private companies over the past decade, of violating the laws of war.
The Pentagon will "pursue additional opportunities to outsource and
privatise", the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, pledged last
year and military analysts expect him to try to cut a further 200,000
jobs in the armed forces.
It is this kind of "downsizing" that has fed the growth of the military
private sector.
Since the end of the cold war it is reckoned that six million
servicemen have been thrown on to the employment market with little to
peddle but their fighting and military skills. The US military is 60%
the size of a decade ago, the Soviet collapse wrecked the colossal Red
Army, the East German military melted away, the end of apartheid
destroyed the white officer class in South Africa. The British armed
forces, notes Mr Singer, are at their smallest since the Napoleonic
wars.
The booming private sector has soaked up much of this manpower and
expertise.
It also enables the Americans, in particular, to wage wars by proxy and
without the kind of congressional and media oversight to which
conventional deployments are subject.
From the level of the street or the trenches to the rarefied corridors
of strategic analysis and policy-making, however, the problems
surfacing are immense and complex.
One senior British officer complains that his driver was recently
approached and offered a fortune to move to a "rather dodgy outfit".
Ex-SAS veterans in Iraq can charge up to $1,000 a day.
"There's an explosion of these companies attracting our servicemen
financially," said Rear Admiral Hugh Edleston, a Royal Navy officer who
is just completing three years as chief military adviser to the
international administration running Bosnia.
He said that outside agencies were sometimes better placed to provide
training and resources. "But you should never mix serving military with
security operations. You need to be absolutely clear on the division
between the military and the paramilitary."
"If these things weren't privatised, uniformed men would have to do it
and that draws down your strength," said another senior retired officer
engaged in the private sector. But he warned: "There is a slight risk
that things can get out of hand and these companies become small armies
themselves."
And in Baghdad or Bogota, Kabul or Tuzla, there are armed company
employees effectively licensed to kill. On the job, say guarding a
peacekeepers' compound in Tuzla, the civilian employees are subject to
the same rules of engagement as foreign troops.
But if an American GI draws and uses his weapon in an off-duty bar
brawl, he will be subject to the US judicial military code. If an
American guard employed by the US company ITT in Tuzla does the same,
he answers to Bosnian law. By definition these companies are frequently
operating in "failed states" where national law is notional. The risk
is the employees can literally get away with murder.
Or lesser, but appalling crimes. Dyncorp, for example, a Pentagon
favourite, has the contract worth tens of millions of dollars to train
an Iraqi police force. It also won the contracts to train the Bosnian
police and was implicated in a grim sex slavery scandal, with its
employees accused of rape and the buying and selling of girls as young
as 12. A number of employees were fired, but never prosecuted. The only
court cases to result involved the two whistleblowers who exposed the
episode and were sacked.
"Dyncorp should never have been awarded the Iraqi police contract,"
said Madeleine Rees, the chief UN human rights officer in Sarajevo.
Of the two court cases, one US police officer working for Dyncorp in
Bosnia, Kathryn Bolkovac, won her suit for wrongful dismissal. The
other involving a mechanic, Ben Johnston, was settled out of court. Mr
Johnston's suit against Dyncorp charged that he "witnessed co-workers
and supervisors literally buying and selling women for their own
personal enjoyment, and employees would brag about the various ages and
talents of the individual slaves they had purchased".
There are other formidable problems surfacing in what is uncharted
territory - issues of loyalty, accountability, ideology, and national
interest. By definition, a private military company is in Iraq or
Bosnia not to pursue US, UN, or EU policy, but to make money.
The growing clout of the military services corporations raises
questions about an insidious, longer-term impact on governments'
planning, strategy and decision-taking.
Mr Singer argues that for the first time in the history of the modern
nation state, governments are surrendering one of the essential and
defining attributes of statehood, the state's monopoly on the
legitimate use of force.
But for those on the receiving end, there seems scant alternative.
"I had some problems with some of the American generals," said Enes
Becirbasic, a Bosnian military official who managed the Bosnian side of
the MPRI projects to build and arm a Bosnian army. "It's a conflict of
interest. I represent our national interest, but they're businessmen. I
would have preferred direct cooperation with state organisations like
Nato or the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. But we
had no choice. We had to use MPRI."
IRAQ = JUGOSLAVIJA
4: Beware Iraqoslavia
A - Kosovo and Iraq: Same Bombs, Different Lies
(by David Edwards and Media Lens - www.dissidentvoice.org - April 1,
2004)
LINK:
http://www.techcentralstation.com/020204C.html
Beware Iraqoslavia
By Stephen Schwartz - Published 02/02/2004
Yugoslavia's Example; Iraq's Future...
http://www.techcentralstation.com/020204C.html
--- A ---
Kosovo and Iraq: Same Bombs, Different Lies
by David Edwards and Media Lens
www.dissidentvoice.org
April 1, 2004
The truth about the invasion of Iraq was perhaps best summed up by Ray
McGovern, one of the CIA's most senior analysts:
"It was 95 per cent charade. And they all knew it: Bush, Blair, Howard."
(Quoted John Pilger, "Universal justice is not a dream
<http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=5193>
,"
ZNet, March 23, 2004)
One might think that exposés of this kind would lead the media to take
a fresh look at some of the US-UK governments’ earlier claims
justifying war. Consider, for example, the 78-day NATO assault on
Serbia from March 24 until June 10, 1999, said to have been launched to
protect the Albanian population of Kosovo.
Blair’s Battle Between Good And Evil
What is so striking about the US-UK government case for war against
Serbia is the familiarity of much of the propaganda. In a key pre-war
speech on March 18 last year, Blair said of Iraq:
“Looking back over 12 years, we have been victims of our own desire to
placate the implacable... to hope that there was some genuine intent to
do good in a regime whose mind is in fact evil.” ("Tony Blair's speech"
The Guardian, March 18, 2003)
In similar vein, Blair described the war with Serbia as “a battle
between good and evil; between civilization and barbarity; between
democracy and dictatorship”. (Quoted, Degraded Capability, The Media
and the Kosovo Crisis
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/074531631X/
ref=ase_dissidentvoic-20/103-6059207-6497441> , edited by Philip
Hammond and Edward S. Herman, Pluto Press, 2000, p.123)
Blair also referred last year to the lessons of “history”:
“We can look back and say: there's the time; that was the moment; for
example, when Czechoslovakia was swallowed up by the Nazis - that's
when we should have acted.
“But it wasn't clear at the time. In fact at the time, many people
thought such a fear fanciful. Worse, put forward in bad faith by
warmongers." (Ibid)
Four years earlier, in March 1999, British defence Secretary, George
Robertson, insisted that intervention in Kosovo was vital to stop “a
regime which is bent on genocide.” A year later, Robertson also
conjured up the ghost of Nazism to justify NATO’s action:
“We were faced with a situation where there was this killing going on,
this cleansing going on - the kind of ethnic cleansing we thought had
disappeared after the second world war. You were seeing people there
coming in trains, the cattle trains, with refugees once again.” (ITV,
Jonathan Dimbleby programme, June 11, 2000)
President Clinton referred to “deliberate, systematic efforts at...
genocide” in Kosovo. (Quoted, John Pilger, introduction, Phillip
Knightley, First Casualty, Prion Books, 2000, p.xii)
In a speech in Illinois in April 1999, Blair alluded to Kosovo: “The
principle of non-interference must be qualified in important respects
war crimes and acts of genocide can never be an internal matter.”
(Blair, The Guardian, March 15, 2000)
This rhetoric depicting “genocide”, even a kind of Holocaust, in Kosovo
certainly merits comparison with the claim that British bases in Cyprus
were under threat from Iraqi WMD that could be launched within 45
minutes of an order being given.
So how did the keen and critical intellects of the "free press" -
backed up by vast research and investigative resources - respond? Did
they scrutinize and challenge these extraordinary claims as they so
patently failed to do with regard to the Iraqi WMD "threat"?
We Can Do 1389 The Media Get In Line
Reviewing UK media performance, British historian Mark Curtis writes of
the Kosovo war:
“The liberal press notably the Guardian and Independent backed the
war to the hilt (while questioning the tactics used to wage it) and
lent critical weight to the government’s arguments.” In so doing, the
media “revealed how willingly deceived it is by government rhetoric on
its moral motives.” (Curtis, Web of Deceit
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0099448394/
ref=ase_dissidentvoic-20/103-6059207-6497441> , Vintage, 2003, pp.134-5)
Thus, Jonathan Freedland wrote in the Guardian: “the prize is not turf
or treasure but the frustration of a plan to empty a land of its
people”. It was “a noble goal”. (Freedland, "No way to spin a war," The
Guardian, April 21, 1999)
A Guardian editorial described the war as nothing less than “a test for
our generation”. (March 26, 1999)
The attack was intended to stop “something approaching genocide”,
Timothy Garton Ash insisted. (Garton Ash, "Imagine no America," The
Guardian, September 19, 2002)
The Mirror referred to “Echoes of the Holocaust.” (Quoted, Pilger, op.,
cit, p.144)
The Sun urged us to “Clobba Slobba”.
The New Statesman’s John Lloyd wrote that the war showed “the most
powerful states are willing to fight for human rights”. (July 5, 1999)
As British bombs rained on Serbia, a breathless Andrew Marr wrote
articles in the Observer entitled:
"Brave, bold, visionary. Whatever became of Blair the ultra-cautious
cynic?" (April 4, 1999)
"Hail to the chief. Sorry, Bill, but this time we’re talking about
Tony." (May 16, 1999)
Marr declared himself in awe of Blair’s “moral courage”, adding: “I am
constantly impressed, but also mildly alarmed, by his utter lack of
cynicism.”
A subsequent BBC documentary on the alleged Serbian genocide, ‘Exposed’
(BBC2, January 27, 2002), was billed as a programme marking Holocaust
Memorial Day, no less.
Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times:
"Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs
certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week
you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by
pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can
do 1389 too."
(Friedman, The New York Times, April 23, 1999)
A Nexis database search showed that in the two years 1998-1999 the Los
Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and Time used
the term “genocide” 220 times to describe the actions of Serbia in
Kosovo. In the ten years 1990-1999 the same media used the same word
just 33 times to describe the actions of Indonesia in East Timor.
Following Indonesia’s invasion in December 1975, some 200,000 East
Timorese, or one-third of the population, are estimated to have been
killed in one of history's premier bloodbaths. The contrast is even
more astonishing when we consider the number of people actually killed
in Kosovo.
Pure Invention The Kosovo “Genocide”
So how real was the Serbian genocide in Kosovo compared, say, to the
threat of Iraqi WMD? And did this alleged mass abuse of human rights
justify the 78 days of NATO bombing that claimed 500 Yugoslav civilian
lives, causing an estimated $100 billion in damage, striking hospitals,
schools, major
industrial plants, hotels, libraries, housing estates, theatres,
museums, farms, mosques, trains, tractors, bridges and power stations?
In February 1999, one month before the start of NATO bombing, a report
released by the German Foreign Office noted that “the often feared
humanitarian catastrophe threatening the Albanian population has been
averted”. In the larger cities “public life has since returned to
relative normality.” (Quoted, Mark Curtis, op., cit, p.136)
Another German report, exactly one month before the bombing, refers to
the CIA-backed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) seeking independence for
Kosovo from Serbia:
“Events since February and March 1998 do not evidence a persecution
program based on Albanian ethnicity. The measures taken by the
[Serbian] armed forces are in the first instance directed towards
combating the KLA and its supposed adherents and supporters.” (Ibid,
p.136)
Following the war, NATO sources reported that 2,000 people had been
killed in Kosovo on all sides in the year prior to bombing. George
Robertson testified before the House of Commons that until mid-January
1999, “the Kosovo Liberation Army was responsible for more deaths in
Kosovo than the Serbian authorities had been”. (Quoted, Noam Chomsky,
Hegemony or Survival
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805074007/
ref=ase_dissidentvoic-20/103-6059207-6497441> , Routledge, 2003, p.56)
This is supported by Nicholas Wheeler of the University of Wales who
estimates that Serbs killed 500 Albanians before the NATO bombing,
implying that 1,500 had been killed by the KLA. The KLA had openly
declared that their strategy was to provoke Serbian forces into
retaliatory action that would generate Western public support for NATO
intervention.
Far from averting a humanitarian crisis, it is clear that NATO bombing
caused a massive escalation of killings and expulsions. The flood of
refugees from Kosovo, for example, began immediately +after+ NATO
launched its attack. Prior to the bombing, and for the following two
days, the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported no
data on refugees. On March 27, three days into the bombing, UNHCR
reported that 4,000 had fled Kosovo to the neighbouring countries of
Albania and Macedonia. By April 5, the New York Times reported “more
than 350,000 have left Kosovo since March 24”.
A study by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) records “a pattern of expulsions and the vast increase in
lootings, killings, rape, kidnappings and pillage once the NATO air war
began on March 24” and that “the most visible change in the events was
after NATO launched its first air strikes”. (Curtis, op., cit, p.137,
our emphasis)
A House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee investigating the war
concluded:
“It is likely that the NATO bombing did cause a change in the character
of the assault upon the Kosovo Albanians. What had been an
anti-insurgency campaign albeit a brutal and counter-productive one
became a mass, organized campaign to kill Kosovo Albanians or drive
them from the country.” (Ibid, pp.137-8)
The media response was to exactly reverse cause and effect suggesting
that bombing was justified as a way of halting the flood of refugees it
had in fact created. Philip Hammond of South Bank University comments:
“the refugee crisis became NATO’s strongest propaganda weapon, though
logically it should have been viewed as a damning indictment of the
bombing. The hundreds of thousands of Serbs who fled the bombing were
therefore determinedly ignored by British journalists”. (Hammond and
Herman, op., cit, p.127)
Robert Hayden of the University of Pittsburgh reported that the
casualties among Serb civilians in the first three weeks of the war
were higher than all of the casualties on both sides in Kosovo in the
three months that led up to the war. And yet, Hayden points out, “those
three months were supposed to be a humanitarian catastrophe”. (Quoted,
Noam Chomsky, The New Military Humanism
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1567511767/
ref=ase_dissidentvoic-20/103-6059207-6497441> , Pluto Press, 1999, p.20)
Hammond indicates the awesome scale of the truth buried by the media:
"We may never know the true number of people killed. But it seems
reasonable to conclude that while people died in clashes between the
KLA and Yugoslav forces... the picture painted by Nato - of a
systematic campaign of Nazi-style genocide carried out by Serbs - was
pure invention." (Hammond and Herman, op., cit, p.129)
In other words, the US-UK assault on Serbia, like the assault on Iraq,
was made possible by audacious government manipulation of a public
denied access to the truth by an incompetent and structurally corrupt
media. Journalists, indeed, were so utterly fooled by government
propaganda that they proudly proclaimed their role in supporting the
“humanitarian intervention”.
Responding to Alastair Campbell’s accusation of press cynicism over the
Kosovo intervention (another familiar theme from the 2003 Iraq war),
Channel Four correspondent Alex Thomson wrote: “If you want to know why
the public supported the war, thank a journalist, not the present
government’s propagandist-in-chief.” (Quoted, Charles Glass, "Hacks
versus flacks," Z Magazine, August 1, 1999)
The Guardian’s Maggie O’Kane wrote:
“But Campbell should acknowledge that it was the press reporting of the
Bosnian war and the Kosovar refugee crisis that gave his boss the
public support and sympathy he needed to fight the good fight against
Milosevic.” (Ibid)
John Simpson of the BBC joined the fray: “Why did British, American,
German, and French public opinion stay rock-solid for the bombing, in
spite of Nato’s mistakes? Because they knew the war was right. Who gave
them the information? The media.” (Ibid)
So much for "neutral" and "objective" reporting. As a result, Blair is
now able to use the lie of Kosovo to justify more recent killing. In a
speech earlier this month, Blair said of the Iraq war:
“The real point is that those who disagree with the war, disagree
fundamentally with the judgement that led to war. What is more, their
alternative judgement is both entirely rational and arguable. Kosovo,
with ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians, was not a hard decision for
most people; nor was Afghanistan after the shock of September 11; nor
was Sierra Leone.” (‘Tony Blair's speech’, The Guardian, March 5, 2004)
Kosovo was “not a hard decision for most people” because awkward facts
pointing to something other than a “battle between good and evil” were
kept well out of sight.
Postscript A Silver Lining
We are eager to avoid the impression that the alliance of state
violence and media servility always results in tragedy, death and
disaster sometimes there are happy endings.
While covering the Kosovo crisis, CNN’s leading foreign correspondent,
Christiane Amanpour, married James Rubin, chief public relations
official of the US State Department. Amanpour had announced that her
future husband’s war was for “the first time... a war fought for human
rights”. And, after all, “only a fraction of 1 percent of the bombs
went astray”. (Quoted, Hammond and Herman, op., cit, p.113)
The BBC’s defence correspondent, Mark Laity, may not have found love
during his coverage of NATO’s slaughter, but he did subsequently accept
the post of press secretary to the NATO Secretary General, George
Robertson, who had also moved on from his position as British Defence
Secretary.
David Edwards is the editor of Media Lens <http://www.medialens.org/> ,
and the author of Burning All Illusions: A Guide to Personal and
Political Freedom
<http://www.southendpress.org/books/btitles.shtml#burningall>
(South End Press, 1996). Email: editor@....
<mailto:editor@...>
Visit the Media Lens website: http://www.medialens.org
<http://www.medialens.org/>
Please consider donating to Media Lens:
http://www.medialens.org/donate.html
Other Recent Articles by David Edwards and Media Lens
* Bombing the Peace Protestors: People Pay the Price for Realpolitik
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Edwards0318.htm>
* Breaking the Chains of Illusions, Part Two: The Catastrophe Of
Corporate Work
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Edwards0311-2.htm>
* Breaking the Chains of Illusions: Part One
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Edwards0304.htm>
* Haiti: No News is Bad News
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Edwards0311.htm>
* Killing Hope: Bringing Hell to Haiti, Part 2
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Edwards0302.htm>
* Bringing Hell to Haiti, Part 1
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Edwards0301.htm>
* How Bush and Blair Chose War and Then Chose The Justification Part 2
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb04/Edwards0207-2.htm>
* How Bush and Blair Chose War and Then Chose The Justification Part 1
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb04/Edwards0207-1.htm>
* Climate Catastrophe: The Ultimate Media Betrayal
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan04/Edwards0108.htm>
* The BBC and Hiroshima
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan04/Edwards0106.htm>
* The Tyrant with a Thousand Faces
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Edwards_US-UK-Saddam.htm>
* Exposing the Final Lie of The War On Iraq
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Edwards_Iraq-Qaeda-Lie.htm>
* Patriotism, Progress And A Beautiful Thing
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Edwards_Patriotism-Progress-
Beautiful.htm>
* Out on a Limb – Part Two
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Edwards_Independent-Iraq2.htm>
* Out on a Limb -- Part One
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Edwards_Independent-Iraq.htm>
* Lulling Us Into Submission
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Edwards_Advertising.htm>
* The Importance of Being Nuanced: A Tragicomedy Of Media Manners
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Edwards_Nuanced.htm>
* What Should I Do? Selfishness, Happiness And Benefiting Others
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Edwards_What-To-Do.htm>
* The BBC, Self-Glorification And Disaster
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Edwards_BBC.htm>
* Adventures in Media Surreality – Part 2: Global Climate Catastrophe –
Mustn’t Grumble
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Edwards_Media-Surreality2.htm>
* Adventures in Media Surreality – Part 1: Blair’s Serious and Current
Lies
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles7/Edwards_Media-Surreality1.htm>
* Beating up the Cheerleader
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles7/Edwards_BBC.htm>
* Biting the Had That Feeds – Part 1
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles6/Edwards_Biting-1.htm>
* Biting the Hand That Feeds – Part 2
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles6/Edwards_Biting-2.htm>
* "Saddam Loyalists" Or "Anti-Occupation Forces"? Ask The BBC
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles6/Edwards_BBC-Stenographers.htm>
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/April2004/Edwards0401.htm
4: Beware Iraqoslavia
A - Kosovo and Iraq: Same Bombs, Different Lies
(by David Edwards and Media Lens - www.dissidentvoice.org - April 1,
2004)
LINK:
http://www.techcentralstation.com/020204C.html
Beware Iraqoslavia
By Stephen Schwartz - Published 02/02/2004
Yugoslavia's Example; Iraq's Future...
http://www.techcentralstation.com/020204C.html
--- A ---
Kosovo and Iraq: Same Bombs, Different Lies
by David Edwards and Media Lens
www.dissidentvoice.org
April 1, 2004
The truth about the invasion of Iraq was perhaps best summed up by Ray
McGovern, one of the CIA's most senior analysts:
"It was 95 per cent charade. And they all knew it: Bush, Blair, Howard."
(Quoted John Pilger, "Universal justice is not a dream
<http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=5193>
,"
ZNet, March 23, 2004)
One might think that exposés of this kind would lead the media to take
a fresh look at some of the US-UK governments’ earlier claims
justifying war. Consider, for example, the 78-day NATO assault on
Serbia from March 24 until June 10, 1999, said to have been launched to
protect the Albanian population of Kosovo.
Blair’s Battle Between Good And Evil
What is so striking about the US-UK government case for war against
Serbia is the familiarity of much of the propaganda. In a key pre-war
speech on March 18 last year, Blair said of Iraq:
“Looking back over 12 years, we have been victims of our own desire to
placate the implacable... to hope that there was some genuine intent to
do good in a regime whose mind is in fact evil.” ("Tony Blair's speech"
The Guardian, March 18, 2003)
In similar vein, Blair described the war with Serbia as “a battle
between good and evil; between civilization and barbarity; between
democracy and dictatorship”. (Quoted, Degraded Capability, The Media
and the Kosovo Crisis
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/074531631X/
ref=ase_dissidentvoic-20/103-6059207-6497441> , edited by Philip
Hammond and Edward S. Herman, Pluto Press, 2000, p.123)
Blair also referred last year to the lessons of “history”:
“We can look back and say: there's the time; that was the moment; for
example, when Czechoslovakia was swallowed up by the Nazis - that's
when we should have acted.
“But it wasn't clear at the time. In fact at the time, many people
thought such a fear fanciful. Worse, put forward in bad faith by
warmongers." (Ibid)
Four years earlier, in March 1999, British defence Secretary, George
Robertson, insisted that intervention in Kosovo was vital to stop “a
regime which is bent on genocide.” A year later, Robertson also
conjured up the ghost of Nazism to justify NATO’s action:
“We were faced with a situation where there was this killing going on,
this cleansing going on - the kind of ethnic cleansing we thought had
disappeared after the second world war. You were seeing people there
coming in trains, the cattle trains, with refugees once again.” (ITV,
Jonathan Dimbleby programme, June 11, 2000)
President Clinton referred to “deliberate, systematic efforts at...
genocide” in Kosovo. (Quoted, John Pilger, introduction, Phillip
Knightley, First Casualty, Prion Books, 2000, p.xii)
In a speech in Illinois in April 1999, Blair alluded to Kosovo: “The
principle of non-interference must be qualified in important respects
war crimes and acts of genocide can never be an internal matter.”
(Blair, The Guardian, March 15, 2000)
This rhetoric depicting “genocide”, even a kind of Holocaust, in Kosovo
certainly merits comparison with the claim that British bases in Cyprus
were under threat from Iraqi WMD that could be launched within 45
minutes of an order being given.
So how did the keen and critical intellects of the "free press" -
backed up by vast research and investigative resources - respond? Did
they scrutinize and challenge these extraordinary claims as they so
patently failed to do with regard to the Iraqi WMD "threat"?
We Can Do 1389 The Media Get In Line
Reviewing UK media performance, British historian Mark Curtis writes of
the Kosovo war:
“The liberal press notably the Guardian and Independent backed the
war to the hilt (while questioning the tactics used to wage it) and
lent critical weight to the government’s arguments.” In so doing, the
media “revealed how willingly deceived it is by government rhetoric on
its moral motives.” (Curtis, Web of Deceit
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0099448394/
ref=ase_dissidentvoic-20/103-6059207-6497441> , Vintage, 2003, pp.134-5)
Thus, Jonathan Freedland wrote in the Guardian: “the prize is not turf
or treasure but the frustration of a plan to empty a land of its
people”. It was “a noble goal”. (Freedland, "No way to spin a war," The
Guardian, April 21, 1999)
A Guardian editorial described the war as nothing less than “a test for
our generation”. (March 26, 1999)
The attack was intended to stop “something approaching genocide”,
Timothy Garton Ash insisted. (Garton Ash, "Imagine no America," The
Guardian, September 19, 2002)
The Mirror referred to “Echoes of the Holocaust.” (Quoted, Pilger, op.,
cit, p.144)
The Sun urged us to “Clobba Slobba”.
The New Statesman’s John Lloyd wrote that the war showed “the most
powerful states are willing to fight for human rights”. (July 5, 1999)
As British bombs rained on Serbia, a breathless Andrew Marr wrote
articles in the Observer entitled:
"Brave, bold, visionary. Whatever became of Blair the ultra-cautious
cynic?" (April 4, 1999)
"Hail to the chief. Sorry, Bill, but this time we’re talking about
Tony." (May 16, 1999)
Marr declared himself in awe of Blair’s “moral courage”, adding: “I am
constantly impressed, but also mildly alarmed, by his utter lack of
cynicism.”
A subsequent BBC documentary on the alleged Serbian genocide, ‘Exposed’
(BBC2, January 27, 2002), was billed as a programme marking Holocaust
Memorial Day, no less.
Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times:
"Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs
certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week
you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by
pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can
do 1389 too."
(Friedman, The New York Times, April 23, 1999)
A Nexis database search showed that in the two years 1998-1999 the Los
Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and Time used
the term “genocide” 220 times to describe the actions of Serbia in
Kosovo. In the ten years 1990-1999 the same media used the same word
just 33 times to describe the actions of Indonesia in East Timor.
Following Indonesia’s invasion in December 1975, some 200,000 East
Timorese, or one-third of the population, are estimated to have been
killed in one of history's premier bloodbaths. The contrast is even
more astonishing when we consider the number of people actually killed
in Kosovo.
Pure Invention The Kosovo “Genocide”
So how real was the Serbian genocide in Kosovo compared, say, to the
threat of Iraqi WMD? And did this alleged mass abuse of human rights
justify the 78 days of NATO bombing that claimed 500 Yugoslav civilian
lives, causing an estimated $100 billion in damage, striking hospitals,
schools, major
industrial plants, hotels, libraries, housing estates, theatres,
museums, farms, mosques, trains, tractors, bridges and power stations?
In February 1999, one month before the start of NATO bombing, a report
released by the German Foreign Office noted that “the often feared
humanitarian catastrophe threatening the Albanian population has been
averted”. In the larger cities “public life has since returned to
relative normality.” (Quoted, Mark Curtis, op., cit, p.136)
Another German report, exactly one month before the bombing, refers to
the CIA-backed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) seeking independence for
Kosovo from Serbia:
“Events since February and March 1998 do not evidence a persecution
program based on Albanian ethnicity. The measures taken by the
[Serbian] armed forces are in the first instance directed towards
combating the KLA and its supposed adherents and supporters.” (Ibid,
p.136)
Following the war, NATO sources reported that 2,000 people had been
killed in Kosovo on all sides in the year prior to bombing. George
Robertson testified before the House of Commons that until mid-January
1999, “the Kosovo Liberation Army was responsible for more deaths in
Kosovo than the Serbian authorities had been”. (Quoted, Noam Chomsky,
Hegemony or Survival
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805074007/
ref=ase_dissidentvoic-20/103-6059207-6497441> , Routledge, 2003, p.56)
This is supported by Nicholas Wheeler of the University of Wales who
estimates that Serbs killed 500 Albanians before the NATO bombing,
implying that 1,500 had been killed by the KLA. The KLA had openly
declared that their strategy was to provoke Serbian forces into
retaliatory action that would generate Western public support for NATO
intervention.
Far from averting a humanitarian crisis, it is clear that NATO bombing
caused a massive escalation of killings and expulsions. The flood of
refugees from Kosovo, for example, began immediately +after+ NATO
launched its attack. Prior to the bombing, and for the following two
days, the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported no
data on refugees. On March 27, three days into the bombing, UNHCR
reported that 4,000 had fled Kosovo to the neighbouring countries of
Albania and Macedonia. By April 5, the New York Times reported “more
than 350,000 have left Kosovo since March 24”.
A study by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) records “a pattern of expulsions and the vast increase in
lootings, killings, rape, kidnappings and pillage once the NATO air war
began on March 24” and that “the most visible change in the events was
after NATO launched its first air strikes”. (Curtis, op., cit, p.137,
our emphasis)
A House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee investigating the war
concluded:
“It is likely that the NATO bombing did cause a change in the character
of the assault upon the Kosovo Albanians. What had been an
anti-insurgency campaign albeit a brutal and counter-productive one
became a mass, organized campaign to kill Kosovo Albanians or drive
them from the country.” (Ibid, pp.137-8)
The media response was to exactly reverse cause and effect suggesting
that bombing was justified as a way of halting the flood of refugees it
had in fact created. Philip Hammond of South Bank University comments:
“the refugee crisis became NATO’s strongest propaganda weapon, though
logically it should have been viewed as a damning indictment of the
bombing. The hundreds of thousands of Serbs who fled the bombing were
therefore determinedly ignored by British journalists”. (Hammond and
Herman, op., cit, p.127)
Robert Hayden of the University of Pittsburgh reported that the
casualties among Serb civilians in the first three weeks of the war
were higher than all of the casualties on both sides in Kosovo in the
three months that led up to the war. And yet, Hayden points out, “those
three months were supposed to be a humanitarian catastrophe”. (Quoted,
Noam Chomsky, The New Military Humanism
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1567511767/
ref=ase_dissidentvoic-20/103-6059207-6497441> , Pluto Press, 1999, p.20)
Hammond indicates the awesome scale of the truth buried by the media:
"We may never know the true number of people killed. But it seems
reasonable to conclude that while people died in clashes between the
KLA and Yugoslav forces... the picture painted by Nato - of a
systematic campaign of Nazi-style genocide carried out by Serbs - was
pure invention." (Hammond and Herman, op., cit, p.129)
In other words, the US-UK assault on Serbia, like the assault on Iraq,
was made possible by audacious government manipulation of a public
denied access to the truth by an incompetent and structurally corrupt
media. Journalists, indeed, were so utterly fooled by government
propaganda that they proudly proclaimed their role in supporting the
“humanitarian intervention”.
Responding to Alastair Campbell’s accusation of press cynicism over the
Kosovo intervention (another familiar theme from the 2003 Iraq war),
Channel Four correspondent Alex Thomson wrote: “If you want to know why
the public supported the war, thank a journalist, not the present
government’s propagandist-in-chief.” (Quoted, Charles Glass, "Hacks
versus flacks," Z Magazine, August 1, 1999)
The Guardian’s Maggie O’Kane wrote:
“But Campbell should acknowledge that it was the press reporting of the
Bosnian war and the Kosovar refugee crisis that gave his boss the
public support and sympathy he needed to fight the good fight against
Milosevic.” (Ibid)
John Simpson of the BBC joined the fray: “Why did British, American,
German, and French public opinion stay rock-solid for the bombing, in
spite of Nato’s mistakes? Because they knew the war was right. Who gave
them the information? The media.” (Ibid)
So much for "neutral" and "objective" reporting. As a result, Blair is
now able to use the lie of Kosovo to justify more recent killing. In a
speech earlier this month, Blair said of the Iraq war:
“The real point is that those who disagree with the war, disagree
fundamentally with the judgement that led to war. What is more, their
alternative judgement is both entirely rational and arguable. Kosovo,
with ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians, was not a hard decision for
most people; nor was Afghanistan after the shock of September 11; nor
was Sierra Leone.” (‘Tony Blair's speech’, The Guardian, March 5, 2004)
Kosovo was “not a hard decision for most people” because awkward facts
pointing to something other than a “battle between good and evil” were
kept well out of sight.
Postscript A Silver Lining
We are eager to avoid the impression that the alliance of state
violence and media servility always results in tragedy, death and
disaster sometimes there are happy endings.
While covering the Kosovo crisis, CNN’s leading foreign correspondent,
Christiane Amanpour, married James Rubin, chief public relations
official of the US State Department. Amanpour had announced that her
future husband’s war was for “the first time... a war fought for human
rights”. And, after all, “only a fraction of 1 percent of the bombs
went astray”. (Quoted, Hammond and Herman, op., cit, p.113)
The BBC’s defence correspondent, Mark Laity, may not have found love
during his coverage of NATO’s slaughter, but he did subsequently accept
the post of press secretary to the NATO Secretary General, George
Robertson, who had also moved on from his position as British Defence
Secretary.
David Edwards is the editor of Media Lens <http://www.medialens.org/> ,
and the author of Burning All Illusions: A Guide to Personal and
Political Freedom
<http://www.southendpress.org/books/btitles.shtml#burningall>
(South End Press, 1996). Email: editor@....
<mailto:editor@...>
Visit the Media Lens website: http://www.medialens.org
<http://www.medialens.org/>
Please consider donating to Media Lens:
http://www.medialens.org/donate.html
Other Recent Articles by David Edwards and Media Lens
* Bombing the Peace Protestors: People Pay the Price for Realpolitik
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Edwards0318.htm>
* Breaking the Chains of Illusions, Part Two: The Catastrophe Of
Corporate Work
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Edwards0311-2.htm>
* Breaking the Chains of Illusions: Part One
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Edwards0304.htm>
* Haiti: No News is Bad News
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Edwards0311.htm>
* Killing Hope: Bringing Hell to Haiti, Part 2
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Edwards0302.htm>
* Bringing Hell to Haiti, Part 1
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Edwards0301.htm>
* How Bush and Blair Chose War and Then Chose The Justification Part 2
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb04/Edwards0207-2.htm>
* How Bush and Blair Chose War and Then Chose The Justification Part 1
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb04/Edwards0207-1.htm>
* Climate Catastrophe: The Ultimate Media Betrayal
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan04/Edwards0108.htm>
* The BBC and Hiroshima
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan04/Edwards0106.htm>
* The Tyrant with a Thousand Faces
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Edwards_US-UK-Saddam.htm>
* Exposing the Final Lie of The War On Iraq
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Edwards_Iraq-Qaeda-Lie.htm>
* Patriotism, Progress And A Beautiful Thing
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Edwards_Patriotism-Progress-
Beautiful.htm>
* Out on a Limb – Part Two
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Edwards_Independent-Iraq2.htm>
* Out on a Limb -- Part One
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Edwards_Independent-Iraq.htm>
* Lulling Us Into Submission
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Edwards_Advertising.htm>
* The Importance of Being Nuanced: A Tragicomedy Of Media Manners
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Edwards_Nuanced.htm>
* What Should I Do? Selfishness, Happiness And Benefiting Others
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Edwards_What-To-Do.htm>
* The BBC, Self-Glorification And Disaster
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Edwards_BBC.htm>
* Adventures in Media Surreality – Part 2: Global Climate Catastrophe –
Mustn’t Grumble
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Edwards_Media-Surreality2.htm>
* Adventures in Media Surreality – Part 1: Blair’s Serious and Current
Lies
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles7/Edwards_Media-Surreality1.htm>
* Beating up the Cheerleader
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles7/Edwards_BBC.htm>
* Biting the Had That Feeds – Part 1
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles6/Edwards_Biting-1.htm>
* Biting the Hand That Feeds – Part 2
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles6/Edwards_Biting-2.htm>
* "Saddam Loyalists" Or "Anti-Occupation Forces"? Ask The BBC
<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles6/Edwards_BBC-Stenographers.htm>
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/April2004/Edwards0401.htm
Centre for Research on Globalisation
Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation
GLOBAL RESEARCH (CANADA) : FEATURE ARTICLE
IRAQ AND THE "WAR ON TERRORISM"
by Michel Chossudovsky
www.globalresearch.ca
16 April 2004
The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO404D.html
While the Western media highlights the death and "kidnapping" of paid
mercenaries, on contract to Western security firms, there is a deafening
silence on the massacre of more than 700 civilians in Fallujah by
coalition forces.
The operation in Fallujah is casually described by the Bush
administration as "a crackdown" against extremists:
"This violence we've seen is a part of a few people trying to stop the
progress toward democracy. Fallujah, south of Baghdad, these incidents
were basically thrust upon the innocent Iraqi people by gangs, violent
gangs." (President Bush, 11 April 2004)
According to CNN, an unduly high death toll was the unfortunate result
of the "rules of engagement", which required leading a military
operation against insurgents in a densely populated urban area. The
civilians were said to have been caught in the cross-fire.
The US military claims that most of the deaths were insurgents, an
assertion which is refuted by statements emanating from the hospitals
and by several eye-witness reports:
"We've been seeing it with our own eyes. People were told to leave
Fallujah and now there are thousands trapped in the desert. There is a
13 km long convoy of people trying to reach Baghdad. The Americans are
firing bombs, everything, everything they have on them. They are firing
on families! They are all children, old men and women in the desert.
Other Iraqi people are trying to help them. In Falluja the US military
have been bombing hospitals. Children are being evacuated to Baghdad.
There is a child now, a baby, he had 25 members of his family killed,
he's in the hospital and someone needs to be with him ... The Americans
are dropping cluster bombs. They are bombing from the air. There are
people lying dead in the streets. They said there'd be a ceasefire and
then they flew in, I saw them, and they began to bomb. They are fighting
back and they are fighting well in Falluja. But we are expecting the big
attack in 24-48 hours. It will be the main attack. They will be taking
the town street by street and searching and attacking. They did this
already in a village near-by. Please get help, get people to protest,
get them to go to the Embassies, get them out, get them to do something.
There is a massacre" (Eyewitness Report from Fallujah,
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/JAS404A.html )"During the course of
the roughly four hours we were at that small clinic, we saw perhaps a
dozen wounded brought in. Among them was a young woman, 18 years old,
shot in the head.... Doctors did not expect her to survive the night.
Another likely terminal case was a young boy with massive internal
bleeding. I also saw a man with extensive burns on his upper body and
shredded thighs, with wounds that could have been from a cluster bomb"
(See http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAH404A.html )
Coalition forces, using their own snipers equipped with precision rifles
on rooftops, are targeting women and children. Ambulances carrying the
wounded are being targeted by the US Marines:
"The most horrible brutality was the targeting of ambulances which
carried pregnant women who were about to give birth. There were tens of
bodies which are still under debris and we could not arrive at the
places as US snipers prevented people from getting them out." (quoted in
Al Jazeera, press conference of Dr Abd al-Salam al-Kubaisi, 16 April
2004,
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/
6B0698D9-3C9D-4CB8-9275-10ECD0D46565.htm )
The killings were ordered by the US military. Tens of thousands of
refugees have fled the city. The various member states of the occupying
forces including Italy and Japan, are responsible alongside the US-UK
coalition, for these massacres, in accordance with international law and
the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal. (See
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NUR203A.html ).
The Security firms are also involved in the killing of civilians.
Western and Iraqi sources confirm the presence of some 1500 private
mercenaries working alongside and/or collaborating with the coalition
forces.
THE "WAR ON TERRORISM"
At this critical juncture, the Bush administration desperately needs the
"war on terrorism" as a justification for the killings of civilians in
Iraq, which it describes as "collateral damage".
In recent weeks, a barrage of media reports have surfaced on Al Qaeda
links to the Iraqi resistance movement. The insurgents are described as
Islamic extremists and fundamentalists: "hard-line Sunnis, foreign
extremists, and, now, Sadr and his disenfranchised Shiite followers" (US
News and World Report, 19 April 2004).
The secular character of the resistance movement is denied. In an
utterly twisted logic, Al Qaeda is said to constitute a significant
force behind the Iraqi insurgents. According to official statements, Al
Qaeda mastermind Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi is in Fallujah, which has become
a so-called "hotbed for foreign fighters". In the words of Newsweek,
"Saddam may not have had direct ties to Al Qaeda, but the jihadists are
eager to fill his shoes." (Newsweek, 19 April 2004)
Meanwhile, perfect timing, the 9/11 Commission has declassified the
controversial presidential PDB memo of August 6 2001 pertaining to Al
Qaeda's pre-9/11 plan "to attack the American homeland."
The disinformation campaign ultimately consists in convincing the US
public that the "defense of the Homeland" and the occupation of Iraq are
part of same process, involving the same enemy. In the words of former
CIA Director James Woolsey in a CNN interview:
"the Iraqi intelligence, trained al Qaeda in "poison gases and
conventional explosives." And had senior-level contacts going back a
decade. And the Islamists from the Sunni side, from the al Qaeda, work
with people like Hezbollah. They're perfectly happy to work together
against us. It's sort of like three Mafia families, but they insult each
other, but can still cooperate... I think it's Islamists totalitarian
masquerading as part of a religion. Certainly if anybody in the
intelligence community is surprised by this, the really surprising thing
would be that they are really surprised. Some of them have had a idea
fix for a long time, that al Qaeda would never work with the Ba'athist
and the Shiite Islamist would never work with the Sunni. It's just nuts.
They work together on important things. It's not that one necessarily
controls the other. It's not sort of like state sponsorship, but
cooperation, support here and there against us, sure, they've been doing
it for years and years and years.(CNNFN, Lou Dobbs, Tonight, 15 April
2004)
THE OSAMA TAPE
Meanwhile, another mysterious Osama tape has emerged (See
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/ALJ404A.html ).
In the tape, Osama acknowledges responsibility for the 9/11 attacks on
the World Trade Center and the 3/11 (2004) train bombing in Madrid:
"I [Osama] am offering a truce to European countries, and its core is
our commitment to cease operations against any country which does not
carry out an onslaught against Muslims or interfere in their affairs as
part of the big American conspiracy against the Islamic world.... The
truce will begin when the last soldier leaves our countries. [Iraq]...
Whoever wants reconciliation and the right (way), then we are the ones
who initiated it, so stop spilling our blood so we can stop spilling
your blood.... What happened on September 11 and March 11 was your goods
delivered back to you." (Ibid)
In other words, Osama bin Laden offers "a truce" if the various European
countries involved in Iraq accept to withdraw their troops. In return,
Al Qaeda will declare a moratorium on terrorist attacks in Europe.
Without further investigation, the Western media have described the tape
as an attempt by "Enemy Number One" to create a rift between America and
its European allies.
The tape in all likelihood is a hoax of US intelligence. The propaganda
ploy consists not only in upholding the US led-occupation of Iraq as
part of the broader "war on terrorism", it also provides a pretext to
Western governments, pressured by citizens movements across Europe, to
remain in Iraq. In the words of president Jacques Chirac, "nothing can
justify terrorism and, on that basis, nothing can allow any discussion
with terrorists."
Underlying the Osama tape is the presumption that the "extremists" in
Iraq are the same people responsible for the 9/11 and 3/11 terrorist
attacks. It follows, that the "anti-war zealots", by opposing the US led
occupation, are in fact providing ammunition to Osama bin Laden's Al
Qaeda:
"bin Laden's deranged fantasies are frighteningly similar to those many
anti-war zealots harbor both here and abroad... He also apparently tries
to justify the attacks of 9/11 as retaliation for U.S. support for Jews
in Palestine, and U.S. invasions in the Gulf War and Somalia. "Our
actions are reactions to your actions," he said.
This is gibberish, but it is typical of a megalomaniacal mind. Even
Hitler, after all, insisted his attack on Poland was in self-defense.
Evil often comes cloaked in the counterfeit robes of virtue.
But it's also easy to see how such arguments can gain traction among
impoverished Arabs who long have been repressed by their own governments
and are searching for answers.
The United States should be grateful for this latest tape. It puts a lot
of things in perspective. Europe and the United States are at war
together, and the enemy is someone of flesh and blood who can be
frightened -- enough so that he feels it necessary to propose a truce."
(Deseret Morning News, Salt Lake city, 15 April 2004)
Amply documented, Al Qaeda is a creation of the US intelligence
apparatus. This is a known fact to the governments and intelligence
services of America's European allies. It is corroborated by US
Congressional documents. Al Qaeda is a US sponsored intelligence asset.
(See http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/truth911.html ).
And more than ever, in the face of mounting resentment, the Bush
Administration and its European allies desperately "need Osama" to
justify their military presence in Iraq.
The Iraq war is presented as a "Just War". The latter is predicated on
the existence of an "outside enemy" (Al Qaeda).
Under this criterion and with the full support of Western public
opinion, the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, whose Taliban rulers had
"provided a safe haven for Osama bin-Laden".
Before the war, Osama was said to be supporting Saddam. In the wake of
the war, the propaganda ploy now consists in presenting Osama as a
spokesman for the Iraqi resistance.
* * *
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of
Ottawa and author of War and Globalization the Truth behind September 11
. For details: http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/truth911.html.
The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/> grants permission to cross-post original
Global Research (Canada) articles in their entirety, or any portions
thereof, on community internet sites, as long as the text & title of the
article are not modified. The source must be acknowledged as follows:
Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/> . For cross-postings, kindly use the
active URL hyperlink address of the original CRG article. The author's
copyright note must be displayed. For publication of Global Research
(Canada) articles in print or other forms including commercial internet
sites, contact: editor@... .
To contact the author and/or for media inquiries:
editor@...
© Copyright MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY 2004
Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation
GLOBAL RESEARCH (CANADA) : FEATURE ARTICLE
IRAQ AND THE "WAR ON TERRORISM"
by Michel Chossudovsky
www.globalresearch.ca
16 April 2004
The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO404D.html
While the Western media highlights the death and "kidnapping" of paid
mercenaries, on contract to Western security firms, there is a deafening
silence on the massacre of more than 700 civilians in Fallujah by
coalition forces.
The operation in Fallujah is casually described by the Bush
administration as "a crackdown" against extremists:
"This violence we've seen is a part of a few people trying to stop the
progress toward democracy. Fallujah, south of Baghdad, these incidents
were basically thrust upon the innocent Iraqi people by gangs, violent
gangs." (President Bush, 11 April 2004)
According to CNN, an unduly high death toll was the unfortunate result
of the "rules of engagement", which required leading a military
operation against insurgents in a densely populated urban area. The
civilians were said to have been caught in the cross-fire.
The US military claims that most of the deaths were insurgents, an
assertion which is refuted by statements emanating from the hospitals
and by several eye-witness reports:
"We've been seeing it with our own eyes. People were told to leave
Fallujah and now there are thousands trapped in the desert. There is a
13 km long convoy of people trying to reach Baghdad. The Americans are
firing bombs, everything, everything they have on them. They are firing
on families! They are all children, old men and women in the desert.
Other Iraqi people are trying to help them. In Falluja the US military
have been bombing hospitals. Children are being evacuated to Baghdad.
There is a child now, a baby, he had 25 members of his family killed,
he's in the hospital and someone needs to be with him ... The Americans
are dropping cluster bombs. They are bombing from the air. There are
people lying dead in the streets. They said there'd be a ceasefire and
then they flew in, I saw them, and they began to bomb. They are fighting
back and they are fighting well in Falluja. But we are expecting the big
attack in 24-48 hours. It will be the main attack. They will be taking
the town street by street and searching and attacking. They did this
already in a village near-by. Please get help, get people to protest,
get them to go to the Embassies, get them out, get them to do something.
There is a massacre" (Eyewitness Report from Fallujah,
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/JAS404A.html )"During the course of
the roughly four hours we were at that small clinic, we saw perhaps a
dozen wounded brought in. Among them was a young woman, 18 years old,
shot in the head.... Doctors did not expect her to survive the night.
Another likely terminal case was a young boy with massive internal
bleeding. I also saw a man with extensive burns on his upper body and
shredded thighs, with wounds that could have been from a cluster bomb"
(See http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAH404A.html )
Coalition forces, using their own snipers equipped with precision rifles
on rooftops, are targeting women and children. Ambulances carrying the
wounded are being targeted by the US Marines:
"The most horrible brutality was the targeting of ambulances which
carried pregnant women who were about to give birth. There were tens of
bodies which are still under debris and we could not arrive at the
places as US snipers prevented people from getting them out." (quoted in
Al Jazeera, press conference of Dr Abd al-Salam al-Kubaisi, 16 April
2004,
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/
6B0698D9-3C9D-4CB8-9275-10ECD0D46565.htm )
The killings were ordered by the US military. Tens of thousands of
refugees have fled the city. The various member states of the occupying
forces including Italy and Japan, are responsible alongside the US-UK
coalition, for these massacres, in accordance with international law and
the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal. (See
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NUR203A.html ).
The Security firms are also involved in the killing of civilians.
Western and Iraqi sources confirm the presence of some 1500 private
mercenaries working alongside and/or collaborating with the coalition
forces.
THE "WAR ON TERRORISM"
At this critical juncture, the Bush administration desperately needs the
"war on terrorism" as a justification for the killings of civilians in
Iraq, which it describes as "collateral damage".
In recent weeks, a barrage of media reports have surfaced on Al Qaeda
links to the Iraqi resistance movement. The insurgents are described as
Islamic extremists and fundamentalists: "hard-line Sunnis, foreign
extremists, and, now, Sadr and his disenfranchised Shiite followers" (US
News and World Report, 19 April 2004).
The secular character of the resistance movement is denied. In an
utterly twisted logic, Al Qaeda is said to constitute a significant
force behind the Iraqi insurgents. According to official statements, Al
Qaeda mastermind Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi is in Fallujah, which has become
a so-called "hotbed for foreign fighters". In the words of Newsweek,
"Saddam may not have had direct ties to Al Qaeda, but the jihadists are
eager to fill his shoes." (Newsweek, 19 April 2004)
Meanwhile, perfect timing, the 9/11 Commission has declassified the
controversial presidential PDB memo of August 6 2001 pertaining to Al
Qaeda's pre-9/11 plan "to attack the American homeland."
The disinformation campaign ultimately consists in convincing the US
public that the "defense of the Homeland" and the occupation of Iraq are
part of same process, involving the same enemy. In the words of former
CIA Director James Woolsey in a CNN interview:
"the Iraqi intelligence, trained al Qaeda in "poison gases and
conventional explosives." And had senior-level contacts going back a
decade. And the Islamists from the Sunni side, from the al Qaeda, work
with people like Hezbollah. They're perfectly happy to work together
against us. It's sort of like three Mafia families, but they insult each
other, but can still cooperate... I think it's Islamists totalitarian
masquerading as part of a religion. Certainly if anybody in the
intelligence community is surprised by this, the really surprising thing
would be that they are really surprised. Some of them have had a idea
fix for a long time, that al Qaeda would never work with the Ba'athist
and the Shiite Islamist would never work with the Sunni. It's just nuts.
They work together on important things. It's not that one necessarily
controls the other. It's not sort of like state sponsorship, but
cooperation, support here and there against us, sure, they've been doing
it for years and years and years.(CNNFN, Lou Dobbs, Tonight, 15 April
2004)
THE OSAMA TAPE
Meanwhile, another mysterious Osama tape has emerged (See
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/ALJ404A.html ).
In the tape, Osama acknowledges responsibility for the 9/11 attacks on
the World Trade Center and the 3/11 (2004) train bombing in Madrid:
"I [Osama] am offering a truce to European countries, and its core is
our commitment to cease operations against any country which does not
carry out an onslaught against Muslims or interfere in their affairs as
part of the big American conspiracy against the Islamic world.... The
truce will begin when the last soldier leaves our countries. [Iraq]...
Whoever wants reconciliation and the right (way), then we are the ones
who initiated it, so stop spilling our blood so we can stop spilling
your blood.... What happened on September 11 and March 11 was your goods
delivered back to you." (Ibid)
In other words, Osama bin Laden offers "a truce" if the various European
countries involved in Iraq accept to withdraw their troops. In return,
Al Qaeda will declare a moratorium on terrorist attacks in Europe.
Without further investigation, the Western media have described the tape
as an attempt by "Enemy Number One" to create a rift between America and
its European allies.
The tape in all likelihood is a hoax of US intelligence. The propaganda
ploy consists not only in upholding the US led-occupation of Iraq as
part of the broader "war on terrorism", it also provides a pretext to
Western governments, pressured by citizens movements across Europe, to
remain in Iraq. In the words of president Jacques Chirac, "nothing can
justify terrorism and, on that basis, nothing can allow any discussion
with terrorists."
Underlying the Osama tape is the presumption that the "extremists" in
Iraq are the same people responsible for the 9/11 and 3/11 terrorist
attacks. It follows, that the "anti-war zealots", by opposing the US led
occupation, are in fact providing ammunition to Osama bin Laden's Al
Qaeda:
"bin Laden's deranged fantasies are frighteningly similar to those many
anti-war zealots harbor both here and abroad... He also apparently tries
to justify the attacks of 9/11 as retaliation for U.S. support for Jews
in Palestine, and U.S. invasions in the Gulf War and Somalia. "Our
actions are reactions to your actions," he said.
This is gibberish, but it is typical of a megalomaniacal mind. Even
Hitler, after all, insisted his attack on Poland was in self-defense.
Evil often comes cloaked in the counterfeit robes of virtue.
But it's also easy to see how such arguments can gain traction among
impoverished Arabs who long have been repressed by their own governments
and are searching for answers.
The United States should be grateful for this latest tape. It puts a lot
of things in perspective. Europe and the United States are at war
together, and the enemy is someone of flesh and blood who can be
frightened -- enough so that he feels it necessary to propose a truce."
(Deseret Morning News, Salt Lake city, 15 April 2004)
Amply documented, Al Qaeda is a creation of the US intelligence
apparatus. This is a known fact to the governments and intelligence
services of America's European allies. It is corroborated by US
Congressional documents. Al Qaeda is a US sponsored intelligence asset.
(See http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/truth911.html ).
And more than ever, in the face of mounting resentment, the Bush
Administration and its European allies desperately "need Osama" to
justify their military presence in Iraq.
The Iraq war is presented as a "Just War". The latter is predicated on
the existence of an "outside enemy" (Al Qaeda).
Under this criterion and with the full support of Western public
opinion, the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, whose Taliban rulers had
"provided a safe haven for Osama bin-Laden".
Before the war, Osama was said to be supporting Saddam. In the wake of
the war, the propaganda ploy now consists in presenting Osama as a
spokesman for the Iraqi resistance.
* * *
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of
Ottawa and author of War and Globalization the Truth behind September 11
. For details: http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/truth911.html.
The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/> grants permission to cross-post original
Global Research (Canada) articles in their entirety, or any portions
thereof, on community internet sites, as long as the text & title of the
article are not modified. The source must be acknowledged as follows:
Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/> . For cross-postings, kindly use the
active URL hyperlink address of the original CRG article. The author's
copyright note must be displayed. For publication of Global Research
(Canada) articles in print or other forms including commercial internet
sites, contact: editor@... .
To contact the author and/or for media inquiries:
editor@...
© Copyright MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY 2004
From: Komunist <komunist@...>
Web magazin KOMUNIST
OBAVESTENJE
Proslava 134. g. rodjenja V.I. Lenjina
Izjava Sekretarijata NKPJ
Nova komunisticka partija Jugoslavije organizuje 22. aprila SVECANU
AKADEMIJU u cast 134. godine rodjenja VLADIMIRA ILJICA LENJINA.
Proslava ce se odrzati u Beogradu, u dvorani RU "Veselin Maslesa"
(Generala Zdanova 78). Pocetak u 18 casova. Ulaz slobodan. Ucestvovace,
pored ostalih, istaknuti operski, dramski i estradni umetnici,
folklorni ansambli, horovi...
O delu i liku Vode Oktobarske revolucije, o unutrasnjoj i spoljnoj
situaciji, o predsednickim izborima u Srbiji, kao i o stanju u
Medunarodnom komunistickom pokretu govorice clanovi najuzeg rukovodstva
NKPJ i SKOJ-a, koji je podmladak Partije.
http://komunist.free.fr
[Sono state eliminare la parti non di testo del messaggio]
Web magazin KOMUNIST
OBAVESTENJE
Proslava 134. g. rodjenja V.I. Lenjina
Izjava Sekretarijata NKPJ
Nova komunisticka partija Jugoslavije organizuje 22. aprila SVECANU
AKADEMIJU u cast 134. godine rodjenja VLADIMIRA ILJICA LENJINA.
Proslava ce se odrzati u Beogradu, u dvorani RU "Veselin Maslesa"
(Generala Zdanova 78). Pocetak u 18 casova. Ulaz slobodan. Ucestvovace,
pored ostalih, istaknuti operski, dramski i estradni umetnici,
folklorni ansambli, horovi...
O delu i liku Vode Oktobarske revolucije, o unutrasnjoj i spoljnoj
situaciji, o predsednickim izborima u Srbiji, kao i o stanju u
Medunarodnom komunistickom pokretu govorice clanovi najuzeg rukovodstva
NKPJ i SKOJ-a, koji je podmladak Partije.
http://komunist.free.fr
[Sono state eliminare la parti non di testo del messaggio]
GUERRA GLOBALE E PERMANENTE:
VERSO LA MOBILITAZIONE ARMATA DI MASSA DELLA POPOLAZIONE TEDESCA
Il Ministro tedesco Schily (SPD) ha recentemente affermato che e' ora
di risvegliare "la coscienza militare-difensiva nella popolazione
tedesca". Lo si puo' fare ad esempio attraverso la istituzione di un
anno formativo obbligatorio per tutti. Il tema non andrebbe piu' visto
"come un tabu', del quale non si possa parlare... Non si tratta piu'
solamente di difendere con le armi in pugno la Patria, bensi' di
servirla anche altrimenti".
All'uopo Schily si e' detto favorevole ad ulteriori stravolgimenti
della Costituzione tedesca, i quali seguirebbero le gia' infami riforme
che, sull'onda della propaganda antijugoslava degli anni Novanta, hanno
reso legali i cosiddetti "interventi militari fuori area": bombe su
Belgrado, assistenza sul terreno ai neonazisti pan-albanesi,
occupazione militare dell'Afghanistan, eccetera.
(a cura di Italo Slavo)
+++ Terrorabwehrarbeitsdienst ... +++
AP-Nachrichten - The Associated Press News Service. Copyright 2004, 18.
März
2004, 18:36 Uhr:
Schily fordert soziales Jahr und Erziehung zum Abwehrbewusstsein
Nach den Worten des SPD-Politikers muss angesichts der Gefahr durch den
internationalen Terrorismus ein "Abwehrbewusstsein in der deutschen
Bevölkerung" geschaffen werden. Dabei könne ein soziales
Pflichtjahrhelfen.
Schily sagte, er sehe das Thema "nicht als Tabu an, über das man nicht
reden darf" und forderte eine breite parlamentarische und
gesellschaftliche Debatte. "Es geht dann nicht mehr allein darum, das
Vaterland mit der Waffe in der Hand zu verteidigen, sondern ihm
anderweitig zu dienen." Der Minister sprach sich auch für eine dafür
notwendige Grundgesetzänderung aus.
( Quelle: Klaus von Raussendorff / Anti-Imperialistische Korrespondenz
(AIKor) - http://www.aikor.de )
VERSO LA MOBILITAZIONE ARMATA DI MASSA DELLA POPOLAZIONE TEDESCA
Il Ministro tedesco Schily (SPD) ha recentemente affermato che e' ora
di risvegliare "la coscienza militare-difensiva nella popolazione
tedesca". Lo si puo' fare ad esempio attraverso la istituzione di un
anno formativo obbligatorio per tutti. Il tema non andrebbe piu' visto
"come un tabu', del quale non si possa parlare... Non si tratta piu'
solamente di difendere con le armi in pugno la Patria, bensi' di
servirla anche altrimenti".
All'uopo Schily si e' detto favorevole ad ulteriori stravolgimenti
della Costituzione tedesca, i quali seguirebbero le gia' infami riforme
che, sull'onda della propaganda antijugoslava degli anni Novanta, hanno
reso legali i cosiddetti "interventi militari fuori area": bombe su
Belgrado, assistenza sul terreno ai neonazisti pan-albanesi,
occupazione militare dell'Afghanistan, eccetera.
(a cura di Italo Slavo)
+++ Terrorabwehrarbeitsdienst ... +++
AP-Nachrichten - The Associated Press News Service. Copyright 2004, 18.
März
2004, 18:36 Uhr:
Schily fordert soziales Jahr und Erziehung zum Abwehrbewusstsein
Nach den Worten des SPD-Politikers muss angesichts der Gefahr durch den
internationalen Terrorismus ein "Abwehrbewusstsein in der deutschen
Bevölkerung" geschaffen werden. Dabei könne ein soziales
Pflichtjahrhelfen.
Schily sagte, er sehe das Thema "nicht als Tabu an, über das man nicht
reden darf" und forderte eine breite parlamentarische und
gesellschaftliche Debatte. "Es geht dann nicht mehr allein darum, das
Vaterland mit der Waffe in der Hand zu verteidigen, sondern ihm
anderweitig zu dienen." Der Minister sprach sich auch für eine dafür
notwendige Grundgesetzänderung aus.
( Quelle: Klaus von Raussendorff / Anti-Imperialistische Korrespondenz
(AIKor) - http://www.aikor.de )
[ Un significativo comunicato del Partito Comunista di Slovenia sul
ruolo deleterio svolto dall'imperialismo germanico non solo ai danni
della economia slovena, ma ai danni di tutte le nazionalita' dello
spazio jugoslavo.
(Chi potesse tradurre questo testo in tempi brevi e' pregato di
inviarci subito la versione in lingua italiana - grazie!) ]
http://komunist.free.fr/arhiva/apr2004/kps_03.html
Arhiva : : April 2004.
Austro-German financial imperialism strongly endangering nations and
nationalities in the place of the SFRJ
Communist party of Slovenia expresses its concern about even greater
destruction of Slovenian economy, that was built up by Slovenian
natives with the help of all Yugoslav nations and nationalities and the
working class of the SFRJ as well as federal governmental financial and
political institutions of the SFRJ, and National Bank of Yugoslavia,
respectively.
Communist party of Slovenia points to the rising destruction of
factories as well as to crisis and chaos spreading, to great state
debts, which are officially 50-times higher than they were before 1989,
as well as to the overtaking of national firms by Austrian financial
capital in several hundred factories, and in five banks. As Federal
Republic of Germany became owner of Austrian banks, influence of German
financial imperialism was automatically transferred to Slovenia.
Slovenian factories and firms (2600 at the time of Marshall Tito) had
been constructed to bring about social development of the SFRJ, not for
reanimation of Austrian economy or for exploitation on the part of
Austro-German financial imperialism, therefore regular membership of
Slovenia in the European Union is unlawful and just a coat to hide
exploitation in Slovenia as well as in the Balkans.
In other regions too, where there the wild privatisation was practised,
and legalised robbery of the factories carried our, the destruction of
the nationalised folk's property to the benefit of Austro-German
financial capital took place. In the other republics their debts to
Germany are increasing to the height where there is no coverage in
state reserves not even for bank interests.
Regarding Slovenia, its only possibility to cooperate in the Union is
in the same form as SFRJ had done with EWG (European economic
community). Its full membership means an attack on the whole region of
the SFRJ and a complete destroyal and colonisation of Slovenian
economy, finances and the state, nation and nationalities.
Regarding the NATO, the Balkans nations have firstly think of
themselves, that means that no membership is allowed for any form of
cooperation taht differs the one of the SFRJ time. The endeavours of
the Haag group of the investigated persons from Slovenia, to come
closer to NATO in exchange of prevention of charges in the Haag!
Slovenia has already been a member of Partnerstvo za mir, and a
regular NATO membership would not be in conformity neither with
Slovenian Constitution nor with a conference on Yugoslavia-SFRJ, and
not with AVNOJ decisions, and other international conferences.
The Haag Court investigated the former President of Slovenia and some
other persons, who participated in criminal activities.
Besides economic destruction in Slovenia and catastrophy like growing
debts, several time greater than ever in the history before, the wild
privatisation is strongly felt � that is a legalised robbery of 2600
factories, parallel with factories destruction and debts without
guarantee, an economic and land colonisation will follow upon demand of
creditors, the life standard is falling daily, slowly but persistently
the situation is worsening.
It had started with violation of the SFRJ Constitution, and dismantling
of socialism, followed by the establishment of wild privatisation and
wild bourgeois states with fascist elements. And after dismantling of
socialist system, material robbery followed and after it non-material
robbery, that is no respect for people, workers, communists, atheists,
national masses, dishonoured and deprived of justice.
Starting withArticle 238 of the Constitution stating that no one in the
place of the SFRJ or in any part of the SFRJ can sign any capitulation.
After dismantling of socialism, introduction of wild privatisation,
and robbery of the factories and firms, science was ruined, scientific
invention given to Germany for evaluation. After destroyal of several
hundred firms the massive state debts started.
In the interest of capitalist pressure groups � some factories were
blown up by dynamite. Slovenian media and press centres have launched
warnings about series of heavy pressure groups from violation of
Constitution to the destruction of irms, under high penalties �
imprisonments, the individuals causing constant criminal acts, bringing
them according to legal measures, several 20 years of imprisonment or
correspondingly, dealth penalties.
In the meda amd pther organisations there are strives to put in the
court nost only the Haaginvestigated persons but also other destroyers
and the actors of heavier criminal acts. Complaintsin Austria and
Germany, about their activities in the Balkans were not responded.
Even pressure upon Slovenian regions in Austria are becoming stronger,
the import of the right extremists from the Danube basin to K�rnten and
Steiermark additionally. It violates the 5th Article of Austrian
neutrality contract. Austria has obstructed its own neutrality by
entering membership of the EU.The signature to participate in military
units will upgrade this obstruction.
Because of the attacks of imperialist pressure greoups, aimed to
Slovenia, Croatia, Serbian nation and national masses respectively, the
whole Balkans, progressive organiations and associations demand
immediate cooperation and common coordination among nations nd
nationalities to defend interests of their own as well a s future
generations in th place of the SFRJ.
24.12.2003 and 07.01.2004
Central committee of the CPS
[Sono state eliminare la parti non di testo del messaggio]
ruolo deleterio svolto dall'imperialismo germanico non solo ai danni
della economia slovena, ma ai danni di tutte le nazionalita' dello
spazio jugoslavo.
(Chi potesse tradurre questo testo in tempi brevi e' pregato di
inviarci subito la versione in lingua italiana - grazie!) ]
http://komunist.free.fr/arhiva/apr2004/kps_03.html
Arhiva : : April 2004.
Austro-German financial imperialism strongly endangering nations and
nationalities in the place of the SFRJ
Communist party of Slovenia expresses its concern about even greater
destruction of Slovenian economy, that was built up by Slovenian
natives with the help of all Yugoslav nations and nationalities and the
working class of the SFRJ as well as federal governmental financial and
political institutions of the SFRJ, and National Bank of Yugoslavia,
respectively.
Communist party of Slovenia points to the rising destruction of
factories as well as to crisis and chaos spreading, to great state
debts, which are officially 50-times higher than they were before 1989,
as well as to the overtaking of national firms by Austrian financial
capital in several hundred factories, and in five banks. As Federal
Republic of Germany became owner of Austrian banks, influence of German
financial imperialism was automatically transferred to Slovenia.
Slovenian factories and firms (2600 at the time of Marshall Tito) had
been constructed to bring about social development of the SFRJ, not for
reanimation of Austrian economy or for exploitation on the part of
Austro-German financial imperialism, therefore regular membership of
Slovenia in the European Union is unlawful and just a coat to hide
exploitation in Slovenia as well as in the Balkans.
In other regions too, where there the wild privatisation was practised,
and legalised robbery of the factories carried our, the destruction of
the nationalised folk's property to the benefit of Austro-German
financial capital took place. In the other republics their debts to
Germany are increasing to the height where there is no coverage in
state reserves not even for bank interests.
Regarding Slovenia, its only possibility to cooperate in the Union is
in the same form as SFRJ had done with EWG (European economic
community). Its full membership means an attack on the whole region of
the SFRJ and a complete destroyal and colonisation of Slovenian
economy, finances and the state, nation and nationalities.
Regarding the NATO, the Balkans nations have firstly think of
themselves, that means that no membership is allowed for any form of
cooperation taht differs the one of the SFRJ time. The endeavours of
the Haag group of the investigated persons from Slovenia, to come
closer to NATO in exchange of prevention of charges in the Haag!
Slovenia has already been a member of Partnerstvo za mir, and a
regular NATO membership would not be in conformity neither with
Slovenian Constitution nor with a conference on Yugoslavia-SFRJ, and
not with AVNOJ decisions, and other international conferences.
The Haag Court investigated the former President of Slovenia and some
other persons, who participated in criminal activities.
Besides economic destruction in Slovenia and catastrophy like growing
debts, several time greater than ever in the history before, the wild
privatisation is strongly felt � that is a legalised robbery of 2600
factories, parallel with factories destruction and debts without
guarantee, an economic and land colonisation will follow upon demand of
creditors, the life standard is falling daily, slowly but persistently
the situation is worsening.
It had started with violation of the SFRJ Constitution, and dismantling
of socialism, followed by the establishment of wild privatisation and
wild bourgeois states with fascist elements. And after dismantling of
socialist system, material robbery followed and after it non-material
robbery, that is no respect for people, workers, communists, atheists,
national masses, dishonoured and deprived of justice.
Starting withArticle 238 of the Constitution stating that no one in the
place of the SFRJ or in any part of the SFRJ can sign any capitulation.
After dismantling of socialism, introduction of wild privatisation,
and robbery of the factories and firms, science was ruined, scientific
invention given to Germany for evaluation. After destroyal of several
hundred firms the massive state debts started.
In the interest of capitalist pressure groups � some factories were
blown up by dynamite. Slovenian media and press centres have launched
warnings about series of heavy pressure groups from violation of
Constitution to the destruction of irms, under high penalties �
imprisonments, the individuals causing constant criminal acts, bringing
them according to legal measures, several 20 years of imprisonment or
correspondingly, dealth penalties.
In the meda amd pther organisations there are strives to put in the
court nost only the Haaginvestigated persons but also other destroyers
and the actors of heavier criminal acts. Complaintsin Austria and
Germany, about their activities in the Balkans were not responded.
Even pressure upon Slovenian regions in Austria are becoming stronger,
the import of the right extremists from the Danube basin to K�rnten and
Steiermark additionally. It violates the 5th Article of Austrian
neutrality contract. Austria has obstructed its own neutrality by
entering membership of the EU.The signature to participate in military
units will upgrade this obstruction.
Because of the attacks of imperialist pressure greoups, aimed to
Slovenia, Croatia, Serbian nation and national masses respectively, the
whole Balkans, progressive organiations and associations demand
immediate cooperation and common coordination among nations nd
nationalities to defend interests of their own as well a s future
generations in th place of the SFRJ.
24.12.2003 and 07.01.2004
Central committee of the CPS
[Sono state eliminare la parti non di testo del messaggio]
Da Mauro Gemma riceviamo e giriamo:
1. APARTHEID IN LETTONIA: LA MINORANZA RUSSA SI MOBILITA PER I SUOI
DIRITTI
* L�EUROPA AIUTERA� LA COMUNITA� RUSSA DELLA LETTONIA? di Jana Amelina,
IA �Rosbalt�, Mosca
* LETTONIA: SCIOPERO DEGLI STUDENTI DELLE SCUOLE RUSSE - www.leviy.ru,
15 aprile 2004
2. LA COMMISSIONE PER I DIRITTI UMANI DELL�ONU CONDANNA ESTONIA E
LETTONIA PER LA RIABILITAZIONE DEL PASSATO NAZISTA
=== 1 ===
APARTHEID IN LETTONIA: LA MINORANZA RUSSA SI MOBILITA PER I SUOI
DIRITTI.
Ma in questo caso, Prodi e la Commissione Europea fanno finta di non
vedere
---
L�EUROPA AIUTERA� LA COMUNITA� RUSSA DELLA LETTONIA?
di Jana Amelina, IA �Rosbalt�, Mosca
www.atvr.ru , 13 aprile 2004
Il �Seima� (parlamento) della Lettonia, in terza, definitiva stesura,
ha approvato gli emendamenti alla legge sull�istruzione. Il comma 3 del
punto 9 della legge recita: dal 1 settembre 2004 �negli istituti
scolastici statali e municipali, in cui sono previsti programmi di
istruzione delle minoranze nazionali, a partire dalla 10� classe le
lezioni verranno impartite nella lingua statale (lettone) in armonia
con il modello statale di istruzione media generale�.
In accordo con tale modello, nella lingua statale verranno insegnate
non meno del 60% delle materie. Il tempo restante verr� dedicato
all�insegnamento nelle lingue delle minoranze nazionali di materie
collegate alla lingua, all�identit� e alla cultura. Queste ultime
verranno concordate dalla scuola stessa con il Ministero
dell�istruzione e della scienza. �Il varo di questa legge rappresenta
un serio passo nella direzione dello sradicamento dell�istruzione media
in lingua russa�, - si afferma in un comunicato emesso lo stesso giorno
dal Ministero degli Affari Esteri della Federazione Russa. �Esso
condurr� inevitabilmente ad un peggioramento della situazione, a un
deciso abbassamento della qualit� dell�istruzione dei russofoni che
frequentano le scuole lettoni, all�emergere di nuove differenze sociali
e discriminazioni nei diritti�.
Come informa la �Business&Balta� di Riga, i rappresentanti
dell�opposizione parlamentare di sinistra hanno proposto di insegnare
nelle scuole delle minoranze nazionali non meno di tre materie, insieme
al lettone e alla letteratura. A parere del deputato del gruppo �Per i
diritti dell�uomo nella Lettonia unita� (� il nome della coalizione, in
cui erano presenti anche i comunisti del Partito Socialista di
Lettonia) Jakov Pliner, questa � l�unica possibilit� di evitare
l�abbandono delle scuole a settembre.
Ma i partiti di destra, respingendo ogni proposta, che introducesse
cambiamenti nella riforma oppure un attenuazione del meccanismo che
costringe le scuole russe all�uso della lingua lettone, e accusando
l�opposizione di sinistra di �ignoranza�, di estremismo e di
�complicit� con i colonizzatori�, hanno mantenuto la stesura iniziale.
Non � servita neppure la grandiosa manifestazione, realizzata dalle
organizzazioni russe della Lettonia di fronte al palazzo del �Seima�, a
cui hanno partecipato, secondo dati di diverse fonti, da 5.000 a 15.000
studenti e genitori russi. Naturalmente, non si � tenuto in
considerazione neppure il parere della Duma di Stato russa. Per gli
emendamenti discriminatori hanno votato a favore 71 deputati, contro 25.
La decisione dei deputati lettoni riguarda circa 120.000 studenti delle
scuole russe, che rappresentano circa un terzo di tutti gli studenti
della Lettonia. In tutto parla russo circa il 40% degli abitanti del
paese. Il presidente dell�Associazione Lettone delle scuole ad
insegnamento russo Igor Pimenov ha fatto appello al presidente della
Repubblica Lettone Vaira Vike Freiberga, perch� rinvii la legge al
parlamento per un ulteriore esame. Egli gli ha anche proposto di
intervenire con un�iniziativa di �moratoria sulla riforma del 2004� e
di iniziare una discussione a livello nazionale sui problemi
dell�istruzione, ma senza ottenere finora una risposta. I deputati del
gruppo �Per i diritti dell�uomo nella Lettonia unita� e il Partito
socialista di Lettonia hanno avanzato una richiesta di sfiducia nei
confronti di uno degli autori degli emendamenti, il ministro
dell�istruzione e dell�educazione Karlis Shadurskis. Lo stesso giorno
tutto il governo si dimetteva, anche se per altre cause�
Ma le scuole russe, se si pu� usare tale espressione, �potevano versare
ancora pi� sangue�. Il progetto di legge, adottato dal �Seima� in
seconda lettura, prevedeva un taglio ancora pi� drastico delle materie
di insegnamento nelle lingue delle minoranze nazionali. Come si fa
notare nel comunicato emesso dal Ministero degli Affari Esteri russo, i
legislatori lettoni si sono mossi su uno schema prefissato. Nel corso
della preparazione dei progetti di legge particolarmente significativi
per la parte della societ� che parla la lingua russa, �essi all�inizio
reagiscono alle proteste con un peggioramento nella redazione del
documento, rendendolo decisamente �impresentabile�, per poi tornare
sulla variante iniziale, presentando la cosa come un passo incontro
alle esigenze dell�opinione pubblica russofona e delle organizzazioni
internazionali�. �Speriamo che questo trucco non confonda gli
osservatori in Europa e negli USA�, - si sottolinea nel documento. �La
variante di compromesso assunta � il risultato del lavoro del Ministero
degli Affari Esteri russo, delle reazioni della comunit� russofona
della Lettonia e dell�opinione pubblica russa�, - ha dichiarato a
�Rosbalt� il consigliere del secondo dipartimento europeo del Ministero
degli Affari Esteri della Federazione Russa Andrey Skachkov.
Come ha dichiarato in un�intervista alla stazione radio �Golos Rossij�
(Voce della Russia) il vice-speaker della Duma di Stato Dmitrij Rogozin
(attuale leader di �Rodina�), i nazional-sciovinisti lettoni di fatto
intendono rifarsi sui ragazzi dei rancori, legati al periodo
dell�esistenza della Repubblica Socialista Sovietica Lettone, riducendo
al minimo la quantit� delle materie impartite in lingua russa. Lo stato
lettone si sviluppa sulla base del nazismo nel campo dell�istruzione.
Ci� � in contraddizione con le tradizioni di difesa delle lingue delle
minoranze nazionali nei paesi dell�Unione Europea�. Il deputato �
convinto che i problemi della minoranza russa in Lettonia possono
essere risolti solo con la partecipazione dell�Unione Europea, di cui
presto la Lettonia sar� membro. �L�Unione Europea oggi ha il dovere di
intervenire, esprimendo la propria contrariet� per ci� che sta
accadendo in Lettonia, oppure deve frenare il processo di accoglimento
della repubblica nell�UE�, - aveva detto in precedenza in una
conferenza-stampa Dmitrij Rogozin.
Ma i diplomatici russi prevedono che molti ostacoli si frapporranno a
che ci� avvenga. � Gi� fin da ora sarebbe auspicabile far uscire dal
punto morto in cui si trova la questione del rispetto dei diritti umani
della comunit� russofona della Lettonia�, - commenta cos� la situazione
Andrey Skachkov. �Dopo l�ingresso del paese nell�Unione Europea, ci
dicono i baltici, la Russia dovr� cercare una soluzione con Bruxelles.
Inoltre, la reazione dei paesi dell�UE a ci� che sta succedendo con
l�istruzione russa in Lettonia al momento � sconosciuta. Vorremmo che
si dimostrasse pi� adeguata: l�OSCE e il Consiglio d�Europa reagiscono
a tali avvenimenti in modo significativamente pi� duro. Si dice che la
Lettonia e l�Estonia corrispondono ai criteri formali di ammissione
all�Unione Europea, con riferimento esclusivo alle problematiche
economiche. Per questa ragione il Ministero degli Affari Esteri della
Russia pone in modo particolarmente fermo la questione del rispetto dei
diritti umani della popolazione russofona della Lettonia�.
Cos�, la ratifica della convenzione del Consiglio d�Europa in materia
di difesa delle minoranze nazionali, e degli altri documenti
internazionali, che intervengono in loro difesa � una questione
lasciata esclusivamente alla buona volont�. I meccanismi, in grado di
obbligare un membro dell�Europa unita ad adempiere agli impegni assunti
in tale ambito, semplicemente mancano.
In relazione al varo degli emendamenti discriminatori il gruppo del
Partito Comunista della Federazione Russa (PCFR) alla Duma di Stato ha
diffuso una dichiarazione con un appello ad adottare contro la
Lettonia, �che viola pesantemente le norme del diritto internazionale
nell�ambito dei diritti dell�uomo�, sanzioni economiche e a ritirare
l�ambasciatore russo da Riga. Ad avviso dei comunisti, il presidente
della Russia dovrebbe assumere �immediate efficaci misure per
l�abolizione del sistema dell�apartheid in Lettonia�.
Ma fare affidamento su ci�, come sul fatto che �i nostri MIG stazionano
a Riga� appare poco realistico.
I diplomatici mettono in relazione le caute speranze di un
miglioramento della situazione dei russofoni in Lettonia con le
avvenute dimissioni del governo della repubblica, nel giorno del varo
del progetto di legge. �In Lettonia ci sono forze sane� �, afferma con
convinzione Andrey Skachkov. �Tra esse possiamo annoverare, in
particolare, il Partito della Concordia del Popolo e �Per i diritti
dell�uomo nella Lettonia Unita�. Se i loro rappresentanti dovessero
entrare in un nuovo gabinetto, sarebbero senz�altro possibili
cambiamenti in meglio�.
Finora, come si fa notare nella dichiarazione del Ministero degli
Affari Esteri, la controparte russa ha fatto appello alle autorit�
della Lettonia perch� impediscano un clima di scontro nella societ� e
prestino ascolto alle giuste richieste dei cittadini di lingua russa
del paese. �Il primo passo in tale direzione deve essere rappresentato
dall�inizio di un dialogo costruttivo con la comunit� di lingua russa e
dall�elaborazione di una variante della riforma scolastica, che
favorisca una completa istruzione per la nuova generazione di cittadini
di lingua russa del paese, che garantisca loro la fiducia nel futuro e
che dimostri concretamente l�attaccamento della Lettonia ai valori
democratici, fissati dai documenti dell�ONU, del Consiglio d�Europa e
dell�OSCE�, - si afferma nel documento.
Ma verremo ascoltati?���������
---
�
LETTONIA: SCIOPERO DEGLI STUDENTI DELLE SCUOLE RUSSE
www.leviy.ru, 15 aprile 2004
�
Oggi in Lettonia ha inizio lo sciopero generale degli studenti delle
scuole russe, per il diritto all�insegnamento nella lingua madre.
La decisione della proclamazione dello sciopero � stata presa il 6
marzo a Riga dal �Congresso lettone dei difensori della scuole russe�.
All�azione prendono parte gli studenti di tutte le 64 scuole russe di
Riga e della maggioranza delle scuole russe di Ventspils, Daugavspils,
Jelgava, Liepaja e di altre citt� della Lettonia, secondo quanto hanno
dichiarato a RIA �Novosti� i dirigenti del movimento.
In tutto, allo sciopero parteciperanno non meno di 50.000 persone
(studenti, genitori ed insegnanti), ha dichiarato Jurij
Petropavlovskij, uno dei dirigenti, in un�intervista a RIA �Novosti�.
Nei manifesti di convocazione dello sciopero si afferma che l�azione
avr� inizio nella mattinata del 15 aprile, con il raduno dei
partecipanti di fronte al monumento dedicato al poeta lettone Rainis
nel parco �Esplanada�, collocato nel centro della citt�.
Alle 11,00 i membri della delegazione trattante, eletta dal �Congresso
dei difensori delle scuole russe�, si diriger� al Palazzo del Governo
della Lettonia, per consegnare al primo ministro Indulis Emsis la
petizione dal titolo �Questa riforma non � necessaria�.
Nel documento si formula la richiesta di una moratoria riguardo alla
messa in pratica della legge sull�istruzione, che prevede, in
particolare, che dal 1 settembre 2004, nelle scuole medie delle
minoranze nazionali, la maggior parte delle materie venga insegnata non
nella lingua madre, ma in lettone.
Il 16 aprile, secondo giorno di sciopero, i partecipanti si raduneranno
di fronte al palazzo del tribunale, dove si sta svolgendo il
dibattimento sulla causa presentata contro il deputato della Duma di
Riga Aleksandr Gilman. Egli � stato accusato di violazione della
legislazione lettone, in occasione della convocazione delle
manifestazioni degli studenti delle scuole russe, svoltesi a Riga il 5
e l�11 febbraio.
Nel pomeriggio, nella Piazza della Casa dei Congressi, si svolger� il
meeting dal titolo �Lezione all�aperto di lingua e cultura russa per il
governo�.
�
Traduzione dal russo di Mauro Gemma�������
=== 2 ===
LA COMMISSIONE PER I DIRITTI UMANI DELL�ONU CONDANNA ESTONIA E LETTONIA
PER LA RIABILITAZIONE DEL PASSATO NAZISTA
www.strana.ru , 16 aprile 2004
�
Nel sito russo �Strana.ru� (vicino all�amministrazione presidenziale) �
apparsa la notizia relativa al varo da parte della �Commissione ONU per
i diritti dell�uomo� di una risoluzione �antifascista� presentata
congiuntamente da Russia e Bielorussia di condanna della riabilitazione
del passato nazista in atto in Lettonia ed Estonia, alla vigilia
dell�ingresso dei due stati baltici nell�Unione Europea.
�
(�)
Esemplare � stata l�approvazione (da parte della Commissione per i
diritti umani dell�ONU) di una risoluzione antifascista che colpisce
direttamente la politica di Lettonia ed Estonia, che il 1 maggio
faranno il loro ingresso nell�UE. La risoluzione ha ottenuto il voto di
36 paesi. La Commissione ha espresso �profonda preoccupazione per la
glorificazione degli ex appartenenti alle �Waffen SS�, per
l�inaugurazione di monumenti e memoriali ad essi dedicati, ed anche per
lo svolgimento di dimostrazioni pubbliche degli ex SS. Alla vigilia del
59� anniversario della vittoria sul fascismo i membri della Commissione
hanno stabilito che simili azioni e organizzazioni �insultano la
memoria delle innumerevoli vittime delle organizzazioni SS e avvelenano
la coscienza delle giovani generazioni� e sono incompatibili con gli
impegni assunti dagli stati-membri dell�ONU.
La risoluzione fa appello ai membri dell�ONU perch� ostacolino la
diffusione in tutto il mondo di simili movimenti, gruppi e partiti
politici. Per quanto riguarda la Lettonia e l�Estonia, in cui sono
ancora presenti le �legioni Waffen SS�, �moderne forme di razzismo� e
dove discriminazioni vengono praticate nei confronti della popolazione
di lingua russa, la vittoria, dal punto di vista di Mosca, � da
ritenersi significativa sul piano della precisazione delle priorit�
nella lotta per i diritti dell�uomo. Come � noto, in questi paesi
agiscono apertamente organizzazioni neonaziste condannate nella
risoluzione, vengono inaugurati monumenti agli �eroi� del Reich e, in
Lettonia, ogni anno, nel �Giorno dell�indipendenza�, si svolgono cortei
della cosiddetta �legione lettone delle Waffen SS�.
L�approvazione, alla vigilia dell�allargamento dell�Unione Europea, di
una risoluzione che apre gli occhi sulla violazione dei diritti
dell�uomo nelle repubbliche baltiche, rappresenta un avvenimento
esemplare. Si potr� cos� far intendere a Riga e a Tallin che, entrando
nella comunit� europea, dovranno rinunciare alle loro concezioni
nazionalistiche. Ma, se si considera l�approccio dell�Unione Europea al
problema ceceno, allora appare comprensibile perch� a Bruxelles
chiudano gli occhi su quanto sta avvenendo in Lettonia ed Estonia. La
Russia si � dunque dotata, con la risoluzione che condanna il fascismo,
di un solido argomento.
�
Traduzione dal russo di Mauro Gemma��
[Sono state eliminare la parti non di testo del messaggio]
1. APARTHEID IN LETTONIA: LA MINORANZA RUSSA SI MOBILITA PER I SUOI
DIRITTI
* L�EUROPA AIUTERA� LA COMUNITA� RUSSA DELLA LETTONIA? di Jana Amelina,
IA �Rosbalt�, Mosca
* LETTONIA: SCIOPERO DEGLI STUDENTI DELLE SCUOLE RUSSE - www.leviy.ru,
15 aprile 2004
2. LA COMMISSIONE PER I DIRITTI UMANI DELL�ONU CONDANNA ESTONIA E
LETTONIA PER LA RIABILITAZIONE DEL PASSATO NAZISTA
=== 1 ===
APARTHEID IN LETTONIA: LA MINORANZA RUSSA SI MOBILITA PER I SUOI
DIRITTI.
Ma in questo caso, Prodi e la Commissione Europea fanno finta di non
vedere
---
L�EUROPA AIUTERA� LA COMUNITA� RUSSA DELLA LETTONIA?
di Jana Amelina, IA �Rosbalt�, Mosca
www.atvr.ru , 13 aprile 2004
Il �Seima� (parlamento) della Lettonia, in terza, definitiva stesura,
ha approvato gli emendamenti alla legge sull�istruzione. Il comma 3 del
punto 9 della legge recita: dal 1 settembre 2004 �negli istituti
scolastici statali e municipali, in cui sono previsti programmi di
istruzione delle minoranze nazionali, a partire dalla 10� classe le
lezioni verranno impartite nella lingua statale (lettone) in armonia
con il modello statale di istruzione media generale�.
In accordo con tale modello, nella lingua statale verranno insegnate
non meno del 60% delle materie. Il tempo restante verr� dedicato
all�insegnamento nelle lingue delle minoranze nazionali di materie
collegate alla lingua, all�identit� e alla cultura. Queste ultime
verranno concordate dalla scuola stessa con il Ministero
dell�istruzione e della scienza. �Il varo di questa legge rappresenta
un serio passo nella direzione dello sradicamento dell�istruzione media
in lingua russa�, - si afferma in un comunicato emesso lo stesso giorno
dal Ministero degli Affari Esteri della Federazione Russa. �Esso
condurr� inevitabilmente ad un peggioramento della situazione, a un
deciso abbassamento della qualit� dell�istruzione dei russofoni che
frequentano le scuole lettoni, all�emergere di nuove differenze sociali
e discriminazioni nei diritti�.
Come informa la �Business&Balta� di Riga, i rappresentanti
dell�opposizione parlamentare di sinistra hanno proposto di insegnare
nelle scuole delle minoranze nazionali non meno di tre materie, insieme
al lettone e alla letteratura. A parere del deputato del gruppo �Per i
diritti dell�uomo nella Lettonia unita� (� il nome della coalizione, in
cui erano presenti anche i comunisti del Partito Socialista di
Lettonia) Jakov Pliner, questa � l�unica possibilit� di evitare
l�abbandono delle scuole a settembre.
Ma i partiti di destra, respingendo ogni proposta, che introducesse
cambiamenti nella riforma oppure un attenuazione del meccanismo che
costringe le scuole russe all�uso della lingua lettone, e accusando
l�opposizione di sinistra di �ignoranza�, di estremismo e di
�complicit� con i colonizzatori�, hanno mantenuto la stesura iniziale.
Non � servita neppure la grandiosa manifestazione, realizzata dalle
organizzazioni russe della Lettonia di fronte al palazzo del �Seima�, a
cui hanno partecipato, secondo dati di diverse fonti, da 5.000 a 15.000
studenti e genitori russi. Naturalmente, non si � tenuto in
considerazione neppure il parere della Duma di Stato russa. Per gli
emendamenti discriminatori hanno votato a favore 71 deputati, contro 25.
La decisione dei deputati lettoni riguarda circa 120.000 studenti delle
scuole russe, che rappresentano circa un terzo di tutti gli studenti
della Lettonia. In tutto parla russo circa il 40% degli abitanti del
paese. Il presidente dell�Associazione Lettone delle scuole ad
insegnamento russo Igor Pimenov ha fatto appello al presidente della
Repubblica Lettone Vaira Vike Freiberga, perch� rinvii la legge al
parlamento per un ulteriore esame. Egli gli ha anche proposto di
intervenire con un�iniziativa di �moratoria sulla riforma del 2004� e
di iniziare una discussione a livello nazionale sui problemi
dell�istruzione, ma senza ottenere finora una risposta. I deputati del
gruppo �Per i diritti dell�uomo nella Lettonia unita� e il Partito
socialista di Lettonia hanno avanzato una richiesta di sfiducia nei
confronti di uno degli autori degli emendamenti, il ministro
dell�istruzione e dell�educazione Karlis Shadurskis. Lo stesso giorno
tutto il governo si dimetteva, anche se per altre cause�
Ma le scuole russe, se si pu� usare tale espressione, �potevano versare
ancora pi� sangue�. Il progetto di legge, adottato dal �Seima� in
seconda lettura, prevedeva un taglio ancora pi� drastico delle materie
di insegnamento nelle lingue delle minoranze nazionali. Come si fa
notare nel comunicato emesso dal Ministero degli Affari Esteri russo, i
legislatori lettoni si sono mossi su uno schema prefissato. Nel corso
della preparazione dei progetti di legge particolarmente significativi
per la parte della societ� che parla la lingua russa, �essi all�inizio
reagiscono alle proteste con un peggioramento nella redazione del
documento, rendendolo decisamente �impresentabile�, per poi tornare
sulla variante iniziale, presentando la cosa come un passo incontro
alle esigenze dell�opinione pubblica russofona e delle organizzazioni
internazionali�. �Speriamo che questo trucco non confonda gli
osservatori in Europa e negli USA�, - si sottolinea nel documento. �La
variante di compromesso assunta � il risultato del lavoro del Ministero
degli Affari Esteri russo, delle reazioni della comunit� russofona
della Lettonia e dell�opinione pubblica russa�, - ha dichiarato a
�Rosbalt� il consigliere del secondo dipartimento europeo del Ministero
degli Affari Esteri della Federazione Russa Andrey Skachkov.
Come ha dichiarato in un�intervista alla stazione radio �Golos Rossij�
(Voce della Russia) il vice-speaker della Duma di Stato Dmitrij Rogozin
(attuale leader di �Rodina�), i nazional-sciovinisti lettoni di fatto
intendono rifarsi sui ragazzi dei rancori, legati al periodo
dell�esistenza della Repubblica Socialista Sovietica Lettone, riducendo
al minimo la quantit� delle materie impartite in lingua russa. Lo stato
lettone si sviluppa sulla base del nazismo nel campo dell�istruzione.
Ci� � in contraddizione con le tradizioni di difesa delle lingue delle
minoranze nazionali nei paesi dell�Unione Europea�. Il deputato �
convinto che i problemi della minoranza russa in Lettonia possono
essere risolti solo con la partecipazione dell�Unione Europea, di cui
presto la Lettonia sar� membro. �L�Unione Europea oggi ha il dovere di
intervenire, esprimendo la propria contrariet� per ci� che sta
accadendo in Lettonia, oppure deve frenare il processo di accoglimento
della repubblica nell�UE�, - aveva detto in precedenza in una
conferenza-stampa Dmitrij Rogozin.
Ma i diplomatici russi prevedono che molti ostacoli si frapporranno a
che ci� avvenga. � Gi� fin da ora sarebbe auspicabile far uscire dal
punto morto in cui si trova la questione del rispetto dei diritti umani
della comunit� russofona della Lettonia�, - commenta cos� la situazione
Andrey Skachkov. �Dopo l�ingresso del paese nell�Unione Europea, ci
dicono i baltici, la Russia dovr� cercare una soluzione con Bruxelles.
Inoltre, la reazione dei paesi dell�UE a ci� che sta succedendo con
l�istruzione russa in Lettonia al momento � sconosciuta. Vorremmo che
si dimostrasse pi� adeguata: l�OSCE e il Consiglio d�Europa reagiscono
a tali avvenimenti in modo significativamente pi� duro. Si dice che la
Lettonia e l�Estonia corrispondono ai criteri formali di ammissione
all�Unione Europea, con riferimento esclusivo alle problematiche
economiche. Per questa ragione il Ministero degli Affari Esteri della
Russia pone in modo particolarmente fermo la questione del rispetto dei
diritti umani della popolazione russofona della Lettonia�.
Cos�, la ratifica della convenzione del Consiglio d�Europa in materia
di difesa delle minoranze nazionali, e degli altri documenti
internazionali, che intervengono in loro difesa � una questione
lasciata esclusivamente alla buona volont�. I meccanismi, in grado di
obbligare un membro dell�Europa unita ad adempiere agli impegni assunti
in tale ambito, semplicemente mancano.
In relazione al varo degli emendamenti discriminatori il gruppo del
Partito Comunista della Federazione Russa (PCFR) alla Duma di Stato ha
diffuso una dichiarazione con un appello ad adottare contro la
Lettonia, �che viola pesantemente le norme del diritto internazionale
nell�ambito dei diritti dell�uomo�, sanzioni economiche e a ritirare
l�ambasciatore russo da Riga. Ad avviso dei comunisti, il presidente
della Russia dovrebbe assumere �immediate efficaci misure per
l�abolizione del sistema dell�apartheid in Lettonia�.
Ma fare affidamento su ci�, come sul fatto che �i nostri MIG stazionano
a Riga� appare poco realistico.
I diplomatici mettono in relazione le caute speranze di un
miglioramento della situazione dei russofoni in Lettonia con le
avvenute dimissioni del governo della repubblica, nel giorno del varo
del progetto di legge. �In Lettonia ci sono forze sane� �, afferma con
convinzione Andrey Skachkov. �Tra esse possiamo annoverare, in
particolare, il Partito della Concordia del Popolo e �Per i diritti
dell�uomo nella Lettonia Unita�. Se i loro rappresentanti dovessero
entrare in un nuovo gabinetto, sarebbero senz�altro possibili
cambiamenti in meglio�.
Finora, come si fa notare nella dichiarazione del Ministero degli
Affari Esteri, la controparte russa ha fatto appello alle autorit�
della Lettonia perch� impediscano un clima di scontro nella societ� e
prestino ascolto alle giuste richieste dei cittadini di lingua russa
del paese. �Il primo passo in tale direzione deve essere rappresentato
dall�inizio di un dialogo costruttivo con la comunit� di lingua russa e
dall�elaborazione di una variante della riforma scolastica, che
favorisca una completa istruzione per la nuova generazione di cittadini
di lingua russa del paese, che garantisca loro la fiducia nel futuro e
che dimostri concretamente l�attaccamento della Lettonia ai valori
democratici, fissati dai documenti dell�ONU, del Consiglio d�Europa e
dell�OSCE�, - si afferma nel documento.
Ma verremo ascoltati?���������
---
�
LETTONIA: SCIOPERO DEGLI STUDENTI DELLE SCUOLE RUSSE
www.leviy.ru, 15 aprile 2004
�
Oggi in Lettonia ha inizio lo sciopero generale degli studenti delle
scuole russe, per il diritto all�insegnamento nella lingua madre.
La decisione della proclamazione dello sciopero � stata presa il 6
marzo a Riga dal �Congresso lettone dei difensori della scuole russe�.
All�azione prendono parte gli studenti di tutte le 64 scuole russe di
Riga e della maggioranza delle scuole russe di Ventspils, Daugavspils,
Jelgava, Liepaja e di altre citt� della Lettonia, secondo quanto hanno
dichiarato a RIA �Novosti� i dirigenti del movimento.
In tutto, allo sciopero parteciperanno non meno di 50.000 persone
(studenti, genitori ed insegnanti), ha dichiarato Jurij
Petropavlovskij, uno dei dirigenti, in un�intervista a RIA �Novosti�.
Nei manifesti di convocazione dello sciopero si afferma che l�azione
avr� inizio nella mattinata del 15 aprile, con il raduno dei
partecipanti di fronte al monumento dedicato al poeta lettone Rainis
nel parco �Esplanada�, collocato nel centro della citt�.
Alle 11,00 i membri della delegazione trattante, eletta dal �Congresso
dei difensori delle scuole russe�, si diriger� al Palazzo del Governo
della Lettonia, per consegnare al primo ministro Indulis Emsis la
petizione dal titolo �Questa riforma non � necessaria�.
Nel documento si formula la richiesta di una moratoria riguardo alla
messa in pratica della legge sull�istruzione, che prevede, in
particolare, che dal 1 settembre 2004, nelle scuole medie delle
minoranze nazionali, la maggior parte delle materie venga insegnata non
nella lingua madre, ma in lettone.
Il 16 aprile, secondo giorno di sciopero, i partecipanti si raduneranno
di fronte al palazzo del tribunale, dove si sta svolgendo il
dibattimento sulla causa presentata contro il deputato della Duma di
Riga Aleksandr Gilman. Egli � stato accusato di violazione della
legislazione lettone, in occasione della convocazione delle
manifestazioni degli studenti delle scuole russe, svoltesi a Riga il 5
e l�11 febbraio.
Nel pomeriggio, nella Piazza della Casa dei Congressi, si svolger� il
meeting dal titolo �Lezione all�aperto di lingua e cultura russa per il
governo�.
�
Traduzione dal russo di Mauro Gemma�������
=== 2 ===
LA COMMISSIONE PER I DIRITTI UMANI DELL�ONU CONDANNA ESTONIA E LETTONIA
PER LA RIABILITAZIONE DEL PASSATO NAZISTA
www.strana.ru , 16 aprile 2004
�
Nel sito russo �Strana.ru� (vicino all�amministrazione presidenziale) �
apparsa la notizia relativa al varo da parte della �Commissione ONU per
i diritti dell�uomo� di una risoluzione �antifascista� presentata
congiuntamente da Russia e Bielorussia di condanna della riabilitazione
del passato nazista in atto in Lettonia ed Estonia, alla vigilia
dell�ingresso dei due stati baltici nell�Unione Europea.
�
(�)
Esemplare � stata l�approvazione (da parte della Commissione per i
diritti umani dell�ONU) di una risoluzione antifascista che colpisce
direttamente la politica di Lettonia ed Estonia, che il 1 maggio
faranno il loro ingresso nell�UE. La risoluzione ha ottenuto il voto di
36 paesi. La Commissione ha espresso �profonda preoccupazione per la
glorificazione degli ex appartenenti alle �Waffen SS�, per
l�inaugurazione di monumenti e memoriali ad essi dedicati, ed anche per
lo svolgimento di dimostrazioni pubbliche degli ex SS. Alla vigilia del
59� anniversario della vittoria sul fascismo i membri della Commissione
hanno stabilito che simili azioni e organizzazioni �insultano la
memoria delle innumerevoli vittime delle organizzazioni SS e avvelenano
la coscienza delle giovani generazioni� e sono incompatibili con gli
impegni assunti dagli stati-membri dell�ONU.
La risoluzione fa appello ai membri dell�ONU perch� ostacolino la
diffusione in tutto il mondo di simili movimenti, gruppi e partiti
politici. Per quanto riguarda la Lettonia e l�Estonia, in cui sono
ancora presenti le �legioni Waffen SS�, �moderne forme di razzismo� e
dove discriminazioni vengono praticate nei confronti della popolazione
di lingua russa, la vittoria, dal punto di vista di Mosca, � da
ritenersi significativa sul piano della precisazione delle priorit�
nella lotta per i diritti dell�uomo. Come � noto, in questi paesi
agiscono apertamente organizzazioni neonaziste condannate nella
risoluzione, vengono inaugurati monumenti agli �eroi� del Reich e, in
Lettonia, ogni anno, nel �Giorno dell�indipendenza�, si svolgono cortei
della cosiddetta �legione lettone delle Waffen SS�.
L�approvazione, alla vigilia dell�allargamento dell�Unione Europea, di
una risoluzione che apre gli occhi sulla violazione dei diritti
dell�uomo nelle repubbliche baltiche, rappresenta un avvenimento
esemplare. Si potr� cos� far intendere a Riga e a Tallin che, entrando
nella comunit� europea, dovranno rinunciare alle loro concezioni
nazionalistiche. Ma, se si considera l�approccio dell�Unione Europea al
problema ceceno, allora appare comprensibile perch� a Bruxelles
chiudano gli occhi su quanto sta avvenendo in Lettonia ed Estonia. La
Russia si � dunque dotata, con la risoluzione che condanna il fascismo,
di un solido argomento.
�
Traduzione dal russo di Mauro Gemma��
[Sono state eliminare la parti non di testo del messaggio]
[ Da piu' di una settimana, le truppe statunitensi di occupazione
hanno preso d'assedio la citta' di Falluja. Mentre l'opinione pubblica
occidentale viene distratta da rapimenti di "civili", ai quali viene
dato il massimo risalto mediatico, i morti tra la popolazione locale
sono migliaia. I cecchini USA sparano tranquillamente anche sulle madri
di famiglia, sulle ambulanze, negli ospedali, sicuri di non dover
rispondere a nessuno... ]
Eyewitness Report from Falluja
US snipers in Falluja shoot unarmed man in the back, old woman with
white flag, children fleeing their homes and the ambulance that we were
going in to fetch a woman in premature labour.
by Jo Wilding
April 13th, 2004
Trucks, oil tankers, tanks are burning on the highway east to Falluja.
A stream of boys and men goes to and from a lorry that’s not burnt,
stripping it bare. We turn onto the back roads through Abu Ghraib, Nuha
and Ahrar singing in Arabic, past the vehicles full of people and a few
possessions, heading the other way, past the improvised refreshment
posts along the way where boys throw food through the windows into the
bus for us and for the people inside still inside Falluja.
The bus is following a car with the nephew of a local sheikh and a
guide who has contacts with the Mujahedin and has cleared this with
them. The reason I’m on the bus is that a journalist I knew turned up
at my door at about 11 at night telling me things were desperate in
Falluja, he’d been bringing out children with their limbs blown off,
the US soldiers were going around telling people to leave by dusk or be
killed, but then when people fled with whatever they could carry, they
were being stopped at the US military checkpoint on the edge of town
and not let out, trapped, watching the sun go down.
He said aid vehicles and the media were being turned away. He said
there was some medical aid that needed to go in and there was a better
chance of it getting there with foreigners, westerners, to get through
the american checkpoints. The rest of the way was secured with the
armed groups who control the roads we’d travel on. We’d take in the
medical supplies, see what else we could do to help and then use the
bus to bring out people who needed to leave.
I’ll spare you the whole decision making process, all the questions we
all asked ourselves and each other, and you can spare me the
accusations of madness, but what it came down to was this: if I don’t
do it, who will?
Either way, we arrive in one piece.
We pile the stuff in the corridor and the boxes are torn open
straightaway, the blankets most welcomed. It’s not a hospital at all
but a clinic, a private doctor’s surgery treating people free since air
strikes destroyed the town’s main hospital. Another has been improvised
in a car garage. There’s no anaesthetic. The blood bags are in a drinks
fridge and the doctors warm them up under the hot tap in an unhygienic
toilet.
Screaming women come in, praying, slapping their chests and faces.
Ummi, my mother, one cries. I hold her until Maki, a consultant and
acting director of the clinic, brings me to the bed where a child of
about ten is lying with a bullet wound to the head. A smaller child is
being treated for a similar injury in the next bed. A US sniper hit
them and their grandmother as they left their home to flee Falluja.
The lights go out, the fan stops and in the sudden quiet someone holds
up the flame of a cigarette lighter for the doctor to carry on
operating by. The electricity to the town has been cut off for days and
when the generator runs out of petrol they just have to manage till it
comes back on. Dave quickly donates his torch. The children are not
going to live.
“Come,” says Maki and ushers me alone into a room where an old woman
has just had an abdominal bullet wound stitched up. Another in her leg
is being dressed, the bed under her foot soaked with blood, a white
flag still clutched in her hand and the same story: I was leaving my
home to go to Baghdad when I was hit by a US sniper. Some of the town
is held by US marines, other parts by the local fighters. Their homes
are in the US controlled area and they are adamant that the snipers
were US marines.
Snipers are causing not just carnage but also the paralysis of the
ambulance and evacuation services. The biggest hospital after the main
one was bombed is in US territory and cut off from the clinic by
snipers. The ambulance has been repaired four times after bullet
damage. Bodies are lying in the streets because no one can go to
collect them without being shot.
Some said we were mad to come to Iraq; quite a few said we were
completely insane to come to Falluja and now there are people telling
me that getting in the back of the pick up to go past the snipers and
get sick and injured people is the craziest thing they’ve ever seen. I
know, though, that if we don’t, no one will.
He’s holding a white flag with a red crescent on; I don’t know his
name. The men we pass wave us on when the driver explains where we’re
going. The silence is ferocious in the no man’s land between the pick
up at the edge of the Mujahedin territory, which has just gone from our
sight around the last corner and the marines’ line beyond the next
wall; no birds, no music, no indication that anyone is still living
until a gate opens opposite and a woman comes out, points.
We edge along to the hole in the wall where we can see the car, spent
mortar shells around it. The feet are visible, crossed, in the gutter.
I think he’s dead already. The snipers are visible too, two of them on
the corner of the building. As yet I think they can’t see us so we need
to let them know we’re there.
“Hello,” I bellow at the top of my voice. “Can you hear me?” They must.
They ’re about 30 metres from us, maybe less, and it’s so still you
could hear the flies buzzing at fifty paces. I repeat myself a few
times, still without reply, so decide to explain myself a bit more.
“We are a medical team. We want to remove this wounded man. Is it OK
for us to come out and get him? Can you give us a signal that it’s OK?”
I’m sure they can hear me but they’re still not responding. Maybe they
didn’ t understand it all, so I say the same again. Dave yells too in
his US accent. I yell again. Finally I think I hear a shout back. Not
sure, I call again.
“Hello.”
“Yeah.”
“Can we come out and get him?”
“Yeah,”
Slowly, our hands up, we go out. The black cloud that rises to greet us
carries with it a hot, sour smell. Solidified, his legs are heavy. I
leave them to Rana and Dave, our guide lifting under his hips. The
Kalashnikov is attached by sticky blood to is hair and hand and we
don’t want it with us so I put my foot on it as I pick up his shoulders
and his blood falls out through the hole in his back. We heave him into
the pick up as best we can and try to outrun the flies.
I suppose he was wearing flip flops because he’s barefoot now, no more
than 20 years old, in imitation Nike pants and a blue and black striped
football shirt with a big 28 on the back. As the orderlies form the
clinic pull the young fighter off the pick up, yellow fluid pours from
his mouth and they flip him over, face up, the way into the clinic
clearing in front of them, straight up the ramp into the makeshift
morgue.
We wash the blood off our hands and get in the ambulance. There are
people trapped in the other hospital who need to go to Baghdad. Siren
screaming, lights flashing, we huddle on the floor of the ambulance,
passports and ID cards held out the windows. We pack it with people,
one with his chest taped together and a drip, one on a stretcher, legs
jerking violently so I have to hold them down as we wheel him out,
lifting him over steps.
The hospital is better able to treat them than the clinic but hasn’t
got enough of anything to sort them out properly and the only way to
get them to Baghdad on our bus, which means they have to go to the
clinic. We’re crammed on the floor of the ambulance in case it’s shot
at. Nisareen, a woman doctor about my age, can’t stop a few tears once
we’re out.
The doctor rushes out to meet me: “Can you go to fetch a lady, she is
pregnant and she is delivering the baby too soon?”
Azzam is driving, Ahmed in the middle directing him and me by the
window, the visible foreigner, the passport. Something scatters across
my hand, simultaneous with the crashing of a bullet through the
ambulance, some plastic part dislodged, flying through the window.
We stop, turn off the siren, keep the blue light flashing, wait, eyes
on the silhouettes of men in US marine uniforms on the corners of the
buildings.
Several shots come. We duck, get as low as possible and I can see tiny
red lights whipping past the window, past my head. Some, it’s hard to
tell, are hitting the ambulance I start singing. What else do you do
when someone’s shooting at you? A tyre bursts with an enormous noise
and a jerk of the vehicle.
I’m outraged. We’re trying to get to a woman who’s giving birth without
any medical attention, without electricity, in a city under siege, in a
clearly marked ambulance, and you’re shooting at us. How dare you?
How dare you?
Azzam grabs the gear stick and gets the ambulance into reverse, another
tyre bursting as we go over the ridge in the centre of the road , the
sots still coming as we flee around the corner. I carry on singing. The
wheels are scraping, burst rubber burning on the road.
The men run for a stretcher as we arrive and I shake my head. They spot
the new bullet holes and run to see if we’re OK. Is there any other way
to get to her, I want to know. La, maaku tarieq. There is no other way.
They say we did the right thing. They say they’ve fixed the ambulance
four times already and they’ll fix it again but the radiator’s gone and
the wheels are buckled and se’s still at home in the dark giving birth
alone. I let her down.
We can’t go out again. For one thing there’s no ambulance and besides
it’s dark now and that means our foreign faces can’t protect the people
who go out with us or the people we pick up. Maki is the acting
director of the place. He says he hated Saddam but now he hates the
Americans more.
We take off the blue gowns as the sky starts exploding somewhere beyond
the building opposite. Minutes later a car roars up to the clinic. I
can hear him screaming before I can see that there’s no skin left on
his body. He’s burnt from head to foot. For sure there’s nothing they
can do. He’ll die of dehydration within a few days.
Another man is pulled from the car onto a stretcher. Cluster bombs,
they say, although it’s not clear whether they mean one or both of
them. We set off walking to Mr Yasser’s house, waiting at each corner
for someone to check the street before we cross. A ball of fire falls
from a plane, splits into smaller balls of bright white lights. I think
they’re cluster bombs, because cluster bombs are in the front of my
mind, but they vanish, just magnesium flares, incredibly bright but
short-lived, giving a flash picture of the town from above.
Yasser asks us all to introduce ourselves. I tell him I’m training to
be a lawyer. One of the other men asks whether I know about
international law. They want to know about the law on war crimes, what
a war crime is. I tell them I know some of the Geneva Conventions, that
I’ll bring some information next time I come and we can get someone to
explain it in Arabic.
We bring up the matter of Nayoko. This group of fighters has nothing to
do with the ones who are holding the Japanese hostages, but while
they’re thanking us for what we did this evening, we talk about the
things Nayoko did for the street kids, how much they loved her. They
can’t promise anything but that they’ll try and find out where she is
and try to persuade the group to let her and the others go. I don’t
suppose it will make any difference. They’re busy fighting a war in
Falluja. They’re unconnected with the other group. But it can’t hurt to
try.
The planes are above us all night so that as I doze I forget I’m not on
a long distance flight, the constant bass note of an unmanned
reconnaissance drone overlaid with the frantic thrash of jets and the
dull beat of helicopters and interrupted by the explosions.
In the morning I make balloon dogs, giraffes and elephants for the
little one, Abdullah, Aboudi, who’s clearly distressed by the noise of
the aircraft and explosions. I blow bubbles which he follows with his
eyes. Finally, finally, I score a smile. The twins, thirteen years old,
laugh too, one of them an ambulance driver, both said to be handy with
a Kalashnikov.
The doctors look haggard in the morning. None has slept more than a
couple of hours a night for a week. One as had only eight hours of
sleep in the last seven days, missing the funerals of his brother and
aunt because he was needed at the hospital.
“The dead we cannot help,” Jassim said. “I must worry about the
injured.”
We go again, Dave, Rana and me, this time in a pick up. There are some
sick people close to the marines’ line who need evacuating. No one
dares come out of their house because the marines are on top of the
buildings shooting at anything that moves. Saad fetches us a white flag
and tells us not to worry, he’s checked and secured the road, no
Mujahedin will fire at us, that peace is upon us, this eleven year old
child, his face covered with a keffiyeh, but for is bright brown eyes,
his AK47 almost as tall as he is.
We shout again to the soldiers, hold up the flag with a red crescent
sprayed onto it. Two come down from the building, cover this side and
Rana mutters, “Allahu akbar. Please nobody take a shot at them.”
We jump down and tell them we need to get some sick people from the
houses and they want Rana to go and bring out the family from the house
whose roof they’re on. Thirteen women and children are still inside, in
one room, without food and water for the last 24 hours.
“We’re going to be going through soon clearing the houses,” the senior
one says.
“What does that mean, clearing the houses?”
“Going into every one searching for weapons.” He’s checking his watch,
can’t tell me what will start when, of course, but there’s going to be
air strikes in support. “If you’re going to do tis you gotta do it
soon.”
First we go down the street we were sent to. There’s a man, face down,
in a white dishdasha, a small round red stain on his back. We run to
him. Again the flies ave got there first. Dave is at his shoulders, I’m
by his knees and as we reach to roll him onto the stretcher Dave’s hand
goes through his chest, through the cavity left by the bullet that
entered so neatly through his back and blew his heart out.
There’s no weapon in his hand. Only when we arrive, his sons come out,
crying, shouting. He was unarmed, they scream. He was unarmed. He just
went out the gate and they shot him. None of them have dared come out
since. No one had dared come to get his body, horrified, terrified,
forced to violate the traditions of treating the body immediately. They
couldn’t have known we were coming so it’s inconceivable tat anyone
came out and retrieved a weapon but left the body.
He was unarmed, 55 years old, shot in the back.
We cover his face, carry him to the pick up. There’s nothing to cover
his body with. The sick woman is helped out of the house, the little
girls around her hugging cloth bags to their bodies, whispering, “Baba.
Baba.” Daddy. Shaking, they let us go first, hands up, around the
corner, then we usher them to the cab of the pick up, shielding their
heads so they can’t see him, the cuddly fat man stiff in the back.
The people seem to pour out of the houses now in the hope we can escort
them safely out of the line of fire, kids, women, men, anxiously asking
us whether they can all go, or only the women and children. We go to
ask. The young marine tells us that men of fighting age can’t leave.
What’s fighting age, I want to know. He contemplates. Anything under
forty five. No lower limit.
It appals me that all those men would be trapped in a city which is
about to be destroyed. Not all of them are fighters, not all are armed.
It’s going to happen out of the view of the world, out of sight of the
media, because most of the media in Falluja is embedded with the
marines or turned away at the outskirts. Before we can pass the message
on, two explosions scatter the crowd in the side street back into their
houses.
Rana’s with the marines evacuating the family from the house they’re
occupying. The pick up isn’t back yet. The families are hiding behind
their walls. We wait, because there’s nothing else we can do. We wait
in no man’s land. The marines, at least, are watching us through
binoculars; maybe the local fighters are too.
I’ve got a disappearing hanky in my pocket so while I’m sitting like a
lemon, nowhere to go, gunfire and explosions aplenty all around, I make
the hanky disappear, reappear, disappear. It’s always best, I think, to
seem completely unthreatening and completely unconcerned, so no one
worries about you enough to shoot. We can’t wait too long though.
Rana’s been gone ages. We have to go and get her to hurry. There’s a
young man in the group. She’s talked them into letting him leave too.
A man wants to use his police car to carry some of the people, a couple
of elderly ones who can’t walk far, the smallest children. It’s missing
a door. Who knows if he was really a police car or the car was
reappropriated and just ended up there? It didn’t matter if it got more
people out faster. They creep from their houses, huddle by the wall,
follow us out, their hands up too, and walk up the street clutching
babies, bags, each other.
The pick up gets back and we shovel as many onto it as we can as an
ambulance arrives from somewhere. A young man waves from the doorway of
what’s left of a house, his upper body bare, a blood soaked bandage
around his arm, probably a fighter but it makes no difference once
someone is wounded
and unarmed. Getting the dead isn’t essential. Like the doctor said,
the dead don’t need help, but if it’s easy enough then we will. Since
we’re already OK with the soldiers and the ambulance is here, we run
down to fetch them in. It’s important in Islam to bury the body
straightaway.
The ambulance follows us down. The soldiers start shouting in English
at us for it to stop, pointing guns. It’s moving fast. We’re all
yelling, signalling for it to stop but it seems to take forever for the
driver to hear and see us. It stops. It stops, before they open fire.
We haul them onto the stretchers and run, shove them in the back. Rana
squeezes in the front with the wounded man and Dave and I crouch in the
back beside the bodies. He says he had allergies as a kid and hasn’t
got much sense of smell. I wish, retrospectively, for childhood
allergies, and stick my head out the window.
The bus is going to leave, taking the injured people back to Baghdad,
the man with the burns, one of the women who was shot in the jaw and
shoulder by a sniper, several others. Rana says she’s staying to help.
Dave and I don’t hesitate: we’re staying too. “If I don’t do it, who
will?” has become an accidental motto and I’m acutely aware after the
last foray how many people, how many women and children, are still in
their houses either because they’ve got nowhere to go, because they’re
scared to go out of the door or because they’ve chosen to stay.
To begin with it’s agreed, then Azzam says we have to go. He hasn’t got
contacts with every armed group, only with some. There are different
issues to square with each one. We need to get these people back to
Baghdad as quickly as we can. If we’re kidnapped or killed it will
cause even more problems, so it’s better that we just get on the bus
and leave and come back with him as soon as possible.
It hurts to climb onto the bus when the doctor has just asked us to go
and evacuate some more people. I hate the fact that a qualified medic
can’t travel in the ambulance but I can, just because I look like the
sniper’s sister or one of his mates, but that’s the way it is today and
the way it was yesterday and I feel like a traitor for leaving, but I
can’t see where I’ve got a choice. It’s a war now and as alien as it is
to me to do what I’m told, for once I’ve got to.
Jassim is scared. He harangues Mohammed constantly, tries to pull him
out of the driver’s seat wile we’re moving. The woman with the gunshot
wound is on the back seat, the man with the burns in front of her,
being fanned with cardboard from the empty boxes, his intravenous drips
swinging from the rail along the ceiling of the bus. It’s hot. It must
be unbearable for him.
Saad comes onto the bus to wish us well for the journey. He shakes
Dave’s hand and then mine. I hold his in both of mine and tell him “Dir
balak,” take care, as if I could say anything more stupid to a pre-teen
Mujahedin with an AK47 in his other hand, and our eyes meet and stay
fixed, his full of fire and fear.
Can’t I take him away? Can’t I take him somewhere he can be a child?
Can’t I make him a balloon giraffe and give him some drawing pens and
tell him not to forget to brush his teeth? Can’t I find the person who
put the rifle in the hands of that little boy? Can’t I tell someone
about what that does to a child? Do I have to leave him here where
there are heavily armed men all around him and lots of them are not on
his side, however many sides there are in all of this? And of course I
do. I do have to leave him, like child soldiers everywhere.
The way back is tense, the bus almost getting stuck in a dip in the
sand, people escaping in anything, even piled on the trailer of a
tractor, lines of cars and pick ups and buses ferrying people to the
dubious sanctuary of Baghdad, lines of men in vehicles queuing to get
back into the city having got their families to safety, either to fight
or to help evacuate more people. The driver, Jassim, the father,
ignores Azzam and takes a different road so that suddenly we’re not
following the lead car and we’re on a road that’s controlled by a
different armed group than the ones which know us.
A crowd of men waves guns to stop the bus. Somehow they apparently
believe that there are American soldiers on the bus, as if they
wouldn’t be in tanks or helicopters, and there are men getting out of
their cars with shouts of “Sahafa Amreeki,” American journalists. The
passengers shout out of the windows, “Ana min Falluja,” I am from
Falluja. Gunmen run onto the bus and see that it’s true, there are sick
and injured and old people, Iraqis, and then relax, wave us on.
We stop in Abu Ghraib and swap seats, foreigners in the front, Iraqis
less visible, headscarves off so we look more western. The American
soldiers are so happy to see westerners they don’t mind too much about
the Iraqis with us, search the men and the bus, leave the women
unsearched because there are no women soldiers to search us. Mohammed
keeps asking me if things are going to be OK. “Al-melaach wiyana, “ I
tell him. The angels are with us. He laughs.
And then we’re in Baghdad, delivering them to the hospitals, Nuha in
tears as they take the burnt man off groaning and whimpering. She puts
her arms around me and asks me to be her friend. I make her feel less
isolated, she says, less alone.
And the satellite news says the cease-fire is holding and George Bush
says to the troops on Easter Sunday that, “I know what we’re doing in
Iraq is right.” Shooting unarmed men in the back outside their family
home is right. Shooting grandmothers with white flags is right?
Shooting at women and children who are fleeing their homes is right?
Firing at ambulances is right?
Well George, I know too now. I know what it looks like when you
brutalise people so much that they’ve nothing left to lose. I know what
it looks like when an operation is being done without anaesthetic
because the hospitals are destroyed or under sniper fire and the city’s
under siege and aid isn’t getting in properly. I know what it sounds
like too. I know what it looks like when tracer bullets are passing
your head, even though you’re in an ambulance. I know what it looks
like when a man’s chest is no longer inside him and what it smells like
and I know what it looks like when his wife and children pour out of
his house.
It’s a crime and it’s a disgrace to us all.
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=4105
Iraq Occupation Watch Center
hanno preso d'assedio la citta' di Falluja. Mentre l'opinione pubblica
occidentale viene distratta da rapimenti di "civili", ai quali viene
dato il massimo risalto mediatico, i morti tra la popolazione locale
sono migliaia. I cecchini USA sparano tranquillamente anche sulle madri
di famiglia, sulle ambulanze, negli ospedali, sicuri di non dover
rispondere a nessuno... ]
Eyewitness Report from Falluja
US snipers in Falluja shoot unarmed man in the back, old woman with
white flag, children fleeing their homes and the ambulance that we were
going in to fetch a woman in premature labour.
by Jo Wilding
April 13th, 2004
Trucks, oil tankers, tanks are burning on the highway east to Falluja.
A stream of boys and men goes to and from a lorry that’s not burnt,
stripping it bare. We turn onto the back roads through Abu Ghraib, Nuha
and Ahrar singing in Arabic, past the vehicles full of people and a few
possessions, heading the other way, past the improvised refreshment
posts along the way where boys throw food through the windows into the
bus for us and for the people inside still inside Falluja.
The bus is following a car with the nephew of a local sheikh and a
guide who has contacts with the Mujahedin and has cleared this with
them. The reason I’m on the bus is that a journalist I knew turned up
at my door at about 11 at night telling me things were desperate in
Falluja, he’d been bringing out children with their limbs blown off,
the US soldiers were going around telling people to leave by dusk or be
killed, but then when people fled with whatever they could carry, they
were being stopped at the US military checkpoint on the edge of town
and not let out, trapped, watching the sun go down.
He said aid vehicles and the media were being turned away. He said
there was some medical aid that needed to go in and there was a better
chance of it getting there with foreigners, westerners, to get through
the american checkpoints. The rest of the way was secured with the
armed groups who control the roads we’d travel on. We’d take in the
medical supplies, see what else we could do to help and then use the
bus to bring out people who needed to leave.
I’ll spare you the whole decision making process, all the questions we
all asked ourselves and each other, and you can spare me the
accusations of madness, but what it came down to was this: if I don’t
do it, who will?
Either way, we arrive in one piece.
We pile the stuff in the corridor and the boxes are torn open
straightaway, the blankets most welcomed. It’s not a hospital at all
but a clinic, a private doctor’s surgery treating people free since air
strikes destroyed the town’s main hospital. Another has been improvised
in a car garage. There’s no anaesthetic. The blood bags are in a drinks
fridge and the doctors warm them up under the hot tap in an unhygienic
toilet.
Screaming women come in, praying, slapping their chests and faces.
Ummi, my mother, one cries. I hold her until Maki, a consultant and
acting director of the clinic, brings me to the bed where a child of
about ten is lying with a bullet wound to the head. A smaller child is
being treated for a similar injury in the next bed. A US sniper hit
them and their grandmother as they left their home to flee Falluja.
The lights go out, the fan stops and in the sudden quiet someone holds
up the flame of a cigarette lighter for the doctor to carry on
operating by. The electricity to the town has been cut off for days and
when the generator runs out of petrol they just have to manage till it
comes back on. Dave quickly donates his torch. The children are not
going to live.
“Come,” says Maki and ushers me alone into a room where an old woman
has just had an abdominal bullet wound stitched up. Another in her leg
is being dressed, the bed under her foot soaked with blood, a white
flag still clutched in her hand and the same story: I was leaving my
home to go to Baghdad when I was hit by a US sniper. Some of the town
is held by US marines, other parts by the local fighters. Their homes
are in the US controlled area and they are adamant that the snipers
were US marines.
Snipers are causing not just carnage but also the paralysis of the
ambulance and evacuation services. The biggest hospital after the main
one was bombed is in US territory and cut off from the clinic by
snipers. The ambulance has been repaired four times after bullet
damage. Bodies are lying in the streets because no one can go to
collect them without being shot.
Some said we were mad to come to Iraq; quite a few said we were
completely insane to come to Falluja and now there are people telling
me that getting in the back of the pick up to go past the snipers and
get sick and injured people is the craziest thing they’ve ever seen. I
know, though, that if we don’t, no one will.
He’s holding a white flag with a red crescent on; I don’t know his
name. The men we pass wave us on when the driver explains where we’re
going. The silence is ferocious in the no man’s land between the pick
up at the edge of the Mujahedin territory, which has just gone from our
sight around the last corner and the marines’ line beyond the next
wall; no birds, no music, no indication that anyone is still living
until a gate opens opposite and a woman comes out, points.
We edge along to the hole in the wall where we can see the car, spent
mortar shells around it. The feet are visible, crossed, in the gutter.
I think he’s dead already. The snipers are visible too, two of them on
the corner of the building. As yet I think they can’t see us so we need
to let them know we’re there.
“Hello,” I bellow at the top of my voice. “Can you hear me?” They must.
They ’re about 30 metres from us, maybe less, and it’s so still you
could hear the flies buzzing at fifty paces. I repeat myself a few
times, still without reply, so decide to explain myself a bit more.
“We are a medical team. We want to remove this wounded man. Is it OK
for us to come out and get him? Can you give us a signal that it’s OK?”
I’m sure they can hear me but they’re still not responding. Maybe they
didn’ t understand it all, so I say the same again. Dave yells too in
his US accent. I yell again. Finally I think I hear a shout back. Not
sure, I call again.
“Hello.”
“Yeah.”
“Can we come out and get him?”
“Yeah,”
Slowly, our hands up, we go out. The black cloud that rises to greet us
carries with it a hot, sour smell. Solidified, his legs are heavy. I
leave them to Rana and Dave, our guide lifting under his hips. The
Kalashnikov is attached by sticky blood to is hair and hand and we
don’t want it with us so I put my foot on it as I pick up his shoulders
and his blood falls out through the hole in his back. We heave him into
the pick up as best we can and try to outrun the flies.
I suppose he was wearing flip flops because he’s barefoot now, no more
than 20 years old, in imitation Nike pants and a blue and black striped
football shirt with a big 28 on the back. As the orderlies form the
clinic pull the young fighter off the pick up, yellow fluid pours from
his mouth and they flip him over, face up, the way into the clinic
clearing in front of them, straight up the ramp into the makeshift
morgue.
We wash the blood off our hands and get in the ambulance. There are
people trapped in the other hospital who need to go to Baghdad. Siren
screaming, lights flashing, we huddle on the floor of the ambulance,
passports and ID cards held out the windows. We pack it with people,
one with his chest taped together and a drip, one on a stretcher, legs
jerking violently so I have to hold them down as we wheel him out,
lifting him over steps.
The hospital is better able to treat them than the clinic but hasn’t
got enough of anything to sort them out properly and the only way to
get them to Baghdad on our bus, which means they have to go to the
clinic. We’re crammed on the floor of the ambulance in case it’s shot
at. Nisareen, a woman doctor about my age, can’t stop a few tears once
we’re out.
The doctor rushes out to meet me: “Can you go to fetch a lady, she is
pregnant and she is delivering the baby too soon?”
Azzam is driving, Ahmed in the middle directing him and me by the
window, the visible foreigner, the passport. Something scatters across
my hand, simultaneous with the crashing of a bullet through the
ambulance, some plastic part dislodged, flying through the window.
We stop, turn off the siren, keep the blue light flashing, wait, eyes
on the silhouettes of men in US marine uniforms on the corners of the
buildings.
Several shots come. We duck, get as low as possible and I can see tiny
red lights whipping past the window, past my head. Some, it’s hard to
tell, are hitting the ambulance I start singing. What else do you do
when someone’s shooting at you? A tyre bursts with an enormous noise
and a jerk of the vehicle.
I’m outraged. We’re trying to get to a woman who’s giving birth without
any medical attention, without electricity, in a city under siege, in a
clearly marked ambulance, and you’re shooting at us. How dare you?
How dare you?
Azzam grabs the gear stick and gets the ambulance into reverse, another
tyre bursting as we go over the ridge in the centre of the road , the
sots still coming as we flee around the corner. I carry on singing. The
wheels are scraping, burst rubber burning on the road.
The men run for a stretcher as we arrive and I shake my head. They spot
the new bullet holes and run to see if we’re OK. Is there any other way
to get to her, I want to know. La, maaku tarieq. There is no other way.
They say we did the right thing. They say they’ve fixed the ambulance
four times already and they’ll fix it again but the radiator’s gone and
the wheels are buckled and se’s still at home in the dark giving birth
alone. I let her down.
We can’t go out again. For one thing there’s no ambulance and besides
it’s dark now and that means our foreign faces can’t protect the people
who go out with us or the people we pick up. Maki is the acting
director of the place. He says he hated Saddam but now he hates the
Americans more.
We take off the blue gowns as the sky starts exploding somewhere beyond
the building opposite. Minutes later a car roars up to the clinic. I
can hear him screaming before I can see that there’s no skin left on
his body. He’s burnt from head to foot. For sure there’s nothing they
can do. He’ll die of dehydration within a few days.
Another man is pulled from the car onto a stretcher. Cluster bombs,
they say, although it’s not clear whether they mean one or both of
them. We set off walking to Mr Yasser’s house, waiting at each corner
for someone to check the street before we cross. A ball of fire falls
from a plane, splits into smaller balls of bright white lights. I think
they’re cluster bombs, because cluster bombs are in the front of my
mind, but they vanish, just magnesium flares, incredibly bright but
short-lived, giving a flash picture of the town from above.
Yasser asks us all to introduce ourselves. I tell him I’m training to
be a lawyer. One of the other men asks whether I know about
international law. They want to know about the law on war crimes, what
a war crime is. I tell them I know some of the Geneva Conventions, that
I’ll bring some information next time I come and we can get someone to
explain it in Arabic.
We bring up the matter of Nayoko. This group of fighters has nothing to
do with the ones who are holding the Japanese hostages, but while
they’re thanking us for what we did this evening, we talk about the
things Nayoko did for the street kids, how much they loved her. They
can’t promise anything but that they’ll try and find out where she is
and try to persuade the group to let her and the others go. I don’t
suppose it will make any difference. They’re busy fighting a war in
Falluja. They’re unconnected with the other group. But it can’t hurt to
try.
The planes are above us all night so that as I doze I forget I’m not on
a long distance flight, the constant bass note of an unmanned
reconnaissance drone overlaid with the frantic thrash of jets and the
dull beat of helicopters and interrupted by the explosions.
In the morning I make balloon dogs, giraffes and elephants for the
little one, Abdullah, Aboudi, who’s clearly distressed by the noise of
the aircraft and explosions. I blow bubbles which he follows with his
eyes. Finally, finally, I score a smile. The twins, thirteen years old,
laugh too, one of them an ambulance driver, both said to be handy with
a Kalashnikov.
The doctors look haggard in the morning. None has slept more than a
couple of hours a night for a week. One as had only eight hours of
sleep in the last seven days, missing the funerals of his brother and
aunt because he was needed at the hospital.
“The dead we cannot help,” Jassim said. “I must worry about the
injured.”
We go again, Dave, Rana and me, this time in a pick up. There are some
sick people close to the marines’ line who need evacuating. No one
dares come out of their house because the marines are on top of the
buildings shooting at anything that moves. Saad fetches us a white flag
and tells us not to worry, he’s checked and secured the road, no
Mujahedin will fire at us, that peace is upon us, this eleven year old
child, his face covered with a keffiyeh, but for is bright brown eyes,
his AK47 almost as tall as he is.
We shout again to the soldiers, hold up the flag with a red crescent
sprayed onto it. Two come down from the building, cover this side and
Rana mutters, “Allahu akbar. Please nobody take a shot at them.”
We jump down and tell them we need to get some sick people from the
houses and they want Rana to go and bring out the family from the house
whose roof they’re on. Thirteen women and children are still inside, in
one room, without food and water for the last 24 hours.
“We’re going to be going through soon clearing the houses,” the senior
one says.
“What does that mean, clearing the houses?”
“Going into every one searching for weapons.” He’s checking his watch,
can’t tell me what will start when, of course, but there’s going to be
air strikes in support. “If you’re going to do tis you gotta do it
soon.”
First we go down the street we were sent to. There’s a man, face down,
in a white dishdasha, a small round red stain on his back. We run to
him. Again the flies ave got there first. Dave is at his shoulders, I’m
by his knees and as we reach to roll him onto the stretcher Dave’s hand
goes through his chest, through the cavity left by the bullet that
entered so neatly through his back and blew his heart out.
There’s no weapon in his hand. Only when we arrive, his sons come out,
crying, shouting. He was unarmed, they scream. He was unarmed. He just
went out the gate and they shot him. None of them have dared come out
since. No one had dared come to get his body, horrified, terrified,
forced to violate the traditions of treating the body immediately. They
couldn’t have known we were coming so it’s inconceivable tat anyone
came out and retrieved a weapon but left the body.
He was unarmed, 55 years old, shot in the back.
We cover his face, carry him to the pick up. There’s nothing to cover
his body with. The sick woman is helped out of the house, the little
girls around her hugging cloth bags to their bodies, whispering, “Baba.
Baba.” Daddy. Shaking, they let us go first, hands up, around the
corner, then we usher them to the cab of the pick up, shielding their
heads so they can’t see him, the cuddly fat man stiff in the back.
The people seem to pour out of the houses now in the hope we can escort
them safely out of the line of fire, kids, women, men, anxiously asking
us whether they can all go, or only the women and children. We go to
ask. The young marine tells us that men of fighting age can’t leave.
What’s fighting age, I want to know. He contemplates. Anything under
forty five. No lower limit.
It appals me that all those men would be trapped in a city which is
about to be destroyed. Not all of them are fighters, not all are armed.
It’s going to happen out of the view of the world, out of sight of the
media, because most of the media in Falluja is embedded with the
marines or turned away at the outskirts. Before we can pass the message
on, two explosions scatter the crowd in the side street back into their
houses.
Rana’s with the marines evacuating the family from the house they’re
occupying. The pick up isn’t back yet. The families are hiding behind
their walls. We wait, because there’s nothing else we can do. We wait
in no man’s land. The marines, at least, are watching us through
binoculars; maybe the local fighters are too.
I’ve got a disappearing hanky in my pocket so while I’m sitting like a
lemon, nowhere to go, gunfire and explosions aplenty all around, I make
the hanky disappear, reappear, disappear. It’s always best, I think, to
seem completely unthreatening and completely unconcerned, so no one
worries about you enough to shoot. We can’t wait too long though.
Rana’s been gone ages. We have to go and get her to hurry. There’s a
young man in the group. She’s talked them into letting him leave too.
A man wants to use his police car to carry some of the people, a couple
of elderly ones who can’t walk far, the smallest children. It’s missing
a door. Who knows if he was really a police car or the car was
reappropriated and just ended up there? It didn’t matter if it got more
people out faster. They creep from their houses, huddle by the wall,
follow us out, their hands up too, and walk up the street clutching
babies, bags, each other.
The pick up gets back and we shovel as many onto it as we can as an
ambulance arrives from somewhere. A young man waves from the doorway of
what’s left of a house, his upper body bare, a blood soaked bandage
around his arm, probably a fighter but it makes no difference once
someone is wounded
and unarmed. Getting the dead isn’t essential. Like the doctor said,
the dead don’t need help, but if it’s easy enough then we will. Since
we’re already OK with the soldiers and the ambulance is here, we run
down to fetch them in. It’s important in Islam to bury the body
straightaway.
The ambulance follows us down. The soldiers start shouting in English
at us for it to stop, pointing guns. It’s moving fast. We’re all
yelling, signalling for it to stop but it seems to take forever for the
driver to hear and see us. It stops. It stops, before they open fire.
We haul them onto the stretchers and run, shove them in the back. Rana
squeezes in the front with the wounded man and Dave and I crouch in the
back beside the bodies. He says he had allergies as a kid and hasn’t
got much sense of smell. I wish, retrospectively, for childhood
allergies, and stick my head out the window.
The bus is going to leave, taking the injured people back to Baghdad,
the man with the burns, one of the women who was shot in the jaw and
shoulder by a sniper, several others. Rana says she’s staying to help.
Dave and I don’t hesitate: we’re staying too. “If I don’t do it, who
will?” has become an accidental motto and I’m acutely aware after the
last foray how many people, how many women and children, are still in
their houses either because they’ve got nowhere to go, because they’re
scared to go out of the door or because they’ve chosen to stay.
To begin with it’s agreed, then Azzam says we have to go. He hasn’t got
contacts with every armed group, only with some. There are different
issues to square with each one. We need to get these people back to
Baghdad as quickly as we can. If we’re kidnapped or killed it will
cause even more problems, so it’s better that we just get on the bus
and leave and come back with him as soon as possible.
It hurts to climb onto the bus when the doctor has just asked us to go
and evacuate some more people. I hate the fact that a qualified medic
can’t travel in the ambulance but I can, just because I look like the
sniper’s sister or one of his mates, but that’s the way it is today and
the way it was yesterday and I feel like a traitor for leaving, but I
can’t see where I’ve got a choice. It’s a war now and as alien as it is
to me to do what I’m told, for once I’ve got to.
Jassim is scared. He harangues Mohammed constantly, tries to pull him
out of the driver’s seat wile we’re moving. The woman with the gunshot
wound is on the back seat, the man with the burns in front of her,
being fanned with cardboard from the empty boxes, his intravenous drips
swinging from the rail along the ceiling of the bus. It’s hot. It must
be unbearable for him.
Saad comes onto the bus to wish us well for the journey. He shakes
Dave’s hand and then mine. I hold his in both of mine and tell him “Dir
balak,” take care, as if I could say anything more stupid to a pre-teen
Mujahedin with an AK47 in his other hand, and our eyes meet and stay
fixed, his full of fire and fear.
Can’t I take him away? Can’t I take him somewhere he can be a child?
Can’t I make him a balloon giraffe and give him some drawing pens and
tell him not to forget to brush his teeth? Can’t I find the person who
put the rifle in the hands of that little boy? Can’t I tell someone
about what that does to a child? Do I have to leave him here where
there are heavily armed men all around him and lots of them are not on
his side, however many sides there are in all of this? And of course I
do. I do have to leave him, like child soldiers everywhere.
The way back is tense, the bus almost getting stuck in a dip in the
sand, people escaping in anything, even piled on the trailer of a
tractor, lines of cars and pick ups and buses ferrying people to the
dubious sanctuary of Baghdad, lines of men in vehicles queuing to get
back into the city having got their families to safety, either to fight
or to help evacuate more people. The driver, Jassim, the father,
ignores Azzam and takes a different road so that suddenly we’re not
following the lead car and we’re on a road that’s controlled by a
different armed group than the ones which know us.
A crowd of men waves guns to stop the bus. Somehow they apparently
believe that there are American soldiers on the bus, as if they
wouldn’t be in tanks or helicopters, and there are men getting out of
their cars with shouts of “Sahafa Amreeki,” American journalists. The
passengers shout out of the windows, “Ana min Falluja,” I am from
Falluja. Gunmen run onto the bus and see that it’s true, there are sick
and injured and old people, Iraqis, and then relax, wave us on.
We stop in Abu Ghraib and swap seats, foreigners in the front, Iraqis
less visible, headscarves off so we look more western. The American
soldiers are so happy to see westerners they don’t mind too much about
the Iraqis with us, search the men and the bus, leave the women
unsearched because there are no women soldiers to search us. Mohammed
keeps asking me if things are going to be OK. “Al-melaach wiyana, “ I
tell him. The angels are with us. He laughs.
And then we’re in Baghdad, delivering them to the hospitals, Nuha in
tears as they take the burnt man off groaning and whimpering. She puts
her arms around me and asks me to be her friend. I make her feel less
isolated, she says, less alone.
And the satellite news says the cease-fire is holding and George Bush
says to the troops on Easter Sunday that, “I know what we’re doing in
Iraq is right.” Shooting unarmed men in the back outside their family
home is right. Shooting grandmothers with white flags is right?
Shooting at women and children who are fleeing their homes is right?
Firing at ambulances is right?
Well George, I know too now. I know what it looks like when you
brutalise people so much that they’ve nothing left to lose. I know what
it looks like when an operation is being done without anaesthetic
because the hospitals are destroyed or under sniper fire and the city’s
under siege and aid isn’t getting in properly. I know what it sounds
like too. I know what it looks like when tracer bullets are passing
your head, even though you’re in an ambulance. I know what it looks
like when a man’s chest is no longer inside him and what it smells like
and I know what it looks like when his wife and children pour out of
his house.
It’s a crime and it’s a disgrace to us all.
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=4105
Iraq Occupation Watch Center
[ Quattrocchi, prima di essere ucciso in Iraq, aveva lavorato per la
IBSSA, una ditta di mercenariato guidata da un tedesco, attiva tra
l'altro in Kosovo...
Sullo strano curriculum di questi "ostaggi civili", anche la stampa
italiana sta rivelando dettagli inquietanti. Uno dei rapiti pare essere
stato impegnato - da volontario (sic) - in Croazia. Invitiamo tutti a
farci pervenire gli articoli e le informazioni utili in tal senso,
apparse in questi giorni sulla stampa italiana. ]
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1082191418.php
17.04.2004
Deutsche Spur
GENOVA/BERLIN/BAGDAD (Eigener Bericht) - Der im Irak erschossene
italienische Kombattant Quattrochi war Mitglied einer internationalen
Söldnerorganisation, in deren Führung ein deutscher Staatsbürger
arbeitet, ein Gründungsmitglied der Organisation. Mitglieder des
Söldnerrings (International Bodyguard and Security Services
Association/IBSSA) wurden u.a. im Kosovo eingesetzt und rühmen sich
blutiger Auftragsarbeiten in Afrika und Afghanistan. Nach eigenen
Angaben ist die IBSSA für mehrere westliche Regierungen tätig (u.a. für
die US-Armee). In Deutschland darf der Ring für seine
völkerrechtswidrigen Aktivitäten unbehelligt werben.
,,General Director" der IBSSA war über längere Zeit der deutsche
Staatsbürger Fritz Wendland. Wendland fungiert heute als Mitglied im
,,Executive Committee" und wird als einer der sechs ,,Honorary Founding
Members" der IBSSA geführt. Für Kontakte des Ringes in Deutschland
nennt die IBSSA einen Julius Eugen Graf von Strähle. Mehrere führende
IBSSA-Organisatoren hielten sich zuletzt Mitte März in Deutschland auf
und warben in Nürnberg Interessenten an. Obwohl die Tätigkeit des
Ringes sowohl nach deutschen wie nach internationalen Gesetzen unter
Strafe steht, griffen die deutschen Behörden nicht ein. Unbehelligt
blieb auch ein bewaffnetes Wehrsporttreffen, das die IBSSA 1999
ebenfalls in Deutschland abhielt. Für Oktober 2004 kündigt der Ring
einen ,,Weltkongress" gegen ,,Kriminalität und Terrorismus" an, der in
Berlin stattfinden soll.
Hohe Moral
Bei mehreren IBSSA-Aktivisten handelt es sich um gewöhnliche
Kriminelle, berichtet die italienische Presse.1) So entstammt der im
Irak erschossene Söldner Quattrochi dem Rotlichtmilieu Genuas. Ein
Kollege des Erschossenen steht wegen Mordversuchs unter Anklage. Andere
Bekannte sind wegen des Betriebs illegaler Wett- und Spielunternehmen
(u.a. Video-Poker) vorbestraft. Der Blutlohn in internationalen
Söldnerbanden, die im Auftrag westlicher Behörden arbeiten, beträgt
zwischen 4.000 und 6.000 Euro monatlich.
Trotz der kriminellen Zusammenhänge, die die Genoveser
Staatsanwaltschaft in einem Ermittlungsverfahren untersucht, feiert die
italienische Regierung den Söldner Quattrochi als ,,Helden". Er habe
die Tugenden Italiens wiederbelebt und der Nation ein Vorbild hoher
Moral hinterlassen, heißt es im Corriere della Sera, einem als seriös
geltenden Blatt der Regierungsmehrheit. Sämtliche italienischen Medien
verschweigen die Namen der internationalen IBSSA-Hintermänner, deren
Spur nach Deutschland führt.
1) Il manifesto, 16.04.2004
Informationen zur Deutschen Außenpolitik
© www.german-foreign-policy.com
IBSSA, una ditta di mercenariato guidata da un tedesco, attiva tra
l'altro in Kosovo...
Sullo strano curriculum di questi "ostaggi civili", anche la stampa
italiana sta rivelando dettagli inquietanti. Uno dei rapiti pare essere
stato impegnato - da volontario (sic) - in Croazia. Invitiamo tutti a
farci pervenire gli articoli e le informazioni utili in tal senso,
apparse in questi giorni sulla stampa italiana. ]
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1082191418.php
17.04.2004
Deutsche Spur
GENOVA/BERLIN/BAGDAD (Eigener Bericht) - Der im Irak erschossene
italienische Kombattant Quattrochi war Mitglied einer internationalen
Söldnerorganisation, in deren Führung ein deutscher Staatsbürger
arbeitet, ein Gründungsmitglied der Organisation. Mitglieder des
Söldnerrings (International Bodyguard and Security Services
Association/IBSSA) wurden u.a. im Kosovo eingesetzt und rühmen sich
blutiger Auftragsarbeiten in Afrika und Afghanistan. Nach eigenen
Angaben ist die IBSSA für mehrere westliche Regierungen tätig (u.a. für
die US-Armee). In Deutschland darf der Ring für seine
völkerrechtswidrigen Aktivitäten unbehelligt werben.
,,General Director" der IBSSA war über längere Zeit der deutsche
Staatsbürger Fritz Wendland. Wendland fungiert heute als Mitglied im
,,Executive Committee" und wird als einer der sechs ,,Honorary Founding
Members" der IBSSA geführt. Für Kontakte des Ringes in Deutschland
nennt die IBSSA einen Julius Eugen Graf von Strähle. Mehrere führende
IBSSA-Organisatoren hielten sich zuletzt Mitte März in Deutschland auf
und warben in Nürnberg Interessenten an. Obwohl die Tätigkeit des
Ringes sowohl nach deutschen wie nach internationalen Gesetzen unter
Strafe steht, griffen die deutschen Behörden nicht ein. Unbehelligt
blieb auch ein bewaffnetes Wehrsporttreffen, das die IBSSA 1999
ebenfalls in Deutschland abhielt. Für Oktober 2004 kündigt der Ring
einen ,,Weltkongress" gegen ,,Kriminalität und Terrorismus" an, der in
Berlin stattfinden soll.
Hohe Moral
Bei mehreren IBSSA-Aktivisten handelt es sich um gewöhnliche
Kriminelle, berichtet die italienische Presse.1) So entstammt der im
Irak erschossene Söldner Quattrochi dem Rotlichtmilieu Genuas. Ein
Kollege des Erschossenen steht wegen Mordversuchs unter Anklage. Andere
Bekannte sind wegen des Betriebs illegaler Wett- und Spielunternehmen
(u.a. Video-Poker) vorbestraft. Der Blutlohn in internationalen
Söldnerbanden, die im Auftrag westlicher Behörden arbeiten, beträgt
zwischen 4.000 und 6.000 Euro monatlich.
Trotz der kriminellen Zusammenhänge, die die Genoveser
Staatsanwaltschaft in einem Ermittlungsverfahren untersucht, feiert die
italienische Regierung den Söldner Quattrochi als ,,Helden". Er habe
die Tugenden Italiens wiederbelebt und der Nation ein Vorbild hoher
Moral hinterlassen, heißt es im Corriere della Sera, einem als seriös
geltenden Blatt der Regierungsmehrheit. Sämtliche italienischen Medien
verschweigen die Namen der internationalen IBSSA-Hintermänner, deren
Spur nach Deutschland führt.
1) Il manifesto, 16.04.2004
Informationen zur Deutschen Außenpolitik
© www.german-foreign-policy.com
(srpskohrvatski / italiano)
LA EPURAZIONE ETNICA DEI ROM KOSOVARI,
DAL 1999 AD OGGI
PRIMA PARTE: appunti sulla epurazione etnica, redatti gia' nel 2002 dal
rappresentante della associazione della diaspora dei rom kosovari
URYD/France
---
Introduzione
Negli ultimi anni le forze congiunte della NATO (KFOR) e dei neonazisti
pan-albanesi (UCK ed affiliati) hanno epurato etnicamente la provincia
del Kosovo-Metohija da qualsiasi presenza "tzigana" (rom, ashkali,
egizi, eccetera).
Alla luce di questo dato di fatto, che documentiamo di seguito (e nei
prossimi messaggi) in dettaglio con cifre e commenti, viene da
chiedersi:
- Quale sorta di malafede induce tuttora certuni ad attribuire ai
"serbi" volonta' di sterminio o epurazione etnica in Kosovo?
- Se fossero stati i "serbi" a nutrire disegni deliranti di sciovinismo
nazionalistico, per quale motivo essi avrebbero "aggredito" solamente i
cittadini di lingua albanese?
- E viceversa, per quale motivo l'odierno protettorato NATO del Kosovo
non e' un inferno solo per i "serbi", ma per tutte le minoranze
non-albanesi - primi tra tutti gli tzigani, appunto - e financo per gli
albanesi progressisti e/o rappresentanti (per lavoro o legame
famigliare) - dello spirito multietnico jugoslavo nel quale si era
vissuti in pace negli scorsi 50 anni?
- E perche', infine, la questione albanese si e' estesa a tutti i paesi
vicini (Montenegro, Macedonia, Grecia)? Che cosa c'entreranno mai i
"serbi" oppure "Milosevic" in questo?
Per un inquadramento storico del terrore nazista in Kosovo-Metohija si
vedano in particolare:
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/1029
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/1030
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2978
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2986
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/3107
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/3090
ed i collegamenti ivi contenuti.
(a cura di Italo Slavo)
===
Postovana gospodo, dobar dan,
Ja se u ime Unije Roma u Dijaspori, zahvaljujem na sva obavestenja koja
mi saljete, ja cu vam poslati jedan raport sa Kosmeta, ukoliko imate
neku primedbu ja sam spreman da odgovaram na vase pitanja,
hvala, unapred Vam se zahvaljujem i
srdacno Vas pozdravljam,
za URYD/France
Nedzo
---
Kosovska�Mitrovica������������������Asocijacija reka "IBAR"-Troyes
13 & 17/ 04/2002����������������������Mitrovica - Paris & Troyes -
Mitrovica
I do danas 28 aprila 2003 situacija roma i drugih jugoslovenskih naroda
koji zele mir na ovim prostorima nista se nije
poboljsala,nego,�naprotiv, ona se i dalje pogorsava.
�
Romska�populacija�u�pojedinim�gradovima
K O S O V A�i�Metohije
���������( Svedocenja�izbeglica )
������������������������������
�����������Od pocetka rata 1999 godine asocijacija reka IBAR radi na
pitanju izbeglica sa teritorije Jugoslavije. Posedujemo dosta arhive
sto se tice izbeglistva roma, kao i njihovog pre-ratnog i posle-ratnog
zivota i rada u drustvenoj zajednici. Vise puta clanovi asocijacije od
1999 godine licno su bili na terenu na relaciji Mitrovica - Paris,
Paris - Mitrovica , da sami preispitaju situaciju prognanih lica, kao i
o bezbednonosnom stanja na teritoriji (Kosmeta)�u�kojoj su se nalazili.
Ovo je prvi put da se asocijacija oglasava putem raporta, tj. da�upozna
radom kojim se ona bavi, a u isto vreme puno smo pratili rad drugih
ONGs, kao i oficijalnih organizacija,i zbog toga mozemo sa sigurnoscu
objaviti (reci) i�kritikovati rad drugih ONGs.
�����������Jedan od mojih razloga i odlaska��na�Kosovo�tj.
u�Kosovskoj��Mitrovici�jeste�moje�neslaganje�nekim�(ne)
odredjenim�brojkama�koje�pojedine�organizacije�u�svojim�izvestajima�izno
se, a�koje�po�mojim�istrazivanjima�su�100%�netacne,
jer�poznavajuci�situaciju�bolje od tzv. �
humanitarnih��organizacija�ne�mogu�se�nikako�sloziti�sa�takvim�izvestaji
ma�koji�su�veoma�manipulisani�tj.�netacni�i�koji�mogu�biti�od�velike
stete�za�romsku �populaciju.
Organizacije�kao�stu�su : ........(imena ovih organizacija navescemo
sledecom prilikom od nekih od nasih raporta, a nadam se da su i vama
poznate takve organizacije) manipulisu�brojkama da�danas
na�Kosovu�bezbedonosna�situacija���izvaredna�i�da�izbeglice�mogu�sa�sigu
rnoscu�vratiti�svojim�ognjistima,
da�K-
FOR�obezbedjuje�sigurnost�njihove�imovine�i�njihovih�zivota,�sto�je�kont
radiktorno�istini�i�bezbednonosnoj�situaciji�na�Kosmetu�u��ovom�trenutku
(sada).
�����������Od�dolaska�KFORA��na�Kosovu��juna�1999 , pa�do�danas�Aprila
2002 �2003 godine, stanje�bezbedonosne situacije,
sigurnost�po�zivot�i�imovinu�sto�se�tice�Romske�populacije�se�jos�vise�p
ogorsala , njihove�kuce�su�unistene�i�unistavaju se�i�danas
pred�ocima�NATO "mirovnjaka",�primer�zato�imamo�vise�Romskih
naselja�po�citavom�Kosovu kao u Pristini i drugim gradoviam,
a�najdramaticniji�primer�je��romsko�naselju�u�Kosovskoj�Mitrovici�gde��j
e�citava�populacija�negde�izmedju 7.000�i�8.500 stanovnika�tokom�rata
�koja�je�bila�prisutna�u�tom�vremenu
prebegla�ili�bila�primorana�pod�pritiskom pojedinih albanskih
nacionalista i�ekstremista,��a�pred�ocima NATO "MIROVNJAKA"
da�napuste�svoja�vekovna�ognjista�(Inace�samo�Fabricka
ulica�u�Kos.Mitrovici po�mojim���israzivanjima
sada�broji��izmedju���15.000�i��18.000�stanovnika.) i�oko�1.025( broj
kuca),koje su statisticki zavedene, ( ima i onih kuca koje su
sagradjene bez gradjavinske dozvole, te kuce su uglavnom gradili
askalije kod starog Trepcinog stadiona ili u delu mahale koji smo mi
nazivali "padalica" uglavnom nastanjeno askalijama, a i pojedini romi
koji su socijalno ugrozeni gradili takve objekte, ciji je broj negde
oko stotinak�kuca.) znaci sve ukupno MAHALA je brojala vise od 1.025
domacinstva.Treba navoditi da�su�romske�porodice sastoje od
vise�clanova�tako�recimo, pod�jednim�zavedenim�tj. registrovanim�brojem
bilo�je�vise�domacinstava, ( dve�i�vise�kuca�koje�su�nosile (imale)
isti�broj).
Ne treba�zaboraviti�da�romska�populacija samo na�Kosovu�brojala je
izmedju�97.000 (statisticki zavedeno)�i��140.000
(estimacija)�stanovnika, tako�da�je�meni�besmisleno otkuda pojedinim
organizacijama�i�drugim�mirovnjacima�da je na�kosovu
zivelo�negde�oko�10.000 roma�i�to pod��satorima, bez�zanimanja ,
obrazovanja i�dr. njihovih�lazi ... Ne treba zaboraviti da su romi bili
lojalni gradjani Jugoslavije, to znaci da su se skolovali, isli u
vojsku (bili staresine- vojna lica ),bili sportisti ,lekari svih nivoa
i kvalifikacija, umetnici , veliki radnici (u rudnicima), i da su se
nalazili u svim drustvenim slojevima .Kao da "mirovnjaci"�nisu "znali"
ko�su�romi,�i�koja�opasnost�preti�Romima, Srbima ,Gorancima i dr.
stanovnicima Kosova, ukoliko�kosovom�vladaju:�nepravda , bezakonje,
nacionalisti,separatisti i dr.divljaci, kako�je�to�moguce�da�oni
nisu�znali�nista�o�drugim�stanovnicima�kosova tj.Jugoslavije
gde�su�njihovi�analiticari�koji svojim�procenama�ne " grese".
Na�Kosovu�nisu�ziveli�samo�albanici�i�manjina (u�svojoj�drzavi )
kako�kazu�oni Srbi, zasto�su�zaboravili�sve�druge�etnicke�zajednice?
Zasto�NATOVSKU�"zastitu" nisu�imali�Srbi, Crnogorci, Romi, Goranci,
Bosnjaci, Turci, novoizmisljena�nacija askalije
i�dr.Ako�nisu�dobro�poznavali�situaciju�na�kosovu�pre�njihovog�dolaska,
i�ako�je rezim�srpski�bio " los " samo�za�albance zasto�se
unistavanje�imovine�svih�nealbanaca,�desavalo i to
bas�pred�njihovim�ocima u�njihovom�prisustvu?
Zasto�su��sve�druge etnicke�grupe�bile�proterivane,
a�njihova�imovina�ukradena�i�spaljena?
Zasto��i���danas nema�sigurnosti�na�Kosovu?...............
�
���������������������������������Kosovska�Mitrovica 16 aprila 2002
u�8h30
�
Sedimo�u�kafeu�DOLCE�VITA��jos�je�rano�pijemo�kafu�i�kiselu�vodu��citamo
�jutarnje�novine,�ispred�nas�na�nekoliko�metara �je�Ibarski�Most,
most�koji�razdvaja�narode,��razgovaramo�i�pitamo�se��sta�ce�biti�kakvo�j
e�stanje?
�
Veoma�je�neizvesno�kaze�Rus�momak�koji�drzi�ovaj�kafic�i�koji�je�prvi�na
�udaru�svih�nemira. Pre samo�nekoliko�dana�ovde
�je�bio�pravi�haos,��pogledaj�brate�evo�ovde�se�to�desilo��na�pet�metara
�ispred�mog�lokala�evo�jos�se�vide�tragovi�krvi.Pitam�se�dokle�ce�Kosovo
�jos�biti�krvavo�i�zasto�to�jos�uvek�traje?.
�
- Veoma�je�opasno�kaze�Deki
,�samo�Bog�zna,�niko�ne�moze�da�garantuje�mir,
svakog�casa�mozemo�da�nestanemo.
�Jedan�stanovnik�sela�Suvog�Dola , sela��koji�se�nalazi�s druge�strane
Ibra�Romske�Mahale�dodaje,
ali�koji�je�zeleo�da�bude�anoniman�zbog�licne�sigurnosti,
da�je�veoma�zalosno�videti�da�je citavo�naselje��pusto,
a��da�drugi�tj.Albanci�svakodnevno��skidaju�ciglu�po�ciglu�sa�romskih�ku
ca�i�dodaje�kao�da�je�KFOR�i�Medjunarodna�zajednica�slepa,jer�se�to
cini pred�njihovim�ocima�oni�su�tu�a�kao�da�ne�vide kako
se�unistava�vekovna�imovina�sa�romskog�naselja�"Rasadnik" tj;
citava�ulica�Fabricka.
�
�������������������Prolazim�pored�punkta�"MONICA"�francuskih�vojnika,�pu
nkt�koji�se�nalazi�kod �samog�tadasnjeg " Crvenog�Signala" s
druge�strane�Ibra�,
jer�otuda�je�dobar�vidik�i�mogu�sa��manje�rizika�da�fotografisem�ostatak
�Romske�Mahale,
u�prvom�trenutku�ne�daju�da�se�fotografise�ali�ja�ih�pitam�zasto�i�zbig�
cega?�nemam�odgovora,
a�jasno�se�vidi�da�na�nekoliko�metara�od�NAS�kako�pojedini�albanci�skida
ju�cigle�jer�crepa�vise�nema,�i�na�pitanje�zbog�cega�oni�dozvoljavaju�da
�to�cine�pred�njihovim�ocima�dobio�sam�nemi�odgovor.�Medjutim�jedan�Fran
cuski�vojnik�dodaje�da�je�veoma�tuzno�ujutro�kad�se�budi�i�pogleda�takvo
�mrtvo�naselje,�kaze�da�je�to�genocid,
i�da��ga��to�dosta�pogadja�njega�kao�vojnika , ali
da�vojnici�rade�samo�ono�sto�im�se�naredjuje.........
�
������������������Svedocenja���da�u�mnogim�gradovima��nema�Romske�popula
cije�pokazala i potvrdila je�i�moja�anketa��tokom�ispitivanja
pojedinaca,�ne�samo�Roma�nego i�Srba i�Goranaca�koji
svi�zajedno��zive�na�severnom�delu�Kos.Mitrovice i�Leposavicu .
�
����������������������������������������������������13-16 april�2002�
�
ROMI����������������������ASKALIJE�������������������������������total
Kosovska Mitrovica sev.deo����
03 porodice���������� 27 porodica�����������
238��osoba
Zitkovac�����
���������������
01 porodica����������������27 porodica�����
�oko 200 osoba
Leposavic��������������������������������
13 porodica�����������������ostalo askalije
Prvi Tunel���������������������������
nema�rroma�������� ima askalija,(ne zna�sekoliko)�
Pristina���������������������������������
nema�roma�������������������������������������/
Obilic�����������������������������������
02 porodice�������������������������������������/
( zive�sa Srbima�to�su porodice�Kovaca)
Plemetina���������������������������������
52 porodice�������������������������������������/
�
��������to�su�Romske�porodice�iz�Obilica,
Pristine�i�okolna�sela�to��je�jedan�logor�u�kojem�dominiraju�askalije�ko
ji�su�obuceni�u�uniforme TMK-a(Teritorijal�mbrojta e
kosoves),�zlostavljaju��romsku��populaciju.
�
Preluzje����������������������������������������
?������������������������������������������������/
ima�Roma nekoliko�porodica,( Bugurdjije)�zive�sa Srbima�
Kosovo Polje���������������������������
10-15porodica?������������������������ima�ih�dosta
zive��sa�Srbima?�
Pec�����������������������������������������������
?�������������������������������������������������/
�������Nemam�dostupne�informacije niko�ne��zna�dali�ima�roma,
vecina�kaze�da�ih�nazalost�nema.
�
Vucitrn�������������������������������������������
0 nema��roma�������������������� �������/
Podujevo����������������������������������������
0 nema�roma������������������� ��������/
Kos.Mitrovica juzni deo������������������
0 nema roma
Srbica���������������������������������������������
0 nema roma���������������������������/
Djakovica����������������������������������������
? ne�zna�se�����������������������������/
Prizeren���������������������������������������������
?����������������������������������������������/
kazu�da�ima�ali�im�se�ne�zna�broj.
Lipljan����������������������������������������������
nema roma��������������� ima?
�
Tacan�broj�Roma�ne�moze�da�se�proceni��jer�ni��UN�niti�OSCE�kao
i�druge�organizacije�koje�se�nalaze�na�Kosovu jer ne�poznaju�dovoljno ,
a�pojedine�organizacije uopste Romsku�populaciju
,�tako�da�ih�mesaju�sa��askalijama�tj.
egipcanima�zbog�toga�mnogo�deziformisu��svetsku�javnost.
�
Broj�Roma�koji�se�sada�nalazi��na�Kosovu��moze�se�znati�ukoliko�na�tome�
rade�sami�Romi�sa�Kosova�ili�Romi�iz Srbije u saradnji sa drugim
samostalnim organizacijama (ONGs)
koji�dobro�poznaju�sva�tri�jezika�(ROMSKI , Srpski , Albanski i
obavezno jedan zivi jezik)
jer�poznavajuci�dobro�obe��etnicke�zajednice�oni�mogu�tokom�razgovora�da
�znaju�o�kojoj��grupi�se�radi,�inace�ako�se�ovako�nastavi�da�se�radi�ima
cemo�podatke�koje�ne�odgovaraju��istini�i�takva�manipulacija�moze�imati�
teske�(katastrofalne)�posledice.
�
Tokom�razgovora�ispitanika��razlicitih�grupa�o�sigurnosti�i�daljem�zivot
u���Kosovu�kao i sadasnoj�bezbednonosnoj�situaciji�imao�sam�sledeci
odgovor:
�
Na pitanje�kakva�je�sigurnost ?
-�Oni�su�mi�odgovorili�nikakva.
�
Kako�nikakva !?
-�Sigurnosti�nema, svakog�casa�se��moze�desiti�svasta,
nista�nije�sigurno a�najmanje�nasa�buducnost�i�zivoti.
�
Kakva�je�situacija?
- Nikakva, gora�i�gora�nema�nista�da�ide�nabolje�evo�tri godine,
siptarima�sve�dali�a�nas�da�teraju�i�iz�ovog�multietnickog�dela�Kosovske
Mitrovice.
�
Rekli�ste�multietnickog��dela,�zar�severni�deo�Mitrovice�nije�Srpski?
-�Ne�ovde�ima�Srba�oko�25000, Albanaca�oko�3000, ima�Bosnjaka,
Turaka,�Roma,�Goranaca ,�Askaljija�i�dr.,
dok�cisto��etnicki�je�ostali�deo�Kosova,�to�Medjunarodna�zajednica�zna.
�
Zar�nema�drugih�nacija��u�Albanskom�delu ?
-�Da�ima�ih,�ali�u�enklavama�u�rezervoatima,
zatvoreni�oni�nemaju�slobodu.
�
Kako�vi�to�znate�da�oni�nemaju�slobodu?
-�Pod�pratnjom�KFORA�dolaze�ovde�u�bolnicu�da�se
lece�ili�ih�zatecemo�na�ulicu�i�oni�nam�ispricaju�svoju�tugu�i�situaciju
�sa�druge�strane�i�opasnost�koja�ih�vreba�non-stop.
�
������������������Ovakvih�svedocenja�ima�onoliko�koliko�ima�i�stanovnika
�u�severnom�delu�Mitrovice.
�
Samo�da�napomenem�da�u�Mitrovici�u�kampu " Cesmin�Lug " ima�cetiri (4)
porodice�roma�i�to: tzv. porodica�Pejoni, porodica�Farije
,��porodica��Samija�Gusani i porodica Bajrami.
�
�����������U�Kampu�Zitkovac:�familija��Feriz�Sana�to��je�jedina�romska�p
orodica�u�tom�kampu, ostali�su�svi
askalije�ali�koji�se�iznjasnavaju�kao�romi.
�
�����������U�Leposavicu :
porodica�Begesi�iz�Vucitrna,�Fazli�Baskim�iz�Pristine,�porodica�Beljulji
��iz�Mitrovice,�Jahic�Bakija iz�Mitrovice,�Miftari�Djulja
iz�Pristine,�Gasi�Aslan�iz�Kline i�sedam (7)
porodica�Gusani�iz�K.Mitrovice��ostali�su�svi�askalije�ali�se��izjasnjav
aju �kao�romi.
�
������������Mogu�vam�sa�sigurnoscu�reci��da�tokom�ispitivanja�izbeglica�
o�njihovom�brojnom�stanju�i�to�u�odnosu�na�1999�i�2002-2003
godinu�kazu��da�ih�je
dosta�otislo�po�Srbiji�i�Crnu�Goru�i�da�se�vise�ne�vracaju.
Na�pitanje�zbog�cega�nece�da�se�vracaju�tj. odlaze
kazu�da�ima���vise�razloga:
�
1) Kao�najvaznije�je�sigurnost,
jer�niko�nas�ne�cuva�svako�moze��doci�u�kamp
i�mogu�ciniti�sa�nama�svasta�a�i�ono�najgore�ubuti�nas,
sto�se�i�desilo�sa�okolnih brda�gadjali�su�nas�minobacacima.
�
- Zar pored�KFORA�i Medjunarodne�policije�da�vas�neko�ubija?
�
- Odgovor�je;�sta�njih��briga�za�Nas.
�
2)�Humanitarna�pomoc�Romima�se�deli�minimalno��ili�uopste.
�
- A�zbog�cega�Romima�se ne
deli�po�kampovima�odgovorili�su�mi�da�pitam�njih,
zar�pored�tolikih�svetskih�humanitarnih�organizacija�koje�se�danas�nalaz
e�na�Kosovu nedostaje�humanitarna�pomoc,
kazu�da�o�romima�niko�se�ne��brine ,
a�da�novinari�dolaze�slikaju�daju�po�dva�tri�bonbona�deci�i�to�se�uvek�t
ako�zavrsava�kao�da�smo�vanzemaljci.
�
* Kako�vam�je�zimi, dali�imate�cime�da�se�grejete?
�
�-Zima�je�veoma�hladna,�ti�to�znas.
Dok�smo�bili�u�satorima�u�kampu�Zitkovac�spavali�smo�u�satorima�kako�zen
e�tako�deca�i�starci, pocetkom�Januara�2000
godine�u�tom�istom�kampu�od�hladnoce�je�umrlo�sedmoro�ljudi�,jedna�zena�
sa�svoje�novorodjeno�dete�od�nekoliko�dana ,
jos�jedno�deteod�5�godina�ostali�su�bile�starije
osobe.Ovde�zimi�ima�dosta�mraza�izaledi�se�brzo�temperatura�silazi�i�isp
od�-25C�.
�
*A�kako�cete�ove�zime�da�li�Medjunarodna�Zajednica
ce�vam�dati�pomoc�u�ogravima�tj.u�drva�i�...����.
�
-Ne�verujemo�iako�nam�daju, daju�samo�da�bi�se
reklo�da�su�nam�nesto�dali,�metar�ili�dva�drveta�za�ogrev.
�
*Zar�to�nije�dovoljno�,
�
-Ma�kakve barake�namaju�nikakvu�izolaciju,
sada�ne�zivimo�pod�satorima�ali�se�pitamo�sto�bi�gore�moglo�biti
,satori�ili�barake�koje�same
sagorevaju�od�peci�koje�nisu�dobrog�kvaliteta�cunak
veoma�brzo�pocrveni�a�one barake
su�napravljene�od�dasaka�i�brzo�se�pale, prosle�godine�pet
(5)��takvih�baraka�je�sagorelo�za�nekoliko�minuta,
jedva�smo�spasili�decu�i�starce. Muka�nasa�je�velika�tesko je
za�ovu�jadnu�decu�koja�nemaju�perspektivu�za�dalji�zivot.
�
Ovaj�razgovor�sam�vodio�sa�vise�osoba�iz�oba�kampa�kako�iz�kampa�"Cesmin
�Lug"�tako�i�iz�kampa�Zitkovca.
�
Avgust�1999 god. izbeglicki�kamp u�Zvecanu (Skola Vuk Karadzic)
������������������������������
����������������������������������( iz�mog�licnog�dnevnika )
�������������
�����������Letni�avgustovski�dan�sunce�greje�svojim�zracima�izbeglice�ko
ji�su�pod�terorom�pojedinih siptara
bili�primorani�da�napuste�svoja�vekovna�ognjista.
,�Sunce�ih�greje�jer�to nacionalisti�ne�mogu�da�kradu,�a�niti�da�zapale.
�
�����������Danas�ove�nesrecne�ljude koji su sa�svojim porodicama u
izbeglistvu, posecuje glavni�predstavnik�za�Kosovo Bernard�Kusner,
da�li�je�to�slucajna�poseta ili je�to�humana poseta, ili
je���poseta�nekog�drugog�razloga, ja�bi�to�rekao
da�je�to�medijatizovana poseta, a�zbog�cega?
�����������U skoli u Zvecanu ima preko�250 izbeglica,
sa�njima�ima�i�jedna Srpska�porodica, jedna�bosnjacka
i�dve�albanske�porodice. Higijene�nema ,
nemaju�kupatilo�za�kupanje�nemaju�gde�da�peru�ves,
ima�svakojakih�zaraznih�bolesti, jedu samo�suvu hranu�tj.konzervisanu
hranu, mozda�je�to�razlog�posete�ovog�"mirovnjaka".
�
Da, ni�same�izbeglice�ne�znaju�da�boluju�od�TIFUSA ,da od�tifusa,
boluju takodje�od�crevnih bolesti, od �suge, uglavnom�od�bolesti�ciji
je�uzrok�necistoca . Tokom posete�izbeglica primetio�sam�da Kusner
humanitarac i doktor bez�granica,( a ja�bih�rekao�sa�granicama) nije
kako�on�ima obicaj uzeo�nijedno�dete niti
romsko�niti�srpsko�u�svoje�narucje i�da�ih�poljubi�kako on to ima u
obicaj da�uradi�pred�kamerama , a isto
tako�sam�primetio�da�se�uopste�nije�ni�pozdravio ni sa�srpskim
prestavnikom niti sa romskim prestavnikom ( o ovoj poseti imamo
snimljenu traku)
znaci�Kusner�je�znao�da�izbeglice�boluju�od�zaraznih�bolesti a to�im
nije�rekao�nego�je�krio, kao i dosta�istine.
�
�����������On im je obecao�da ce�ih�smestiti na�"sigurnom", i�sto�je
i�ucinio, posle�toga�su�izbeglice nekoliko njih smestene u kamp
Zitkovac pod�satorima�(kao indijanci,ja se njima izvinjavam) unutra
su�imali samo�jednu pec koja im je�sluzila za sve potrebe, jedan ili
dva kreveta, od jake�zime januara 2000 god. sedmoro je�njih�umrlo�od
jakog mraza tj. smrznuli�su�se, a�od�toga�jedna zena�sa�svojim
jednomesecnom�bebom, posle�toga napravljene�su im�barake , duzine sa 3m
i sirine sa 2m, zamislite .Barake�su�pravljene od�dasaka i�zime�2001
god . sedam (7) takvih�baraka�se�zapalilo,
a�uzrok�su�bili�pocrveneli�cunkovi .
�����������Zar�ne�bi�bilo�bolje�umesto�da im prave�satore�i�barake da
ljude (izbeglice)�vrate svojim�kucama�.
�
A gde�su�kuce?
�
Naravno,�unistene.
�
Zasto�se�Romima, Srbima i�drugim�nealbancima nisu�gradile�kuce?
�
Kako ce preziveti i ovu zimu koja je veoma hladna ?
�
Ko ce pomoci romima i drugim izbeglicama�na severnom delu Mitrovice i
ostalom delu Kosova?
�
Dali ce se i dalje smrznuti od hladnoce?
�
Hoce li romi biti�jos uvek u tim barakama od baruta ? ???
�
�
�����������Danas�na�Kosovu�i�Metohiji�nema��pravog�roma�tj.�coveka�koji�
brani�romska�prava�a�da�nije�prodat ili da ne
radi�pod�pretnjom�onih�koji�su�vrsili�ovaj�egzodus tj.
APARHEID�romske�populacije.
Kada kazem�da je�tesko�naci
pravog�roma�ne�mislim�na�askalije�ili�egipcane jer (oni�sebe�nazivaju
drugacije�nego�romima i stvaraju�neku�svoju�vestacku�kulturu�i poreklo
i�zahvaljujuci�njihovom�ulogu�ovaj�nas�egzodus�samo�se�povecao.Na�kosovu
�nema�pravog�roma (lidera)�iako ga�ima�ili je clan�nacionalista
i�separatista�koji�haraju�kosovom ili�su�egipcani-askalije
koji�su�preorijentisani drugacije�, a�prestavljaju�se�kao�romi,
a�sve�to�zadovoljava�potrebe�svetske�javnosti
jer�za�njih�je�sve�jedno�da�li�bilo ko�od�ne-roma predstavlja�rome,
ili�ako�su�romi�to�su�ljudi�neskolovani�koji�su i�pre�rata�bili
ispod�socijalne�egzistencije i kako�sam�naveo�uglavnom�prestavnici�koji
ni�sami ne�znaju�kako�se�sami�zovu , jer �se�predstavljaju�kako
vetar�duva.
Na�kosovu�ako�hocemo�reci�da�ima�roma, ja�bih�rekao�isto
kao�vi�"da�ima�ih"i�to:
�
-�u�logorima ( civilizovanije kampovima),
�
- romi�koji�su prodati�,a�razloga�ima�X,
�
�- i�socijalno�ugrozenih�roma koji�moraju�da�prezivljavaju
sva�najgora�maltretiranja�i�zlostavljanja.
�
(u�zadnje vreme�vecina�romske�dece je
bila�maltretirana�ili�silovana��od�askalija
u�kampu�Plemetina��kod��Obilica, a�jedno�dete�je��bilo�zivo�spaljeno
u�bure�od�guma�proliveno�benzinom, to�su�uglavnom��askalije
koji�rade�za�nekog, a�svetska�javnost�to�zna�ali�je�"slepa").
�
�����������Ne mogu
reci�da�su�svi�askalije�istomisljenici�i�anarhisti�kakao
i�njihovi�ljubimci, ima�i�onih�askalija�koji�drugacije�misle
i�koji�se�ne�slazu sta�njihovi�sunarodnici rade��protiv roma.
�Samo�da�vam�navedem�da�se�i�askalije�dele u�vise � grupa � i�to:
-Askalije�koji�sebe�nazivaju�albancima�(to su�nacionalno�orijentisani
askalije � egipcani),krajem 2002 godine pojavile su se jos tri grupe
tih tzv.nacionalnih manjina na kosovu , oni sebe nazivaju
ESNAFIMA,�druga MILJET,a treca ALBANOFONI. To je samo fantazija nekih
plemena a koji su podcinjeni da se tako predstavljaju.Znaci od tih
istih�egipcana sada imamo i askalije i esnafe i miljete i
albanofone,neko zeli o jednog klasa da stvori njivu tj. neko[2]
multietnicko kosovo ali za poznavaoce ove grupe naroda oni su svi isti
tj. jedna grupa plemena.
�
-askalije�koji��pored�albanskog jezika,�govere�i�srpsko-hrvatski jezik,
koji�su�orijentisani�Jugoslovenski,
�
-askalije�koji�pored�albanskog�jezika govovre�turski i (romski)
�
-i�askalije�koji
�sebe�nazivaju�romima�pored�albanskog�i�srpskog�jezika�govere
dobro�romski�jezik, (orijentisani su Jugoslovenski).
�
Od�ovih�grupa�askalija,danas�na�kosovu�mozemo�naci�samo�prvu�grupu�askal
ija, ali
koji�zavisno�od�situacije�i�humanitarne�pomoci�ponekad�se�predstavljaju�
kao�romi�uglavnom�na�severnom�delu�K.M , dok�na�jugu K.M
i�ostalom�delu�Kosova predstavljaju se
kao�Askalije�i�novoizmisljene�nacije�Egipcanima.
�
�
OBIJASNJENJE:
�
Askalije�ili�Egipcani�oni�nemaju svoj�nacionalni�jezik , kulturu,
obicaj niti�istoriju.
oni�zive�uglavnom�na�Balkanu�na�podrucju��bivse�Jugoslaviji,�pretezno�na
�Kosovu�ima�ih i u�Albaniju,mali procenat u Grckoj i Makedoniji�? Ovo
pleme�broji manje od sto hiljada stanovnika na svim ovim prostorima.
Zasto�askalije�nemaju�nijednu�rec u�njihovom�govoru?
Po�mojim istrazivanjima�i�anketi�oni�su�romi,
jer�fizicki�oblik�askalija�je�isti kao�i kod�roma......,(o ovome cemo
posebno govoriti nekom drugom prilikom).
Kako�su oni�uglavnom�ziveli�na�podrucjima�gde�se�uglavnom
govori�albanski�jezik, i�sasvim�je�sigurno�da�su�oni�bili rromi koji su
ASIMILIRANI.
Obicaj�oni�nemaju, sluze�se obicajima�roma�a�u�zadnje�vreme�kako
su�proalbanski�orijentisani (uglavnom askalije sa�kosova, a i
oni�koji�se�nalaze u�Evropi a�koji�su poreklom�sa�Kosova) sluze
obicajima�albanaca,nemaju�sopstveni�obicaj�i kulturu, to
su�100%�ASIMILIRANI ROMI koji sebe nazivaju�ASKALIJE- EGIPCANI.
Pojedini istrazitelji pokusaju da daju neka svoja misljenja o njihovoj
istoriji i kulturi, a bez obzira sta oni pisali, time mogu siriti
netacne podatke samo onima koji ne poznaju ovu grupu plemena.
�
[Sono state eliminare la parti non di testo del messaggio]
LA EPURAZIONE ETNICA DEI ROM KOSOVARI,
DAL 1999 AD OGGI
PRIMA PARTE: appunti sulla epurazione etnica, redatti gia' nel 2002 dal
rappresentante della associazione della diaspora dei rom kosovari
URYD/France
---
Introduzione
Negli ultimi anni le forze congiunte della NATO (KFOR) e dei neonazisti
pan-albanesi (UCK ed affiliati) hanno epurato etnicamente la provincia
del Kosovo-Metohija da qualsiasi presenza "tzigana" (rom, ashkali,
egizi, eccetera).
Alla luce di questo dato di fatto, che documentiamo di seguito (e nei
prossimi messaggi) in dettaglio con cifre e commenti, viene da
chiedersi:
- Quale sorta di malafede induce tuttora certuni ad attribuire ai
"serbi" volonta' di sterminio o epurazione etnica in Kosovo?
- Se fossero stati i "serbi" a nutrire disegni deliranti di sciovinismo
nazionalistico, per quale motivo essi avrebbero "aggredito" solamente i
cittadini di lingua albanese?
- E viceversa, per quale motivo l'odierno protettorato NATO del Kosovo
non e' un inferno solo per i "serbi", ma per tutte le minoranze
non-albanesi - primi tra tutti gli tzigani, appunto - e financo per gli
albanesi progressisti e/o rappresentanti (per lavoro o legame
famigliare) - dello spirito multietnico jugoslavo nel quale si era
vissuti in pace negli scorsi 50 anni?
- E perche', infine, la questione albanese si e' estesa a tutti i paesi
vicini (Montenegro, Macedonia, Grecia)? Che cosa c'entreranno mai i
"serbi" oppure "Milosevic" in questo?
Per un inquadramento storico del terrore nazista in Kosovo-Metohija si
vedano in particolare:
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/1029
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/1030
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2978
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2986
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/3107
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/3090
ed i collegamenti ivi contenuti.
(a cura di Italo Slavo)
===
Postovana gospodo, dobar dan,
Ja se u ime Unije Roma u Dijaspori, zahvaljujem na sva obavestenja koja
mi saljete, ja cu vam poslati jedan raport sa Kosmeta, ukoliko imate
neku primedbu ja sam spreman da odgovaram na vase pitanja,
hvala, unapred Vam se zahvaljujem i
srdacno Vas pozdravljam,
za URYD/France
Nedzo
---
Kosovska�Mitrovica������������������Asocijacija reka "IBAR"-Troyes
13 & 17/ 04/2002����������������������Mitrovica - Paris & Troyes -
Mitrovica
I do danas 28 aprila 2003 situacija roma i drugih jugoslovenskih naroda
koji zele mir na ovim prostorima nista se nije
poboljsala,nego,�naprotiv, ona se i dalje pogorsava.
�
Romska�populacija�u�pojedinim�gradovima
K O S O V A�i�Metohije
���������( Svedocenja�izbeglica )
������������������������������
�����������Od pocetka rata 1999 godine asocijacija reka IBAR radi na
pitanju izbeglica sa teritorije Jugoslavije. Posedujemo dosta arhive
sto se tice izbeglistva roma, kao i njihovog pre-ratnog i posle-ratnog
zivota i rada u drustvenoj zajednici. Vise puta clanovi asocijacije od
1999 godine licno su bili na terenu na relaciji Mitrovica - Paris,
Paris - Mitrovica , da sami preispitaju situaciju prognanih lica, kao i
o bezbednonosnom stanja na teritoriji (Kosmeta)�u�kojoj su se nalazili.
Ovo je prvi put da se asocijacija oglasava putem raporta, tj. da�upozna
radom kojim se ona bavi, a u isto vreme puno smo pratili rad drugih
ONGs, kao i oficijalnih organizacija,i zbog toga mozemo sa sigurnoscu
objaviti (reci) i�kritikovati rad drugih ONGs.
�����������Jedan od mojih razloga i odlaska��na�Kosovo�tj.
u�Kosovskoj��Mitrovici�jeste�moje�neslaganje�nekim�(ne)
odredjenim�brojkama�koje�pojedine�organizacije�u�svojim�izvestajima�izno
se, a�koje�po�mojim�istrazivanjima�su�100%�netacne,
jer�poznavajuci�situaciju�bolje od tzv. �
humanitarnih��organizacija�ne�mogu�se�nikako�sloziti�sa�takvim�izvestaji
ma�koji�su�veoma�manipulisani�tj.�netacni�i�koji�mogu�biti�od�velike
stete�za�romsku �populaciju.
Organizacije�kao�stu�su : ........(imena ovih organizacija navescemo
sledecom prilikom od nekih od nasih raporta, a nadam se da su i vama
poznate takve organizacije) manipulisu�brojkama da�danas
na�Kosovu�bezbedonosna�situacija���izvaredna�i�da�izbeglice�mogu�sa�sigu
rnoscu�vratiti�svojim�ognjistima,
da�K-
FOR�obezbedjuje�sigurnost�njihove�imovine�i�njihovih�zivota,�sto�je�kont
radiktorno�istini�i�bezbednonosnoj�situaciji�na�Kosmetu�u��ovom�trenutku
(sada).
�����������Od�dolaska�KFORA��na�Kosovu��juna�1999 , pa�do�danas�Aprila
2002 �2003 godine, stanje�bezbedonosne situacije,
sigurnost�po�zivot�i�imovinu�sto�se�tice�Romske�populacije�se�jos�vise�p
ogorsala , njihove�kuce�su�unistene�i�unistavaju se�i�danas
pred�ocima�NATO "mirovnjaka",�primer�zato�imamo�vise�Romskih
naselja�po�citavom�Kosovu kao u Pristini i drugim gradoviam,
a�najdramaticniji�primer�je��romsko�naselju�u�Kosovskoj�Mitrovici�gde��j
e�citava�populacija�negde�izmedju 7.000�i�8.500 stanovnika�tokom�rata
�koja�je�bila�prisutna�u�tom�vremenu
prebegla�ili�bila�primorana�pod�pritiskom pojedinih albanskih
nacionalista i�ekstremista,��a�pred�ocima NATO "MIROVNJAKA"
da�napuste�svoja�vekovna�ognjista�(Inace�samo�Fabricka
ulica�u�Kos.Mitrovici po�mojim���israzivanjima
sada�broji��izmedju���15.000�i��18.000�stanovnika.) i�oko�1.025( broj
kuca),koje su statisticki zavedene, ( ima i onih kuca koje su
sagradjene bez gradjavinske dozvole, te kuce su uglavnom gradili
askalije kod starog Trepcinog stadiona ili u delu mahale koji smo mi
nazivali "padalica" uglavnom nastanjeno askalijama, a i pojedini romi
koji su socijalno ugrozeni gradili takve objekte, ciji je broj negde
oko stotinak�kuca.) znaci sve ukupno MAHALA je brojala vise od 1.025
domacinstva.Treba navoditi da�su�romske�porodice sastoje od
vise�clanova�tako�recimo, pod�jednim�zavedenim�tj. registrovanim�brojem
bilo�je�vise�domacinstava, ( dve�i�vise�kuca�koje�su�nosile (imale)
isti�broj).
Ne treba�zaboraviti�da�romska�populacija samo na�Kosovu�brojala je
izmedju�97.000 (statisticki zavedeno)�i��140.000
(estimacija)�stanovnika, tako�da�je�meni�besmisleno otkuda pojedinim
organizacijama�i�drugim�mirovnjacima�da je na�kosovu
zivelo�negde�oko�10.000 roma�i�to pod��satorima, bez�zanimanja ,
obrazovanja i�dr. njihovih�lazi ... Ne treba zaboraviti da su romi bili
lojalni gradjani Jugoslavije, to znaci da su se skolovali, isli u
vojsku (bili staresine- vojna lica ),bili sportisti ,lekari svih nivoa
i kvalifikacija, umetnici , veliki radnici (u rudnicima), i da su se
nalazili u svim drustvenim slojevima .Kao da "mirovnjaci"�nisu "znali"
ko�su�romi,�i�koja�opasnost�preti�Romima, Srbima ,Gorancima i dr.
stanovnicima Kosova, ukoliko�kosovom�vladaju:�nepravda , bezakonje,
nacionalisti,separatisti i dr.divljaci, kako�je�to�moguce�da�oni
nisu�znali�nista�o�drugim�stanovnicima�kosova tj.Jugoslavije
gde�su�njihovi�analiticari�koji svojim�procenama�ne " grese".
Na�Kosovu�nisu�ziveli�samo�albanici�i�manjina (u�svojoj�drzavi )
kako�kazu�oni Srbi, zasto�su�zaboravili�sve�druge�etnicke�zajednice?
Zasto�NATOVSKU�"zastitu" nisu�imali�Srbi, Crnogorci, Romi, Goranci,
Bosnjaci, Turci, novoizmisljena�nacija askalije
i�dr.Ako�nisu�dobro�poznavali�situaciju�na�kosovu�pre�njihovog�dolaska,
i�ako�je rezim�srpski�bio " los " samo�za�albance zasto�se
unistavanje�imovine�svih�nealbanaca,�desavalo i to
bas�pred�njihovim�ocima u�njihovom�prisustvu?
Zasto�su��sve�druge etnicke�grupe�bile�proterivane,
a�njihova�imovina�ukradena�i�spaljena?
Zasto��i���danas nema�sigurnosti�na�Kosovu?...............
�
���������������������������������Kosovska�Mitrovica 16 aprila 2002
u�8h30
�
Sedimo�u�kafeu�DOLCE�VITA��jos�je�rano�pijemo�kafu�i�kiselu�vodu��citamo
�jutarnje�novine,�ispred�nas�na�nekoliko�metara �je�Ibarski�Most,
most�koji�razdvaja�narode,��razgovaramo�i�pitamo�se��sta�ce�biti�kakvo�j
e�stanje?
�
Veoma�je�neizvesno�kaze�Rus�momak�koji�drzi�ovaj�kafic�i�koji�je�prvi�na
�udaru�svih�nemira. Pre samo�nekoliko�dana�ovde
�je�bio�pravi�haos,��pogledaj�brate�evo�ovde�se�to�desilo��na�pet�metara
�ispred�mog�lokala�evo�jos�se�vide�tragovi�krvi.Pitam�se�dokle�ce�Kosovo
�jos�biti�krvavo�i�zasto�to�jos�uvek�traje?.
�
- Veoma�je�opasno�kaze�Deki
,�samo�Bog�zna,�niko�ne�moze�da�garantuje�mir,
svakog�casa�mozemo�da�nestanemo.
�Jedan�stanovnik�sela�Suvog�Dola , sela��koji�se�nalazi�s druge�strane
Ibra�Romske�Mahale�dodaje,
ali�koji�je�zeleo�da�bude�anoniman�zbog�licne�sigurnosti,
da�je�veoma�zalosno�videti�da�je citavo�naselje��pusto,
a��da�drugi�tj.Albanci�svakodnevno��skidaju�ciglu�po�ciglu�sa�romskih�ku
ca�i�dodaje�kao�da�je�KFOR�i�Medjunarodna�zajednica�slepa,jer�se�to
cini pred�njihovim�ocima�oni�su�tu�a�kao�da�ne�vide kako
se�unistava�vekovna�imovina�sa�romskog�naselja�"Rasadnik" tj;
citava�ulica�Fabricka.
�
�������������������Prolazim�pored�punkta�"MONICA"�francuskih�vojnika,�pu
nkt�koji�se�nalazi�kod �samog�tadasnjeg " Crvenog�Signala" s
druge�strane�Ibra�,
jer�otuda�je�dobar�vidik�i�mogu�sa��manje�rizika�da�fotografisem�ostatak
�Romske�Mahale,
u�prvom�trenutku�ne�daju�da�se�fotografise�ali�ja�ih�pitam�zasto�i�zbig�
cega?�nemam�odgovora,
a�jasno�se�vidi�da�na�nekoliko�metara�od�NAS�kako�pojedini�albanci�skida
ju�cigle�jer�crepa�vise�nema,�i�na�pitanje�zbog�cega�oni�dozvoljavaju�da
�to�cine�pred�njihovim�ocima�dobio�sam�nemi�odgovor.�Medjutim�jedan�Fran
cuski�vojnik�dodaje�da�je�veoma�tuzno�ujutro�kad�se�budi�i�pogleda�takvo
�mrtvo�naselje,�kaze�da�je�to�genocid,
i�da��ga��to�dosta�pogadja�njega�kao�vojnika , ali
da�vojnici�rade�samo�ono�sto�im�se�naredjuje.........
�
������������������Svedocenja���da�u�mnogim�gradovima��nema�Romske�popula
cije�pokazala i potvrdila je�i�moja�anketa��tokom�ispitivanja
pojedinaca,�ne�samo�Roma�nego i�Srba i�Goranaca�koji
svi�zajedno��zive�na�severnom�delu�Kos.Mitrovice i�Leposavicu .
�
����������������������������������������������������13-16 april�2002�
�
ROMI����������������������ASKALIJE�������������������������������total
Kosovska Mitrovica sev.deo����
03 porodice���������� 27 porodica�����������
238��osoba
Zitkovac�����
���������������
01 porodica����������������27 porodica�����
�oko 200 osoba
Leposavic��������������������������������
13 porodica�����������������ostalo askalije
Prvi Tunel���������������������������
nema�rroma�������� ima askalija,(ne zna�sekoliko)�
Pristina���������������������������������
nema�roma�������������������������������������/
Obilic�����������������������������������
02 porodice�������������������������������������/
( zive�sa Srbima�to�su porodice�Kovaca)
Plemetina���������������������������������
52 porodice�������������������������������������/
�
��������to�su�Romske�porodice�iz�Obilica,
Pristine�i�okolna�sela�to��je�jedan�logor�u�kojem�dominiraju�askalije�ko
ji�su�obuceni�u�uniforme TMK-a(Teritorijal�mbrojta e
kosoves),�zlostavljaju��romsku��populaciju.
�
Preluzje����������������������������������������
?������������������������������������������������/
ima�Roma nekoliko�porodica,( Bugurdjije)�zive�sa Srbima�
Kosovo Polje���������������������������
10-15porodica?������������������������ima�ih�dosta
zive��sa�Srbima?�
Pec�����������������������������������������������
?�������������������������������������������������/
�������Nemam�dostupne�informacije niko�ne��zna�dali�ima�roma,
vecina�kaze�da�ih�nazalost�nema.
�
Vucitrn�������������������������������������������
0 nema��roma�������������������� �������/
Podujevo����������������������������������������
0 nema�roma������������������� ��������/
Kos.Mitrovica juzni deo������������������
0 nema roma
Srbica���������������������������������������������
0 nema roma���������������������������/
Djakovica����������������������������������������
? ne�zna�se�����������������������������/
Prizeren���������������������������������������������
?����������������������������������������������/
kazu�da�ima�ali�im�se�ne�zna�broj.
Lipljan����������������������������������������������
nema roma��������������� ima?
�
Tacan�broj�Roma�ne�moze�da�se�proceni��jer�ni��UN�niti�OSCE�kao
i�druge�organizacije�koje�se�nalaze�na�Kosovu jer ne�poznaju�dovoljno ,
a�pojedine�organizacije uopste Romsku�populaciju
,�tako�da�ih�mesaju�sa��askalijama�tj.
egipcanima�zbog�toga�mnogo�deziformisu��svetsku�javnost.
�
Broj�Roma�koji�se�sada�nalazi��na�Kosovu��moze�se�znati�ukoliko�na�tome�
rade�sami�Romi�sa�Kosova�ili�Romi�iz Srbije u saradnji sa drugim
samostalnim organizacijama (ONGs)
koji�dobro�poznaju�sva�tri�jezika�(ROMSKI , Srpski , Albanski i
obavezno jedan zivi jezik)
jer�poznavajuci�dobro�obe��etnicke�zajednice�oni�mogu�tokom�razgovora�da
�znaju�o�kojoj��grupi�se�radi,�inace�ako�se�ovako�nastavi�da�se�radi�ima
cemo�podatke�koje�ne�odgovaraju��istini�i�takva�manipulacija�moze�imati�
teske�(katastrofalne)�posledice.
�
Tokom�razgovora�ispitanika��razlicitih�grupa�o�sigurnosti�i�daljem�zivot
u���Kosovu�kao i sadasnoj�bezbednonosnoj�situaciji�imao�sam�sledeci
odgovor:
�
Na pitanje�kakva�je�sigurnost ?
-�Oni�su�mi�odgovorili�nikakva.
�
Kako�nikakva !?
-�Sigurnosti�nema, svakog�casa�se��moze�desiti�svasta,
nista�nije�sigurno a�najmanje�nasa�buducnost�i�zivoti.
�
Kakva�je�situacija?
- Nikakva, gora�i�gora�nema�nista�da�ide�nabolje�evo�tri godine,
siptarima�sve�dali�a�nas�da�teraju�i�iz�ovog�multietnickog�dela�Kosovske
Mitrovice.
�
Rekli�ste�multietnickog��dela,�zar�severni�deo�Mitrovice�nije�Srpski?
-�Ne�ovde�ima�Srba�oko�25000, Albanaca�oko�3000, ima�Bosnjaka,
Turaka,�Roma,�Goranaca ,�Askaljija�i�dr.,
dok�cisto��etnicki�je�ostali�deo�Kosova,�to�Medjunarodna�zajednica�zna.
�
Zar�nema�drugih�nacija��u�Albanskom�delu ?
-�Da�ima�ih,�ali�u�enklavama�u�rezervoatima,
zatvoreni�oni�nemaju�slobodu.
�
Kako�vi�to�znate�da�oni�nemaju�slobodu?
-�Pod�pratnjom�KFORA�dolaze�ovde�u�bolnicu�da�se
lece�ili�ih�zatecemo�na�ulicu�i�oni�nam�ispricaju�svoju�tugu�i�situaciju
�sa�druge�strane�i�opasnost�koja�ih�vreba�non-stop.
�
������������������Ovakvih�svedocenja�ima�onoliko�koliko�ima�i�stanovnika
�u�severnom�delu�Mitrovice.
�
Samo�da�napomenem�da�u�Mitrovici�u�kampu " Cesmin�Lug " ima�cetiri (4)
porodice�roma�i�to: tzv. porodica�Pejoni, porodica�Farije
,��porodica��Samija�Gusani i porodica Bajrami.
�
�����������U�Kampu�Zitkovac:�familija��Feriz�Sana�to��je�jedina�romska�p
orodica�u�tom�kampu, ostali�su�svi
askalije�ali�koji�se�iznjasnavaju�kao�romi.
�
�����������U�Leposavicu :
porodica�Begesi�iz�Vucitrna,�Fazli�Baskim�iz�Pristine,�porodica�Beljulji
��iz�Mitrovice,�Jahic�Bakija iz�Mitrovice,�Miftari�Djulja
iz�Pristine,�Gasi�Aslan�iz�Kline i�sedam (7)
porodica�Gusani�iz�K.Mitrovice��ostali�su�svi�askalije�ali�se��izjasnjav
aju �kao�romi.
�
������������Mogu�vam�sa�sigurnoscu�reci��da�tokom�ispitivanja�izbeglica�
o�njihovom�brojnom�stanju�i�to�u�odnosu�na�1999�i�2002-2003
godinu�kazu��da�ih�je
dosta�otislo�po�Srbiji�i�Crnu�Goru�i�da�se�vise�ne�vracaju.
Na�pitanje�zbog�cega�nece�da�se�vracaju�tj. odlaze
kazu�da�ima���vise�razloga:
�
1) Kao�najvaznije�je�sigurnost,
jer�niko�nas�ne�cuva�svako�moze��doci�u�kamp
i�mogu�ciniti�sa�nama�svasta�a�i�ono�najgore�ubuti�nas,
sto�se�i�desilo�sa�okolnih brda�gadjali�su�nas�minobacacima.
�
- Zar pored�KFORA�i Medjunarodne�policije�da�vas�neko�ubija?
�
- Odgovor�je;�sta�njih��briga�za�Nas.
�
2)�Humanitarna�pomoc�Romima�se�deli�minimalno��ili�uopste.
�
- A�zbog�cega�Romima�se ne
deli�po�kampovima�odgovorili�su�mi�da�pitam�njih,
zar�pored�tolikih�svetskih�humanitarnih�organizacija�koje�se�danas�nalaz
e�na�Kosovu nedostaje�humanitarna�pomoc,
kazu�da�o�romima�niko�se�ne��brine ,
a�da�novinari�dolaze�slikaju�daju�po�dva�tri�bonbona�deci�i�to�se�uvek�t
ako�zavrsava�kao�da�smo�vanzemaljci.
�
* Kako�vam�je�zimi, dali�imate�cime�da�se�grejete?
�
�-Zima�je�veoma�hladna,�ti�to�znas.
Dok�smo�bili�u�satorima�u�kampu�Zitkovac�spavali�smo�u�satorima�kako�zen
e�tako�deca�i�starci, pocetkom�Januara�2000
godine�u�tom�istom�kampu�od�hladnoce�je�umrlo�sedmoro�ljudi�,jedna�zena�
sa�svoje�novorodjeno�dete�od�nekoliko�dana ,
jos�jedno�deteod�5�godina�ostali�su�bile�starije
osobe.Ovde�zimi�ima�dosta�mraza�izaledi�se�brzo�temperatura�silazi�i�isp
od�-25C�.
�
*A�kako�cete�ove�zime�da�li�Medjunarodna�Zajednica
ce�vam�dati�pomoc�u�ogravima�tj.u�drva�i�...����.
�
-Ne�verujemo�iako�nam�daju, daju�samo�da�bi�se
reklo�da�su�nam�nesto�dali,�metar�ili�dva�drveta�za�ogrev.
�
*Zar�to�nije�dovoljno�,
�
-Ma�kakve barake�namaju�nikakvu�izolaciju,
sada�ne�zivimo�pod�satorima�ali�se�pitamo�sto�bi�gore�moglo�biti
,satori�ili�barake�koje�same
sagorevaju�od�peci�koje�nisu�dobrog�kvaliteta�cunak
veoma�brzo�pocrveni�a�one barake
su�napravljene�od�dasaka�i�brzo�se�pale, prosle�godine�pet
(5)��takvih�baraka�je�sagorelo�za�nekoliko�minuta,
jedva�smo�spasili�decu�i�starce. Muka�nasa�je�velika�tesko je
za�ovu�jadnu�decu�koja�nemaju�perspektivu�za�dalji�zivot.
�
Ovaj�razgovor�sam�vodio�sa�vise�osoba�iz�oba�kampa�kako�iz�kampa�"Cesmin
�Lug"�tako�i�iz�kampa�Zitkovca.
�
Avgust�1999 god. izbeglicki�kamp u�Zvecanu (Skola Vuk Karadzic)
������������������������������
����������������������������������( iz�mog�licnog�dnevnika )
�������������
�����������Letni�avgustovski�dan�sunce�greje�svojim�zracima�izbeglice�ko
ji�su�pod�terorom�pojedinih siptara
bili�primorani�da�napuste�svoja�vekovna�ognjista.
,�Sunce�ih�greje�jer�to nacionalisti�ne�mogu�da�kradu,�a�niti�da�zapale.
�
�����������Danas�ove�nesrecne�ljude koji su sa�svojim porodicama u
izbeglistvu, posecuje glavni�predstavnik�za�Kosovo Bernard�Kusner,
da�li�je�to�slucajna�poseta ili je�to�humana poseta, ili
je���poseta�nekog�drugog�razloga, ja�bi�to�rekao
da�je�to�medijatizovana poseta, a�zbog�cega?
�����������U skoli u Zvecanu ima preko�250 izbeglica,
sa�njima�ima�i�jedna Srpska�porodica, jedna�bosnjacka
i�dve�albanske�porodice. Higijene�nema ,
nemaju�kupatilo�za�kupanje�nemaju�gde�da�peru�ves,
ima�svakojakih�zaraznih�bolesti, jedu samo�suvu hranu�tj.konzervisanu
hranu, mozda�je�to�razlog�posete�ovog�"mirovnjaka".
�
Da, ni�same�izbeglice�ne�znaju�da�boluju�od�TIFUSA ,da od�tifusa,
boluju takodje�od�crevnih bolesti, od �suge, uglavnom�od�bolesti�ciji
je�uzrok�necistoca . Tokom posete�izbeglica primetio�sam�da Kusner
humanitarac i doktor bez�granica,( a ja�bih�rekao�sa�granicama) nije
kako�on�ima obicaj uzeo�nijedno�dete niti
romsko�niti�srpsko�u�svoje�narucje i�da�ih�poljubi�kako on to ima u
obicaj da�uradi�pred�kamerama , a isto
tako�sam�primetio�da�se�uopste�nije�ni�pozdravio ni sa�srpskim
prestavnikom niti sa romskim prestavnikom ( o ovoj poseti imamo
snimljenu traku)
znaci�Kusner�je�znao�da�izbeglice�boluju�od�zaraznih�bolesti a to�im
nije�rekao�nego�je�krio, kao i dosta�istine.
�
�����������On im je obecao�da ce�ih�smestiti na�"sigurnom", i�sto�je
i�ucinio, posle�toga�su�izbeglice nekoliko njih smestene u kamp
Zitkovac pod�satorima�(kao indijanci,ja se njima izvinjavam) unutra
su�imali samo�jednu pec koja im je�sluzila za sve potrebe, jedan ili
dva kreveta, od jake�zime januara 2000 god. sedmoro je�njih�umrlo�od
jakog mraza tj. smrznuli�su�se, a�od�toga�jedna zena�sa�svojim
jednomesecnom�bebom, posle�toga napravljene�su im�barake , duzine sa 3m
i sirine sa 2m, zamislite .Barake�su�pravljene od�dasaka i�zime�2001
god . sedam (7) takvih�baraka�se�zapalilo,
a�uzrok�su�bili�pocrveneli�cunkovi .
�����������Zar�ne�bi�bilo�bolje�umesto�da im prave�satore�i�barake da
ljude (izbeglice)�vrate svojim�kucama�.
�
A gde�su�kuce?
�
Naravno,�unistene.
�
Zasto�se�Romima, Srbima i�drugim�nealbancima nisu�gradile�kuce?
�
Kako ce preziveti i ovu zimu koja je veoma hladna ?
�
Ko ce pomoci romima i drugim izbeglicama�na severnom delu Mitrovice i
ostalom delu Kosova?
�
Dali ce se i dalje smrznuti od hladnoce?
�
Hoce li romi biti�jos uvek u tim barakama od baruta ? ???
�
�
�����������Danas�na�Kosovu�i�Metohiji�nema��pravog�roma�tj.�coveka�koji�
brani�romska�prava�a�da�nije�prodat ili da ne
radi�pod�pretnjom�onih�koji�su�vrsili�ovaj�egzodus tj.
APARHEID�romske�populacije.
Kada kazem�da je�tesko�naci
pravog�roma�ne�mislim�na�askalije�ili�egipcane jer (oni�sebe�nazivaju
drugacije�nego�romima i stvaraju�neku�svoju�vestacku�kulturu�i poreklo
i�zahvaljujuci�njihovom�ulogu�ovaj�nas�egzodus�samo�se�povecao.Na�kosovu
�nema�pravog�roma (lidera)�iako ga�ima�ili je clan�nacionalista
i�separatista�koji�haraju�kosovom ili�su�egipcani-askalije
koji�su�preorijentisani drugacije�, a�prestavljaju�se�kao�romi,
a�sve�to�zadovoljava�potrebe�svetske�javnosti
jer�za�njih�je�sve�jedno�da�li�bilo ko�od�ne-roma predstavlja�rome,
ili�ako�su�romi�to�su�ljudi�neskolovani�koji�su i�pre�rata�bili
ispod�socijalne�egzistencije i kako�sam�naveo�uglavnom�prestavnici�koji
ni�sami ne�znaju�kako�se�sami�zovu , jer �se�predstavljaju�kako
vetar�duva.
Na�kosovu�ako�hocemo�reci�da�ima�roma, ja�bih�rekao�isto
kao�vi�"da�ima�ih"i�to:
�
-�u�logorima ( civilizovanije kampovima),
�
- romi�koji�su prodati�,a�razloga�ima�X,
�
�- i�socijalno�ugrozenih�roma koji�moraju�da�prezivljavaju
sva�najgora�maltretiranja�i�zlostavljanja.
�
(u�zadnje vreme�vecina�romske�dece je
bila�maltretirana�ili�silovana��od�askalija
u�kampu�Plemetina��kod��Obilica, a�jedno�dete�je��bilo�zivo�spaljeno
u�bure�od�guma�proliveno�benzinom, to�su�uglavnom��askalije
koji�rade�za�nekog, a�svetska�javnost�to�zna�ali�je�"slepa").
�
�����������Ne mogu
reci�da�su�svi�askalije�istomisljenici�i�anarhisti�kakao
i�njihovi�ljubimci, ima�i�onih�askalija�koji�drugacije�misle
i�koji�se�ne�slazu sta�njihovi�sunarodnici rade��protiv roma.
�Samo�da�vam�navedem�da�se�i�askalije�dele u�vise � grupa � i�to:
-Askalije�koji�sebe�nazivaju�albancima�(to su�nacionalno�orijentisani
askalije � egipcani),krajem 2002 godine pojavile su se jos tri grupe
tih tzv.nacionalnih manjina na kosovu , oni sebe nazivaju
ESNAFIMA,�druga MILJET,a treca ALBANOFONI. To je samo fantazija nekih
plemena a koji su podcinjeni da se tako predstavljaju.Znaci od tih
istih�egipcana sada imamo i askalije i esnafe i miljete i
albanofone,neko zeli o jednog klasa da stvori njivu tj. neko[2]
multietnicko kosovo ali za poznavaoce ove grupe naroda oni su svi isti
tj. jedna grupa plemena.
�
-askalije�koji��pored�albanskog jezika,�govere�i�srpsko-hrvatski jezik,
koji�su�orijentisani�Jugoslovenski,
�
-askalije�koji�pored�albanskog�jezika govovre�turski i (romski)
�
-i�askalije�koji
�sebe�nazivaju�romima�pored�albanskog�i�srpskog�jezika�govere
dobro�romski�jezik, (orijentisani su Jugoslovenski).
�
Od�ovih�grupa�askalija,danas�na�kosovu�mozemo�naci�samo�prvu�grupu�askal
ija, ali
koji�zavisno�od�situacije�i�humanitarne�pomoci�ponekad�se�predstavljaju�
kao�romi�uglavnom�na�severnom�delu�K.M , dok�na�jugu K.M
i�ostalom�delu�Kosova predstavljaju se
kao�Askalije�i�novoizmisljene�nacije�Egipcanima.
�
�
OBIJASNJENJE:
�
Askalije�ili�Egipcani�oni�nemaju svoj�nacionalni�jezik , kulturu,
obicaj niti�istoriju.
oni�zive�uglavnom�na�Balkanu�na�podrucju��bivse�Jugoslaviji,�pretezno�na
�Kosovu�ima�ih i u�Albaniju,mali procenat u Grckoj i Makedoniji�? Ovo
pleme�broji manje od sto hiljada stanovnika na svim ovim prostorima.
Zasto�askalije�nemaju�nijednu�rec u�njihovom�govoru?
Po�mojim istrazivanjima�i�anketi�oni�su�romi,
jer�fizicki�oblik�askalija�je�isti kao�i kod�roma......,(o ovome cemo
posebno govoriti nekom drugom prilikom).
Kako�su oni�uglavnom�ziveli�na�podrucjima�gde�se�uglavnom
govori�albanski�jezik, i�sasvim�je�sigurno�da�su�oni�bili rromi koji su
ASIMILIRANI.
Obicaj�oni�nemaju, sluze�se obicajima�roma�a�u�zadnje�vreme�kako
su�proalbanski�orijentisani (uglavnom askalije sa�kosova, a i
oni�koji�se�nalaze u�Evropi a�koji�su poreklom�sa�Kosova) sluze
obicajima�albanaca,nemaju�sopstveni�obicaj�i kulturu, to
su�100%�ASIMILIRANI ROMI koji sebe nazivaju�ASKALIJE- EGIPCANI.
Pojedini istrazitelji pokusaju da daju neka svoja misljenja o njihovoj
istoriji i kulturi, a bez obzira sta oni pisali, time mogu siriti
netacne podatke samo onima koji ne poznaju ovu grupu plemena.
�
[Sono state eliminare la parti non di testo del messaggio]
3429 Contributions To Anti-NATO Conference: Bulgarian CP Georgi Dimitrov and CP of Bohemia & Moravia
[ "La borghesia mira a dividere la classe lavoratrice su base etnica,
nazionale e religiosa. Percio', il comando NATO ha usato cio' che
rimaneva degli elementi fascisti in Jugoslavia, Bulgaria e Romania... ]
Contributions to Anti-NATO Conference, 28/02/2004, Istanbul
1. Bulgarian CP - Georgi Dimitrov:
"Enlargement of NATO –A New Challenge To Balkan Nations"
2. Communist Party of Bohemia And Moravia:
"A Europe Of Peace, Security, Social Justice And Understanding Among
Nations"
CHI POTESSE EFFETTUARE LE TRADUZIONI IN TEMPI BREVI E' PREGATO DI
FARCELE PERVENIRE APPENA POSSIBILE. GRAZIE
----------
SOURCE:
http://www.solidnet.org
News, documents and calls for action from communist and workers’
parties.
The items are the responsibility of the authors.
Join the mailing list: info/subscribe/unsubscribe
mailto:info@...
-----------
=== 1 ===
-------------------------------------------------
From: Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), Monday, April 12, 2004
mailto: bcpgb@... ,
mailto: bcpgd@...
==================================================
Contribution to Anti-NATO Conference, 28/02/2004, Istanbul
Bulgarian Communist Party - Georgi Dimitrov
By Ivan Predov
Member of The Central Committee
Enlargement of NATO –A New Challenge To Balkan Nations
To better understand the deep ethnical conflict in the Balkans, one must
place them in the large-scale international context, which gives them
their
real meaning. While waving the banner of “Democracy and Human Rights”
all
over the world, capital today takes openly mafia and criminal aspects.
The
bloody conflicts on the territory of ex-Yugoslavia are typical products
of
contemporary imperialism.
Imperialism maintains its power by dividing those, who are submitted to
its
dictatorship. The bourgeoisie seeks to divide working people on
ethnical,
national and religious bases. Therefore, NATO command made use of the
remnants of the fascists in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Rumania.
However, not only the ex-fascists have been involved in supporting the
aggression on the Balkans. The new arising political forces in the
ex-socialist countries from the right to the “left” wing parties gave
their
support to the plans of NATO enlargement, close to the borders of
Russia.
The highly developed big imperialist countries tend to maintain their
economic dictatorship of dominant capital in the Balkans through open
military aggression. The leading role in this case plays NATO. As an
aggressive military organization, it has always been, and still is a
repressive force, covering practically the whole world.
Twenty countries have been drawn into the aggression, and the
occupation of
large parts of former Yugoslavia. That is not an accidental fact.
Western
monopoly capitalists have profited substantially from the policies, they
have carried out in the ex-socialist Balkan countries. Specific
examples of
these policies are the deregulation and liberalization, the
privatization,
the large-scale redistribution of the wealth and, as a result –the mass
unemployment, pursued by the right wing governments and enforced by the
opportunist “left” wing forces. For example, everything in Bulgaria is
submitted to the interests of the Western monopolies and their political
servants in the country.
On the other side – the international corporations earned billions of
dollars from the military adventure in the Balkans. But the looming war
economy is giving enormous profits for the big business, first of all,
in
the USA. As the bombing of Yugoslavia started five years ago, the stock
market took off and jumped 10 percent in early May 1999. At that time
the
Dow-Jones index, which had studied** below 10000 points for some time,
not
only reached 10000, but zoomed past 11000 points.
According to the economic analyses at that time of profits had been
expected
to stagnate or even decline in the first quarter of 1999 but for more
than
100 large corporations they actually increased by 18 percent compared
to the
same period in 1998. For the stockholders and the high brass of the mega
corporations the 13 billion dollars pays big dividends and wreaks
uncounted
billions of “collateral damage” to Yugoslavia’s economy. Now we know
what
was the basic motivation for the “humanitarian” aggression against
Yugoslavia.
However, let us have no illusions – the direct aggression against
Yugoslavia
five years ago turned into a permanent indirect aggression against all
the
nations of our region, against all the working people of the Balkans.
And
now, ** the last war in the Balkans – that in Macedonia –it must be
clear to
everyone, that ** a military exit is possible from that region. Even
now,
after the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the plans for further
aggression against other countries, the Balkans will remain to be a
central
front for NATO. An international military presence to guarantee peace
here
must be seen, in the coming decades, as something “natural”, as it was
for
NATO to have troops in Western Germany during the cold war age.
The multinationals, by the help of the new local comprador bourgeoisie
in
order to impose their dictatorship, have destroyed all the remnants of
the
structures of the socialist society in our region. And it is no wonder
that
the international NATO occupation of parts of Yugoslavia territory has
been
coupled with the agreements and open support of the governments of the
rest
of the Balkan countries. When NATO destroyed the bridges, connecting
Vojvodina with the rest of Yugoslavia, Hungary made it clear that it
wishes
to annex that province, which is an integral part of Yugoslavia.
Bulgarian reactionary government allowed NATO forces to use unlimitedly
the
territory, the air space and parts of Bulgaria for the aggression
against
Yugoslavia, better to say –against the people of Yugoslavia. (Year ago
they
so placed the airport of Burgas at US Air Forces’ disposal for the
purposes
of the aggression against Iraq.) Why did that happen at all? Was it
because
of our evil** Balkan mentality! I would answer –yes! It happened
because of
evil** mentality! But not because of the bad mentality of the people of
the
Balkans. It happened because of the bad character of Balkan bourgeoisie.
For example –Bulgarian upper crust both from right and “left” fractions
(Bulgarian Socialist Party) is striving to join NATO, and they approve
unlimited use of facilities for all NATO operation in the region. It
looks
as if it is not difficult to answer the question about the behavior of
the
Bulgarian government. Bulgaria is an aspirant for NATO and EU members,
because both these clubs bring many different benefits.
The question is –benefits for whom? It is sure –the benefits are not
for the
working people of Bulgaria. Such a behavior benefits the newly created
Bulgarian bourgeoisie. That new** exploitative class is afraid to lose
its
privileged position in the restored capitalist society.
The new bourgeoisie in Bulgaria is unable to prevent alone its own class
interests. That is why that new class expects that NATO, as a military
class
organization, will ensure its position in the society. And that is why
the
new Bulgarian bourgeoisie is apt to give anything that NATO prominent
officials want to have. And no doubt –that is the case with every Balkan
bourgeois government, especially whit these, which are striving to join
NATO now.
The real extent, to which the political upper crust in Bulgaria is
pursuing
the agenda, set by the new comprador bourgeoisie, is most clearly
indicated
by its long-term economic and financial strategy. The most powerful
section
of Bulgarian new exploitative class represented by the “red oligarchy”
supports Bulgarian integration –first of all in NATO and then in the EU.
They believe –the integration in NATO will make capitalism irreversible
in
Bulgaria. That position of the new bourgeoisie in Bulgaria is
expectable and
explainable. The case will be simple, if it concerns only the comprador
upper crust. But the case turns complicated in concern to the behavior
of
the working class.
Right-wing ideology retains a powerful hold of the large sections of
the new
proletarians in Bulgaria. No doubt, it is a direct result of the
collapse of
socialism in our country and an effect of the unceasing massive
anticommunist propaganda realized by all kinds of mass media for almost
15
years. A very important reason for the still weak influence of the
communists upon the working class is the fact that a large number of the
prominent persons of the ex-socialist state have transformed into new
big
bourgeoisie.
The working class and the potentially progressive section of petty
owners
still allow themselves to remain passive victims of the capitalist
exploitation. The opportunists of all kinds, mainly the Bulgarian
Socialist
Party, are increasingly accommodating themselves to the interests of
the new
capitalist class by choosing the road of class collaboration and they
are
aided and abetted by bourgeoisie mass media, whose role is to stupefy
people’s minds.
Nevertheless, in spite of all these unfavorable circumstance the
results of
the sociological inquires even now show that more than *** percent of
Bulgarians reject integration of the country to NATO. But, no matter of
this
clear answer of the public opinion, the political upper crust of
Bulgaria is
maintaining that as if there is consent about it in the society. It is
true –consent exists, but only among the reactionary circles and their
servants –opportunists in Bulgaria. That collaboration is not something
new
or unknown. And it is due to all sections of social life. For example
–the
priority, given to controlling inflation and social and welfare
expenditure
rather than to promoting full employment and better social benefits and
public services in Bulgaria is fully in accordance with the interests
of big
business, represented by the IMF.
The restriction policy is realized by the Monetary Board of the
International Monetary Fund –the main financial instrument of the global
imperialism. Bulgaria is now under its absolute control.
The question is: Is it possible, in such situation, to overcome the
dominance of the global monetary institution over our countries?
If we, the people of each country, struggle alone against it, the answer
is –No
If the Balkan people led by the communists opposed to it the answer is
–Yes
There is something very important to be noticed: on the Northern part
of the
Mediterranean there are three peninsulas –the Iberian, the Apennine,
and the
Balkan. They have almost the same amount of population: approximately 70
million inhabitants each. The area they occupy is almost the same too.
But
on the Iberian peninsula there are two states and three nations; on the
Apennines –one state and one nation. On the Balkans ten states and ten
nations are situated besides the minorities, spread all over the area.
No
doubt –it is one of the most important prerequisites for our weakness.
Nevertheless it is not the most important one. The pivotal cause for our
weakness is the fact of the domination of the comprador bourgeoisie and
the
corrupted political upper crust in our country. It is most evident
now –during the continuing hidden NATO aggression against us –
the people of the Balkans. Such are some of the aspects of the
contemporary situation in the Balkans. The counter strategy to NATO
aggression is not an easy on the Capital is, as things stand, much
better organized on International level than the working people are.
A coordinated resistance of Balkan peoples is not only essential. It is
of a
superior importance. The cooperation among all parties, ecological and
all
other movements is the top priority of today, in the beginning of the
new
century.
*End*
=== 2 ===
-------------------------------------------------
From: Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), Tuesday, March 23, 2004
http://www.kscm.cz , mailto:leftnews@...
==================================================
Contribution to Anti-NATO Conference, 28/02/2004, Istanbul
Communist Party of Bohemia And Moravia
By Josef Rab
Member Of The Central Committee
A Europe Of Peace, Security, Social Justice And Understanding Among
Nations
Europe at a crossroads
Europe is again at a crossroads. The hope of welfare, social justice and
equal security for all nations on our continent, contained in the
“Charter
of Paris” 1990 and approved by the member states of the “Organization
for
security and cooperation in Europe” has not come to through. On the
contrary, in the international as well as the national framework we are
witnessing a revision of the results of the Second World War and of the
developments achieved thereafter. Within the framework of NATO, EU,
member states took part in the war against Yugoslavia, in the attack
on Afghanistan and in the US and British aggression against Iraq.
The enlargement of NATO and the EU to the east has all the signs of the
all-imperial aims of “Drang Nach Osten”.
The US administration, striving for world hegemony – expressed
in the so-called “Preventative war strategy” of NATO and EU
miniaturization
and in the formation of EU intervention units – has created a global
danger
to the existence of mankind both for today and for future of our
continent,
which suffered so often in the past.
We are facing the danger that EU becomes the USA’s junior partner
through
the EU’s own “great power” aims. However, it is not in the interest of
the
citizens of the >European nations to be provided with any kind of a new
peace – endangering world order, either “made in the USA” or of a world
order formed by the US and the EU together. This would be the way to
catastrophe.
We are now exposed to a very painful regression from the standards of
civilization heretofore achieved. During the last 13 years, not only
Russia
bur especially eastern Europe has suffered greater economic loses then
those
which were a consequence of the whole Second World War. New enemies
are appearing on the scene. The activities of the neo-fascists and
right-wing
extremists are growing and are viewed passively by political elites.
So-called “humanist interventions” the endeavor to exclude the UN as
well as
valid international law, the strategy of “preventive war” and the media
brain washing manipulation of humanity are the foundations of an acute
worldwide danger like that which developed in the prewar times.
The militarization, dangerous conflict centers, plans for the new
division
of our continent, poverty, merciless exploitation and the systematically
executed restrictions on social welfare and democracy are the specters
running around Europe nowadays. The neoliberal world economic order
economic terrorism by nature, which is the cause of whole nations
leading
to dead – end the process of capitalist globalization aiming at the
interests
of the reach only are causing social and spiritual poverty without any
set limits.
This is the main source of enormously increasing social conflicts,
terrorism
and violence. These circumstances don’t take into consideration human
beings with values who are trying to live in conditions of social
security and
justice. Because of this, the transnational companies are able to
achieve
higher incomes then national economies.
Present developments in the world and on he European continent
have prompted these substantial warnings and experiences.
a) Wars are substantially an aspect of capital dominated social
relations and are an integrated part of these relations.
b) We see more clearly that under neo-liberal globalization the
endeavour to safeguards peace and security nowadays has a social
content.
c) “The cold war” has not ended, bur goes on and has come to have a
global and total characters.
Peace and security are the foundation stones of civilization. They are
also
basic human rights. However, safeguarding of peace and security is not
possible without citizens’ engagement in politics.
The present disputes on our European continent ate a challenge to the
ability of the citizens and the politicians of the European countries to
draw positive experiences from one “cold” and to “hot” wars.
Politicians –
and above all citizens – who are friends of peace and democracy, peace
movements and peace organizations should accept as their task to find
ways
and take such steps, which under the conditions of social and
international
security would not only and ensure their bare survival, bur also a
livelihood of dignity of peace, security and milieu of friendship among
nations. There is a possible alternative to the word now existence.
Such an
alternative is most highly necessary.
However, peace in Europe and the world are not imaginable without
establishing an alternative world of justice. To achieve this aim to
protect
“Europe in a world sustainable peace” was approved at the European peace
conference in March 2003 in Prague and is to be realized.
Europe is to play a role in world politics in her own interests and to
be
active in pushing through the peaceful coexistence of peoples and
states,
considering this to be a highly civilized value. To this end, it is
necessary to have and EU consisting of equal states, directed in its
activities by the endeavor to establish a society of solidarity,
democracy
and social justice in the member countries. The activities of the EU in
the
field of international relations are to be directed by the endeavor to
achieve an international order respecting the principles of the UN
charter
and valid international law, striving for this armament and security for
all, for non-military civil conflict prevention and the peaceful
solution of
disputes and first of all striving for such a solution to the conflicts
in
the area of the Near East. These are and shall be permanent directives
for
the activities of the European peace forum.
For the prevention of a renewed division in Europe it is necessary for
the
EU to establish relations of an equal partnership in the political and
economic fields with Russia and with all other states on the European
continent.
Concerning the construction of a new security system on the European
continent, the European states have a great responsibility to properly
take
into account the lesson given by two victim-rich world wars. The
contributions of the 15 EU member states form 40 % of the UN budget and
presents. It predominantly depends on them whether respect for an
application of the principles of the organization for security and
cooperation in Europe, not only before but also after the dissolution
of the
Warsaw Pact; respect for an application of the principles equal
sovereignty
and the territorial integrity of states.
Another Europe is possible and necessary
To establish Europe as a common space of equal security for all European
states is the main task for us at present. This specifically concerns:
* Respecting the principles of the Final Act of the Organization
for
Security and Cooperation in Europe as a precondition for a new and
sustainable Architecture of common security for all. Neither Europe nor
any
other part of the world has to be the starting point of any new war.
* Europe is to be a trustworthy, integral part of an
international
security system for all, founded on principles and valid norms of
international law, o peaceful and friendly coexistence, mutually
beneficial
cooperation and the principle of being good neighbours.
* Europe is to become an example/prototype for disarmament, as
has
already been demonstrated by Ukraine giving up possession of nuclear
weapons; for the non-use of armed force; for timely, peaceful
prevention of
potential wars; for peaceful solution to disputes in and around Europe;
for
mutually beneficial cooperation’s for maintaining and further developing
highly humanist culture. Europe should be free from weapons of mass
destruction, free from military basis and wars or intervention. Europe
should become an example for having developed a strong movement to
give up nuclear weapons.
Challenged by the danger of economic terrorism in a milieu of
capitalism-dominated Europe of wars, it is more necessary than ever
before
to use all of the possibilities available to the peace movement, of
reason
and of realism to increase our activities against the Pax Americana
world
order, against the systematic endeavor to decrease social security and
restrict democracy. The EU should not act in favor of deregulation in
the
economic field, neither in Europe, nor in the world framework. It
should not
act in the interests of big concerns, in favor of the liberalization of
all
services, of the neo-liberal method of establishing universities, the
water
supply, most and telecommunication services, or services in the fields
of
finance, transportation, sewage and garbage disposal.
To be able to live on the European continent under the conditions of
respect
for human rights means to act strongly against the neo-liberal
globalization headed by the USA and serving the interests of the
transnational concerns, which are the moving force behind social
security
reductions, democracy restrictions, terror, and use of force.
Europe is to be a continent of social justice without any kind of
discrimination.
Without conditions of the respect for and application of social rights,
the
citizens of the European countries cannot enjoy human rights. Therefore
the
European Peace Forum supports the activities of the European Social
Forum
and will take part in its next meeting in London.
The European Peace Forum is for an open Europe of full democracy and
social justice. To achieve this aim it is necessary to establish
conditions in
which the anonymity of the EU decision-makers who ensure the interests
of
big companies, banks, and the stock exchange against the majority of the
citizens comes to an end.
The existing economic integration, resulting in progressing
restrictions of
social rights, must be reformed into an economic integration favoring
social
security and environmental stability. All aspects of the EU enlargement
are
to be dealt with on the basis of solidarity, equality, and in a
constructive
way.
It is necessary to create conditions for democratization of EU political
decisions, which would ensure the citizens of Europe the right to take
an
active part in politics. The working out of the EU constitution
therefore
strongly needs all citizens to take part in an active way, first of all
by
resisting the evident endeavor to enact neo-liberal policy in the
economic
field and neo-imperial policy in the international relations and
security,
to set the EU on the path of militarism, and in the end to make the EU a
military pact.
The EU constitution should include a guarantee to respect and apply
social
and democratic rights and the principle of the equal importance pf such
profound values as the sanctity of human dignity, freedom, democracy,
the
rule of law, human rights, and a civil society with tolerance, justice
and
solidarity. It should be include the overtly expressed obligation to
respect
Europe’s antifascist heritage, condemnation rightwing extremism,
neofascism
and enmity towards foreigners.
To those values in the draft EU constitution defined as of “worldwide
validity”, there should be added that the EU is to strive for their
achievement of said values exclusively only by peaceful means. The
realization of collective non-military security concepts included in
the EU
Constitution to be should serve the requirement to maintain peace.
The duty to strictly respect and apply the norms of the rule of law and
to
support a sustainable peace and a strong refusal to wage any war is also
slated to be part of the EU Constitution which is now in the process of
preparation.
The peace movement on our European continent has had the ongoing task
not only of preventing any new wars and bringing to light the causes of
wars as well as the reality that wars are an integral part of the
capitalist system,
but also the task of using all its possibilities to strive for a stable
peace order and through this for a better world –for an alternative to
the
present one.
*End*
nazionale e religiosa. Percio', il comando NATO ha usato cio' che
rimaneva degli elementi fascisti in Jugoslavia, Bulgaria e Romania... ]
Contributions to Anti-NATO Conference, 28/02/2004, Istanbul
1. Bulgarian CP - Georgi Dimitrov:
"Enlargement of NATO –A New Challenge To Balkan Nations"
2. Communist Party of Bohemia And Moravia:
"A Europe Of Peace, Security, Social Justice And Understanding Among
Nations"
CHI POTESSE EFFETTUARE LE TRADUZIONI IN TEMPI BREVI E' PREGATO DI
FARCELE PERVENIRE APPENA POSSIBILE. GRAZIE
----------
SOURCE:
http://www.solidnet.org
News, documents and calls for action from communist and workers’
parties.
The items are the responsibility of the authors.
Join the mailing list: info/subscribe/unsubscribe
mailto:info@...
-----------
=== 1 ===
-------------------------------------------------
From: Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), Monday, April 12, 2004
mailto: bcpgb@... ,
mailto: bcpgd@...
==================================================
Contribution to Anti-NATO Conference, 28/02/2004, Istanbul
Bulgarian Communist Party - Georgi Dimitrov
By Ivan Predov
Member of The Central Committee
Enlargement of NATO –A New Challenge To Balkan Nations
To better understand the deep ethnical conflict in the Balkans, one must
place them in the large-scale international context, which gives them
their
real meaning. While waving the banner of “Democracy and Human Rights”
all
over the world, capital today takes openly mafia and criminal aspects.
The
bloody conflicts on the territory of ex-Yugoslavia are typical products
of
contemporary imperialism.
Imperialism maintains its power by dividing those, who are submitted to
its
dictatorship. The bourgeoisie seeks to divide working people on
ethnical,
national and religious bases. Therefore, NATO command made use of the
remnants of the fascists in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Rumania.
However, not only the ex-fascists have been involved in supporting the
aggression on the Balkans. The new arising political forces in the
ex-socialist countries from the right to the “left” wing parties gave
their
support to the plans of NATO enlargement, close to the borders of
Russia.
The highly developed big imperialist countries tend to maintain their
economic dictatorship of dominant capital in the Balkans through open
military aggression. The leading role in this case plays NATO. As an
aggressive military organization, it has always been, and still is a
repressive force, covering practically the whole world.
Twenty countries have been drawn into the aggression, and the
occupation of
large parts of former Yugoslavia. That is not an accidental fact.
Western
monopoly capitalists have profited substantially from the policies, they
have carried out in the ex-socialist Balkan countries. Specific
examples of
these policies are the deregulation and liberalization, the
privatization,
the large-scale redistribution of the wealth and, as a result –the mass
unemployment, pursued by the right wing governments and enforced by the
opportunist “left” wing forces. For example, everything in Bulgaria is
submitted to the interests of the Western monopolies and their political
servants in the country.
On the other side – the international corporations earned billions of
dollars from the military adventure in the Balkans. But the looming war
economy is giving enormous profits for the big business, first of all,
in
the USA. As the bombing of Yugoslavia started five years ago, the stock
market took off and jumped 10 percent in early May 1999. At that time
the
Dow-Jones index, which had studied** below 10000 points for some time,
not
only reached 10000, but zoomed past 11000 points.
According to the economic analyses at that time of profits had been
expected
to stagnate or even decline in the first quarter of 1999 but for more
than
100 large corporations they actually increased by 18 percent compared
to the
same period in 1998. For the stockholders and the high brass of the mega
corporations the 13 billion dollars pays big dividends and wreaks
uncounted
billions of “collateral damage” to Yugoslavia’s economy. Now we know
what
was the basic motivation for the “humanitarian” aggression against
Yugoslavia.
However, let us have no illusions – the direct aggression against
Yugoslavia
five years ago turned into a permanent indirect aggression against all
the
nations of our region, against all the working people of the Balkans.
And
now, ** the last war in the Balkans – that in Macedonia –it must be
clear to
everyone, that ** a military exit is possible from that region. Even
now,
after the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the plans for further
aggression against other countries, the Balkans will remain to be a
central
front for NATO. An international military presence to guarantee peace
here
must be seen, in the coming decades, as something “natural”, as it was
for
NATO to have troops in Western Germany during the cold war age.
The multinationals, by the help of the new local comprador bourgeoisie
in
order to impose their dictatorship, have destroyed all the remnants of
the
structures of the socialist society in our region. And it is no wonder
that
the international NATO occupation of parts of Yugoslavia territory has
been
coupled with the agreements and open support of the governments of the
rest
of the Balkan countries. When NATO destroyed the bridges, connecting
Vojvodina with the rest of Yugoslavia, Hungary made it clear that it
wishes
to annex that province, which is an integral part of Yugoslavia.
Bulgarian reactionary government allowed NATO forces to use unlimitedly
the
territory, the air space and parts of Bulgaria for the aggression
against
Yugoslavia, better to say –against the people of Yugoslavia. (Year ago
they
so placed the airport of Burgas at US Air Forces’ disposal for the
purposes
of the aggression against Iraq.) Why did that happen at all? Was it
because
of our evil** Balkan mentality! I would answer –yes! It happened
because of
evil** mentality! But not because of the bad mentality of the people of
the
Balkans. It happened because of the bad character of Balkan bourgeoisie.
For example –Bulgarian upper crust both from right and “left” fractions
(Bulgarian Socialist Party) is striving to join NATO, and they approve
unlimited use of facilities for all NATO operation in the region. It
looks
as if it is not difficult to answer the question about the behavior of
the
Bulgarian government. Bulgaria is an aspirant for NATO and EU members,
because both these clubs bring many different benefits.
The question is –benefits for whom? It is sure –the benefits are not
for the
working people of Bulgaria. Such a behavior benefits the newly created
Bulgarian bourgeoisie. That new** exploitative class is afraid to lose
its
privileged position in the restored capitalist society.
The new bourgeoisie in Bulgaria is unable to prevent alone its own class
interests. That is why that new class expects that NATO, as a military
class
organization, will ensure its position in the society. And that is why
the
new Bulgarian bourgeoisie is apt to give anything that NATO prominent
officials want to have. And no doubt –that is the case with every Balkan
bourgeois government, especially whit these, which are striving to join
NATO now.
The real extent, to which the political upper crust in Bulgaria is
pursuing
the agenda, set by the new comprador bourgeoisie, is most clearly
indicated
by its long-term economic and financial strategy. The most powerful
section
of Bulgarian new exploitative class represented by the “red oligarchy”
supports Bulgarian integration –first of all in NATO and then in the EU.
They believe –the integration in NATO will make capitalism irreversible
in
Bulgaria. That position of the new bourgeoisie in Bulgaria is
expectable and
explainable. The case will be simple, if it concerns only the comprador
upper crust. But the case turns complicated in concern to the behavior
of
the working class.
Right-wing ideology retains a powerful hold of the large sections of
the new
proletarians in Bulgaria. No doubt, it is a direct result of the
collapse of
socialism in our country and an effect of the unceasing massive
anticommunist propaganda realized by all kinds of mass media for almost
15
years. A very important reason for the still weak influence of the
communists upon the working class is the fact that a large number of the
prominent persons of the ex-socialist state have transformed into new
big
bourgeoisie.
The working class and the potentially progressive section of petty
owners
still allow themselves to remain passive victims of the capitalist
exploitation. The opportunists of all kinds, mainly the Bulgarian
Socialist
Party, are increasingly accommodating themselves to the interests of
the new
capitalist class by choosing the road of class collaboration and they
are
aided and abetted by bourgeoisie mass media, whose role is to stupefy
people’s minds.
Nevertheless, in spite of all these unfavorable circumstance the
results of
the sociological inquires even now show that more than *** percent of
Bulgarians reject integration of the country to NATO. But, no matter of
this
clear answer of the public opinion, the political upper crust of
Bulgaria is
maintaining that as if there is consent about it in the society. It is
true –consent exists, but only among the reactionary circles and their
servants –opportunists in Bulgaria. That collaboration is not something
new
or unknown. And it is due to all sections of social life. For example
–the
priority, given to controlling inflation and social and welfare
expenditure
rather than to promoting full employment and better social benefits and
public services in Bulgaria is fully in accordance with the interests
of big
business, represented by the IMF.
The restriction policy is realized by the Monetary Board of the
International Monetary Fund –the main financial instrument of the global
imperialism. Bulgaria is now under its absolute control.
The question is: Is it possible, in such situation, to overcome the
dominance of the global monetary institution over our countries?
If we, the people of each country, struggle alone against it, the answer
is –No
If the Balkan people led by the communists opposed to it the answer is
–Yes
There is something very important to be noticed: on the Northern part
of the
Mediterranean there are three peninsulas –the Iberian, the Apennine,
and the
Balkan. They have almost the same amount of population: approximately 70
million inhabitants each. The area they occupy is almost the same too.
But
on the Iberian peninsula there are two states and three nations; on the
Apennines –one state and one nation. On the Balkans ten states and ten
nations are situated besides the minorities, spread all over the area.
No
doubt –it is one of the most important prerequisites for our weakness.
Nevertheless it is not the most important one. The pivotal cause for our
weakness is the fact of the domination of the comprador bourgeoisie and
the
corrupted political upper crust in our country. It is most evident
now –during the continuing hidden NATO aggression against us –
the people of the Balkans. Such are some of the aspects of the
contemporary situation in the Balkans. The counter strategy to NATO
aggression is not an easy on the Capital is, as things stand, much
better organized on International level than the working people are.
A coordinated resistance of Balkan peoples is not only essential. It is
of a
superior importance. The cooperation among all parties, ecological and
all
other movements is the top priority of today, in the beginning of the
new
century.
*End*
=== 2 ===
-------------------------------------------------
From: Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), Tuesday, March 23, 2004
http://www.kscm.cz , mailto:leftnews@...
==================================================
Contribution to Anti-NATO Conference, 28/02/2004, Istanbul
Communist Party of Bohemia And Moravia
By Josef Rab
Member Of The Central Committee
A Europe Of Peace, Security, Social Justice And Understanding Among
Nations
Europe at a crossroads
Europe is again at a crossroads. The hope of welfare, social justice and
equal security for all nations on our continent, contained in the
“Charter
of Paris” 1990 and approved by the member states of the “Organization
for
security and cooperation in Europe” has not come to through. On the
contrary, in the international as well as the national framework we are
witnessing a revision of the results of the Second World War and of the
developments achieved thereafter. Within the framework of NATO, EU,
member states took part in the war against Yugoslavia, in the attack
on Afghanistan and in the US and British aggression against Iraq.
The enlargement of NATO and the EU to the east has all the signs of the
all-imperial aims of “Drang Nach Osten”.
The US administration, striving for world hegemony – expressed
in the so-called “Preventative war strategy” of NATO and EU
miniaturization
and in the formation of EU intervention units – has created a global
danger
to the existence of mankind both for today and for future of our
continent,
which suffered so often in the past.
We are facing the danger that EU becomes the USA’s junior partner
through
the EU’s own “great power” aims. However, it is not in the interest of
the
citizens of the >European nations to be provided with any kind of a new
peace – endangering world order, either “made in the USA” or of a world
order formed by the US and the EU together. This would be the way to
catastrophe.
We are now exposed to a very painful regression from the standards of
civilization heretofore achieved. During the last 13 years, not only
Russia
bur especially eastern Europe has suffered greater economic loses then
those
which were a consequence of the whole Second World War. New enemies
are appearing on the scene. The activities of the neo-fascists and
right-wing
extremists are growing and are viewed passively by political elites.
So-called “humanist interventions” the endeavor to exclude the UN as
well as
valid international law, the strategy of “preventive war” and the media
brain washing manipulation of humanity are the foundations of an acute
worldwide danger like that which developed in the prewar times.
The militarization, dangerous conflict centers, plans for the new
division
of our continent, poverty, merciless exploitation and the systematically
executed restrictions on social welfare and democracy are the specters
running around Europe nowadays. The neoliberal world economic order
economic terrorism by nature, which is the cause of whole nations
leading
to dead – end the process of capitalist globalization aiming at the
interests
of the reach only are causing social and spiritual poverty without any
set limits.
This is the main source of enormously increasing social conflicts,
terrorism
and violence. These circumstances don’t take into consideration human
beings with values who are trying to live in conditions of social
security and
justice. Because of this, the transnational companies are able to
achieve
higher incomes then national economies.
Present developments in the world and on he European continent
have prompted these substantial warnings and experiences.
a) Wars are substantially an aspect of capital dominated social
relations and are an integrated part of these relations.
b) We see more clearly that under neo-liberal globalization the
endeavour to safeguards peace and security nowadays has a social
content.
c) “The cold war” has not ended, bur goes on and has come to have a
global and total characters.
Peace and security are the foundation stones of civilization. They are
also
basic human rights. However, safeguarding of peace and security is not
possible without citizens’ engagement in politics.
The present disputes on our European continent ate a challenge to the
ability of the citizens and the politicians of the European countries to
draw positive experiences from one “cold” and to “hot” wars.
Politicians –
and above all citizens – who are friends of peace and democracy, peace
movements and peace organizations should accept as their task to find
ways
and take such steps, which under the conditions of social and
international
security would not only and ensure their bare survival, bur also a
livelihood of dignity of peace, security and milieu of friendship among
nations. There is a possible alternative to the word now existence.
Such an
alternative is most highly necessary.
However, peace in Europe and the world are not imaginable without
establishing an alternative world of justice. To achieve this aim to
protect
“Europe in a world sustainable peace” was approved at the European peace
conference in March 2003 in Prague and is to be realized.
Europe is to play a role in world politics in her own interests and to
be
active in pushing through the peaceful coexistence of peoples and
states,
considering this to be a highly civilized value. To this end, it is
necessary to have and EU consisting of equal states, directed in its
activities by the endeavor to establish a society of solidarity,
democracy
and social justice in the member countries. The activities of the EU in
the
field of international relations are to be directed by the endeavor to
achieve an international order respecting the principles of the UN
charter
and valid international law, striving for this armament and security for
all, for non-military civil conflict prevention and the peaceful
solution of
disputes and first of all striving for such a solution to the conflicts
in
the area of the Near East. These are and shall be permanent directives
for
the activities of the European peace forum.
For the prevention of a renewed division in Europe it is necessary for
the
EU to establish relations of an equal partnership in the political and
economic fields with Russia and with all other states on the European
continent.
Concerning the construction of a new security system on the European
continent, the European states have a great responsibility to properly
take
into account the lesson given by two victim-rich world wars. The
contributions of the 15 EU member states form 40 % of the UN budget and
presents. It predominantly depends on them whether respect for an
application of the principles of the organization for security and
cooperation in Europe, not only before but also after the dissolution
of the
Warsaw Pact; respect for an application of the principles equal
sovereignty
and the territorial integrity of states.
Another Europe is possible and necessary
To establish Europe as a common space of equal security for all European
states is the main task for us at present. This specifically concerns:
* Respecting the principles of the Final Act of the Organization
for
Security and Cooperation in Europe as a precondition for a new and
sustainable Architecture of common security for all. Neither Europe nor
any
other part of the world has to be the starting point of any new war.
* Europe is to be a trustworthy, integral part of an
international
security system for all, founded on principles and valid norms of
international law, o peaceful and friendly coexistence, mutually
beneficial
cooperation and the principle of being good neighbours.
* Europe is to become an example/prototype for disarmament, as
has
already been demonstrated by Ukraine giving up possession of nuclear
weapons; for the non-use of armed force; for timely, peaceful
prevention of
potential wars; for peaceful solution to disputes in and around Europe;
for
mutually beneficial cooperation’s for maintaining and further developing
highly humanist culture. Europe should be free from weapons of mass
destruction, free from military basis and wars or intervention. Europe
should become an example for having developed a strong movement to
give up nuclear weapons.
Challenged by the danger of economic terrorism in a milieu of
capitalism-dominated Europe of wars, it is more necessary than ever
before
to use all of the possibilities available to the peace movement, of
reason
and of realism to increase our activities against the Pax Americana
world
order, against the systematic endeavor to decrease social security and
restrict democracy. The EU should not act in favor of deregulation in
the
economic field, neither in Europe, nor in the world framework. It
should not
act in the interests of big concerns, in favor of the liberalization of
all
services, of the neo-liberal method of establishing universities, the
water
supply, most and telecommunication services, or services in the fields
of
finance, transportation, sewage and garbage disposal.
To be able to live on the European continent under the conditions of
respect
for human rights means to act strongly against the neo-liberal
globalization headed by the USA and serving the interests of the
transnational concerns, which are the moving force behind social
security
reductions, democracy restrictions, terror, and use of force.
Europe is to be a continent of social justice without any kind of
discrimination.
Without conditions of the respect for and application of social rights,
the
citizens of the European countries cannot enjoy human rights. Therefore
the
European Peace Forum supports the activities of the European Social
Forum
and will take part in its next meeting in London.
The European Peace Forum is for an open Europe of full democracy and
social justice. To achieve this aim it is necessary to establish
conditions in
which the anonymity of the EU decision-makers who ensure the interests
of
big companies, banks, and the stock exchange against the majority of the
citizens comes to an end.
The existing economic integration, resulting in progressing
restrictions of
social rights, must be reformed into an economic integration favoring
social
security and environmental stability. All aspects of the EU enlargement
are
to be dealt with on the basis of solidarity, equality, and in a
constructive
way.
It is necessary to create conditions for democratization of EU political
decisions, which would ensure the citizens of Europe the right to take
an
active part in politics. The working out of the EU constitution
therefore
strongly needs all citizens to take part in an active way, first of all
by
resisting the evident endeavor to enact neo-liberal policy in the
economic
field and neo-imperial policy in the international relations and
security,
to set the EU on the path of militarism, and in the end to make the EU a
military pact.
The EU constitution should include a guarantee to respect and apply
social
and democratic rights and the principle of the equal importance pf such
profound values as the sanctity of human dignity, freedom, democracy,
the
rule of law, human rights, and a civil society with tolerance, justice
and
solidarity. It should be include the overtly expressed obligation to
respect
Europe’s antifascist heritage, condemnation rightwing extremism,
neofascism
and enmity towards foreigners.
To those values in the draft EU constitution defined as of “worldwide
validity”, there should be added that the EU is to strive for their
achievement of said values exclusively only by peaceful means. The
realization of collective non-military security concepts included in
the EU
Constitution to be should serve the requirement to maintain peace.
The duty to strictly respect and apply the norms of the rule of law and
to
support a sustainable peace and a strong refusal to wage any war is also
slated to be part of the EU Constitution which is now in the process of
preparation.
The peace movement on our European continent has had the ongoing task
not only of preventing any new wars and bringing to light the causes of
wars as well as the reality that wars are an integral part of the
capitalist system,
but also the task of using all its possibilities to strive for a stable
peace order and through this for a better world –for an alternative to
the
present one.
*End*
WESTERN PIRACY IN THE BALKANS
Compiled by June Kelly
ICDSM (Irish Section)
for People Against War
WESTERN PIRACY IN THE BALKANS -
Compiled by People Against War Network -
"THE BALKAN KUWAIT
Voice of Russia, Moscow 18 May 2000
"FOLLOWING SOLDIERS, OIL PROSPECTORS MIGHT COME. IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THE
WEST HAS COME TO KOSOVO WITH SERIOUS INTENTIONS AND THAT IT SHALL STAY
THERE FOR LONG (permanently). BASED ON THE EXPERIENCE GAINED IN KUWAIT
AND OTHER GULF COUNTRIES WE KNOW THAT OIL AND AMERICAN MILITARY
PRESENCE ALWAYS GO HAND IN HAND."
Moscow - 18 May
The recent report published in the New York Times throws more light on
the West's policy towards Kosovo and displays its consequences on the
economic plane. It is well known that Kosovo has extensive natural
resources. According to an expert opinion, published in in the London
"Economist" weekly, the West is interested in industrial exploitation
of coal, lead, zinc, gold, silver, cobalt, nickel, chromium,
polymetallic ores and various mineral deposits. Kosovo also has a good
river potential.
Energy sources are of particular importance for the industrial
development. Because of the current high price of oil, difficulties in
the exploitation of the Caspian oil and fuel problems in the USA. West
oil corporations must radically re-examine methods of prospecting and
exploitation of the energy sources. In this context the peace operation
in Kosovo seems welcome.
The New York Times correspondent Chris Hemis regards it was not by
chance that Kosovo has attracted West's attention. Following his visit
to Kosovo, Chris Hemis described this Province as the richest area of
the Balkans. The fifteen-million-ton lignite reserves represent a
unique opportunity for the cheap exploitation. Everything suggests that
Kosovo shall soon become one of the major oil regions in Europe.
Prognoses of the Yugoslav and Western experts coincide on this matter.
A few years ago Serbian experts carried out a geological investigation
in the areas southward of the Sava and Danube. The Radio Yugoslavia
communicated that the geologists have obtained unexpectedly favourable
results. Below the thick lignite layer in Kosovo there are huge
deposits of oil.
Similar data were published by the USA AMOCO oil company, The satellite
photographs of that region show that Kosovo has as rich oil deposits as
never before seen in the Balkans and that the first-stage exploitation
might bring about even more sensational results.
A map drawn by the AMOCO experts coincides with the patter of
deployment of the KFOR US contingent in Kosovo. Following soldiers, oil
prospectors might come. It is obvious that the West has come to Kosovo
with serious intentions and that it shall stay there for long. Based on
the experience gained in Kuwait and other Gulf countries we know that
oil and American military presence always go hand in hand."
(Above whole item typed by June Kelly from "Serbia In The World" No.
98/99 June/July 2000)
______________________________________________
"BRITISH TROOPS INJURED IN KOSOVO CLASH
By Lutz Kleveman In Belgrade -
Daily Telegraph (UK) 15.8.2000
THE POLLUTION ARGUMENT IS ONLY A PRETEXT FOR GAINING CONTROL, OF OUR
FACTORY -
British troops clashed yesterday with hundreds of Kosovo Serbs in the
town of Mitrovica after peacekeepers raided and shut down a Serb-owned
lead smelter, said to be a pollution hazard.
Four members of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, serving with Nato's
Kfor troops, were slightly injured when bricks and stones were thrown
at them. A number of Serbs were also wounded when troops responded with
plastic bullets.
The surprise seizure of the plant in the ethnically divided town
infuriated Serb workers, who saw it as part of a plan to push them out
of Kosovo. A crowd of several hundred gathered near the factory and
started scuffles with Kfor soldiers and United Nations police.
At dawn, about 900 British, Danish and French troops had moved in
armoured vehicles to the plant, which is part of the large Trebca
mining complex.
Neither the UN nor the peacekeepers had notified the factory's managers
or workers, who offered little resistance at first.
The takeover had been ordered to assert UNMIK's right to manage the
firm and its profits. Serbs in Kosovo are not convinced. "The pollution
argument is only a pretext for gaining control of our factory," said
Oliver Ivanovic, the local Serb leader."
(Above excerpt typed directly from newspaper clippings by June Kelly -
ICDSM - Irish Section)
__________________________________________
"BATTLE FOR MINERAL WEALTH
By Lara Marlowe - The Irish Times 10.10.2000
THEY WANT THE MINES, THE TREPCA MINES. HOW MANY TIMES BEFORE AND DURING
NATO'S BOMBARDMENT OF YUGOSLAVIA I HEARD SERBS CLAIMING THAT THE WEST'S
"AGGRESSION" WAS A PLOT TO SEIZE THE VAST MINERAL WEALTH IN AND AROUND
MITROVICA _
They want the mines, the Trepca mines. How many times before and during
NATO's bombardment of Yugoslavia I heard Serbs claiming that the West's
"aggression" was a plot to seize the vast mineral wealth in and around
Mitrovica.
On August 14th, soldiers from the NATO force in Kosovo, KFOR, acting at
the request of the UN administrator, Dr Bernard Kouchner, marched into
the lead and zinc foundry at Zvecan and took it over.
Cleaning up the environment of northern Kosovo was the stated goal of
the raid on Zvecan, and it marked the first time Dr Kouchner exerted
his authority in the northern Serb enclave. But it cannot have escaped
Dr Kouchner's attention that the mines were an important source of
revenue.
KFOR officers said Belgrade was extracting gold and silver from Zvecan
but not the lead.
Nor has the tremendous economic potential of the mines gone unnoticed.
At Zvecan, the miners of Mitrovica produced 175,000 tonnes of lead,
80,000 tonnes of zinc, up to 200 tonnes of silver, 122 tonnes of
bismuth and 680 kilos of gold every year. The three foreign companies
which have formed a consortium to explore restarting the mines are
treated as if they were charitable institutions for investing $16
million in the project.
They are not the first foreigners to take an interest. The British ran
Trepca from 1926 until 1939, when it was taken over by Nazi Germany
until the end of the war. Trepca became the most profitable business in
former Yugoslavia, with thousands of employees."
(Above excerpt typed directly from newspaper article by June Kelly -
ICDSM-Irish Section)
________________________________________________
WHAT OF THE SITUATION IN BOSNIA -
People Against War 25.11.1995
For the third time this century the Serbian nation has been subjected
to a genocidal programme masterminded and carried out by foreign
capitalists whose aim is to grab the vast human, mineral, timber and
oil resources of former and present Yugoslavia.
The multi ethnic state of Serbia has been a block to this process of
piracy and forced market reforms - That is - Capitalism.
First the West wants Serbian land - The peoples of Serbia were accused
by the media of "invading Bosnia". Not true - Prior to this war,
indigenous Serbian people owned, worked and lived on over 68% of
Bosnia-Herzegovina territory.
In respect of Serbia and Montenegro - (Tanjug 25.10.1995) - "Analysts
say agriculture, food processing, telecommunications, transport, copper
mining, machinery, textiles and tourism are the most promising sectors
for foreign investments in Yugoslavia's republics of Serbia and
Montenegro. Analysts say that SERBIA CAN OFFER CHEAP, SKILLED LABOUR, A
MARKET OF 10.5 MILLION PEOPLE AND A UNIQUE POSITION IN THE HEART OF THE
BALKANS. INVESTORS WILL BE LOOKING FOR CLEAR INDICATIONS THAT FREE
MARKET REFORMS ARE UNDER WAY AND THAT THE REFORMS WILL NOT BE REVERSED"
Elizabeth Morrisey of Kleinman International Consultants in New York
said". (Reuters).
The Western devised CONTACT GROUP PLAN FOR BOSNIA -
Under the Contact Group Plan (CGP) the Serbs agreed to relinquish 21%
of their ancestral lands in Bosnia to the Muslim/Croatian Federation in
Bosnia. Under the CGP for Bosnia the Muslim/Croatian Federation stands
to gain 70% to 100% of all lead, zinc, ore, bauxite, salt, magnesite,
asbestos, dolomite, oil, coal and lignite deposits. 75% of existing
hydro electric power facilities and 78% of all thermal power plants, 13
Bosnian Serb cities, Serb roads and waterways would be cut off allowing
no access to industrial facilities. The biggest railway juncture at
Dodoj with river ports would become property of the Muslim/Croatian
Federation. Under the CGP, Serbs would lose most of their hospitals,
all arms factories would be retained by the Muslim/Croat Federation and
all river valleys would become territory of the Muslim/Croat Federation.
The Muslim business class in Bosnia would retain control of the arms
factories.
Compiled by June Kelly
ICDSM (Irish Section)
for People Against War
WESTERN PIRACY IN THE BALKANS -
Compiled by People Against War Network -
"THE BALKAN KUWAIT
Voice of Russia, Moscow 18 May 2000
"FOLLOWING SOLDIERS, OIL PROSPECTORS MIGHT COME. IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THE
WEST HAS COME TO KOSOVO WITH SERIOUS INTENTIONS AND THAT IT SHALL STAY
THERE FOR LONG (permanently). BASED ON THE EXPERIENCE GAINED IN KUWAIT
AND OTHER GULF COUNTRIES WE KNOW THAT OIL AND AMERICAN MILITARY
PRESENCE ALWAYS GO HAND IN HAND."
Moscow - 18 May
The recent report published in the New York Times throws more light on
the West's policy towards Kosovo and displays its consequences on the
economic plane. It is well known that Kosovo has extensive natural
resources. According to an expert opinion, published in in the London
"Economist" weekly, the West is interested in industrial exploitation
of coal, lead, zinc, gold, silver, cobalt, nickel, chromium,
polymetallic ores and various mineral deposits. Kosovo also has a good
river potential.
Energy sources are of particular importance for the industrial
development. Because of the current high price of oil, difficulties in
the exploitation of the Caspian oil and fuel problems in the USA. West
oil corporations must radically re-examine methods of prospecting and
exploitation of the energy sources. In this context the peace operation
in Kosovo seems welcome.
The New York Times correspondent Chris Hemis regards it was not by
chance that Kosovo has attracted West's attention. Following his visit
to Kosovo, Chris Hemis described this Province as the richest area of
the Balkans. The fifteen-million-ton lignite reserves represent a
unique opportunity for the cheap exploitation. Everything suggests that
Kosovo shall soon become one of the major oil regions in Europe.
Prognoses of the Yugoslav and Western experts coincide on this matter.
A few years ago Serbian experts carried out a geological investigation
in the areas southward of the Sava and Danube. The Radio Yugoslavia
communicated that the geologists have obtained unexpectedly favourable
results. Below the thick lignite layer in Kosovo there are huge
deposits of oil.
Similar data were published by the USA AMOCO oil company, The satellite
photographs of that region show that Kosovo has as rich oil deposits as
never before seen in the Balkans and that the first-stage exploitation
might bring about even more sensational results.
A map drawn by the AMOCO experts coincides with the patter of
deployment of the KFOR US contingent in Kosovo. Following soldiers, oil
prospectors might come. It is obvious that the West has come to Kosovo
with serious intentions and that it shall stay there for long. Based on
the experience gained in Kuwait and other Gulf countries we know that
oil and American military presence always go hand in hand."
(Above whole item typed by June Kelly from "Serbia In The World" No.
98/99 June/July 2000)
______________________________________________
"BRITISH TROOPS INJURED IN KOSOVO CLASH
By Lutz Kleveman In Belgrade -
Daily Telegraph (UK) 15.8.2000
THE POLLUTION ARGUMENT IS ONLY A PRETEXT FOR GAINING CONTROL, OF OUR
FACTORY -
British troops clashed yesterday with hundreds of Kosovo Serbs in the
town of Mitrovica after peacekeepers raided and shut down a Serb-owned
lead smelter, said to be a pollution hazard.
Four members of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, serving with Nato's
Kfor troops, were slightly injured when bricks and stones were thrown
at them. A number of Serbs were also wounded when troops responded with
plastic bullets.
The surprise seizure of the plant in the ethnically divided town
infuriated Serb workers, who saw it as part of a plan to push them out
of Kosovo. A crowd of several hundred gathered near the factory and
started scuffles with Kfor soldiers and United Nations police.
At dawn, about 900 British, Danish and French troops had moved in
armoured vehicles to the plant, which is part of the large Trebca
mining complex.
Neither the UN nor the peacekeepers had notified the factory's managers
or workers, who offered little resistance at first.
The takeover had been ordered to assert UNMIK's right to manage the
firm and its profits. Serbs in Kosovo are not convinced. "The pollution
argument is only a pretext for gaining control of our factory," said
Oliver Ivanovic, the local Serb leader."
(Above excerpt typed directly from newspaper clippings by June Kelly -
ICDSM - Irish Section)
__________________________________________
"BATTLE FOR MINERAL WEALTH
By Lara Marlowe - The Irish Times 10.10.2000
THEY WANT THE MINES, THE TREPCA MINES. HOW MANY TIMES BEFORE AND DURING
NATO'S BOMBARDMENT OF YUGOSLAVIA I HEARD SERBS CLAIMING THAT THE WEST'S
"AGGRESSION" WAS A PLOT TO SEIZE THE VAST MINERAL WEALTH IN AND AROUND
MITROVICA _
They want the mines, the Trepca mines. How many times before and during
NATO's bombardment of Yugoslavia I heard Serbs claiming that the West's
"aggression" was a plot to seize the vast mineral wealth in and around
Mitrovica.
On August 14th, soldiers from the NATO force in Kosovo, KFOR, acting at
the request of the UN administrator, Dr Bernard Kouchner, marched into
the lead and zinc foundry at Zvecan and took it over.
Cleaning up the environment of northern Kosovo was the stated goal of
the raid on Zvecan, and it marked the first time Dr Kouchner exerted
his authority in the northern Serb enclave. But it cannot have escaped
Dr Kouchner's attention that the mines were an important source of
revenue.
KFOR officers said Belgrade was extracting gold and silver from Zvecan
but not the lead.
Nor has the tremendous economic potential of the mines gone unnoticed.
At Zvecan, the miners of Mitrovica produced 175,000 tonnes of lead,
80,000 tonnes of zinc, up to 200 tonnes of silver, 122 tonnes of
bismuth and 680 kilos of gold every year. The three foreign companies
which have formed a consortium to explore restarting the mines are
treated as if they were charitable institutions for investing $16
million in the project.
They are not the first foreigners to take an interest. The British ran
Trepca from 1926 until 1939, when it was taken over by Nazi Germany
until the end of the war. Trepca became the most profitable business in
former Yugoslavia, with thousands of employees."
(Above excerpt typed directly from newspaper article by June Kelly -
ICDSM-Irish Section)
________________________________________________
WHAT OF THE SITUATION IN BOSNIA -
People Against War 25.11.1995
For the third time this century the Serbian nation has been subjected
to a genocidal programme masterminded and carried out by foreign
capitalists whose aim is to grab the vast human, mineral, timber and
oil resources of former and present Yugoslavia.
The multi ethnic state of Serbia has been a block to this process of
piracy and forced market reforms - That is - Capitalism.
First the West wants Serbian land - The peoples of Serbia were accused
by the media of "invading Bosnia". Not true - Prior to this war,
indigenous Serbian people owned, worked and lived on over 68% of
Bosnia-Herzegovina territory.
In respect of Serbia and Montenegro - (Tanjug 25.10.1995) - "Analysts
say agriculture, food processing, telecommunications, transport, copper
mining, machinery, textiles and tourism are the most promising sectors
for foreign investments in Yugoslavia's republics of Serbia and
Montenegro. Analysts say that SERBIA CAN OFFER CHEAP, SKILLED LABOUR, A
MARKET OF 10.5 MILLION PEOPLE AND A UNIQUE POSITION IN THE HEART OF THE
BALKANS. INVESTORS WILL BE LOOKING FOR CLEAR INDICATIONS THAT FREE
MARKET REFORMS ARE UNDER WAY AND THAT THE REFORMS WILL NOT BE REVERSED"
Elizabeth Morrisey of Kleinman International Consultants in New York
said". (Reuters).
The Western devised CONTACT GROUP PLAN FOR BOSNIA -
Under the Contact Group Plan (CGP) the Serbs agreed to relinquish 21%
of their ancestral lands in Bosnia to the Muslim/Croatian Federation in
Bosnia. Under the CGP for Bosnia the Muslim/Croatian Federation stands
to gain 70% to 100% of all lead, zinc, ore, bauxite, salt, magnesite,
asbestos, dolomite, oil, coal and lignite deposits. 75% of existing
hydro electric power facilities and 78% of all thermal power plants, 13
Bosnian Serb cities, Serb roads and waterways would be cut off allowing
no access to industrial facilities. The biggest railway juncture at
Dodoj with river ports would become property of the Muslim/Croatian
Federation. Under the CGP, Serbs would lose most of their hospitals,
all arms factories would be retained by the Muslim/Croat Federation and
all river valleys would become territory of the Muslim/Croat Federation.
The Muslim business class in Bosnia would retain control of the arms
factories.
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