Informazione
URL for this article:
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/kla-aq.htm
www.tenc.net * [Emperor's Clothes]
=======================================
WHICH TERRORISTS ARE WORSE?
AL QAEDA? OR THE KLA?
by Jared Israel
[Posted 12 December 2001]
=======================================
Slobodan Milosevic, the kidnapped former President of Yugoslavia,
appeared before The Hague 'Tribunal' yesterday. (1)
"Asked how he pleaded to the charges, guilty or not guilty, Mr.
Milosevic reacted like his old defiant self and said: 'This miserable
text is the ultimate absurdity. I should be given credit for peace in
Bosnia, not war.'
Responsibility for the Bosnian war, he went on, 'lies with the Western
powers that broke up Yugoslavia and their Yugoslav agents.' Because he
failed to respond with a plea, the court entered a plea of not
guilty... (1)
"The charges against him in Kosovo, he said, 'will inevitably open up
the issue of the Clinton administration's cooperation with the
terrorists in Kosovo, including the bin Laden organization.' He was
referring to ethnic Albanian rebels of the Kosovo Liberation Army who,
he contends, attacked Serbian forces with help from foreign Islamic
militants." ('N.Y. Times,' 12/12/01 * Note: the 'Times' uses the term
Islamic, meaning Muslim, when it should use 'Islamist,' meaning Muslim
clerical-fascists.)
The charge for which Milosevic has been tried and convicted in the
Western press is that he suppressed a popular movement using brutal
methods. (2)
But what if they lied to us about Kosovo and Milosevic, just as they
lied to us about the bombing of the Red Cross, or that bin Laden was
fighting the CIA throughout the 1990s? What if in fact Yugoslavia used
relatively humane methods to fight the U.S.-supported secessionists in
Kosovo - which by the way is the oldest part of Serbia. What if this
contrasts favorably with the tactics employed by the U.S. in
Afghanistan - which is not part of the U.S.A.? (3)
What if the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is a terrorist organization,
created by the USA and Germany, trained by U.S. and British covert
forces, installed in power in Kosovo as a proxy force for NATO?
What if hundreds of thousands of Serbs, 'Gypsies,' Slavic Muslims,
Turks, non-fascist Albanians and Jews have been driven from the
province by the KLA - with NATO's apparent approval? (4)
These are the issues Milosevic promises to expose.
We have posted evidence of the KLA's ties to Osama bin Laden's
terrorists. (5)
New evidence emerged today. We are informed that an Australian,
captured in Afghanistan, had previously fought for the KLA, then went
for training with al Qaeda in Pakistan, and ended up a Taliban soldier.
(http://au.news.yahoo.com/011212/2/1onh.html )
But the KLA is terrorist regardless of its links to al Qaeda. The
evidence is overwhelming. Consider, for example, the case of Mr. Ramush
Haradinaj.
According to a December 4th BBC report, Mr. Haradinaj, who leads the
so-called Democratic League of Kosova (sic!) or LDK, has been meeting
with leaders of the Alliance for the Future of Kosova (also sic!) to
plan a 'broad based' government in the province. (Why did I put 'sic!'
after 'Kosova'? See footnote 6 )
Who is Ramush Haradinaj.
"COOK HELD TALKS WITH WAR CRIME SUSPECT
by Tom Walker
"THE 'ethical dimension' of Robin Cook's foreign policy has come under
renewed attack after it emerged that a Kosovo Albanian leader whom the
foreign secretary met last week may be linked with war crimes.
"On his return from Kosovo, Cook promised that 'a principled defence of
democracy and human rights' would remain a cornerstone of his foreign
policy should he retain his portfolio after the general election.
"However, Francis Maude, the shadow foreign secretary, accused him of
"encouraging a culture of impunity" by holding talks with Ramush
Haradinaj, 32, a former nightclub bouncer and guerrilla commander
suspected by United Nations officials of possible involvement in the
murder of civilians, and of helping to run smuggling rackets across the
province.
"A French official said last week he was amazed that Haradinaj, leader
of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, had been invited to the
British residence in Pristina, the capital, during Cook's visit...
Haradinaj could face charges over what may be the biggest atrocity
carried out by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Forty civilians were
killed during several months in 1998 in the village of Glodjane in
western Kosovo, where Haradinaj was then the KLA commander. Many of the
bodies - of Serbs, Albanians and gypsies - bore marks of torture.
"Moderate Albanians in the Democratic League of Kosovo have implicated
Haradinaj in the murders of civilians suspected of collaborating with
Serbian forces. But Haradinaj has dismissed accusations of war crimes
and treats talk of indictment at The Hague as 'propaganda by political
opponents.'
"...In common with other senior KLA commanders, he was equipped with a
satellite phone during Nato airstrikes in 1999, helping the alliance to
pinpoint targets.
"...When the KLA emerged, he... established himself as commander of the
western Decane region, basing himself in Glodjane, one of his clan's
strongholds.
"When the UN took charge of the province's administration, he became
second-in-command of the Kosovo Protection Corps, the KLA's peacetime
incarnation...
"Diplomats in Pristina said Haradinaj entered politics last year at the
behest of Britain and America, which wanted to see the KLA's support
base split. 'He said it was too early for independence,' said a
European official introduced to Haradinaj. 'He was coached to say what
was needed.' Last April Haradinaj made a fundraising trip to
Washington..." ('Sunday Times,' (London) of 29 April 2001: April 29,
2001, Sunday)
A few quick points about this article:
First, note that the 'Times' quotes nameless "Diplomats" saying
"Britain and American wanted to see the KLA's support base split;" thus
the 'Times" attempt to prettify the ugly facts: that the U.S. and
British governments coached this war criminal and funded him, thus
thrusting him into politics, instead of jail.
Second, note that Mr. Haradinaj helps lead the Kosovo Protection Corps
(KPC). This group was set up by the UN mission in Kosovo, at
Washington's behest. It is composed of former KLA terrorists. Here's
how a special UN report described the KPC:
"Murder, torture and extortion: these are the extraordinary charges made
against the UN's own Kosovo Protection Corps in a confidential United
Nations report written for Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
"The KPC stands accused in the document, drawn up on 29 February, of
'criminal activities - killings, ill-treatment/torture, illegal
policing, abuse of authority, intimidation, breaches of political
neutrality and hate-speech'." ('The Observer,' 12 March 2000, quoted in
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/howwill.htm )
Corps members, paid by NATO, have comprised most of the terrorists
fighting to destroy Macedonia. (7)
Here's more about Ramush Haradinaj. (Note that some newspaper articles
spell his name 'Hajredinaj').
On December 14, 1998, six children were murdered when a masked gunman
sprayed bullets into the Panda Cafe in the Kosovo city of Pec. This
crime was so horrific, even US Balkans envoy Richard Holbrooke
denounced it.
'"Because of its cruelty and its cowardice, this crime stands above all
crimes,' said Mirko Simonovic, principal of the slain teenagers'
school." ('Agence France Presse,' 16 December 1998)
The KLA was responsible. But what part of the KLA?
"...His [Ramush Haradinaj's] men already are suspected of carrying out
the Panda Cafe murders, when masked rebels opened fire in December on a
restaurant the city of Pec, killing six Serbian youths. His men also are
suspected of shooting at U.S. diplomatic monitors..." ('AP,' 8 March
1999)
As mentioned earlier, Haradinaj was implicated in the slaughter of
civilians in the town of Glodjane. These civilians included:
"...Serbian farmers, some gypsies and Albanians suspected of being
collaborators."('Sunday Times', (London) 3 September 2000)
How could Ramush Haradinaj be sure that an Albanian or a 'Gypsy' was a
'collaborator'? One way was if he or she refused to support the
secessionist-organized boycott of Public schools (taught in the Albanian
language!) Another sure clue was that he or she worked for the
government, as a forester for example. (8)
When Washington officials met with Haradinaj to discuss funding his
political campaign last year, they were of course violating Yugoslav
sovereignty. Aside from that, is it possible that they didn't know who
he was and what he stood for?
"'Washington knows what we want,' he [Ramush Haradinaj] added with a
smile. 'We've been clear from the very beginning.'" (Kosovo Rebels
Won't Give Up Guns By ANNE THOMPSON, 'Associated Press,' 8 March 1999)
Haradinaj has been competing with another ex-KLA thug, Hashim Thaci,
also been transformed into a proper politician. Thaci's group is called
the Democratic Party of Kosova (sic!) or PKK. Isn't it nice that both
these terrorists have the word 'democratic' in their party names? (6)
Thaci and Haradinaj have been fighting over who gets the graft in
impoverished Kosovo - for example, over the "control of certain petrol
stations." (See 'Daily Telegraph', June 12, 2000)
The 'Telegraph' does not come right out and say these men are
gangsters. But 'Jane's Defense Review' does:
"[Thaci's] PDK has good links with Albanian exile groups in America,
Switzerland and Germany, although the bulk of Thaci's funding is now
believed to come from racketeering and other crime-generated sources."
('Jane's Intelligence Review' September 1, 2000)
Note that 'Jane's Defense' calls the money that Thaci gets from
racketeering 'funding,' as if he had applied for a grant for a
community orchestra or a home for unwed mothers.
Apparently gangsterism is now routine in Kosovo.
Washington gave Hashim Thaci a bigger reception than his competitor,
Haradinaj.
Here's how 'Voice of America' described Thaci's U.S. tour last year:
"Hashim Thaci, who leads the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK)... spoke
at a press conference at UN headquarters. He is concluding a trip to
the United States, during which he met with U.S. State Department and
congressional officials. He also attended the convention in Los Angeles
last week at which the U.S. Democratic Party chose Vice President Al
Gore to be its candidate for president.
"In response to questions, Thaci repeatedly said he saw democracy
progressing in Kosovo. He said local elections would help provide a
basis for general elections in the province and contribute to what he
called the democratization of the Balkans.
"Thaci pointed to democratic changes in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and
Macedonia and said he believed pro-democracy forces would eventually
win out in Montenegro. He also said he considered the general elections
planned for Yugoslavia next month as "elections in a neighboring
country." (From 'Radio Free Europe,' 22 August 2000)
Thaci's tour was barely mentioned in the US press. But 'Voice of
America' (VOA) broadcast the story far and wide in the Balkans; thus
VOA made it perfectly clear that the US government was behind this
terrorist.
Thaci became a KLA media star during the so-called peace negotiations at
Rambouillet in the winter of 1999. Before that he was the main KLA
leader in the Kosovo town of Klecka, which had been seized by the KLA.
When Yugoslav forces liberated town in August, 1998, they made some
gruesome discoveries.
[Start Quote] "Captured KLA Men Say Serbs Were Executed
"Klecka, Yugoslavia
"...Police escorted journalists into the area on Friday after three
days of fierce fighting to dislodge its KLA defenders. [Note the use of
the word defenders to describe the KLA terrorists.]
"Reporters for Western media said two captured KLA men showed them a
spot in Klecka where 10 Serbs-- including three women and two children
- were shot by a KLA firing squad.
"Pristina country court investigating magistrate Danica Marinkovic said
four burned bodies found in the village were believed to be those of
victims of the shootings. There was no trace of the other corpses."
('Reuters' 28 August 1998) [End Quote]
And:
[Start Quote] "Domestic and foreign reporters, residing in Pristina,
were allowed to follow questioning of a witness, at the site of the
crime. The arrested Bekim Mazreku was answering to questions of Ms.
Danica Marinkovic, an investigation officer. In presence of police,
translator and the journalists, Mr. Murzeku said the following:
"Mr. Bekim Mazreku: We executed ten here. Two were children, three
women, two young boys and three men."
"Ms. Marinkovic: Could you tell us the age of the children?
Mr. Bekim Mazreku: From seven or eight to eleven.
"Ms. Marinkovic: "And women?"
"Mr. Bekim Mazreku: From 28 to 32.
"Ms. Marinkovic: Who was executing them?
"Mr. Bekim Mazreku: The Kosovo Liberation Army.
"Twenty one year old Mr. Bekim Mazreku was then returned to jail.
Journalists were then shown the fence and trees where the execution
bullets landed. Also we saw the mentioned pit with chlorine as well as
few semi-burned skulls and numerous bones belonging to victims of this
crime. The police have also shown to us photographs of a dead man with
head chopped off and mutilated body. The police told us that the
photographs were found in a basement of a house in Klecka.
"The village of Klecka has a dozen of houses on few acres of land. It
had been turned into a military camp by KLA." [End Quote]
(From 'Radio B92,' 29 August 1998. You should know that in the fall of
1998, 'Radio B92' was fiercely anti-government.
It was funded by Western government sources. Regarding this, see
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/interviews/emperor.htm
As you will see if you check out the above link to our interview with
two people from the station, B92 did not have a pro-Yugoslav Army bias;
quite the contrary.)
And:
[Start Quote] "The killings in Klecka have been linked to Thaci, who now
heads the Democratic party of Kosovo." ('Sunday Times' (London)
September 3, 2000, Sunday) [End Quote]
We who labor to expose media lies about Yugoslavia have argued that the
KLA's links to al Qaeda prove the KLA is a terrorist group.
Maybe we've got it wrong. Maybe we ought to be arguing that the KLA's
links to al Quaida prove al Quaida is a terrorist group.
-- Jared Israel
********************************
FURTHER READING:
********************************
1) Milosevic was literally kidnapped from Yugoslavia and taken to The
Hague 'Tribunal,' about which see 'NATO's Tribunal: Straight From the
Horse's Mouth'. Includes some amazing facts about this institution. Can
be read at http://www.emperors-clothes.com/docs/h-list.htm
2) 'KLA Attacks Everyone; Media Attacks...Miloshevich?' by Jared Israel.
Challenges much of what you have been told about the man. Can be read at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/expan.htm
3) * For our interview with people at Red Cross headquarters concerning
the bombing of their warehouses in Kabul, go to
http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/redcross.htm
* For the evidence the bin Laden is still, in some form, a CIA asset,
go to http://emperors-clothes.com/news/probestop-i.htm
4) "What NATO Takeover Would Mean for Macedonia: The Lesson of Orahovac
in Kosovo." Eye-witness accounts of NATO's occupation of a Serbian town.
http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/savethe-a.htm
5) 'Bin Laden in the Balkans' includes several mainstream media
accounts of the link between the KLA and al Quaida. Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/binl.htm
6) To understand why there's a sic! after 'Kosova,' see Linguistics
Professor Peter Maher's 'KosovO/KosovA - What's in a Name?' at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/JP%20maher/InAname.html
7) 'SORRY VIRGINIA BUT THEY ARE NATO TROOPS, NOT 'REBELS'' by Jared
Israel, can be read at http://www.emperors-clothes.com/mac/times.htm
8) For a discussion of the attempts by the ethnic Albanian
secessionists in Kosovo to intimidate non-secessionist Albanians, see
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/1yugo.htm#kspring
Ms. Johnstone's article is filled with mind-stretching observations
about Yugoslavia. Worth reading twice.
=======================================
Emperor's Clothes can use your help.
=======================================
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/kla-aq.htm
www.tenc.net * [Emperor's Clothes]
=======================================
WHICH TERRORISTS ARE WORSE?
AL QAEDA? OR THE KLA?
by Jared Israel
[Posted 12 December 2001]
=======================================
Slobodan Milosevic, the kidnapped former President of Yugoslavia,
appeared before The Hague 'Tribunal' yesterday. (1)
"Asked how he pleaded to the charges, guilty or not guilty, Mr.
Milosevic reacted like his old defiant self and said: 'This miserable
text is the ultimate absurdity. I should be given credit for peace in
Bosnia, not war.'
Responsibility for the Bosnian war, he went on, 'lies with the Western
powers that broke up Yugoslavia and their Yugoslav agents.' Because he
failed to respond with a plea, the court entered a plea of not
guilty... (1)
"The charges against him in Kosovo, he said, 'will inevitably open up
the issue of the Clinton administration's cooperation with the
terrorists in Kosovo, including the bin Laden organization.' He was
referring to ethnic Albanian rebels of the Kosovo Liberation Army who,
he contends, attacked Serbian forces with help from foreign Islamic
militants." ('N.Y. Times,' 12/12/01 * Note: the 'Times' uses the term
Islamic, meaning Muslim, when it should use 'Islamist,' meaning Muslim
clerical-fascists.)
The charge for which Milosevic has been tried and convicted in the
Western press is that he suppressed a popular movement using brutal
methods. (2)
But what if they lied to us about Kosovo and Milosevic, just as they
lied to us about the bombing of the Red Cross, or that bin Laden was
fighting the CIA throughout the 1990s? What if in fact Yugoslavia used
relatively humane methods to fight the U.S.-supported secessionists in
Kosovo - which by the way is the oldest part of Serbia. What if this
contrasts favorably with the tactics employed by the U.S. in
Afghanistan - which is not part of the U.S.A.? (3)
What if the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is a terrorist organization,
created by the USA and Germany, trained by U.S. and British covert
forces, installed in power in Kosovo as a proxy force for NATO?
What if hundreds of thousands of Serbs, 'Gypsies,' Slavic Muslims,
Turks, non-fascist Albanians and Jews have been driven from the
province by the KLA - with NATO's apparent approval? (4)
These are the issues Milosevic promises to expose.
We have posted evidence of the KLA's ties to Osama bin Laden's
terrorists. (5)
New evidence emerged today. We are informed that an Australian,
captured in Afghanistan, had previously fought for the KLA, then went
for training with al Qaeda in Pakistan, and ended up a Taliban soldier.
(http://au.news.yahoo.com/011212/2/1onh.html )
But the KLA is terrorist regardless of its links to al Qaeda. The
evidence is overwhelming. Consider, for example, the case of Mr. Ramush
Haradinaj.
According to a December 4th BBC report, Mr. Haradinaj, who leads the
so-called Democratic League of Kosova (sic!) or LDK, has been meeting
with leaders of the Alliance for the Future of Kosova (also sic!) to
plan a 'broad based' government in the province. (Why did I put 'sic!'
after 'Kosova'? See footnote 6 )
Who is Ramush Haradinaj.
"COOK HELD TALKS WITH WAR CRIME SUSPECT
by Tom Walker
"THE 'ethical dimension' of Robin Cook's foreign policy has come under
renewed attack after it emerged that a Kosovo Albanian leader whom the
foreign secretary met last week may be linked with war crimes.
"On his return from Kosovo, Cook promised that 'a principled defence of
democracy and human rights' would remain a cornerstone of his foreign
policy should he retain his portfolio after the general election.
"However, Francis Maude, the shadow foreign secretary, accused him of
"encouraging a culture of impunity" by holding talks with Ramush
Haradinaj, 32, a former nightclub bouncer and guerrilla commander
suspected by United Nations officials of possible involvement in the
murder of civilians, and of helping to run smuggling rackets across the
province.
"A French official said last week he was amazed that Haradinaj, leader
of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, had been invited to the
British residence in Pristina, the capital, during Cook's visit...
Haradinaj could face charges over what may be the biggest atrocity
carried out by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Forty civilians were
killed during several months in 1998 in the village of Glodjane in
western Kosovo, where Haradinaj was then the KLA commander. Many of the
bodies - of Serbs, Albanians and gypsies - bore marks of torture.
"Moderate Albanians in the Democratic League of Kosovo have implicated
Haradinaj in the murders of civilians suspected of collaborating with
Serbian forces. But Haradinaj has dismissed accusations of war crimes
and treats talk of indictment at The Hague as 'propaganda by political
opponents.'
"...In common with other senior KLA commanders, he was equipped with a
satellite phone during Nato airstrikes in 1999, helping the alliance to
pinpoint targets.
"...When the KLA emerged, he... established himself as commander of the
western Decane region, basing himself in Glodjane, one of his clan's
strongholds.
"When the UN took charge of the province's administration, he became
second-in-command of the Kosovo Protection Corps, the KLA's peacetime
incarnation...
"Diplomats in Pristina said Haradinaj entered politics last year at the
behest of Britain and America, which wanted to see the KLA's support
base split. 'He said it was too early for independence,' said a
European official introduced to Haradinaj. 'He was coached to say what
was needed.' Last April Haradinaj made a fundraising trip to
Washington..." ('Sunday Times,' (London) of 29 April 2001: April 29,
2001, Sunday)
A few quick points about this article:
First, note that the 'Times' quotes nameless "Diplomats" saying
"Britain and American wanted to see the KLA's support base split;" thus
the 'Times" attempt to prettify the ugly facts: that the U.S. and
British governments coached this war criminal and funded him, thus
thrusting him into politics, instead of jail.
Second, note that Mr. Haradinaj helps lead the Kosovo Protection Corps
(KPC). This group was set up by the UN mission in Kosovo, at
Washington's behest. It is composed of former KLA terrorists. Here's
how a special UN report described the KPC:
"Murder, torture and extortion: these are the extraordinary charges made
against the UN's own Kosovo Protection Corps in a confidential United
Nations report written for Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
"The KPC stands accused in the document, drawn up on 29 February, of
'criminal activities - killings, ill-treatment/torture, illegal
policing, abuse of authority, intimidation, breaches of political
neutrality and hate-speech'." ('The Observer,' 12 March 2000, quoted in
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/howwill.htm )
Corps members, paid by NATO, have comprised most of the terrorists
fighting to destroy Macedonia. (7)
Here's more about Ramush Haradinaj. (Note that some newspaper articles
spell his name 'Hajredinaj').
On December 14, 1998, six children were murdered when a masked gunman
sprayed bullets into the Panda Cafe in the Kosovo city of Pec. This
crime was so horrific, even US Balkans envoy Richard Holbrooke
denounced it.
'"Because of its cruelty and its cowardice, this crime stands above all
crimes,' said Mirko Simonovic, principal of the slain teenagers'
school." ('Agence France Presse,' 16 December 1998)
The KLA was responsible. But what part of the KLA?
"...His [Ramush Haradinaj's] men already are suspected of carrying out
the Panda Cafe murders, when masked rebels opened fire in December on a
restaurant the city of Pec, killing six Serbian youths. His men also are
suspected of shooting at U.S. diplomatic monitors..." ('AP,' 8 March
1999)
As mentioned earlier, Haradinaj was implicated in the slaughter of
civilians in the town of Glodjane. These civilians included:
"...Serbian farmers, some gypsies and Albanians suspected of being
collaborators."('Sunday Times', (London) 3 September 2000)
How could Ramush Haradinaj be sure that an Albanian or a 'Gypsy' was a
'collaborator'? One way was if he or she refused to support the
secessionist-organized boycott of Public schools (taught in the Albanian
language!) Another sure clue was that he or she worked for the
government, as a forester for example. (8)
When Washington officials met with Haradinaj to discuss funding his
political campaign last year, they were of course violating Yugoslav
sovereignty. Aside from that, is it possible that they didn't know who
he was and what he stood for?
"'Washington knows what we want,' he [Ramush Haradinaj] added with a
smile. 'We've been clear from the very beginning.'" (Kosovo Rebels
Won't Give Up Guns By ANNE THOMPSON, 'Associated Press,' 8 March 1999)
Haradinaj has been competing with another ex-KLA thug, Hashim Thaci,
also been transformed into a proper politician. Thaci's group is called
the Democratic Party of Kosova (sic!) or PKK. Isn't it nice that both
these terrorists have the word 'democratic' in their party names? (6)
Thaci and Haradinaj have been fighting over who gets the graft in
impoverished Kosovo - for example, over the "control of certain petrol
stations." (See 'Daily Telegraph', June 12, 2000)
The 'Telegraph' does not come right out and say these men are
gangsters. But 'Jane's Defense Review' does:
"[Thaci's] PDK has good links with Albanian exile groups in America,
Switzerland and Germany, although the bulk of Thaci's funding is now
believed to come from racketeering and other crime-generated sources."
('Jane's Intelligence Review' September 1, 2000)
Note that 'Jane's Defense' calls the money that Thaci gets from
racketeering 'funding,' as if he had applied for a grant for a
community orchestra or a home for unwed mothers.
Apparently gangsterism is now routine in Kosovo.
Washington gave Hashim Thaci a bigger reception than his competitor,
Haradinaj.
Here's how 'Voice of America' described Thaci's U.S. tour last year:
"Hashim Thaci, who leads the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK)... spoke
at a press conference at UN headquarters. He is concluding a trip to
the United States, during which he met with U.S. State Department and
congressional officials. He also attended the convention in Los Angeles
last week at which the U.S. Democratic Party chose Vice President Al
Gore to be its candidate for president.
"In response to questions, Thaci repeatedly said he saw democracy
progressing in Kosovo. He said local elections would help provide a
basis for general elections in the province and contribute to what he
called the democratization of the Balkans.
"Thaci pointed to democratic changes in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and
Macedonia and said he believed pro-democracy forces would eventually
win out in Montenegro. He also said he considered the general elections
planned for Yugoslavia next month as "elections in a neighboring
country." (From 'Radio Free Europe,' 22 August 2000)
Thaci's tour was barely mentioned in the US press. But 'Voice of
America' (VOA) broadcast the story far and wide in the Balkans; thus
VOA made it perfectly clear that the US government was behind this
terrorist.
Thaci became a KLA media star during the so-called peace negotiations at
Rambouillet in the winter of 1999. Before that he was the main KLA
leader in the Kosovo town of Klecka, which had been seized by the KLA.
When Yugoslav forces liberated town in August, 1998, they made some
gruesome discoveries.
[Start Quote] "Captured KLA Men Say Serbs Were Executed
"Klecka, Yugoslavia
"...Police escorted journalists into the area on Friday after three
days of fierce fighting to dislodge its KLA defenders. [Note the use of
the word defenders to describe the KLA terrorists.]
"Reporters for Western media said two captured KLA men showed them a
spot in Klecka where 10 Serbs-- including three women and two children
- were shot by a KLA firing squad.
"Pristina country court investigating magistrate Danica Marinkovic said
four burned bodies found in the village were believed to be those of
victims of the shootings. There was no trace of the other corpses."
('Reuters' 28 August 1998) [End Quote]
And:
[Start Quote] "Domestic and foreign reporters, residing in Pristina,
were allowed to follow questioning of a witness, at the site of the
crime. The arrested Bekim Mazreku was answering to questions of Ms.
Danica Marinkovic, an investigation officer. In presence of police,
translator and the journalists, Mr. Murzeku said the following:
"Mr. Bekim Mazreku: We executed ten here. Two were children, three
women, two young boys and three men."
"Ms. Marinkovic: Could you tell us the age of the children?
Mr. Bekim Mazreku: From seven or eight to eleven.
"Ms. Marinkovic: "And women?"
"Mr. Bekim Mazreku: From 28 to 32.
"Ms. Marinkovic: Who was executing them?
"Mr. Bekim Mazreku: The Kosovo Liberation Army.
"Twenty one year old Mr. Bekim Mazreku was then returned to jail.
Journalists were then shown the fence and trees where the execution
bullets landed. Also we saw the mentioned pit with chlorine as well as
few semi-burned skulls and numerous bones belonging to victims of this
crime. The police have also shown to us photographs of a dead man with
head chopped off and mutilated body. The police told us that the
photographs were found in a basement of a house in Klecka.
"The village of Klecka has a dozen of houses on few acres of land. It
had been turned into a military camp by KLA." [End Quote]
(From 'Radio B92,' 29 August 1998. You should know that in the fall of
1998, 'Radio B92' was fiercely anti-government.
It was funded by Western government sources. Regarding this, see
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/interviews/emperor.htm
As you will see if you check out the above link to our interview with
two people from the station, B92 did not have a pro-Yugoslav Army bias;
quite the contrary.)
And:
[Start Quote] "The killings in Klecka have been linked to Thaci, who now
heads the Democratic party of Kosovo." ('Sunday Times' (London)
September 3, 2000, Sunday) [End Quote]
We who labor to expose media lies about Yugoslavia have argued that the
KLA's links to al Qaeda prove the KLA is a terrorist group.
Maybe we've got it wrong. Maybe we ought to be arguing that the KLA's
links to al Quaida prove al Quaida is a terrorist group.
-- Jared Israel
********************************
FURTHER READING:
********************************
1) Milosevic was literally kidnapped from Yugoslavia and taken to The
Hague 'Tribunal,' about which see 'NATO's Tribunal: Straight From the
Horse's Mouth'. Includes some amazing facts about this institution. Can
be read at http://www.emperors-clothes.com/docs/h-list.htm
2) 'KLA Attacks Everyone; Media Attacks...Miloshevich?' by Jared Israel.
Challenges much of what you have been told about the man. Can be read at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/expan.htm
3) * For our interview with people at Red Cross headquarters concerning
the bombing of their warehouses in Kabul, go to
http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/redcross.htm
* For the evidence the bin Laden is still, in some form, a CIA asset,
go to http://emperors-clothes.com/news/probestop-i.htm
4) "What NATO Takeover Would Mean for Macedonia: The Lesson of Orahovac
in Kosovo." Eye-witness accounts of NATO's occupation of a Serbian town.
http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/savethe-a.htm
5) 'Bin Laden in the Balkans' includes several mainstream media
accounts of the link between the KLA and al Quaida. Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/binl.htm
6) To understand why there's a sic! after 'Kosova,' see Linguistics
Professor Peter Maher's 'KosovO/KosovA - What's in a Name?' at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/JP%20maher/InAname.html
7) 'SORRY VIRGINIA BUT THEY ARE NATO TROOPS, NOT 'REBELS'' by Jared
Israel, can be read at http://www.emperors-clothes.com/mac/times.htm
8) For a discussion of the attempts by the ethnic Albanian
secessionists in Kosovo to intimidate non-secessionist Albanians, see
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/1yugo.htm#kspring
Ms. Johnstone's article is filled with mind-stretching observations
about Yugoslavia. Worth reading twice.
=======================================
Emperor's Clothes can use your help.
=======================================
* PEGGIORAMENTO DELLA SITUAZIONE NEI BALCANI
* BANDITI ALBANESI FANNO SALTARE UNA CHIESA PRESSO TETOVO
* PARTITO SOCIALDEMOCRATICO LASCIA GOVERNO; BERLUSCONI ESPRIME
SOSTEGNO; PARLAMENTO APPROVA NOMINA NUOVI MINISTRI; TRAJKOVSKI
CERCA DI SCIPPARE LE ELEZIONI SPOSTANDOLE AD APRILE; FOSSA COMUNE
CON RESTI DI CIVILI MACEDONI NON FA NOTIZIA SULLA STAMPA OCCIDENTALE
* TRAJKOVSKI ORDINA AMNISTIA PER DECINE DI TERRORISTI UCK
=*=
Un documento sulla situazione tra il Sud della Serbia, il Nord del
Kosovo e il Nord della Macedonia, a cura di Zivkica Nedanovska:
1.FONTE: Politika.
2.TITOLO: I Serbi, la popolazione non albanese e l'Esercito jugoslavo
sempre di più esposti all'attacco.
3.INDICE: Sul peggioramento della situazione della sicurezza nel sud
della Serbia, nel nord del Kosovo e nel nord della Macedonia.
4.SITO INTERNET: http://www.politika.co.yu/2001/1201/01_11.htm
5.NUMERO DI PAGINE: 3.
6.DATA: 01.12.2001.
7.AUTORE: TOMA TODOROVIC.
La situazione nel sud della Serbia e nel nord del Kosovo e Metohija si
sta pericolosamente complicando. I Serbi e la popolazione non albanese
quotidianamente sono esposti alle minacce e ai ricatti. Sono minacciati
a tal punto punto che la situazione attuale è valutata come la peggiore
negli ultimi anni.
Nello stesso tempo, anche al nord della Macedonia la situazione si
sta complicando con i "giochi" nei confronti dell'Esercito Jugoslavo.
Questi fatti aggravano e peggiorano una pace già ingannevole in queste
parti dei Balcani.
Nel nord e nel nord-ovest della Macedonia, di nuovo si osserva il
raggrupparsi delle forze terroristiche. L'Esercito Jugoslavo dispone di
dati secondo cui forze terroristiche notevoli si sono trasferite dal
Kosmet nella regione di Kumanovo e di Tetovo.
Nelle vicinanze di queste due città sono sempre più massicci gli
attraversamenti del confine tra la RFJ e la Macedonia.
Dopo le elezioni nel Kosovo, e in particolare dalla giornata dello
Stato di Albania, il 28 novembre, la situazione di sicurezza in Kosovo e
Metohija è molto peggiorata.
"E' sempre più forte la pressione su tutti noi che viviamo qui e
che non siamo Albanesi. Siamo anche molto preoccupati perchè i Serbi e
gli altri cittadini di nazionalità non albanese vendono le loro case e
proprietà e scappano da qui. Abbiamo paura di perdere il Kosovo.
Abbiamo paura che rimanerremo soli e che saranno sempre di meno quelli
che lottano per gli interessi della Serbia e della Jugoslavia. Tre
giorni fa, per esempio, hanno provato a fare un attentato contro Rada
Trajkovic, unica rappresentante serba nella Presidenza del Kosovo.
Questo vuol dire che gli Albanesi non ci lasciano e non ci lasceranno
mai in pace, finchè siamo in Kosovo", dice Nebojsa Jovic, abitante di
Kosovska Mitrovica.
Anche nel sud della Serbia, vicino a Gnjilane, il nostro Esercito sa
che si stanno concentrando, vicino alla Zona di sicurezza, consistenti
forze terroristiche. Accanto a questo, vanno avanti le nuove richieste
degli Albanesi della regione di Presevo e Bujanovac sulla
demilitarizzazione di quelle zone. I 1500 abitanti di Bujanovac hanno
firmato una petizione indirizzata al vertice statale chiedendo di essere
difesi da minacce e ricatti quotidiani.
Anche qui sta crescendo il numero delle case e proprietà serbe vendute
agli Albanesi.
"Cosa faremo quando, dopo il 15 aprile del 2002, l'Esercito se ne andra'
da Presevo e Bujanovac, secondo l'Accordo?", si chiede Dragisa Savic,
preoccupato. "Senza il nostro Esercito e la nostra Polizia, la
popolazione serba e le etnie non albanesi non hanno di che cercare qui",
conclude.
=*=
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/macedonia/20011210133432072422.html
MACEDONIA: ATTENTATO INCENDIARIO DISTRUGGE CHIESA ORTODOSSA
(ANSA) - SKOPJE, 10 DIC - Un attentato incendiario ha completamente
distrutto nella notte tra sabato e domenica l'antica
chiesetta ortodossa di ''San Giorgio'' nel villaggio di Golema Recica
(Macedonia nordoccidentale). L'attentato e' avvenuto in
concidenza con la festa di ''San Giorgio'', particolarmente sentita
dalla comunita' ortodossa. La chiesa, la cui prima costruzione
risale al 14/mo secolo ma che era stata piu' volte distrutta e
ricostruita, ospitava antichissimi affreschi ed icone ora ridotti a un
ammasso di cenere. La zona di Golema Recica (che si trova nel
distretto di Tetovo) e' rimasta per molti mesi sotto il controllo della
guerriglia albanese (di religione musulmana) e attualmente e'
considerata una delle aree a rischio nelle quali la polizia macedone
non ha ancora fatto rientro.(ANSA) BLL
10/12/2001 13:34
BANDITI ALBANESI FANNO SALTARE UNA CHIESA PRESSO TETOVO
TETOVO, 9/12/2001 - Banditi albanesi hanno devastato e fatto
saltare in aria la chiesta-convento di San Giorgio nel paese di
Golema Recica, nei pressi della citta' di Tetovo, nella Macedonia
occidentale. Anche gli appartamenti dei monaci sono stati incendiati
oggi. Quando la polizia e' giunta sul luogo del fatto, i banditi
hanno incominciato a spararle contro. (http://www.amselfeld.com)
+++ Albanische Banditen sprengen Kirche +++
TETOVO, 9. Dezember 2001. Albanische Banditen plünderten und
sprengten anschließend die Kirche des Hl.-Georgius-Kloster im
Dorf Golema Recica unweit des westmazedonischen Tetovo. Auch die
Wohnungen der Mönche wurden heute in Brand gesetzt. Als die
Polizei zur Tatort kam, eröffneten die Banditen Feuer auf sie.
(STIMME KOSOVOS - http://www.amselfeld.com)
=*=
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/macedonia/20011121143732052525.html
MACEDONIA: PARTITO SOCIALDEMOCRATICO LASCIA GOVERNO
(ANSA) - SKOPJE, 21 NOV - L'Unione socialdemocratica (Sdsm),
secondo piu' importante partito macedone, ha deciso di uscire
dal governo di unita' nazionale costituito nel maggio scorso
per superare la crisi armata. La decisione e' stata adottata nel corso
della notte con voto unanime dalla direzione del partito,
ma le ragioni dovranno essere rese note in giornata giornata dal leader
dell'Sdsm, Branko Cernenkovski.
Un atteggiamento simile e' stata adottato anche dal partito
liberal democratico.
Secondo osservatori politici l'uscita dall'esecutivo dell'Sdsm
(che detiene importanti ministeri, compreso quello della Difesa),
costituirebbe una mossa strategica in vista delle prossime
elezioni politiche generali attese per la fine di gennaio.
Del governo di unita' nazionale, costituito il 13 maggio su
pressione della comunita' internazionale, fanno parte, oltre all'Sdsm e
al
partito liberal democratico, due formazioni albanesi e la
Vmro-Dpmne, partito nazionalista macedone del premier Ljubco
Georgevski. (ANSA) BLL*COR
21/11/2001 14:37
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/macedonia/20011123155732056048.html
MACEDONIA: BERLUSCONI ESPRIME SOSTEGNO A GOVERNO SKOPJE
(ANSA) - TRIESTE, 23 NOV - L'attuale governo di Skopje ''deve
portare avanti il processo di pacificazione'' avviato. Cosi' il
presidente del Consiglio Silvio Berlusconi ha espresso oggi
il suo sostegno al governo macedone,alla luce delle dimissioni di
quattro
ministri accolte oggi dal Parlamento locale. Abbiamo bisogno
che questo governo e questa maggioranza ''resistano'', ha detto
Berlusconi, perche' una ferita che si era rimarginata non torni
ad aprirsi causando nuovi scompensi nei Balcani.(ANSA) TI*PAE
23/11/2001 15:57
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/macedonia/20011130145532062226.html
MACEDONIA: PARLAMENTO APPROVA NOMINA NUOVI MINISTRI
(ANSA) - SKOPJE, 30 NOV - Il parlamento macedone ha approvato
oggi a maggioranza la nomina di quattro nuovi ministri dopo
l'uscita dall'esecutivo dell'Unione socialdemocratica. Vlado
Popovski (partito liberale) e' stato nominato ministro della Difesa,
Slobodan Casule ministro Affari esteri (partito Nova Democratja),
Gorgi Oreovcanec ministro della Sanita' (Nova Democratja) e
Dosta Dimovska (Vmro-Dpmne), vice primo ministro. Con questo
ennesimo rimpasto il primo ministro Ljubco Georgevski inaugura
cosi' il suo settimo governo in appena tre anni. La uscita
dell'Unione socialdemocratica dal governo di unita' nazionale (al quale
aderiscono anche due partiti albanesi) dovrebbe preludere
allo scioglimento dell'assaemblea e alla convocazione di elezioni
anticipate. La data in cui si svolgeranno le consultazioni
appare tuttavia ancora incerta: il presidente della repubblica, Boris
Trajkovski, ha espresso l'auspicio che le votazioni possano
tenersi in aprile e non alla fine di gennaio come invece chiesto dai
socialdemocratici.(ANSA) BLL*COR
30/11/2001 14:55
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/macedonia/20011126153032058209.html
MACEDONIA: TRAJKOVSKI PER RINVIO ELEZIONI AD APRILE
(ANSA) - SKOPJE, 26 NOV - Il presidente macedone Boris Trajkovski
ha dichiarato che la Macedonia conta di riprendere entro
meta' gennaio il controllo totale delle aree in mano agli
ex-guerriglieri albanesi.
Trajkovski ha anche detto di sperare che il Parlamento, nelle votazioni
in programma oggi, rinvii ad aprile le elezioni fissate per il 27
gennaio, in modo da poter consolidare prima del voto legge e ordine in
quelle aree.
Secondo il presidente, dopo lo scioglimento la guerriglia dell'Uck
non ha motivo di opporsi alle autorita' dello stato, in particolare
dopo l'approvazione del piano di pace e l'amnistia per gli ex
combattenti.
Fonti macedoni hanno d'altra parte confermato il ritrovamento dei
resti di almeno sei civili macedoni in una fossa comune scoperta
mercoledi' nei pressi di Tetovo. ''Durante gli scavi sono stati
rinvenuti ossa e resti umani'', ha confermato la giudice Alesandra
Zafirovska in una conferenza stampa. ''Ora dovremo procedere
all'identificazione, per la quale saranno necessari quattro o cinque
mesi di lavoro'', ha aggiunto Zafirovska.
Alle ricerche hanno partecipato anche esperti del Tribunale penale
internazionale per i crimini di guerra nella ex Jugoslavia (Tpi).
(ANSA) RIG 25-NOV-01 21:12 NNNN
26/11/2001 15:30
=*=
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/macedonia/20011207172432070779.html
MACEDONIA: AMNISTIA TRAJKOVSKI AD ALTRI 22 EX GUERRIGLIERI
(ANSA) - SKOPJE, 7 DIC - Il presidente della Repubblica macedone, Boris
Trajkovski, ha concesso oggi l'amnistia ad altri 22 ex
combattenti albanesi dell'Uck. La lista dei guerriglieri albanesi
graziati dal Capo dello Stato sale cosi' a 33, anche se il numero
complessivo dei ribelli che, avendo deposto le armi, pretendono
l'amnistia e' di almeno 2.000. L'amnistia, prevista dal piano di pace
sostenuto dalla comunita' internazionale, ha suscitato le proteste
di una parte dei deputati macedoni che l'hanno considerata una
violazione del codice penale. Essa costituisce tuttavia un'altra,
importante, tappa del difficile processo di pace in corso in
Macedonia. Ora il parlamento e' chiamato ad approvare le leggi che
servono ad attribuire maggiori diritti alla minoranza albanese, a
cominciare da quella sulle autonomie locali. Il dibattito parlamentare
procede pero' con grande ritardo, e i rappresentanti diplomatici
hanno gia' fatto sapere alle autorita' di Skopje che se questa legge
non sara' approvata in tempi brevi, rischia di saltare per la
seconda volta la prevista conferenza dei donatori attesa prima di
Natale. (ANSA). BLL*COR
07/12/2001 17:24
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/macedonia/20011205155832068008.html
MACEDONIA: AMNISTIA CAPO DI STATO PER 11 EX COMBATTENTI UCK
(ANSA) - SKOPJE, 5 DIC - Il presidente della repubblica macedone,
Boris Trajkovski, ha ordinato oggi l'applicazione dell'amnistia
per 11 ex combattenti dell'Uck arrestati prima del 26 settembre,
quando il movimento di guerriglia si e' ufficialmente disciolto. E' la
prima volta che il capo dello Stato applica l'amnistia nei confronti
degli estremisti albanesi decisa con l'accordo di pace firmato ad
Ocrida lo scorso 13 agosto. L'applicazione appare tuttavia ancora
parziale: gli undici ex guerriglieri graziati sono stati infatti scelti
da una prima lista di altri 77 albanesi, stilata dal ministero della
Giustizia, che attendono l'amnistia in stato di detenzione, al pari di
almeno altri 2.000 ex guerriglieri tuttora in liberta' ma che
rischiano l'incriminazione. L'amnistia non sara' applicata in alcun modo
per coloro che risultassero incriminati dal Tribunale penale
internazionale (Tpi) per i crimini di guerra nell'ex Jugoslavia, e
che ha avviato indagini anche in Macedonia.(ANSA). BLL*COR
05/12/2001 15:58
* BANDITI ALBANESI FANNO SALTARE UNA CHIESA PRESSO TETOVO
* PARTITO SOCIALDEMOCRATICO LASCIA GOVERNO; BERLUSCONI ESPRIME
SOSTEGNO; PARLAMENTO APPROVA NOMINA NUOVI MINISTRI; TRAJKOVSKI
CERCA DI SCIPPARE LE ELEZIONI SPOSTANDOLE AD APRILE; FOSSA COMUNE
CON RESTI DI CIVILI MACEDONI NON FA NOTIZIA SULLA STAMPA OCCIDENTALE
* TRAJKOVSKI ORDINA AMNISTIA PER DECINE DI TERRORISTI UCK
=*=
Un documento sulla situazione tra il Sud della Serbia, il Nord del
Kosovo e il Nord della Macedonia, a cura di Zivkica Nedanovska:
1.FONTE: Politika.
2.TITOLO: I Serbi, la popolazione non albanese e l'Esercito jugoslavo
sempre di più esposti all'attacco.
3.INDICE: Sul peggioramento della situazione della sicurezza nel sud
della Serbia, nel nord del Kosovo e nel nord della Macedonia.
4.SITO INTERNET: http://www.politika.co.yu/2001/1201/01_11.htm
5.NUMERO DI PAGINE: 3.
6.DATA: 01.12.2001.
7.AUTORE: TOMA TODOROVIC.
La situazione nel sud della Serbia e nel nord del Kosovo e Metohija si
sta pericolosamente complicando. I Serbi e la popolazione non albanese
quotidianamente sono esposti alle minacce e ai ricatti. Sono minacciati
a tal punto punto che la situazione attuale è valutata come la peggiore
negli ultimi anni.
Nello stesso tempo, anche al nord della Macedonia la situazione si
sta complicando con i "giochi" nei confronti dell'Esercito Jugoslavo.
Questi fatti aggravano e peggiorano una pace già ingannevole in queste
parti dei Balcani.
Nel nord e nel nord-ovest della Macedonia, di nuovo si osserva il
raggrupparsi delle forze terroristiche. L'Esercito Jugoslavo dispone di
dati secondo cui forze terroristiche notevoli si sono trasferite dal
Kosmet nella regione di Kumanovo e di Tetovo.
Nelle vicinanze di queste due città sono sempre più massicci gli
attraversamenti del confine tra la RFJ e la Macedonia.
Dopo le elezioni nel Kosovo, e in particolare dalla giornata dello
Stato di Albania, il 28 novembre, la situazione di sicurezza in Kosovo e
Metohija è molto peggiorata.
"E' sempre più forte la pressione su tutti noi che viviamo qui e
che non siamo Albanesi. Siamo anche molto preoccupati perchè i Serbi e
gli altri cittadini di nazionalità non albanese vendono le loro case e
proprietà e scappano da qui. Abbiamo paura di perdere il Kosovo.
Abbiamo paura che rimanerremo soli e che saranno sempre di meno quelli
che lottano per gli interessi della Serbia e della Jugoslavia. Tre
giorni fa, per esempio, hanno provato a fare un attentato contro Rada
Trajkovic, unica rappresentante serba nella Presidenza del Kosovo.
Questo vuol dire che gli Albanesi non ci lasciano e non ci lasceranno
mai in pace, finchè siamo in Kosovo", dice Nebojsa Jovic, abitante di
Kosovska Mitrovica.
Anche nel sud della Serbia, vicino a Gnjilane, il nostro Esercito sa
che si stanno concentrando, vicino alla Zona di sicurezza, consistenti
forze terroristiche. Accanto a questo, vanno avanti le nuove richieste
degli Albanesi della regione di Presevo e Bujanovac sulla
demilitarizzazione di quelle zone. I 1500 abitanti di Bujanovac hanno
firmato una petizione indirizzata al vertice statale chiedendo di essere
difesi da minacce e ricatti quotidiani.
Anche qui sta crescendo il numero delle case e proprietà serbe vendute
agli Albanesi.
"Cosa faremo quando, dopo il 15 aprile del 2002, l'Esercito se ne andra'
da Presevo e Bujanovac, secondo l'Accordo?", si chiede Dragisa Savic,
preoccupato. "Senza il nostro Esercito e la nostra Polizia, la
popolazione serba e le etnie non albanesi non hanno di che cercare qui",
conclude.
=*=
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/macedonia/20011210133432072422.html
MACEDONIA: ATTENTATO INCENDIARIO DISTRUGGE CHIESA ORTODOSSA
(ANSA) - SKOPJE, 10 DIC - Un attentato incendiario ha completamente
distrutto nella notte tra sabato e domenica l'antica
chiesetta ortodossa di ''San Giorgio'' nel villaggio di Golema Recica
(Macedonia nordoccidentale). L'attentato e' avvenuto in
concidenza con la festa di ''San Giorgio'', particolarmente sentita
dalla comunita' ortodossa. La chiesa, la cui prima costruzione
risale al 14/mo secolo ma che era stata piu' volte distrutta e
ricostruita, ospitava antichissimi affreschi ed icone ora ridotti a un
ammasso di cenere. La zona di Golema Recica (che si trova nel
distretto di Tetovo) e' rimasta per molti mesi sotto il controllo della
guerriglia albanese (di religione musulmana) e attualmente e'
considerata una delle aree a rischio nelle quali la polizia macedone
non ha ancora fatto rientro.(ANSA) BLL
10/12/2001 13:34
BANDITI ALBANESI FANNO SALTARE UNA CHIESA PRESSO TETOVO
TETOVO, 9/12/2001 - Banditi albanesi hanno devastato e fatto
saltare in aria la chiesta-convento di San Giorgio nel paese di
Golema Recica, nei pressi della citta' di Tetovo, nella Macedonia
occidentale. Anche gli appartamenti dei monaci sono stati incendiati
oggi. Quando la polizia e' giunta sul luogo del fatto, i banditi
hanno incominciato a spararle contro. (http://www.amselfeld.com)
+++ Albanische Banditen sprengen Kirche +++
TETOVO, 9. Dezember 2001. Albanische Banditen plünderten und
sprengten anschließend die Kirche des Hl.-Georgius-Kloster im
Dorf Golema Recica unweit des westmazedonischen Tetovo. Auch die
Wohnungen der Mönche wurden heute in Brand gesetzt. Als die
Polizei zur Tatort kam, eröffneten die Banditen Feuer auf sie.
(STIMME KOSOVOS - http://www.amselfeld.com)
=*=
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/macedonia/20011121143732052525.html
MACEDONIA: PARTITO SOCIALDEMOCRATICO LASCIA GOVERNO
(ANSA) - SKOPJE, 21 NOV - L'Unione socialdemocratica (Sdsm),
secondo piu' importante partito macedone, ha deciso di uscire
dal governo di unita' nazionale costituito nel maggio scorso
per superare la crisi armata. La decisione e' stata adottata nel corso
della notte con voto unanime dalla direzione del partito,
ma le ragioni dovranno essere rese note in giornata giornata dal leader
dell'Sdsm, Branko Cernenkovski.
Un atteggiamento simile e' stata adottato anche dal partito
liberal democratico.
Secondo osservatori politici l'uscita dall'esecutivo dell'Sdsm
(che detiene importanti ministeri, compreso quello della Difesa),
costituirebbe una mossa strategica in vista delle prossime
elezioni politiche generali attese per la fine di gennaio.
Del governo di unita' nazionale, costituito il 13 maggio su
pressione della comunita' internazionale, fanno parte, oltre all'Sdsm e
al
partito liberal democratico, due formazioni albanesi e la
Vmro-Dpmne, partito nazionalista macedone del premier Ljubco
Georgevski. (ANSA) BLL*COR
21/11/2001 14:37
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/macedonia/20011123155732056048.html
MACEDONIA: BERLUSCONI ESPRIME SOSTEGNO A GOVERNO SKOPJE
(ANSA) - TRIESTE, 23 NOV - L'attuale governo di Skopje ''deve
portare avanti il processo di pacificazione'' avviato. Cosi' il
presidente del Consiglio Silvio Berlusconi ha espresso oggi
il suo sostegno al governo macedone,alla luce delle dimissioni di
quattro
ministri accolte oggi dal Parlamento locale. Abbiamo bisogno
che questo governo e questa maggioranza ''resistano'', ha detto
Berlusconi, perche' una ferita che si era rimarginata non torni
ad aprirsi causando nuovi scompensi nei Balcani.(ANSA) TI*PAE
23/11/2001 15:57
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/macedonia/20011130145532062226.html
MACEDONIA: PARLAMENTO APPROVA NOMINA NUOVI MINISTRI
(ANSA) - SKOPJE, 30 NOV - Il parlamento macedone ha approvato
oggi a maggioranza la nomina di quattro nuovi ministri dopo
l'uscita dall'esecutivo dell'Unione socialdemocratica. Vlado
Popovski (partito liberale) e' stato nominato ministro della Difesa,
Slobodan Casule ministro Affari esteri (partito Nova Democratja),
Gorgi Oreovcanec ministro della Sanita' (Nova Democratja) e
Dosta Dimovska (Vmro-Dpmne), vice primo ministro. Con questo
ennesimo rimpasto il primo ministro Ljubco Georgevski inaugura
cosi' il suo settimo governo in appena tre anni. La uscita
dell'Unione socialdemocratica dal governo di unita' nazionale (al quale
aderiscono anche due partiti albanesi) dovrebbe preludere
allo scioglimento dell'assaemblea e alla convocazione di elezioni
anticipate. La data in cui si svolgeranno le consultazioni
appare tuttavia ancora incerta: il presidente della repubblica, Boris
Trajkovski, ha espresso l'auspicio che le votazioni possano
tenersi in aprile e non alla fine di gennaio come invece chiesto dai
socialdemocratici.(ANSA) BLL*COR
30/11/2001 14:55
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/macedonia/20011126153032058209.html
MACEDONIA: TRAJKOVSKI PER RINVIO ELEZIONI AD APRILE
(ANSA) - SKOPJE, 26 NOV - Il presidente macedone Boris Trajkovski
ha dichiarato che la Macedonia conta di riprendere entro
meta' gennaio il controllo totale delle aree in mano agli
ex-guerriglieri albanesi.
Trajkovski ha anche detto di sperare che il Parlamento, nelle votazioni
in programma oggi, rinvii ad aprile le elezioni fissate per il 27
gennaio, in modo da poter consolidare prima del voto legge e ordine in
quelle aree.
Secondo il presidente, dopo lo scioglimento la guerriglia dell'Uck
non ha motivo di opporsi alle autorita' dello stato, in particolare
dopo l'approvazione del piano di pace e l'amnistia per gli ex
combattenti.
Fonti macedoni hanno d'altra parte confermato il ritrovamento dei
resti di almeno sei civili macedoni in una fossa comune scoperta
mercoledi' nei pressi di Tetovo. ''Durante gli scavi sono stati
rinvenuti ossa e resti umani'', ha confermato la giudice Alesandra
Zafirovska in una conferenza stampa. ''Ora dovremo procedere
all'identificazione, per la quale saranno necessari quattro o cinque
mesi di lavoro'', ha aggiunto Zafirovska.
Alle ricerche hanno partecipato anche esperti del Tribunale penale
internazionale per i crimini di guerra nella ex Jugoslavia (Tpi).
(ANSA) RIG 25-NOV-01 21:12 NNNN
26/11/2001 15:30
=*=
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/macedonia/20011207172432070779.html
MACEDONIA: AMNISTIA TRAJKOVSKI AD ALTRI 22 EX GUERRIGLIERI
(ANSA) - SKOPJE, 7 DIC - Il presidente della Repubblica macedone, Boris
Trajkovski, ha concesso oggi l'amnistia ad altri 22 ex
combattenti albanesi dell'Uck. La lista dei guerriglieri albanesi
graziati dal Capo dello Stato sale cosi' a 33, anche se il numero
complessivo dei ribelli che, avendo deposto le armi, pretendono
l'amnistia e' di almeno 2.000. L'amnistia, prevista dal piano di pace
sostenuto dalla comunita' internazionale, ha suscitato le proteste
di una parte dei deputati macedoni che l'hanno considerata una
violazione del codice penale. Essa costituisce tuttavia un'altra,
importante, tappa del difficile processo di pace in corso in
Macedonia. Ora il parlamento e' chiamato ad approvare le leggi che
servono ad attribuire maggiori diritti alla minoranza albanese, a
cominciare da quella sulle autonomie locali. Il dibattito parlamentare
procede pero' con grande ritardo, e i rappresentanti diplomatici
hanno gia' fatto sapere alle autorita' di Skopje che se questa legge
non sara' approvata in tempi brevi, rischia di saltare per la
seconda volta la prevista conferenza dei donatori attesa prima di
Natale. (ANSA). BLL*COR
07/12/2001 17:24
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/macedonia/20011205155832068008.html
MACEDONIA: AMNISTIA CAPO DI STATO PER 11 EX COMBATTENTI UCK
(ANSA) - SKOPJE, 5 DIC - Il presidente della repubblica macedone,
Boris Trajkovski, ha ordinato oggi l'applicazione dell'amnistia
per 11 ex combattenti dell'Uck arrestati prima del 26 settembre,
quando il movimento di guerriglia si e' ufficialmente disciolto. E' la
prima volta che il capo dello Stato applica l'amnistia nei confronti
degli estremisti albanesi decisa con l'accordo di pace firmato ad
Ocrida lo scorso 13 agosto. L'applicazione appare tuttavia ancora
parziale: gli undici ex guerriglieri graziati sono stati infatti scelti
da una prima lista di altri 77 albanesi, stilata dal ministero della
Giustizia, che attendono l'amnistia in stato di detenzione, al pari di
almeno altri 2.000 ex guerriglieri tuttora in liberta' ma che
rischiano l'incriminazione. L'amnistia non sara' applicata in alcun modo
per coloro che risultassero incriminati dal Tribunale penale
internazionale (Tpi) per i crimini di guerra nell'ex Jugoslavia, e
che ha avviato indagini anche in Macedonia.(ANSA). BLL*COR
05/12/2001 15:58
URL for this article is http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/backin.htm
Join our email list at http://emperors-clothes.com/f.htm. Receive
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[Emperor's Clothes]
=======================================
MEET THE NAZIS THE CIA
MARRIED: THE CROATIAN USTASHI
by Petar Makara and Jared Israel
[Posted 9 December 2001]
=======================================
"NO SERBS, JEWS, NOMADS ['Gypsies'] AND
DOGS" - Text of signs on public establishments in
secessionist Croatia in June, 1941.
In the article, "Worst Kept Secrets of the Bumbling Bear," we talked
about the Vatican/U.S. government 'rescue' of Nazis from Eastern
Europe and the Balkans at the end of World War II. (1)
Many of those people and their children were sent back to Europe
in the late 1980s and early 1990s to help establish 'pro-Western'
regimes.
To get a better sense of what this actually meant, we have to look
more closely at whom it was that the U.S. Establishment, and the
Vatican, rescued.
The following are scholarly snapshots of the so-called Independent
State of Croatia, comprising Croatia and part of Bosnia
Herzegovina.
Croatia was a clerical-fascist state, set up after the German Nazi
invasion of Yugoslavia during the spring of 1941.
Jumping ahead to the 1990s, it was commonplace for the Western
media to accuse Serbs of paranoia for resisting Croatian
secession. Were they paranoid? Or did they have something very
real to worry about?
During the 1990s, the Yugoslav press referred to the Croatian
secessionist forces as 'Ustashi.' Allow us introduce you.
- Jared Israel
SNAPSHOTS OF A HOLOCAUST
by Petar Makara
QUOTE #1 - ETHNIC SLAUGHTER
[Start Quote] "The greatest ethnic slaughter took place as
Yugoslavia was carved up after the German invasion in April 1941.
The creation of a separate Croatia ... controlled by the fascist,
Catholic, extremist Ustasha movement was the catalyst for the
tragedy... Now, historic Croatia was expanded to include
Bosnia-Herzegovina and other territories, and the Ustasha were
left ... to govern a population of nearly 7 million people, of whom
about half were Croats, just over 2 million were Serbs, about
750,000 were Muslims, and small numbers were Protestants and
Jews.... The Minister of Education, Mile Budak, made clear the
Ustasha aims: 'Our new Croatia will get rid of all Serbs in our midst
in order to become one hundred percent Catholic within ten years.'
[End quote]
Professor Clive Ponting, "Armageddon," Random House, Inc., New
York, 1995, pages 231-232.
-----------------------------------------------
QUOTE #2 - UNSURPASSED SAVAGERY
[Start Quote] "In Bosnia... the Croatian fascists began a massacre
of Serbs which, in the whole annals of World War II was surpassed
for savagery only by the mass extermination of Polish Jews." [End
quote]
The above quote was repeated by all versions of Encyclopedia
Britannica from 1971 until 1987. You can find it for example in
Encyclopedia Britannica Edition 1971, Volume 23, page 922 or in
Encyclopedia Britannica, Edition 1987, Volume 29, page 1054.
(The entry is entitled, "Yugoslavia, W.W.II") You may not find it in
subsequent editions. Much of the previous record became
politically incorrect since the U.S. and German Establishments
began sponsoring a new, Independent Croatia in the late 1980s.
------------------------------------------------
QUOTE #3 - METHODS OF MURDERING 'FOREIGN
ELEMENTS'
[Start Quote] "Croatia [under Fascist control called itself the
'Independent State of Croatia' or 'Nazavisna Drzava Hrvatska,'
hence the initials NDH) ... Established during W.W.II...[it] was in
existence from April 1941 to May 1945. Its area... consisted of
what are today the Federative Republic of Croatia and the
Federative Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina... Its capital was
Zagreb. It had a population of 6.3 million, of whom 3.3 million were
Catholic Croats, 1.9 million Serbs, 700,000 Muslims... 40,000
Jews, 30,000 Gypsies...
" ... Shortly after taking control, the Ustasha, with the support of
many Croats, embarked upon what it called 'The Purge of Croatia
from Foreign Elements,' which had as its main purpose the
elimination of the Serb minority.
"In a brutal terror campaign, more than half a million Serbs were
killed, a quarter of a million expelled, and 200,000 forced to convert
to Catholicism.
"The Ustasha regime in Croatia, and particularly this drive in the
summer of 1941 to exterminate and dispossess the Serbs, was
one of the most horrendous episodes of World War II.
"The murder methods applied by the Ustasha were extraordinarily
primitive and sadistic: thousands were hurled from mountain tops,
other were beaten to death or their throats cut, entire villages were
burned down, women raped, people sent to death marches in the
middle of winter, and still others starved to death. " [End quote]
'Encyclopedia of the Holocaust,' Vol. 1, page 323, entry: 'Croatia.'
------------------------------------------------
QUOTE #4 - EXTERMINATION OF SERBS AND JEWS
[Start Quote] "In April 1941 separatist Croats of the fascist terrorist
organization 'Ustasha' set up in Zagreb an Independent Croat
regime with Dr. Ante Pavelic as fuehrer, or "Poglavnik," and with
Marshal Slavko Kvaternik as minister of war.
"The new state, organized on strictly fascist and authoritarian lines,
excelled quickly by the special ruthlessness and cruelty with which it
persecuted, and partially exterminated the large Serb minority and
the small Jewish population..." [End quote]
"Encyclopedia Britannica, 1943 - Book of the year," page 215,
Entry: 'Croatia'
----------------------------------------------
QUOTE #5 - SHOCKED THE GERMANS
[Start Quote] "Slavko Kvaternik explained [in a radio program on
April 10, 1941, the day the 'Independent State of Croatia' was
formed] how a pure Croatia should be built - by forcing one third of
the Serbs to leave Croatia, one third to convert to Catholicism, and
one third to be exterminated. Soon Ustasha bands initiated a
bloody orgy of mass murder of Serbs unfortunate enough not to
have converted or left Croatia on time.
"The enormity of such criminal behavior shocked even the
conscience of German commanders, but Pavelic had Hitler's
personal support for such actions which resulted in the loss of the
lives of hundreds of thousands of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and
Herzegovina." [End quote]
'Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations,' Europe, edition 1995,
page 91, entry: 'Croatia.'
-----------------------------------------------
QUOTE #6 - 'ONLY' KILLED 750,000
[Start Quote] "The Orthodox recipe of Ante Pavelic, Ustashi leader
and Croatian Fuehrer, reminds one of the religious wars in [their]
bloodiest aspects: one-third must become Catholic, one-third must
leave the country and one-third must die. The last item was
executed. When the leading men of the Ustashi movement are
stating that they have slaughtered one million Serbs (including
infants, children, women and aged) this in my opinion is a
self-praising exaggeration. According to the reports that have
reached me, my estimate is that the number of those defenseless
slaughtered is some three-quarters of a million. [750,000]" [End
quote.]
Herman Naubacher, "Sonderauftrag Sudosten 1940-1945. Bericht
eines fliegenden Diplomate," Gottingen, 1956, 31. Mr. Naubacher
was Hitler's personal assistant for Southeastern Europe and
Balkan affairs.
-----------------------------------------------
QUOTE #7 - INDESCRIBABLY BESTIAL
[Start Quote] "The Ustashi murdered and tortured Jews and Serbs
in indescribably bestial fashion. One of the most notorious camps
in Hitler's Europe, Jasenovac, was in Croatia. Here the Ustashi
used primitive implements in putting their victims to death - knives,
axes, hammers and other iron tools. A characteristic method was
binding pairs of prisoners, back to back, and then throwing them
into the Sava River. One source estimates that 770,000 Serbs,
40,000 Gypsies and 20,000 Jews were done to death in the
Jasenovac camp." [End quote.]
Dr. Nora Levin, "The Holocaust - The destruction of European
Jewry 1933 - 1945," Schocken Books, New York, Edition 1973,
page 515
-----------------------------------------------
QUOTE #8 - OUTDOING THE NAZIS
[Start Quote] "In Croatia the indigenous fascist regime set about a
policy of 'racial purification' that went beyond even Nazi practices.
Minority groups such as Jews and Gypsies were to be eliminated,
as were the Serbs: it was declared that one-third of the Serbian
population would be deported, one-third converted to Roman
Catholicism, and one third liquidated. ... Ustasha bands terrorized
the countryside. The partial collaboration of the Catholic clergy in
these practices continues to be a component of Serb-Croat
suspicion." [End quote]
'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' Edition 1991, Macropedia, Vol. 29,
page 1111.
----------------------------------------------
QUOTE #9 - CLERICAL SPONSORSHIP
[Start Quote] ""Nonpartisan sources agree that mass genocide
was authorized by the state of Croatia. They concur the state
instigated, planned, and executed masses against the Serbian
Orthodox minority... and that the Catholic clergy approved, led, or
failed to denounce these massacres. The Croats' collective hatred
of the Orthodox Serbs was explicit in folk sayings such as ["Srbe o
vrbe" -] "Serbs to the willows [hang the Serbs]."
...
By June 1941, signs on public establishments read, 'NO SERBS,
JEWS, NOMADS ['Gypsies'] AND DOGS ALLOWED." [End
quote.]
Professor Helen Fein, "Accounting for Genocide - Victims and
Survivors of the Holocaust," The Free Press, New York, Edition
1979, pages 102, 103.
-----------------------------------------------
QUOTE #10 - CATHOLIC CLERGY ALLEGEDLY TOOK PART
[Start Quote] "Catholic monks and other priests are alleged to have
taken an active part in this struggle for the 'purity' of the Croatian
land." [End quote.]
'The New Encyclopedia Britannica,' edition 1986, Macropedia
(Knowledge in Depth), Volume 27, page 467, entry: 'Fascism in the
Balkans (1930's).'
------------------------------------------------
QUOTE #11 - THE GREATEST GENOCIDE IN PROPORTION TO
POPULATION
[Start Quote] "The greatest genocide during World War II, in
proportion to a nation's population, took place, not in Nazi Germany
but in the Nazi-created puppet state of Croatia. There, in the years
1941-1945, some 750,000 Serbs, 60,000 Jews and 26,000
Gypsies - men, women and children - perished in a gigantic
holocaust. These are the figures used by most foreign authors,
especially Germans, who were in the best position to know...
"...The magnitude and the bestial nature of these atrocities makes
it difficult to believe that such a thing could have happened in an
allegedly civilized part of the world. Yet even a book such as this
can attempt to tell only a part of the story." [End quote]
Professor Edmond Paris, 'Genocide in Satellite Croatia, 1941-
1945,' November, 1961, The American Institute for Balkan Affairs,
from the introduction.
-------------------------------------------------
QUOTE #12 - NIGHTMARE RIVER
[Start Quote] "Even the most extraordinary massacres in the
darkest era of history would not soil its name - Croatia... Kill, kill,
scream the Ustashi against Serbs. And they cut their heads off and
throw bodies away into the Sava River which flows slowly and
gravely in the direction of Belgrade...
"Go back to your motherland, go back to your motherland.
"Neither Fascists nor Nazi have the remotest resemblance to the
Ustashi, they are a fauna absolutely extraordinary and strange..."
[End quote]
Alfio Russo, "Revoluzione in Jugoslavia," Roma 1944
-------------------------------------------------
QUOTE #13 - ANTE PAVELIC, THE CROATIAN FUEHRER
[Start Quote] "The real ruler [of W.W.II Croatia] was Ante Pavelic, a
zealous Croatian nationalist and fanatical hater of Serbs... Pavelic
lead a terrorist group called the Ustashi... 'A good Ustashi,' he told
his men, 'is he who can use his knife to cut a child from the womb
of its mother.' [End quote]
"Partisans and Guerillas, W.W.II," Time-Life books, page 87.
-------------------------------------------------
QUOTE #14 - UNREPEATABLE ATROCITIES
[Start Quote] "For now I began to get news from Croatia that told of
slowly rising tide of murders, of unrepeatable atrocities, of
massacres of defenceless Serbs by berserk-mad Croatians and
by [fascist] Moslems in Bosnian Croatia. In the little back parlors of
trusty men, the tales were whispered. I could not believe a quarter
of them. Unfortunately, I was soon to know that they were a weak
understatement of the truth. Men were to arrive in Dubrovnik itself,
hung with strings of Serbian tongues and with bowls of Serbian
eyes for sale." [End quote]
Ruth Mitchell, "The Serbs Choose War," Doubleday, Doran, 1943,
page 148. Miss Mitchell, sister of the founder of the U.S. Air Force,
General Bill Mitchell, was in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in April 1941,
when Yugoslavia fell to the Nazi occupation and the Ustashi came
to power.
-------------------------------------------------
QUOTE #15 - THE JASENOVAC (PRONOUNCED
YASENOVATZ) CONCENTRATION CAMP
[Start Quote:] "Jasenovac [was] the largest concentration camp in
Croatia. Jasenovac was in fact a complex of several subcamps, in
close proximity to each other, on the bank of the Sava River...
established in August 1941 and was dismantled only on April
1945...
"Some six hundred thousand people were murdered at Jasenovac,
mostly Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and opponents of the Ustasha
regime... The living conditions in the camp were extremely severe...
A particularly cruel regime, and unbelievably cruel behavior by the
Ustashe guards...
"The acts of murder and of the cruelty in the camp reached their
peak in the late summer of 1942, when tens of thousands of
Serbian villagers were deported to Jasenovac from the area of the
fighting against the partisans in the Kozara Mountains." [End
quote.]
'Encyclopedia of the Holocaust,' Vol. 2, page 739.
-------------------------------------------------
QUOTE # 16 - YOU WHO HAVE TEARS, PREPARE TO SHED
THEM NOW
[Start Quote] "...It is estimated that a total of about 200,000 people
met their death [in Jasenovac] during 1941-1942 [alone!]. Crowds
of Jewish children were burned alive in the old brick ovens,
transformed into crematories.
"Vjekoslav Luburic, commander-in-chef of all the Croatian camps,
announced the great 'efficiency' of this slaughterhouse at a
ceremony on October 9th, 1942... During the banquet which
followed, he reported with pride: 'We have slaughtered here at
Jasenovac more people than the Ottoman Empire was able to do
during its occupation of Europe.'" [End Quote]
Professor Edmond Paris, "Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941-
1945," The American Institute for Balkan Affairs, edition 1961,
page 132
------------------------------------------------
QUOTE # 16 - ONE NIGHT
[Start Quote] "In the concentration camp at Jasenovac, on the night
of August 29, 1942, orders were issued for executions. Bets were
made as to who could liquidate the largest number of inmates.
Peter Brzica cut the throats of 1,360 prisoners with a specially
sharp butcher's knife. Having been proclaimed the prizewinner of
the competition, he was elected King of the Cutthroats. A gold
watch, a silver service, and a roasted sucking pig and wine were
his other rewards..." [End quote]
Avro Manhattan, "The Vatican's Holocaust," 1986, page 48. During
World War II Mr. Manhattan operated a radio station called "Radio
Freedom" which broadcast to occupied Europe.
------------------------------------------------
QUOTE # 17 - THE PAST RETURNS...
[Start Quote] "And there can be no return to the past, to the times
when they the Serbs were spreading cancer in the heart of Croatia,
cancer which was destroying the Croatian national being and which
did not allow the Croatian people to be the master in its own house
and did not allow Croatia to lead an independent and sovereign life
under this wide, blue sky and within the world community of
sovereign nations...They [Serbian refugees driven from their homes
by the Croatian Army] didn't even have the time to take with them
their filthy foreign currency or their knickers." Croatian Radio,
transcribed by BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, August 28, 1995
That quote was from Franjo Tudjman, President of the Independent
State of Croatia. This state was modeled on its Nazi predecessor.
It was created when Croatia violently seceded from Yugoslavia in
June, 1991, as a direct result of the German-U.S. strategy of using
terrorist forces to break up Yugoslavia. Tudjman was speaking
during a train tour of what had been Serbian Krajina, near Croatia
in August, 1995. Trained by U.S. forces, armed by Germany, with
U.S. fighter-bombers flying air support, the Croatian Army had just
driven some 250,000 Serbs from their ancestral homes.
Serbian farmers owned the land and lived in the Krajina for over
400 years, but the 'New York Times' called these Serbs "rebels,"
thus lending legitimacy to this nightmare. The 'New York Times'
caption under pictures of Serbian refugees being stoned as they
fled the neo-Ustashi offensive read: "Thousands of Serbs have
been displaced in the Croatian offensive that recaptured
three-quarters of a territory seized by Serbian forces in 1991."
('The New York Times,' August 10, 1995)
We will discuss Western government and media support for the
reborn Croatian fascism in Part 2.
***
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URL for this article is http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/backin.htm
****************
FURTHER READING:
*****************
1) On the Nazi-CIA marriage, see "Worst Kept Secrets of the
Bumbling Bear,' by Jared Israel. It can be read at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/docs/gehlen2.htm
2) On the breakup of Yugoslavia, the following are good
introductions:
* Diana Johnstone's 'Seeing Yugoslavia Through a Dark Glass:
Politics, Media and the Ideology of Globalization,' which can be
read at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/1yugo.htm
Johnstone is former International Editor of the magazine, 'In These
Times,' and former Press Secretary of the Greens in the Euro
Parliament
* 'A Not-So-Nonviolent Debate on the Nonviolence 'Board' at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/nonviole.html This is a
debate between tenc.net editor Jared Israel and Tony Frye
* 'Germany and the US in the Balkans- a Careful Coincidence of
National Policies?' by T.W. Carr, the Associate Publisher, Defense
& Foreign Affairs
* On the Vatican-Nazi connection, see 'Hitler's Pope,' by John
Cornwell at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/hitlerspope.htm
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[Emperor's Clothes]
=======================================
MEET THE NAZIS THE CIA
MARRIED: THE CROATIAN USTASHI
by Petar Makara and Jared Israel
[Posted 9 December 2001]
=======================================
"NO SERBS, JEWS, NOMADS ['Gypsies'] AND
DOGS" - Text of signs on public establishments in
secessionist Croatia in June, 1941.
In the article, "Worst Kept Secrets of the Bumbling Bear," we talked
about the Vatican/U.S. government 'rescue' of Nazis from Eastern
Europe and the Balkans at the end of World War II. (1)
Many of those people and their children were sent back to Europe
in the late 1980s and early 1990s to help establish 'pro-Western'
regimes.
To get a better sense of what this actually meant, we have to look
more closely at whom it was that the U.S. Establishment, and the
Vatican, rescued.
The following are scholarly snapshots of the so-called Independent
State of Croatia, comprising Croatia and part of Bosnia
Herzegovina.
Croatia was a clerical-fascist state, set up after the German Nazi
invasion of Yugoslavia during the spring of 1941.
Jumping ahead to the 1990s, it was commonplace for the Western
media to accuse Serbs of paranoia for resisting Croatian
secession. Were they paranoid? Or did they have something very
real to worry about?
During the 1990s, the Yugoslav press referred to the Croatian
secessionist forces as 'Ustashi.' Allow us introduce you.
- Jared Israel
SNAPSHOTS OF A HOLOCAUST
by Petar Makara
QUOTE #1 - ETHNIC SLAUGHTER
[Start Quote] "The greatest ethnic slaughter took place as
Yugoslavia was carved up after the German invasion in April 1941.
The creation of a separate Croatia ... controlled by the fascist,
Catholic, extremist Ustasha movement was the catalyst for the
tragedy... Now, historic Croatia was expanded to include
Bosnia-Herzegovina and other territories, and the Ustasha were
left ... to govern a population of nearly 7 million people, of whom
about half were Croats, just over 2 million were Serbs, about
750,000 were Muslims, and small numbers were Protestants and
Jews.... The Minister of Education, Mile Budak, made clear the
Ustasha aims: 'Our new Croatia will get rid of all Serbs in our midst
in order to become one hundred percent Catholic within ten years.'
[End quote]
Professor Clive Ponting, "Armageddon," Random House, Inc., New
York, 1995, pages 231-232.
-----------------------------------------------
QUOTE #2 - UNSURPASSED SAVAGERY
[Start Quote] "In Bosnia... the Croatian fascists began a massacre
of Serbs which, in the whole annals of World War II was surpassed
for savagery only by the mass extermination of Polish Jews." [End
quote]
The above quote was repeated by all versions of Encyclopedia
Britannica from 1971 until 1987. You can find it for example in
Encyclopedia Britannica Edition 1971, Volume 23, page 922 or in
Encyclopedia Britannica, Edition 1987, Volume 29, page 1054.
(The entry is entitled, "Yugoslavia, W.W.II") You may not find it in
subsequent editions. Much of the previous record became
politically incorrect since the U.S. and German Establishments
began sponsoring a new, Independent Croatia in the late 1980s.
------------------------------------------------
QUOTE #3 - METHODS OF MURDERING 'FOREIGN
ELEMENTS'
[Start Quote] "Croatia [under Fascist control called itself the
'Independent State of Croatia' or 'Nazavisna Drzava Hrvatska,'
hence the initials NDH) ... Established during W.W.II...[it] was in
existence from April 1941 to May 1945. Its area... consisted of
what are today the Federative Republic of Croatia and the
Federative Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina... Its capital was
Zagreb. It had a population of 6.3 million, of whom 3.3 million were
Catholic Croats, 1.9 million Serbs, 700,000 Muslims... 40,000
Jews, 30,000 Gypsies...
" ... Shortly after taking control, the Ustasha, with the support of
many Croats, embarked upon what it called 'The Purge of Croatia
from Foreign Elements,' which had as its main purpose the
elimination of the Serb minority.
"In a brutal terror campaign, more than half a million Serbs were
killed, a quarter of a million expelled, and 200,000 forced to convert
to Catholicism.
"The Ustasha regime in Croatia, and particularly this drive in the
summer of 1941 to exterminate and dispossess the Serbs, was
one of the most horrendous episodes of World War II.
"The murder methods applied by the Ustasha were extraordinarily
primitive and sadistic: thousands were hurled from mountain tops,
other were beaten to death or their throats cut, entire villages were
burned down, women raped, people sent to death marches in the
middle of winter, and still others starved to death. " [End quote]
'Encyclopedia of the Holocaust,' Vol. 1, page 323, entry: 'Croatia.'
------------------------------------------------
QUOTE #4 - EXTERMINATION OF SERBS AND JEWS
[Start Quote] "In April 1941 separatist Croats of the fascist terrorist
organization 'Ustasha' set up in Zagreb an Independent Croat
regime with Dr. Ante Pavelic as fuehrer, or "Poglavnik," and with
Marshal Slavko Kvaternik as minister of war.
"The new state, organized on strictly fascist and authoritarian lines,
excelled quickly by the special ruthlessness and cruelty with which it
persecuted, and partially exterminated the large Serb minority and
the small Jewish population..." [End quote]
"Encyclopedia Britannica, 1943 - Book of the year," page 215,
Entry: 'Croatia'
----------------------------------------------
QUOTE #5 - SHOCKED THE GERMANS
[Start Quote] "Slavko Kvaternik explained [in a radio program on
April 10, 1941, the day the 'Independent State of Croatia' was
formed] how a pure Croatia should be built - by forcing one third of
the Serbs to leave Croatia, one third to convert to Catholicism, and
one third to be exterminated. Soon Ustasha bands initiated a
bloody orgy of mass murder of Serbs unfortunate enough not to
have converted or left Croatia on time.
"The enormity of such criminal behavior shocked even the
conscience of German commanders, but Pavelic had Hitler's
personal support for such actions which resulted in the loss of the
lives of hundreds of thousands of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and
Herzegovina." [End quote]
'Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations,' Europe, edition 1995,
page 91, entry: 'Croatia.'
-----------------------------------------------
QUOTE #6 - 'ONLY' KILLED 750,000
[Start Quote] "The Orthodox recipe of Ante Pavelic, Ustashi leader
and Croatian Fuehrer, reminds one of the religious wars in [their]
bloodiest aspects: one-third must become Catholic, one-third must
leave the country and one-third must die. The last item was
executed. When the leading men of the Ustashi movement are
stating that they have slaughtered one million Serbs (including
infants, children, women and aged) this in my opinion is a
self-praising exaggeration. According to the reports that have
reached me, my estimate is that the number of those defenseless
slaughtered is some three-quarters of a million. [750,000]" [End
quote.]
Herman Naubacher, "Sonderauftrag Sudosten 1940-1945. Bericht
eines fliegenden Diplomate," Gottingen, 1956, 31. Mr. Naubacher
was Hitler's personal assistant for Southeastern Europe and
Balkan affairs.
-----------------------------------------------
QUOTE #7 - INDESCRIBABLY BESTIAL
[Start Quote] "The Ustashi murdered and tortured Jews and Serbs
in indescribably bestial fashion. One of the most notorious camps
in Hitler's Europe, Jasenovac, was in Croatia. Here the Ustashi
used primitive implements in putting their victims to death - knives,
axes, hammers and other iron tools. A characteristic method was
binding pairs of prisoners, back to back, and then throwing them
into the Sava River. One source estimates that 770,000 Serbs,
40,000 Gypsies and 20,000 Jews were done to death in the
Jasenovac camp." [End quote.]
Dr. Nora Levin, "The Holocaust - The destruction of European
Jewry 1933 - 1945," Schocken Books, New York, Edition 1973,
page 515
-----------------------------------------------
QUOTE #8 - OUTDOING THE NAZIS
[Start Quote] "In Croatia the indigenous fascist regime set about a
policy of 'racial purification' that went beyond even Nazi practices.
Minority groups such as Jews and Gypsies were to be eliminated,
as were the Serbs: it was declared that one-third of the Serbian
population would be deported, one-third converted to Roman
Catholicism, and one third liquidated. ... Ustasha bands terrorized
the countryside. The partial collaboration of the Catholic clergy in
these practices continues to be a component of Serb-Croat
suspicion." [End quote]
'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' Edition 1991, Macropedia, Vol. 29,
page 1111.
----------------------------------------------
QUOTE #9 - CLERICAL SPONSORSHIP
[Start Quote] ""Nonpartisan sources agree that mass genocide
was authorized by the state of Croatia. They concur the state
instigated, planned, and executed masses against the Serbian
Orthodox minority... and that the Catholic clergy approved, led, or
failed to denounce these massacres. The Croats' collective hatred
of the Orthodox Serbs was explicit in folk sayings such as ["Srbe o
vrbe" -] "Serbs to the willows [hang the Serbs]."
...
By June 1941, signs on public establishments read, 'NO SERBS,
JEWS, NOMADS ['Gypsies'] AND DOGS ALLOWED." [End
quote.]
Professor Helen Fein, "Accounting for Genocide - Victims and
Survivors of the Holocaust," The Free Press, New York, Edition
1979, pages 102, 103.
-----------------------------------------------
QUOTE #10 - CATHOLIC CLERGY ALLEGEDLY TOOK PART
[Start Quote] "Catholic monks and other priests are alleged to have
taken an active part in this struggle for the 'purity' of the Croatian
land." [End quote.]
'The New Encyclopedia Britannica,' edition 1986, Macropedia
(Knowledge in Depth), Volume 27, page 467, entry: 'Fascism in the
Balkans (1930's).'
------------------------------------------------
QUOTE #11 - THE GREATEST GENOCIDE IN PROPORTION TO
POPULATION
[Start Quote] "The greatest genocide during World War II, in
proportion to a nation's population, took place, not in Nazi Germany
but in the Nazi-created puppet state of Croatia. There, in the years
1941-1945, some 750,000 Serbs, 60,000 Jews and 26,000
Gypsies - men, women and children - perished in a gigantic
holocaust. These are the figures used by most foreign authors,
especially Germans, who were in the best position to know...
"...The magnitude and the bestial nature of these atrocities makes
it difficult to believe that such a thing could have happened in an
allegedly civilized part of the world. Yet even a book such as this
can attempt to tell only a part of the story." [End quote]
Professor Edmond Paris, 'Genocide in Satellite Croatia, 1941-
1945,' November, 1961, The American Institute for Balkan Affairs,
from the introduction.
-------------------------------------------------
QUOTE #12 - NIGHTMARE RIVER
[Start Quote] "Even the most extraordinary massacres in the
darkest era of history would not soil its name - Croatia... Kill, kill,
scream the Ustashi against Serbs. And they cut their heads off and
throw bodies away into the Sava River which flows slowly and
gravely in the direction of Belgrade...
"Go back to your motherland, go back to your motherland.
"Neither Fascists nor Nazi have the remotest resemblance to the
Ustashi, they are a fauna absolutely extraordinary and strange..."
[End quote]
Alfio Russo, "Revoluzione in Jugoslavia," Roma 1944
-------------------------------------------------
QUOTE #13 - ANTE PAVELIC, THE CROATIAN FUEHRER
[Start Quote] "The real ruler [of W.W.II Croatia] was Ante Pavelic, a
zealous Croatian nationalist and fanatical hater of Serbs... Pavelic
lead a terrorist group called the Ustashi... 'A good Ustashi,' he told
his men, 'is he who can use his knife to cut a child from the womb
of its mother.' [End quote]
"Partisans and Guerillas, W.W.II," Time-Life books, page 87.
-------------------------------------------------
QUOTE #14 - UNREPEATABLE ATROCITIES
[Start Quote] "For now I began to get news from Croatia that told of
slowly rising tide of murders, of unrepeatable atrocities, of
massacres of defenceless Serbs by berserk-mad Croatians and
by [fascist] Moslems in Bosnian Croatia. In the little back parlors of
trusty men, the tales were whispered. I could not believe a quarter
of them. Unfortunately, I was soon to know that they were a weak
understatement of the truth. Men were to arrive in Dubrovnik itself,
hung with strings of Serbian tongues and with bowls of Serbian
eyes for sale." [End quote]
Ruth Mitchell, "The Serbs Choose War," Doubleday, Doran, 1943,
page 148. Miss Mitchell, sister of the founder of the U.S. Air Force,
General Bill Mitchell, was in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in April 1941,
when Yugoslavia fell to the Nazi occupation and the Ustashi came
to power.
-------------------------------------------------
QUOTE #15 - THE JASENOVAC (PRONOUNCED
YASENOVATZ) CONCENTRATION CAMP
[Start Quote:] "Jasenovac [was] the largest concentration camp in
Croatia. Jasenovac was in fact a complex of several subcamps, in
close proximity to each other, on the bank of the Sava River...
established in August 1941 and was dismantled only on April
1945...
"Some six hundred thousand people were murdered at Jasenovac,
mostly Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and opponents of the Ustasha
regime... The living conditions in the camp were extremely severe...
A particularly cruel regime, and unbelievably cruel behavior by the
Ustashe guards...
"The acts of murder and of the cruelty in the camp reached their
peak in the late summer of 1942, when tens of thousands of
Serbian villagers were deported to Jasenovac from the area of the
fighting against the partisans in the Kozara Mountains." [End
quote.]
'Encyclopedia of the Holocaust,' Vol. 2, page 739.
-------------------------------------------------
QUOTE # 16 - YOU WHO HAVE TEARS, PREPARE TO SHED
THEM NOW
[Start Quote] "...It is estimated that a total of about 200,000 people
met their death [in Jasenovac] during 1941-1942 [alone!]. Crowds
of Jewish children were burned alive in the old brick ovens,
transformed into crematories.
"Vjekoslav Luburic, commander-in-chef of all the Croatian camps,
announced the great 'efficiency' of this slaughterhouse at a
ceremony on October 9th, 1942... During the banquet which
followed, he reported with pride: 'We have slaughtered here at
Jasenovac more people than the Ottoman Empire was able to do
during its occupation of Europe.'" [End Quote]
Professor Edmond Paris, "Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941-
1945," The American Institute for Balkan Affairs, edition 1961,
page 132
------------------------------------------------
QUOTE # 16 - ONE NIGHT
[Start Quote] "In the concentration camp at Jasenovac, on the night
of August 29, 1942, orders were issued for executions. Bets were
made as to who could liquidate the largest number of inmates.
Peter Brzica cut the throats of 1,360 prisoners with a specially
sharp butcher's knife. Having been proclaimed the prizewinner of
the competition, he was elected King of the Cutthroats. A gold
watch, a silver service, and a roasted sucking pig and wine were
his other rewards..." [End quote]
Avro Manhattan, "The Vatican's Holocaust," 1986, page 48. During
World War II Mr. Manhattan operated a radio station called "Radio
Freedom" which broadcast to occupied Europe.
------------------------------------------------
QUOTE # 17 - THE PAST RETURNS...
[Start Quote] "And there can be no return to the past, to the times
when they the Serbs were spreading cancer in the heart of Croatia,
cancer which was destroying the Croatian national being and which
did not allow the Croatian people to be the master in its own house
and did not allow Croatia to lead an independent and sovereign life
under this wide, blue sky and within the world community of
sovereign nations...They [Serbian refugees driven from their homes
by the Croatian Army] didn't even have the time to take with them
their filthy foreign currency or their knickers." Croatian Radio,
transcribed by BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, August 28, 1995
That quote was from Franjo Tudjman, President of the Independent
State of Croatia. This state was modeled on its Nazi predecessor.
It was created when Croatia violently seceded from Yugoslavia in
June, 1991, as a direct result of the German-U.S. strategy of using
terrorist forces to break up Yugoslavia. Tudjman was speaking
during a train tour of what had been Serbian Krajina, near Croatia
in August, 1995. Trained by U.S. forces, armed by Germany, with
U.S. fighter-bombers flying air support, the Croatian Army had just
driven some 250,000 Serbs from their ancestral homes.
Serbian farmers owned the land and lived in the Krajina for over
400 years, but the 'New York Times' called these Serbs "rebels,"
thus lending legitimacy to this nightmare. The 'New York Times'
caption under pictures of Serbian refugees being stoned as they
fled the neo-Ustashi offensive read: "Thousands of Serbs have
been displaced in the Croatian offensive that recaptured
three-quarters of a territory seized by Serbian forces in 1991."
('The New York Times,' August 10, 1995)
We will discuss Western government and media support for the
reborn Croatian fascism in Part 2.
***
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****************
FURTHER READING:
*****************
1) On the Nazi-CIA marriage, see "Worst Kept Secrets of the
Bumbling Bear,' by Jared Israel. It can be read at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/docs/gehlen2.htm
2) On the breakup of Yugoslavia, the following are good
introductions:
* Diana Johnstone's 'Seeing Yugoslavia Through a Dark Glass:
Politics, Media and the Ideology of Globalization,' which can be
read at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/1yugo.htm
Johnstone is former International Editor of the magazine, 'In These
Times,' and former Press Secretary of the Greens in the Euro
Parliament
* 'A Not-So-Nonviolent Debate on the Nonviolence 'Board' at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/nonviole.html This is a
debate between tenc.net editor Jared Israel and Tony Frye
* 'Germany and the US in the Balkans- a Careful Coincidence of
National Policies?' by T.W. Carr, the Associate Publisher, Defense
& Foreign Affairs
* On the Vatican-Nazi connection, see 'Hitler's Pope,' by John
Cornwell at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/hitlerspope.htm
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APPROVATA IN SERBIA LA NUOVA LEGISLAZIONE CONTRO I LAVORATORI
Alcuni giorni fa il parlamento della Serbia ha approvato
un disegno di legge sul lavoro che, nell'ambito del processo di
liquidazione della proprieta' sociale e pubblica,
introduce pesanti elementi di precarizzazione, gabbie
salariali, e mina alle fondamenta il sistema dei contratti
collettivi di lavoro.
La decisione ha causato nuovi conflitti - perlomeno di facciata -
all'interno delle destre di governo tra l'ala liberista di Djindjic
e l'ala conservatrice di Kostunica. Quest'ultima (alla quale e'
vicino anche il capo attuale della Unione dei Sindacati, Smiljanic)
ha votato contro il provvedimento, ed il presidente del parlamento
Marsicanin, anch'egli critico contro Djindjic, ha dato le dimissioni.
SSS: KLJUCNE PRIMEDBE NA NACRT ZAKONA O RADU
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/1442
SSS: OBIEZIONI-CHIAVE SUL DISEGNO DI LEGGE SUL LAVORO
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/1442
=*=
Subject: [ML-YU] Worker's protests
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 19:28:18 +0100
From: Nemanja Lukic
To: "Marxism-Leninism, Yugoslavia" <Ova adresa el. pošte je zaštićena od spambotova. Omogućite JavaScript da biste je videli.>
Today, president of the Union of Syndicates of Yugoslavia,
Smiljanic, announced strike of warning in all (bigger) cities of
Yugoslavia on Wednesday. Workers demand withdrawal of the new law
of work which puts them on the mercy of their employers. World
Bank promised $80.000.000 if the law gets accepted by the Parlia-
ment, which reflects the true anti workers nature of the law.
Smiljanic also noted that the first strikes on Wednesday
are just the beginning of something bigger that will take place
unless the Parliament rejects the law. That's why police have
forbidden it.
I must express doubt in Smiljanic's intentions, which are
for now on worker's side. But knowing Smiljanic's past (collabo-
rating with pro imperialist bourgeoisie, monarchists, nationalists
etc.) and bearing the experience from last strike in mind, it is
very possible that worker's cause will be sold cheaply. Namely,
previous worker's strike took place for the same reason (withdrawal
of antiworkers law) and inspite of assuring workers that syndicates
will never accept anything else government suggests except the
full withdrawal, emphasising the rejection of government's offer to
include syndicates in remodelling the law, Smiljanic accepted that
offer and betrayed the interests of workers.
Nemanja
TRADUZIONE:
Oggi il presidente dell'Unione dei Sindacati della Jugoslavia
Smiljanic ha annunciato uno sciopero di avvertimento in tutte le
(maggiori) citta' della Jugoslavia, da tenersi mercoledi. I
lavoratori chiedono il ritiro della nuova legge sul lavoro che
li mette alla merce' dei loro padroni. La Banca Mondiale aveva
promesso 80.000.000 di dollari nel caso in cui la legge fosse
approvata dal Parlamento, il che dice tutto sulla sua vera natura
antioperaia.
Smiljanic ha anche osservato che i primi scioperi di mercoledi'
non sono che l'inizio di qualcosa di piu' grande che puo' avvenire
a meno che il Parlamento non rigetti la legge. Ecco perche' la
polizia ha imposto il divieto.
Io devo essere cauto sulle intenzioni di Smiljanic, che per ora
sta dalla parte dei lavoratori. Ma conoscendo il passato di
Smiljanic (collaborazionista con la borghesia filoimperialista,
monarchico, nazionalista, ecc.) ed in base all'esperienza dello
ultimo scopero, e' probabile che la causa dei lavoratori venga
svenduta per poche lire. In effetti, lo sciopero precedente ha
avuto luogo per la stessa causa (il ritiro della legge sul
lavoro), e nonostante le assicurazioni date ai lavoratori, che
il sindacato non avrebbe accettato altro da parte del governo
che non fosse il ritiro completo, in particolare enfatizzando
il rifiuto dell'offerta governativa di includere il sindacato nel
lavoro di riforma del progetto di legge, Smiljanic ha accettato
l'offerta, tradendo gli interessi operai. (Nemanja)
=*=
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/jugoslavia/20011206191132069696.html
SERBIA: PRESIDENTE PARLAMENTO MARSICANIN DA' DIMISSIONI
(ANSA) - BELGRADO, 5 DIC - Il presidente del parlamento serbo
Dragan Marsicanin ha presentato oggi le dimissioni, evitando
cosi' un voto di sfiducia da parte dei deputati fedeli al
primo ministro Zoran Djindjic. Marsicanic e' membro del Partito
democratico serbo (Dss) del presidente federale Vojislav Kostunica,
da tempo in rotta con Djindjic e con la maggioranza dei partiti
della coalizione democratica Dos, tanto da formare un gruppo
parlamentare a parte. Subito dopo i deputati, su proposta del
capogruppo del Dos, Cedomir Jovanovic hanno eletto al suo posto
la vice, Natasa Micic, membro di Alleanza civica (Gss). (ANSA). OT
06/12/2001 19:11
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/jugoslavia/20011206193132069743.html
SERBIA: PRESIDENTE PARLAMENTO MARSICANIN DA' DIMISSIONI (2)
(ANSA) - BELGRADO, 5 DIC - Il nuovo episodio del braccio di ferro
che da tempo oppone il conservatore e nazionalista
moderato Kostunica al pragmatico e filo-occidentale Djindjic
era nato nei giorni scorsi quando il parlamento aveva approvato,
nonostante l'opposizione del Dss, una nuova legge sul lavoro
avversata dai sindacati. I voti del partito di Kostunica - che fa parte
della coalizione Dos - si erano uniti a quelli dei socialisti
dell'ex presidente Slobodan Milosevic, dei radicali ultranazionalisti
di Vojislav Seselj e del Partito dell'unita' serba fondato dal defunto
comandante paramilitare Zeliko 'Arkan' Raznatovic. Nonostante cio' la
legge era passata per 118 voti a favore e 105 contrari. I Dss
avevano allora denunciato una manomissione del voto parlamentare,
sostenendo che uno dei deputati favorevoli alla legge, Borislav
Novakovic (del Ds, il partito di Djindjic) aveva votato pur non
essendo presente in aula, consegnando a un aiutante la sua scheda
per il voto elettronico. La replica di Jovanovic era stata molto
dura: aveva chiesto il voto di sfiducia nei confronti di Marsicanic,
uno dei principali accusatori di Novakovic, e aveva chiesto di
estromettere dal Dos il partito di Kostunica, data la ''scandalosa
alleanza'' con gli esponenti del vecchio regime, ''peraltro non
inedita, dato che gia' in passate occasioni i Dss hanno agito piu'
come partito di opposizione che di governo''. In una intervista alla
televisione di Novi Sad, Djindjic ha affermato che il Dos ''puo'
continuare ad esistere anche senza il partito di Kostunica: si trattera'
solo del Dos meno uno''. Nella coalizione, formata da 18 partiti,
solo uno, Nuova Serbia (Ns), si e schierato con il Dss, mentre gli
altri hanno appoggiato Djindjic. Gli analisti della stampa serba
ritengono pero' che la rottura fra le due anime del Dos, per quanto
innegabile, non sia imminente. In attesa di una soluzione del
contenzioso fra Serbia e Montenegro, nessuna delle due fazioni
avrebbe da guadagnare da una prematura divisione che sfocerebbe
in elezioni anticipate. Da un canto, il potere federale al momento
e' molto limitato, e dall'altro nessuno dei due protagonisti,
Kostunica e Djindjic, vuole apparire agli occhi dell'elettorato e
della comunita' internazionale come il responsabile di una rottura
potenzialmente destabilizzante. (ANSA). OT
06/12/2001 19:31
Alcuni giorni fa il parlamento della Serbia ha approvato
un disegno di legge sul lavoro che, nell'ambito del processo di
liquidazione della proprieta' sociale e pubblica,
introduce pesanti elementi di precarizzazione, gabbie
salariali, e mina alle fondamenta il sistema dei contratti
collettivi di lavoro.
La decisione ha causato nuovi conflitti - perlomeno di facciata -
all'interno delle destre di governo tra l'ala liberista di Djindjic
e l'ala conservatrice di Kostunica. Quest'ultima (alla quale e'
vicino anche il capo attuale della Unione dei Sindacati, Smiljanic)
ha votato contro il provvedimento, ed il presidente del parlamento
Marsicanin, anch'egli critico contro Djindjic, ha dato le dimissioni.
SSS: KLJUCNE PRIMEDBE NA NACRT ZAKONA O RADU
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/1442
SSS: OBIEZIONI-CHIAVE SUL DISEGNO DI LEGGE SUL LAVORO
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/1442
=*=
Subject: [ML-YU] Worker's protests
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 19:28:18 +0100
From: Nemanja Lukic
To: "Marxism-Leninism, Yugoslavia" <Ova adresa el. pošte je zaštićena od spambotova. Omogućite JavaScript da biste je videli.>
Today, president of the Union of Syndicates of Yugoslavia,
Smiljanic, announced strike of warning in all (bigger) cities of
Yugoslavia on Wednesday. Workers demand withdrawal of the new law
of work which puts them on the mercy of their employers. World
Bank promised $80.000.000 if the law gets accepted by the Parlia-
ment, which reflects the true anti workers nature of the law.
Smiljanic also noted that the first strikes on Wednesday
are just the beginning of something bigger that will take place
unless the Parliament rejects the law. That's why police have
forbidden it.
I must express doubt in Smiljanic's intentions, which are
for now on worker's side. But knowing Smiljanic's past (collabo-
rating with pro imperialist bourgeoisie, monarchists, nationalists
etc.) and bearing the experience from last strike in mind, it is
very possible that worker's cause will be sold cheaply. Namely,
previous worker's strike took place for the same reason (withdrawal
of antiworkers law) and inspite of assuring workers that syndicates
will never accept anything else government suggests except the
full withdrawal, emphasising the rejection of government's offer to
include syndicates in remodelling the law, Smiljanic accepted that
offer and betrayed the interests of workers.
Nemanja
TRADUZIONE:
Oggi il presidente dell'Unione dei Sindacati della Jugoslavia
Smiljanic ha annunciato uno sciopero di avvertimento in tutte le
(maggiori) citta' della Jugoslavia, da tenersi mercoledi. I
lavoratori chiedono il ritiro della nuova legge sul lavoro che
li mette alla merce' dei loro padroni. La Banca Mondiale aveva
promesso 80.000.000 di dollari nel caso in cui la legge fosse
approvata dal Parlamento, il che dice tutto sulla sua vera natura
antioperaia.
Smiljanic ha anche osservato che i primi scioperi di mercoledi'
non sono che l'inizio di qualcosa di piu' grande che puo' avvenire
a meno che il Parlamento non rigetti la legge. Ecco perche' la
polizia ha imposto il divieto.
Io devo essere cauto sulle intenzioni di Smiljanic, che per ora
sta dalla parte dei lavoratori. Ma conoscendo il passato di
Smiljanic (collaborazionista con la borghesia filoimperialista,
monarchico, nazionalista, ecc.) ed in base all'esperienza dello
ultimo scopero, e' probabile che la causa dei lavoratori venga
svenduta per poche lire. In effetti, lo sciopero precedente ha
avuto luogo per la stessa causa (il ritiro della legge sul
lavoro), e nonostante le assicurazioni date ai lavoratori, che
il sindacato non avrebbe accettato altro da parte del governo
che non fosse il ritiro completo, in particolare enfatizzando
il rifiuto dell'offerta governativa di includere il sindacato nel
lavoro di riforma del progetto di legge, Smiljanic ha accettato
l'offerta, tradendo gli interessi operai. (Nemanja)
=*=
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/jugoslavia/20011206191132069696.html
SERBIA: PRESIDENTE PARLAMENTO MARSICANIN DA' DIMISSIONI
(ANSA) - BELGRADO, 5 DIC - Il presidente del parlamento serbo
Dragan Marsicanin ha presentato oggi le dimissioni, evitando
cosi' un voto di sfiducia da parte dei deputati fedeli al
primo ministro Zoran Djindjic. Marsicanic e' membro del Partito
democratico serbo (Dss) del presidente federale Vojislav Kostunica,
da tempo in rotta con Djindjic e con la maggioranza dei partiti
della coalizione democratica Dos, tanto da formare un gruppo
parlamentare a parte. Subito dopo i deputati, su proposta del
capogruppo del Dos, Cedomir Jovanovic hanno eletto al suo posto
la vice, Natasa Micic, membro di Alleanza civica (Gss). (ANSA). OT
06/12/2001 19:11
> http://www.ansa.it/balcani/jugoslavia/20011206193132069743.html
SERBIA: PRESIDENTE PARLAMENTO MARSICANIN DA' DIMISSIONI (2)
(ANSA) - BELGRADO, 5 DIC - Il nuovo episodio del braccio di ferro
che da tempo oppone il conservatore e nazionalista
moderato Kostunica al pragmatico e filo-occidentale Djindjic
era nato nei giorni scorsi quando il parlamento aveva approvato,
nonostante l'opposizione del Dss, una nuova legge sul lavoro
avversata dai sindacati. I voti del partito di Kostunica - che fa parte
della coalizione Dos - si erano uniti a quelli dei socialisti
dell'ex presidente Slobodan Milosevic, dei radicali ultranazionalisti
di Vojislav Seselj e del Partito dell'unita' serba fondato dal defunto
comandante paramilitare Zeliko 'Arkan' Raznatovic. Nonostante cio' la
legge era passata per 118 voti a favore e 105 contrari. I Dss
avevano allora denunciato una manomissione del voto parlamentare,
sostenendo che uno dei deputati favorevoli alla legge, Borislav
Novakovic (del Ds, il partito di Djindjic) aveva votato pur non
essendo presente in aula, consegnando a un aiutante la sua scheda
per il voto elettronico. La replica di Jovanovic era stata molto
dura: aveva chiesto il voto di sfiducia nei confronti di Marsicanic,
uno dei principali accusatori di Novakovic, e aveva chiesto di
estromettere dal Dos il partito di Kostunica, data la ''scandalosa
alleanza'' con gli esponenti del vecchio regime, ''peraltro non
inedita, dato che gia' in passate occasioni i Dss hanno agito piu'
come partito di opposizione che di governo''. In una intervista alla
televisione di Novi Sad, Djindjic ha affermato che il Dos ''puo'
continuare ad esistere anche senza il partito di Kostunica: si trattera'
solo del Dos meno uno''. Nella coalizione, formata da 18 partiti,
solo uno, Nuova Serbia (Ns), si e schierato con il Dss, mentre gli
altri hanno appoggiato Djindjic. Gli analisti della stampa serba
ritengono pero' che la rottura fra le due anime del Dos, per quanto
innegabile, non sia imminente. In attesa di una soluzione del
contenzioso fra Serbia e Montenegro, nessuna delle due fazioni
avrebbe da guadagnare da una prematura divisione che sfocerebbe
in elezioni anticipate. Da un canto, il potere federale al momento
e' molto limitato, e dall'altro nessuno dei due protagonisti,
Kostunica e Djindjic, vuole apparire agli occhi dell'elettorato e
della comunita' internazionale come il responsabile di una rottura
potenzialmente destabilizzante. (ANSA). OT
06/12/2001 19:31
OPERAZIONE GEHLEN:
LA RADICI NAZISTE DELLA CIA E DELLA NATO
(si veda anche:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/952)
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WORST KEPT SECRETS OF THE BUMBLING BEAR
(Part 1 of 2)
by Jared Israel
[Originally Posted 22 May 2001]
[Reposted 2 December 2001]
=======================================
Below is an article from the 'San
Francisco Bay Guardian', entitled, 'The
CIA's Worst-Kept Secret.' It discusses
some recently unclassified CIA files.
These documents, 18,000 pages in all,
confirm that U.S. intelligence
recruited and protected Nazis starting
at the end of World War II.
I am posting and writing about this
article for two reasons. First, it
includes some useful information about
the Nazi-CIA marriage. Second, it
presents that information from a
perspective that I consider at once mistaken
and widespread; hence worth discussing.
The article was written by Martin Lee.
Mr. Lee argues that after World War
II, Nazi spies duped the U.S. into
hiring them, thereby protecting themselves
and their networks from prosecution.
He cites the example of General
Reinhard Gehlen. Gehlen had been chief
of Nazi intelligence in the Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe. According to Mr.
Lee, Gehlen fooled spymaster Allen
Dulles, who later became Director of
the CIA, in the following way:
"Gehlen was quickly spirited off to
Fort Hunt, Va. The image he projected
during 10 months of negotiations at
Fort Hunt was, to use a bit of espionage
parlance, a "legend" --one that hinged
on Gehlen's false claim that he was
never really a Nazi, but was dedicated,
above all, to fighting Communism.
Those who bit the bait included future
CIA director Allen Dulles, who became
Gehlen's biggest supporter among
American policy wonks. " (From the text
below)
There's a bit of a problem here.
Starting more than a decade earlier,
Allen Dulles, a leading diplomat and
spy, and his brother, John Foster, a
Wall Street insider, had created a
financial-intelligence apparatus to
assist the Nazis. So Dulles had
long-standing, friendly relations with
Nazis. That being the case, why would
Dulles be upset if he 'learned' that
Gehlen (a top Nazi spy) was a Nazi? (1)
Moreover, Gehlen had not been some
cloistered spy. His job had not been
simply to coordinate the gathering of
information. He had been a key leader
of the work of fascist groups in the
occupied East, such as the Iron Guard
in Romania, the Latvian Vanagis and the
Croatian Ustashe. These groups committed
the most unimaginably brutal atrocities
against 'Untermenschen', Jews,
'gypsies', Serbs and other Slavs and
Orthodox Christians, as well as against
anti-Nazis, both Communist and
non-Communist, including various
Nationalist groups, which resisted the Nazis.
Gehlen was a leading war criminal.
Did Allen Dulles know all this? Of
course he knew all this. He was a U.S.
spymaster with almost three decades
experience and he had worked with the
Nazi leadership for two decades. Dulles
arranged to have Gehlen secretly
brought to the U.S. precisely so that
the Russians wouldn't get hold of him
and put him on trial for war crimes and
hang him.
Once they had Gehlen safely in the
U.S., Allen Dulles and other top U.S.
Intelligence operatives met with Gehlen
and planned a nightmare creation: a
vast European spying-and-subversion
apparatus, controlled by Washington but
staffed by hundreds and then thousands
of Nazi war criminals. The Nazis may
have lost the war but Nazism had found
new life. (6)
Since Allen Dulles knew that Gehlen
commanded an army of monstrous war
criminals in Eastern Europe and Russia,
what is the significance of Dulles'
supposed (though frankly unbelievable)
belief that Gehlen was not a Nazi?
Mr. Lee's suggestion that Dulles'
rescue and empowerment of Gehlen was
somehow less monstrous because he was
'fooled' about Gehlen's Nazi beliefs is
typical of the way the mass media has
been whitewashing American foreign
policy since 1945.
According to this reasoning, it is a
crime if Nazis (or Islamist terrorists)
go out and commit atrocities on their
own. But if they commit atrocities at
the behest of American leaders who are
a) naive about who these Nazis (or
Islamist terrorists) are and b) are
only using these Nazis or terrorists in
pursuit of good American values, then
it is OK. This treats the American
foreign policy establishment as if it
were some perpetual teenager who may
have fallen in with a bad crowd, but
heck, he'll grow out of it.
Very few of us will ever read the
declassified Nazi-CIA documents. Articles
like Mr. Lee's from the 'San Francisco
Bay Guardian', a left-leaning
newspaper, must inform our view.
Throughout the article, Mr. Lee portrays
Washington as naive, trapped by a Cold
War mentality into recruiting Nazis
(or, as he suggests at the end of his
article, by recruiting too many of
them...you know, Nazis are OK, but only
if taken in moderation...)
Can it be that a smart guy like Mr. Lee
really believes that the very
sophisticated men who shaped US foreign
policy over the past 50 years
unknowingly blundered into bed with the
worst butchers of the century? I
cannot say; but by making this absurd
idea the theme of his article, Mr. Lee,
the critic, makes himself an apologist
for the thing he is seemingly attacking.
DID THE NAZI-CIA MARRIAGE TAKE PLACE
BECAUSE WASHINGTON WAS IN A "COLD WAR
MENTALITY"?
This notion, which is put forward by
Mr. Lee, is contradicted by two
important facts:
Fact # 1 - No, Because It Started Too Early
Washington began working with
high-placed officials in the Vatican at
the end of the war to set up Nazi escape
routes. Some of the Nazis whom they
cooperated in rescuing were spies.
Others were just Nazi butchers.
The escape routes, appropriately called
'ratlines', started in Eastern Europe
and the Balkans, particularly Croatia,
and terminated in the U.S., Canada,
Australia, Latin America, and so on.
How could it be true that the U.S. got
swept up in organizing the ratlines due
to a Cold War mentality when the Cold
War hadn't yet begun? (2)
Mr. Lee is aware that the U.S. began
rescuing Nazis before the Cold War
began. He points out that this:
"...belies the prevalent Western notion
that aggressive Soviet policies were
primarily to blame for triggering the
Cold War."
Point well taken. But at the same time,
Mr. Lee writes:
"The early courtship of Gehlen by
American intelligence suggests that
Washington was in a Cold War mode
sooner than most people realize." (From
the text below)
What does this mean? If aggressive
Soviet policies were not to blame for
triggering the Cold War, why does Mr.
Lee say that "Washington was [already]
in a Cold War mode" at the end of World
War II? Doesn't a "Cold War" require
two sides?
What Mr. Lee probably means is that at
the end of W.W. II; Washington was in
an "Attack Russia!" mode. Indeed, it
was precisely Washington's belligerent
and criminal actions, such as rescuing
Nazi war criminals, that created the
international climate of hostility and
threat which became known as the "Cold War".
In the decade and a half before World
War II, Washington and Wall Street,
including the the Dulles brothers and
the grandfather and great grandfather
of President Bush, played a dangerous
game. They helped put the Nazis in
power and aided them once they got in
power. With their assistance, the
shattered German war industry was
rebuilt in record time.
Why did Dulles and the Walker/Bush
family and others in the U.S.
Establishment help finance the creation
of a powerful, fascist state in
Germany? They did it in large measure
because they planned to use the Nazis
to attack Soviet Russia.
Alas, as the poet says, the best laid
plans of mice and men often fail.
Instead of settling for their assigned
role, of conquering Russia, the German
Nazi/Corporate state decided to conquer
everyone. Washington and London
responded to this unacceptable ambition
in a measured fashion. First, they
allowed the Nazis to inflict maximum
damage on the Soviet Union. Then they
opened a Second Front (the Normandy
Invasion) in order to prevent the USSR
from liberating all of Europe and to
make sure the Nazis were not completely crushed.
After World War II Washington didn't go
into "Cold War mode." It simply
continued with its plan of using
Germany and the Nazis against the USSR.
Except now the Nazi apparatus existed
all over Eastern and Southern Europe
(including in Russia) and Soviet
influence was far more extensive as well.
Fact # 2 - No, because the U.S. Foreign
Policy Establishment Didn't Use the
Nazis Only to Spy
The Nazi murderers whom the U.S. helped
rescue, in violation of law and
decency, were not simply spies. Many of
them were monstrous war criminals.
And these war criminal/spies were not
simply rescued, dumped in various
countries, and then forgotten.
Instead the U.S. maintained a great
network of the 'escapees' and their
contacts all over Europe with three
purposes:
* to spy;
* to nurture networks of fascists
dedicated to infiltrating, subverting
and sabotaging the socialist and
non-socialist states of Europe, a network
linked to U.S. intelligence (and to Germany);
* and to prepare a force that could be
sent back into the socialist
countries, especially the strategic
Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and
Estonia, and into the Balkans states,
especially Yugoslavia, when the time
was ripe.
The Nazi and pro-Nazi 'refugees' were
maintained at the expense of U.S.
taxpayers through programs such as the
'Assembly of Captive Nations' (3)
In the late 1980s and early 1990s many
of the U.S.-protected Nazi war
criminals (and/or their children) were
shipped back to Eastern Europe and the
Balkans where they helped to launch
secessionist movements, install U.S. and
German puppet governments, assassinate
those who resisted and foster national
hatreds. For example, returning
Fascists helped Franjo Tudjman's neo-Nazi
group, the Croatian Democratic Union,
or HDZ, take over the Croatian Republic
and launch a secessionist war against
Yugoslavia in 1991. (4)
THE BUMBLING BEAR THEORY OF U.S.
FOREIGN POLICY
Why do critics of U.S. foreign policy
so often present Washington as a
passive force? Why are we constantly
told that the U.S. is being 'used by the
Cuban exiles for their own agenda' or
that the U.S. has 'screwed up once
again by backing the Kosovo Liberation
Army' and that 'sooner or later the
Americans will find out what kind of
monsters these Albanian secessionists
are' and so on. (5)
Two explanations come to mind.
First, wittingly or unwittingly, people
tend to censor themselves in
confrontation with reckless power.
When one is criticizing an
Establishment that bombs pill factories because
it doesn't like the government (as the
U.S. did in Sudan), that bombs Bosnia,
Kosovo and Iraq with radioactive
weapons and then sends its own and allied
troops into the contaminated areas,
that refuses to punish submarine
commanders who cause the deaths of
Japanese fishermen while performing
daredevil stunts with nuclear
submarines - in criticizing such an
Establishment one may experience the
temptation to exercise restraint.
If, for example, one argues that
Washington was tricked into working with
Nazis one may feel reasonably secure.
One is not challenging the basic legitimacy
of the Wall Street-Washington axis. But if one
argues that the nightmares of
U.S. foreign policy have
been, like most large-scale human
activities, planned, then one will be
accused of being conspiratorial, or
extremist, or worse. One may find that
certain doors, previously open, are
now shut tight. Or worse.
Second, American TV and films, viewed
by people all over the world, project
an image of the Innocent American
official: kind hearted, too powerful
for his own good; easily fooled and
manipulated. This plays a big role in
conditioning people to think of the
U.S. government as a bumbling bear.
Since the movies are partly responsible
for this nonsensical image of
American leaders, let me paraphrase a
famous movie speech by way of refutation:
"Don't be too sure we're as naive as
we're supposed to be. That sort of
reputation might be good business,
toning down the critics and making it
easier to deal with the enemy." (With
apologies to Sam Spade in the 'Maltese
Falcon', for which see
http://www.filmsite.org/malt.html )
Was Washington an innocent bystander
during World War II? It was most surely
not. The OSS, predecessor of the CIA,
was engaged all over Europe. OSS
operatives knew - and reported - that
monstrous crimes were being committed
by Nazis, following which Washington
recruited these same Nazis into its
burgeoning covert apparatus, the most
sensitive branch of the U.S. government.
Think about this. The OSS was a small
organization. The Nazi apparatus was
huge and well organized. Absorbing the
Nazis into U.S. intelligence was like
a garter snake eating a rat. What does
this mean? It means the most powerful
forces in the U.S.A. had decided that
the CIA was to be, in essence, a Nazi
organization.
Washington's goal was to break up the
USSR and other Socialist states and
bring them under U.S. domination. The
way Washington planners viewed things,
Nazis had many virtues. They respected
capitalism. They despised a host of
groups (including Serbs and other
Slavs, 'Gypsies', other dark-skinned
people, etc.) who tended to resist U.S.
domination. They were good at playing
on prejudice against these groups.
Moreover, the intensity of their hate gave
an energy of persistence to their work.
They were skilled at demagoguery,
subversion, assassination, and torture.
Numerous virtues; only one fault: a
very bad reputation, regarding which, no
problem unless the truth came out. And
should the truth come out, (as it is
indeed trickling out today) the
important thing from Washington's point
of view was and is to make sure the
inevitable criticism has the proper slant.
Let the critics declare that it was all
a terrible, stupid, unforgivable
mistake and we should learn 'our'
lesson and never never do such bad things again.
Better to be attacked for being
unforgivably stupid than for being
unforgivably evil. To this end,
President Clinton set up an 'Interagency
Working Group' (IWG), made up of
"scholars, public officials, and former
intelligence officers who helped
prepare the CIA records for
declassification." It would appear that
Mr. Lee has accepted the IWG's spin
on the Nazi-CIA connection.
Below is the 'San Francisco Bay
Guardian' article.
Following the article I have posted a
few dissenting remarks.
-- Jared Israel, 21 May 2001
==================================================
The CIA's Worst-Kept Secret
From 'San Francisco Bay Guardian', May 7, 2001
Newly Declassified Files Confirm United
States Collaboration with Nazis
by Martin A. Lee
=============================================
"Honest and idealist ... enjoys good
food and wine ... unprejudiced mind..."
That's how a 1952 Central Intelligence
Agency assessment described Nazi
ideologue Emil Augsburg, an officer at
the infamous Wannsee Institute, the SS
think tank involved in planning the
Final Solution. Augsburg's SS unit
performed "special duties," a euphemism
for exterminating Jews and other
"undesirables" during the Second World War.
Although he was wanted in Poland for
war crimes, Augsburg managed to
ingratiate himself with the U.S. CIA,
which employed him in the late1940s as
an expert on Soviet affairs. Recently
released CIA records indicate that
Augsburg was among a rogue's gallery of
Nazi war criminals recruited by U.S.
intelligence shortly after Germany
surrendered to the Allies..
Pried loose by Congress, which passed
the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act
three years ago, a long-hidden trove of
once-classified CIA documents
confirms one of the worst-kept secrets
of the Cold War-- the CIA's use of an
extensive Nazi spy network to wage a
clandestine campaign against the Soviet
Union.
The CIA reports show that U.S. officials
knew they were subsidizing numerous
Third Reich veterans who had committed
horrible crimes against humanity, but
these atrocities were overlooked as the
anti-Communist crusade acquired its
own momentum. For Nazis who would
otherwise have been charged with war
crimes, signing on with American
intelligence enabled them to avoid a
prison term.
"The real winners of the Cold War were
Nazi war criminals, many of whom were
able to escape justice because the East
and West became so rapidly focused
after the war on challenging each
other," says Eli Rosenbaum, director of
the Justice Department's Office of Special
Investigations and America's chief
Nazi hunter. Rosenbaum serves on a
Clinton-appointed Interagency Working
Group committee of U.S. scholars,
public officials, and former intelligence
officers who helped prepare the CIA
records for declassification.
Many Nazi criminals "received light
punishment, no punishment at all, or
received compensation because Western
spy agencies considered them useful
assets in the Cold War," the IWG team
stated after releasing 18,000 pages of
redacted CIA material. (More
installments are pending.)
These are "not just dry historical
documents," insists former congresswoman
Elizabeth Holtzman, a member of the
panel that examined the CIA files. As
far as Holtzman is concerned, the CIA
papers raise critical questions about
American foreign policy and the origins
of the Cold War.
The decision to recruit Nazi operatives
had a negative impact on U.S.-Soviet
relations and set the stage for
Washington's tolerance of human rights'
abuses and other criminal acts in the
name of anti-Communism. With that
fateful sub-rosa embrace, the die was
cast for a litany of antidemocratic CIA
interventions around the world.
The Gehlen Org
The key figure on the German side of
the CIA-Nazi tryst was General Reinhard
Gehlen, who had served as Adolf
Hitler's top anti-Soviet spy. During
World War II, Gehlen oversaw all German
military-intelligence operations in
Eastern Europe and the USSR.
As the war drew to a close, Gehlen
surmised that the U.S.-Soviet alliance
would soon break down. Realizing that
the United States did not have a viable
cloak-and-dagger apparatus in Eastern
Europe, Gehlen surrendered to the
Americans and pitched himself as
someone who could make a vital contribution
to the forthcoming struggle against the
Communists. In addition to sharing
his vast espionage archive on the USSR,
Gehlen promised that he could
resurrect an underground network of
battle-hardened anti-Communist assets
who were well placed to wreak havoc
throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Although the Yalta Treaty stipulated
that the United States must give the
Soviets all captured German officers
who had been involved in "eastern area
activities," Gehlen was quickly
spirited off to Fort Hunt, Va. The image
he projected during 10 months of
negotiations at Fort Hunt was, to use a
bit of espionage parlance, a "legend" --
one that hinged on Gehlen's false claim
that he was never really a Nazi, but was
dedicated, above all, to fighting
Communism. Those who bit the bait
included future CIA director Allen Dulles,
who became Gehlen's biggest supporter
among American policy wonks.
Gehlen returned to West Germany in the
summer of 1946 with a mandate to
rebuild his espionage organization and
resume spying on the East at the
behest of American intelligence. The
date is significant as it preceded the
onset of the Cold War, which, according
to standard U.S. historical accounts,
did not begin until a year later. The
early courtship of Gehlen by American
intelligence suggests that Washington
was in a Cold War mode sooner than most
people realize. The Gehlen gambit also
belies the prevalent Western notion
that aggressive Soviet policies were
primarily to blame for triggering the
Cold War.
Based near Munich, Gehlen proceeded to
enlist thousands of Gestapo,
Wehrmacht, and SS veterans. Even the
vilest of the vile -- the senior
bureaucrats who ran the central
administrative apparatus of the
Holocaust --
were welcome in the "Gehlen Org," as it
was called, including Alois Brunner,
Adolf Eichmann's chief deputy. SS major
Emil Augsburg and Gestapo captain
Klaus Barbie, otherwise known as the
"Butcher of Lyon," were among those who
did double duty for Gehlen and U.S.
intelligence. "It seems that in the
Gehlen headquarters one SS man paved
the way for the next and Himmler's elite
were having happy reunion ceremonies,"
the Frankfurter Rundschau reported in
the early1950s.
Bolted lock, stock, and barrel into the
CIA, Gehlen's Nazi-infested spy
apparatus functioned as America's
secret eyes and ears in central Europe.
The Org would go on to play a major role
within NATO, supplying two-thirds of
raw intelligence on the Warsaw Pact
countries. Under CIA auspices, and later as
head of the West German secret service
until he retired in 1968, Gehlen
exerted considerable influence on U.S.
policy toward the Soviet bloc. When
U.S. spy chiefs desired an
off-the-shelf style of nation tampering,
they turned to the readily available Org,
which served as a subcontracting
syndicate for a series of ill-fated
guerrilla air drops behind the Iron
Curtain and other harebrained CIA
rollback schemes.
Sitting ducks for disinformation
...Third Reich veterans often proved
adept at peddling data -- much of it
false -- in return for cash and safety,
the IWG panel concluded. Many Nazis
played a double game, feeding
scuttlebutt to both sides of the East-West
conflict and preying upon the mutual
suspicions that emerged from the rubble
of Hitler's Germany.
General Gehlen frequently exaggerated
the Soviet threat in order to
exacerbate tensions between the
superpowers. At one point he succeeded
in convincing General Lucius Clay,
military governor of the U.S. zone of
occupation in Germany, that a major
Soviet war mobilization had begun in
Eastern Europe. This prompted Clay to
dash off a frantic, top-secret telegram
to Washington in March 1948, warning
that war "may come with dramatic
suddenness."
Gehlen's disinformation strategy was
based on a simple premise: the colder
the Cold War got, the more political
space for Hitler's heirs to maneuver.
The Org could only flourish under Cold
War conditions; as an institution it
was therefore committed to perpetuating
the Soviet-American conflict.
"The agency loved Gehlen because he fed
us what we wanted to hear. We used
his stuff constantly, and we fed it to
everyone else -- the Pentagon, the
White House, the newspapers. They loved
it, too. But it was hyped-up Russian
bogeyman junk, and it did a lot of
damage to this country," a retired CIA
official told author Christopher
Simpson, who also serves on the IWG
review panel and was author of "Blowback:
America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its
Effects on the Cold War."
CONTINUED, PART 2
LA RADICI NAZISTE DELLA CIA E DELLA NATO
(si veda anche:
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WORST KEPT SECRETS OF THE BUMBLING BEAR
(Part 1 of 2)
by Jared Israel
[Originally Posted 22 May 2001]
[Reposted 2 December 2001]
=======================================
Below is an article from the 'San
Francisco Bay Guardian', entitled, 'The
CIA's Worst-Kept Secret.' It discusses
some recently unclassified CIA files.
These documents, 18,000 pages in all,
confirm that U.S. intelligence
recruited and protected Nazis starting
at the end of World War II.
I am posting and writing about this
article for two reasons. First, it
includes some useful information about
the Nazi-CIA marriage. Second, it
presents that information from a
perspective that I consider at once mistaken
and widespread; hence worth discussing.
The article was written by Martin Lee.
Mr. Lee argues that after World War
II, Nazi spies duped the U.S. into
hiring them, thereby protecting themselves
and their networks from prosecution.
He cites the example of General
Reinhard Gehlen. Gehlen had been chief
of Nazi intelligence in the Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe. According to Mr.
Lee, Gehlen fooled spymaster Allen
Dulles, who later became Director of
the CIA, in the following way:
"Gehlen was quickly spirited off to
Fort Hunt, Va. The image he projected
during 10 months of negotiations at
Fort Hunt was, to use a bit of espionage
parlance, a "legend" --one that hinged
on Gehlen's false claim that he was
never really a Nazi, but was dedicated,
above all, to fighting Communism.
Those who bit the bait included future
CIA director Allen Dulles, who became
Gehlen's biggest supporter among
American policy wonks. " (From the text
below)
There's a bit of a problem here.
Starting more than a decade earlier,
Allen Dulles, a leading diplomat and
spy, and his brother, John Foster, a
Wall Street insider, had created a
financial-intelligence apparatus to
assist the Nazis. So Dulles had
long-standing, friendly relations with
Nazis. That being the case, why would
Dulles be upset if he 'learned' that
Gehlen (a top Nazi spy) was a Nazi? (1)
Moreover, Gehlen had not been some
cloistered spy. His job had not been
simply to coordinate the gathering of
information. He had been a key leader
of the work of fascist groups in the
occupied East, such as the Iron Guard
in Romania, the Latvian Vanagis and the
Croatian Ustashe. These groups committed
the most unimaginably brutal atrocities
against 'Untermenschen', Jews,
'gypsies', Serbs and other Slavs and
Orthodox Christians, as well as against
anti-Nazis, both Communist and
non-Communist, including various
Nationalist groups, which resisted the Nazis.
Gehlen was a leading war criminal.
Did Allen Dulles know all this? Of
course he knew all this. He was a U.S.
spymaster with almost three decades
experience and he had worked with the
Nazi leadership for two decades. Dulles
arranged to have Gehlen secretly
brought to the U.S. precisely so that
the Russians wouldn't get hold of him
and put him on trial for war crimes and
hang him.
Once they had Gehlen safely in the
U.S., Allen Dulles and other top U.S.
Intelligence operatives met with Gehlen
and planned a nightmare creation: a
vast European spying-and-subversion
apparatus, controlled by Washington but
staffed by hundreds and then thousands
of Nazi war criminals. The Nazis may
have lost the war but Nazism had found
new life. (6)
Since Allen Dulles knew that Gehlen
commanded an army of monstrous war
criminals in Eastern Europe and Russia,
what is the significance of Dulles'
supposed (though frankly unbelievable)
belief that Gehlen was not a Nazi?
Mr. Lee's suggestion that Dulles'
rescue and empowerment of Gehlen was
somehow less monstrous because he was
'fooled' about Gehlen's Nazi beliefs is
typical of the way the mass media has
been whitewashing American foreign
policy since 1945.
According to this reasoning, it is a
crime if Nazis (or Islamist terrorists)
go out and commit atrocities on their
own. But if they commit atrocities at
the behest of American leaders who are
a) naive about who these Nazis (or
Islamist terrorists) are and b) are
only using these Nazis or terrorists in
pursuit of good American values, then
it is OK. This treats the American
foreign policy establishment as if it
were some perpetual teenager who may
have fallen in with a bad crowd, but
heck, he'll grow out of it.
Very few of us will ever read the
declassified Nazi-CIA documents. Articles
like Mr. Lee's from the 'San Francisco
Bay Guardian', a left-leaning
newspaper, must inform our view.
Throughout the article, Mr. Lee portrays
Washington as naive, trapped by a Cold
War mentality into recruiting Nazis
(or, as he suggests at the end of his
article, by recruiting too many of
them...you know, Nazis are OK, but only
if taken in moderation...)
Can it be that a smart guy like Mr. Lee
really believes that the very
sophisticated men who shaped US foreign
policy over the past 50 years
unknowingly blundered into bed with the
worst butchers of the century? I
cannot say; but by making this absurd
idea the theme of his article, Mr. Lee,
the critic, makes himself an apologist
for the thing he is seemingly attacking.
DID THE NAZI-CIA MARRIAGE TAKE PLACE
BECAUSE WASHINGTON WAS IN A "COLD WAR
MENTALITY"?
This notion, which is put forward by
Mr. Lee, is contradicted by two
important facts:
Fact # 1 - No, Because It Started Too Early
Washington began working with
high-placed officials in the Vatican at
the end of the war to set up Nazi escape
routes. Some of the Nazis whom they
cooperated in rescuing were spies.
Others were just Nazi butchers.
The escape routes, appropriately called
'ratlines', started in Eastern Europe
and the Balkans, particularly Croatia,
and terminated in the U.S., Canada,
Australia, Latin America, and so on.
How could it be true that the U.S. got
swept up in organizing the ratlines due
to a Cold War mentality when the Cold
War hadn't yet begun? (2)
Mr. Lee is aware that the U.S. began
rescuing Nazis before the Cold War
began. He points out that this:
"...belies the prevalent Western notion
that aggressive Soviet policies were
primarily to blame for triggering the
Cold War."
Point well taken. But at the same time,
Mr. Lee writes:
"The early courtship of Gehlen by
American intelligence suggests that
Washington was in a Cold War mode
sooner than most people realize." (From
the text below)
What does this mean? If aggressive
Soviet policies were not to blame for
triggering the Cold War, why does Mr.
Lee say that "Washington was [already]
in a Cold War mode" at the end of World
War II? Doesn't a "Cold War" require
two sides?
What Mr. Lee probably means is that at
the end of W.W. II; Washington was in
an "Attack Russia!" mode. Indeed, it
was precisely Washington's belligerent
and criminal actions, such as rescuing
Nazi war criminals, that created the
international climate of hostility and
threat which became known as the "Cold War".
In the decade and a half before World
War II, Washington and Wall Street,
including the the Dulles brothers and
the grandfather and great grandfather
of President Bush, played a dangerous
game. They helped put the Nazis in
power and aided them once they got in
power. With their assistance, the
shattered German war industry was
rebuilt in record time.
Why did Dulles and the Walker/Bush
family and others in the U.S.
Establishment help finance the creation
of a powerful, fascist state in
Germany? They did it in large measure
because they planned to use the Nazis
to attack Soviet Russia.
Alas, as the poet says, the best laid
plans of mice and men often fail.
Instead of settling for their assigned
role, of conquering Russia, the German
Nazi/Corporate state decided to conquer
everyone. Washington and London
responded to this unacceptable ambition
in a measured fashion. First, they
allowed the Nazis to inflict maximum
damage on the Soviet Union. Then they
opened a Second Front (the Normandy
Invasion) in order to prevent the USSR
from liberating all of Europe and to
make sure the Nazis were not completely crushed.
After World War II Washington didn't go
into "Cold War mode." It simply
continued with its plan of using
Germany and the Nazis against the USSR.
Except now the Nazi apparatus existed
all over Eastern and Southern Europe
(including in Russia) and Soviet
influence was far more extensive as well.
Fact # 2 - No, because the U.S. Foreign
Policy Establishment Didn't Use the
Nazis Only to Spy
The Nazi murderers whom the U.S. helped
rescue, in violation of law and
decency, were not simply spies. Many of
them were monstrous war criminals.
And these war criminal/spies were not
simply rescued, dumped in various
countries, and then forgotten.
Instead the U.S. maintained a great
network of the 'escapees' and their
contacts all over Europe with three
purposes:
* to spy;
* to nurture networks of fascists
dedicated to infiltrating, subverting
and sabotaging the socialist and
non-socialist states of Europe, a network
linked to U.S. intelligence (and to Germany);
* and to prepare a force that could be
sent back into the socialist
countries, especially the strategic
Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and
Estonia, and into the Balkans states,
especially Yugoslavia, when the time
was ripe.
The Nazi and pro-Nazi 'refugees' were
maintained at the expense of U.S.
taxpayers through programs such as the
'Assembly of Captive Nations' (3)
In the late 1980s and early 1990s many
of the U.S.-protected Nazi war
criminals (and/or their children) were
shipped back to Eastern Europe and the
Balkans where they helped to launch
secessionist movements, install U.S. and
German puppet governments, assassinate
those who resisted and foster national
hatreds. For example, returning
Fascists helped Franjo Tudjman's neo-Nazi
group, the Croatian Democratic Union,
or HDZ, take over the Croatian Republic
and launch a secessionist war against
Yugoslavia in 1991. (4)
THE BUMBLING BEAR THEORY OF U.S.
FOREIGN POLICY
Why do critics of U.S. foreign policy
so often present Washington as a
passive force? Why are we constantly
told that the U.S. is being 'used by the
Cuban exiles for their own agenda' or
that the U.S. has 'screwed up once
again by backing the Kosovo Liberation
Army' and that 'sooner or later the
Americans will find out what kind of
monsters these Albanian secessionists
are' and so on. (5)
Two explanations come to mind.
First, wittingly or unwittingly, people
tend to censor themselves in
confrontation with reckless power.
When one is criticizing an
Establishment that bombs pill factories because
it doesn't like the government (as the
U.S. did in Sudan), that bombs Bosnia,
Kosovo and Iraq with radioactive
weapons and then sends its own and allied
troops into the contaminated areas,
that refuses to punish submarine
commanders who cause the deaths of
Japanese fishermen while performing
daredevil stunts with nuclear
submarines - in criticizing such an
Establishment one may experience the
temptation to exercise restraint.
If, for example, one argues that
Washington was tricked into working with
Nazis one may feel reasonably secure.
One is not challenging the basic legitimacy
of the Wall Street-Washington axis. But if one
argues that the nightmares of
U.S. foreign policy have
been, like most large-scale human
activities, planned, then one will be
accused of being conspiratorial, or
extremist, or worse. One may find that
certain doors, previously open, are
now shut tight. Or worse.
Second, American TV and films, viewed
by people all over the world, project
an image of the Innocent American
official: kind hearted, too powerful
for his own good; easily fooled and
manipulated. This plays a big role in
conditioning people to think of the
U.S. government as a bumbling bear.
Since the movies are partly responsible
for this nonsensical image of
American leaders, let me paraphrase a
famous movie speech by way of refutation:
"Don't be too sure we're as naive as
we're supposed to be. That sort of
reputation might be good business,
toning down the critics and making it
easier to deal with the enemy." (With
apologies to Sam Spade in the 'Maltese
Falcon', for which see
http://www.filmsite.org/malt.html )
Was Washington an innocent bystander
during World War II? It was most surely
not. The OSS, predecessor of the CIA,
was engaged all over Europe. OSS
operatives knew - and reported - that
monstrous crimes were being committed
by Nazis, following which Washington
recruited these same Nazis into its
burgeoning covert apparatus, the most
sensitive branch of the U.S. government.
Think about this. The OSS was a small
organization. The Nazi apparatus was
huge and well organized. Absorbing the
Nazis into U.S. intelligence was like
a garter snake eating a rat. What does
this mean? It means the most powerful
forces in the U.S.A. had decided that
the CIA was to be, in essence, a Nazi
organization.
Washington's goal was to break up the
USSR and other Socialist states and
bring them under U.S. domination. The
way Washington planners viewed things,
Nazis had many virtues. They respected
capitalism. They despised a host of
groups (including Serbs and other
Slavs, 'Gypsies', other dark-skinned
people, etc.) who tended to resist U.S.
domination. They were good at playing
on prejudice against these groups.
Moreover, the intensity of their hate gave
an energy of persistence to their work.
They were skilled at demagoguery,
subversion, assassination, and torture.
Numerous virtues; only one fault: a
very bad reputation, regarding which, no
problem unless the truth came out. And
should the truth come out, (as it is
indeed trickling out today) the
important thing from Washington's point
of view was and is to make sure the
inevitable criticism has the proper slant.
Let the critics declare that it was all
a terrible, stupid, unforgivable
mistake and we should learn 'our'
lesson and never never do such bad things again.
Better to be attacked for being
unforgivably stupid than for being
unforgivably evil. To this end,
President Clinton set up an 'Interagency
Working Group' (IWG), made up of
"scholars, public officials, and former
intelligence officers who helped
prepare the CIA records for
declassification." It would appear that
Mr. Lee has accepted the IWG's spin
on the Nazi-CIA connection.
Below is the 'San Francisco Bay
Guardian' article.
Following the article I have posted a
few dissenting remarks.
-- Jared Israel, 21 May 2001
==================================================
The CIA's Worst-Kept Secret
From 'San Francisco Bay Guardian', May 7, 2001
Newly Declassified Files Confirm United
States Collaboration with Nazis
by Martin A. Lee
=============================================
"Honest and idealist ... enjoys good
food and wine ... unprejudiced mind..."
That's how a 1952 Central Intelligence
Agency assessment described Nazi
ideologue Emil Augsburg, an officer at
the infamous Wannsee Institute, the SS
think tank involved in planning the
Final Solution. Augsburg's SS unit
performed "special duties," a euphemism
for exterminating Jews and other
"undesirables" during the Second World War.
Although he was wanted in Poland for
war crimes, Augsburg managed to
ingratiate himself with the U.S. CIA,
which employed him in the late1940s as
an expert on Soviet affairs. Recently
released CIA records indicate that
Augsburg was among a rogue's gallery of
Nazi war criminals recruited by U.S.
intelligence shortly after Germany
surrendered to the Allies..
Pried loose by Congress, which passed
the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act
three years ago, a long-hidden trove of
once-classified CIA documents
confirms one of the worst-kept secrets
of the Cold War-- the CIA's use of an
extensive Nazi spy network to wage a
clandestine campaign against the Soviet
Union.
The CIA reports show that U.S. officials
knew they were subsidizing numerous
Third Reich veterans who had committed
horrible crimes against humanity, but
these atrocities were overlooked as the
anti-Communist crusade acquired its
own momentum. For Nazis who would
otherwise have been charged with war
crimes, signing on with American
intelligence enabled them to avoid a
prison term.
"The real winners of the Cold War were
Nazi war criminals, many of whom were
able to escape justice because the East
and West became so rapidly focused
after the war on challenging each
other," says Eli Rosenbaum, director of
the Justice Department's Office of Special
Investigations and America's chief
Nazi hunter. Rosenbaum serves on a
Clinton-appointed Interagency Working
Group committee of U.S. scholars,
public officials, and former intelligence
officers who helped prepare the CIA
records for declassification.
Many Nazi criminals "received light
punishment, no punishment at all, or
received compensation because Western
spy agencies considered them useful
assets in the Cold War," the IWG team
stated after releasing 18,000 pages of
redacted CIA material. (More
installments are pending.)
These are "not just dry historical
documents," insists former congresswoman
Elizabeth Holtzman, a member of the
panel that examined the CIA files. As
far as Holtzman is concerned, the CIA
papers raise critical questions about
American foreign policy and the origins
of the Cold War.
The decision to recruit Nazi operatives
had a negative impact on U.S.-Soviet
relations and set the stage for
Washington's tolerance of human rights'
abuses and other criminal acts in the
name of anti-Communism. With that
fateful sub-rosa embrace, the die was
cast for a litany of antidemocratic CIA
interventions around the world.
The Gehlen Org
The key figure on the German side of
the CIA-Nazi tryst was General Reinhard
Gehlen, who had served as Adolf
Hitler's top anti-Soviet spy. During
World War II, Gehlen oversaw all German
military-intelligence operations in
Eastern Europe and the USSR.
As the war drew to a close, Gehlen
surmised that the U.S.-Soviet alliance
would soon break down. Realizing that
the United States did not have a viable
cloak-and-dagger apparatus in Eastern
Europe, Gehlen surrendered to the
Americans and pitched himself as
someone who could make a vital contribution
to the forthcoming struggle against the
Communists. In addition to sharing
his vast espionage archive on the USSR,
Gehlen promised that he could
resurrect an underground network of
battle-hardened anti-Communist assets
who were well placed to wreak havoc
throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Although the Yalta Treaty stipulated
that the United States must give the
Soviets all captured German officers
who had been involved in "eastern area
activities," Gehlen was quickly
spirited off to Fort Hunt, Va. The image
he projected during 10 months of
negotiations at Fort Hunt was, to use a
bit of espionage parlance, a "legend" --
one that hinged on Gehlen's false claim
that he was never really a Nazi, but was
dedicated, above all, to fighting
Communism. Those who bit the bait
included future CIA director Allen Dulles,
who became Gehlen's biggest supporter
among American policy wonks.
Gehlen returned to West Germany in the
summer of 1946 with a mandate to
rebuild his espionage organization and
resume spying on the East at the
behest of American intelligence. The
date is significant as it preceded the
onset of the Cold War, which, according
to standard U.S. historical accounts,
did not begin until a year later. The
early courtship of Gehlen by American
intelligence suggests that Washington
was in a Cold War mode sooner than most
people realize. The Gehlen gambit also
belies the prevalent Western notion
that aggressive Soviet policies were
primarily to blame for triggering the
Cold War.
Based near Munich, Gehlen proceeded to
enlist thousands of Gestapo,
Wehrmacht, and SS veterans. Even the
vilest of the vile -- the senior
bureaucrats who ran the central
administrative apparatus of the
Holocaust --
were welcome in the "Gehlen Org," as it
was called, including Alois Brunner,
Adolf Eichmann's chief deputy. SS major
Emil Augsburg and Gestapo captain
Klaus Barbie, otherwise known as the
"Butcher of Lyon," were among those who
did double duty for Gehlen and U.S.
intelligence. "It seems that in the
Gehlen headquarters one SS man paved
the way for the next and Himmler's elite
were having happy reunion ceremonies,"
the Frankfurter Rundschau reported in
the early1950s.
Bolted lock, stock, and barrel into the
CIA, Gehlen's Nazi-infested spy
apparatus functioned as America's
secret eyes and ears in central Europe.
The Org would go on to play a major role
within NATO, supplying two-thirds of
raw intelligence on the Warsaw Pact
countries. Under CIA auspices, and later as
head of the West German secret service
until he retired in 1968, Gehlen
exerted considerable influence on U.S.
policy toward the Soviet bloc. When
U.S. spy chiefs desired an
off-the-shelf style of nation tampering,
they turned to the readily available Org,
which served as a subcontracting
syndicate for a series of ill-fated
guerrilla air drops behind the Iron
Curtain and other harebrained CIA
rollback schemes.
Sitting ducks for disinformation
...Third Reich veterans often proved
adept at peddling data -- much of it
false -- in return for cash and safety,
the IWG panel concluded. Many Nazis
played a double game, feeding
scuttlebutt to both sides of the East-West
conflict and preying upon the mutual
suspicions that emerged from the rubble
of Hitler's Germany.
General Gehlen frequently exaggerated
the Soviet threat in order to
exacerbate tensions between the
superpowers. At one point he succeeded
in convincing General Lucius Clay,
military governor of the U.S. zone of
occupation in Germany, that a major
Soviet war mobilization had begun in
Eastern Europe. This prompted Clay to
dash off a frantic, top-secret telegram
to Washington in March 1948, warning
that war "may come with dramatic
suddenness."
Gehlen's disinformation strategy was
based on a simple premise: the colder
the Cold War got, the more political
space for Hitler's heirs to maneuver.
The Org could only flourish under Cold
War conditions; as an institution it
was therefore committed to perpetuating
the Soviet-American conflict.
"The agency loved Gehlen because he fed
us what we wanted to hear. We used
his stuff constantly, and we fed it to
everyone else -- the Pentagon, the
White House, the newspapers. They loved
it, too. But it was hyped-up Russian
bogeyman junk, and it did a lot of
damage to this country," a retired CIA
official told author Christopher
Simpson, who also serves on the IWG
review panel and was author of "Blowback:
America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its
Effects on the Cold War."
CONTINUED, PART 2
URL for this article:
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/gehlen2.htm
WORST KEPT SECRETS OF THE BUMBLING BEAR
- PART 2 (of 2)
(Note: Mr. Lee's article continues here)
UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCES
Members of the Gehlen Org were
instrumental in helping thousands of fascist
fugitives escape via "ratlines" to safe
havens abroad --often with a wink and
a nod from U.S. intelligence officers.
Third Reich expatriates and fascist
collaborators subsequently emerged as
"security advisors" in several Middle
Eastern and Latin American countries,
where ultra-right-wing death squads
persist as their enduring legacy. Klaus
Barbie, for example, assisted a
succession of military regimes in Bolivia,
where he taught soldiers torture
techniques and helped protect the
flourishing cocaine trade in the late
1970s and early '80s.
CIA officials eventually learned that
the Nazi old boy network nesting inside
the Gehlen Org had an unexpected twist
to it. By bankrolling Gehlen the CIA
unknowingly laid itself open to
manipulation by a foreign intelligence
service that was riddled with Soviet
spies. Gehlen's habit of employing
compromised ex-Nazis -- and the CIA's
willingness to sanction this practice
-- enabled the USSR to penetrate West
Germany's secret service by
blackmailing numerous agents.
...Slow to recognize that their Nazi
hired guns would feign an allegiance to
the Western alliance as long as they
deemed it tactically advantageous, CIA
officials invested far too much in
Gehlen's spooky Nazi outfit. "It was a
horrendous mistake, morally,
politically, and also in very pragmatic
intelligence terms," says American
University professor Richard Breitman,
chairman of the IWG review panel.
More than just a bungled spy caper, the
Gehlen debacle should serve as a
cautionary tale at a time when
post-Cold War triumphalism and arrogant
unilateralism are rampant among U.S.
officials. If nothing else, it
underscores the need for the United
States to confront some of its own demons
now that unreconstructed Cold Warriors
are again riding top saddle in Washington.
*** (C) 'San Francisco Bay Guardian,'
Reprinted for Fair Use Only ***
FURTHER COMMENTS ABOUT THE 'GUARDIAN' ARTICLE
ONE: CONCERNING FALSE INFORMATION
Mr. Lee writes that General Gehlen
passed Washington false information about
a supposed Soviet buildup and adds that:
"Gehlen's disinformation strategy was
based on a simple premise: the colder
the Cold War got, the more political
space for Hitler's heirs to maneuver.
The Org could only flourish under Cold
War conditions; as an institution it
was therefore committed to perpetuating
the Soviet-American conflict."
First, this is speculation presented as
fact. Who knows whether Gehlen
invented any particular piece of
misinformation, or whether someone in
the CIA instructed him to 'invent' it.
Second, so what if CIA Nazis sometimes
made false reports to heighten
tensions or make themselves look good.
That sort of thing is always possible
in intelligence organizations. (Graham
Greene's wonderful novel, 'Our Man in
Havana,' is about a British intelligence
'asset' in Cuba who manufactures an entire
spy network to keep himself employed.)
Indeed, the CIA is itself famous for
telling tall tales about the misdeeds of
those resisting U.S. domination. Such
statements help create a provocative
atmosphere in which aggressive policies
seem justified.
The question is not whether the Nazis
sometimes misled Washington, or whether
Soviet intelligence could sometimes use
the Nazis against Washington. The
question is: what were and are
Washington's plans?
Did Washington want to crush the Soviet
Union and install puppet governments
throughout Eastern Europe and the
Balkans? Does Washington now wish to turn
the Balkans into a safe rear while it
moves NATO bases up to Russian borders
in order to facilitate 'low intensity
war' against Russia? I would argue that
the answer to both questions is: yes.
The Nazi apparatus was and remains
useful in carrying out these strategies.
TWO: HOW MUCH 'INVESTMENT IN NAZISM' IS TOO MUCH?
OR: HOW MUCH IS JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT?
Mr. Lee writes:
"Slow to recognize that their Nazi
hired guns would feign an allegiance to
the Western alliance as long as they
deemed it tactically advantageous, CIA
officials invested far too much in
Gehlen's spooky Nazi outfit. 'It was a
horrendous mistake, morally,
politically, and also in very pragmatic
intelligence terms,' says American
University professor Richard Breitman,
chairman of the IWG review panel."
'Feign allegiance'? What evidence is
there that the Nazis were feigning? The
problem is Mr. Lee is proceeding from
his assumption that Washington made a
mistake in recruiting the Nazis. This
assumption is wrong; that is, it is
plainly contradicted by the evidence he
presents. Like many people, he finds
it awkward to change his assumptions;
so instead he offers, by way of
compromise, this notion that the Nazis
were insincere. (Am I alone in finding
that the mind boggles at the notion of
the insincere Nazi?)
And what if these Nazis did sometimes
feign loyalty? Many employees 'feign
allegiance.' The question the employer
asks is: are they getting the job done.
Says Mr. Lee, "CIA officials invested
far too much in Gehlen's spooky Nazi
outfit." Earlier he refers to the
"Gehlen gambit." And elsewhere he comments
that this was "more than a bungled spy caper"!
This language suggests that that Mr.
Lee, like so many Americans, does not
fully grasp what is involved here. The
'people' whom Allen Dulles and Co.
rescued and recruited into the CIA were
not spooky. This was not simply 'more
than a bungled spy caper.'
These unimaginably vicious thugs were
rescued to do a job.
Therefore the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency had at the core of its field
staff, from the time of its creation,
mass murderers. They were used all over
the world to do what they had done
during World War II.
What had they done during World War II?
What skills did they bring to the CIA?
Let us consider the Croatian Ustashe.
These henchmen of a clerical-fascist
regime (the term "clerical" is used to
describe the Ustashe because the
Catholic clergy controlled this fascist
movement) carried out the slaughter
of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews
and 'Gypsies.'
"The Ustasa regime in Croatia and
particularly this drive... to exterminate
and dispossess the Serbs, was one of
the most horrendous episodes of World
War II. The murder methods applied by
Ustasha were extraordinarily primitive
and sadistic: thousands were hurled
from mountain tops, others were beaten to
death or had their throats cut, entire
villages were burned down, women
raped, people sent on death marches in
the middle of winter, and still others
starved to death..." ('Encyclopedia of
the Holocaust,' Macmillan Publishing
Company, 1995)
Members of the Ustashe were among those
whom U.S. intelligence 'rescued' and
whose ranks swelled the CIA and other
U.S. covert and semi-covert organizations.
THREE: WAS THE NAZI-CIA MARRIAGE A
'HORRENDOUS MISTAKE'?
Mr. Lee quotes IWG panel member
Professor Richard Breitman to the effect
that the CIA-NAZI marriage was a:
"horrendous mistake, morally,
politically, and also in very pragmatic
intelligence terms."
What does it mean for Professor
Breitman to describe as a mistake something
that was elaborately planned? The
recruitment of Nazi's required the movement
of thousands of war criminals, setting
them up with new identities and
financing them for half a century at a
cumulative cost of billions of
dollars. In the late 1980s and early
1990s they were dispatched with their
children to install fascist regimes in
power in Croatia and Bosnia; these
regimes were universally - and
amazingly - described in the Western
media and by Western leaders as 'democratic'.
Repatriated Nazis were used to install
a government in Lithuania that honors
pro-Nazi Lithuanians who during World
War II massacred local Jews, Orthodox
Christians and Bolsheviks.
By what standard can all of this be
described as a 'mistake'? Was it a
misake because it didn't work?
But it did work.
Or perhaps Breitman and Lee think it
was a mistake because it was evil?
But what makes an evil policy a mistake?
Professor Breitman is using sloppy
reasoning in order, one suspects, to
achieve a political effect. By labeling
the Nazi-CIA marriage, with its
'ratlines' and 'captive nations', a
mistake, he lets Washington off the hook.
"This was counter-productive," he tells
us and we think, "Well, if it was
counter productive then in a sense
Washington as suffered a fool's
punishment."
But in fact the U.S. Establishment
never paid a price for the monstrous crime
of saving the Nazis and then unleashing
them, once again, on the world.
Quite the contrary. It gained mightily
from the ruthless use of Nazi
monsters. It gained a ready-made
apparatus in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
It gained the use of an army of covert
operatives ready to carry out any
crime any place in the world.
Among other things, this apparatus
helped destroy the Soviet Union, which had
been a major obstacle to the U.S. drive
for world domination.
FOUR: IF NOTHING ELSE...
The author concludes with the following
comment:
"If nothing else, it [that is, the
revelations about CIA-Nazi ties]
underscores the need for the United
States to confront some of its own demons
now that unreconstructed Cold Warriors
are again riding top saddle in Washington."
First, why should "nothing else" be
done? Why does Washington have the
right to set up War Crimes Tribunals to
punish people (for instance, Serbian
leaders like Milosevic) whose only
crime is that they resisted Washington,
but when it comes to Washington's own
very real war crimes - such as rescuing
and unleashing these Nazi monsters -
"confronting some of its own demons" is
sufficient? (8)
And second, what about this "now that
unreconstructed Cold Warriors are again
riding top saddle in Washington"?
"Again"?
If by "Cold Warriors" Mr. Lee means
advocates of empire, then pray tell, when
did they leave the saddle? Does Mr. Lee
mean that William Clinton was not an
Imperial warrior, but Mr. Bush is?
For all or part of its eight years in
office, the Clinton administration
waged unrelenting proxy military wars
against the people of Yugoslavia, the
former Soviet Union, Colombia, Congo,
Rwanda, waged a war of sanctions
against 70 countries, routinely bombed
Iraq while starving its children, and
so on. It continued to employ 'captive
nations' Nazis in Yugoslavia and
Eastern Europe. It greatly developed
the use of the National Endowment for
'Democracy', USAID and other government
and semi-private agencies and NGOs to
create a Fifth Column apparatus in
countries around the world.
To be sure, the Bush administration is
continuing these efforts. But the
notion that Bush's foreign policy
represents some sea change from Clinton's
foreign policy is without foundation in
fact.
-- J.I. 21 May 2001
************************
FURTHER READING:
************************
(1) Concerning Allen Dulles and the
Nazis, see: "Nazis in the Attic." The
article is broken into 6 parts. Parts 3
and 5 deal specifically with Mr.
Dulles. The article begins at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/randy/swas1.htm
The sections that deal specifically
with Allen Dulles are part 3, at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/randy/swas3.htm
and part 5 at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/randy/swas4.htm#5
Part 5 also deals with involvement of
the Bush family, since the 1920s, in
helping the Nazis.
(2) For a brief introduction to the
ratlines see 'The Vatican, Croatia and
the Nazi Gold' by Seán Mac Mathúna at
http://www.flamemag.dircon.co.uk/the_vatican.htm
(3) See excerpts from 'Blowback' by
Christopher Simpson which can be read
at
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/BareFists_B_CS.html
and
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Pipelines_B_CS.html
(4) For more on U.S. support for Nazi
butchers after World War II, see the
book, "Blowback: America's Nazis and
Its Effect on the Cold War" by
Christopher Simpson, April 1988. You
can find it on Amazon.com For more on
the Nazi-like state re-created in
Croatia during the early 19900s, see
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/backin.htm#a
(5) Washington was a key force in
creating the Albanian secessionist movement
in Kosovo. The evidence is there, every
step of the way. We will soon post an
article, 'Dole Does Kosovo', which
documents Washington's open attempt to
foster secessionism in Kosovo in 1990.
Eight years later, Washington used the
cover of the Kosovo Verification
Mission to import intelligence operatives
and military experts to (attempt to)
train the Kosovo Liberation Army so it
could function as a modern Army. See:
* 'The Cat is Out of the Bag' by Jared Israel at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/ciaaided.htm
and
* 'Why Albanians Fled Kosovo During
NATO Bombing' at
http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/keys.htm
This interview includes information
unavailable elsewhere. It is well worth
reading if you want to understand just
how sophisticated and ruthless 'poor,
mistake-prone' Washington really is.
(6) For more on General Gehlen, see
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/gehlen2-a.htm
(7) The assault on Yugoslavia has
occasioned perhaps the most extreme
examples of the Washington's foreign
policy doctrine, which might be
paraphrased as follows: "The lie is
mightier than the sword."
Case in point: the Kosovo Liberation Army.
The U.S. and Germany created this
terrorist group. It's strategy, as
described by the pro-NATO publication,
'Jane's Defense Weekly', was and
remains: to commit acts of terror in
order to provoke a government response
which can be misportrayed as ethnic
repression and thereby used to justify
NATO intervention.
In other words, the KLA is openly
terrorist. In addition it is openly racist
- it appeals to and encourages hatred
of Slavs (especially Serbs) and 'Gypsies.'
Here's the point: At a rally two years
ago, Senator Joe Lieberman described
this bunch of terrorist-Nazis as follows:
"[The] United States of America and the
Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the
same human values and principles ...
Fighting for the KLA is fighting for
human rights and American values."
('Washington Post,' April 28, 1999)
The lie is mightier than the sword.
For more on Senator Joe Lieberman, see
'SENATOR JOE LIEBERMAN - APOLOGIST FOR
THE FASCIST KLA' at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/garris/duringthe.htm
8) On Slobodan Miloshevich, see 'KLA
Attacks Everyone. Media
Attacks...Miloshevich?' Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/expan.htm
and "Statement of President Slobodan
Milosevic on The Illegitimacy of The
Hague 'Tribunal'" Can be read at
http://www.icdsm.org/more/aug30.htm
***
Join our email list at
http://emperors-clothes.com/f.htm.
Receive about one article/day.
Click here to email a link to this
article to a friend.
=======================================
Emperor's Clothes can use your help.
=======================================
You can donate using PayPal - at
https://www.paypal.com/xclick/
business=emperors1000@...&no_shipping=1
Or go to our secure server at
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Or Mail a check to Emperor's Clothes,
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This Website is mirrored at
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http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/gehlen2.htm
WORST KEPT SECRETS OF THE BUMBLING BEAR
- PART 2 (of 2)
(Note: Mr. Lee's article continues here)
UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCES
Members of the Gehlen Org were
instrumental in helping thousands of fascist
fugitives escape via "ratlines" to safe
havens abroad --often with a wink and
a nod from U.S. intelligence officers.
Third Reich expatriates and fascist
collaborators subsequently emerged as
"security advisors" in several Middle
Eastern and Latin American countries,
where ultra-right-wing death squads
persist as their enduring legacy. Klaus
Barbie, for example, assisted a
succession of military regimes in Bolivia,
where he taught soldiers torture
techniques and helped protect the
flourishing cocaine trade in the late
1970s and early '80s.
CIA officials eventually learned that
the Nazi old boy network nesting inside
the Gehlen Org had an unexpected twist
to it. By bankrolling Gehlen the CIA
unknowingly laid itself open to
manipulation by a foreign intelligence
service that was riddled with Soviet
spies. Gehlen's habit of employing
compromised ex-Nazis -- and the CIA's
willingness to sanction this practice
-- enabled the USSR to penetrate West
Germany's secret service by
blackmailing numerous agents.
...Slow to recognize that their Nazi
hired guns would feign an allegiance to
the Western alliance as long as they
deemed it tactically advantageous, CIA
officials invested far too much in
Gehlen's spooky Nazi outfit. "It was a
horrendous mistake, morally,
politically, and also in very pragmatic
intelligence terms," says American
University professor Richard Breitman,
chairman of the IWG review panel.
More than just a bungled spy caper, the
Gehlen debacle should serve as a
cautionary tale at a time when
post-Cold War triumphalism and arrogant
unilateralism are rampant among U.S.
officials. If nothing else, it
underscores the need for the United
States to confront some of its own demons
now that unreconstructed Cold Warriors
are again riding top saddle in Washington.
*** (C) 'San Francisco Bay Guardian,'
Reprinted for Fair Use Only ***
FURTHER COMMENTS ABOUT THE 'GUARDIAN' ARTICLE
ONE: CONCERNING FALSE INFORMATION
Mr. Lee writes that General Gehlen
passed Washington false information about
a supposed Soviet buildup and adds that:
"Gehlen's disinformation strategy was
based on a simple premise: the colder
the Cold War got, the more political
space for Hitler's heirs to maneuver.
The Org could only flourish under Cold
War conditions; as an institution it
was therefore committed to perpetuating
the Soviet-American conflict."
First, this is speculation presented as
fact. Who knows whether Gehlen
invented any particular piece of
misinformation, or whether someone in
the CIA instructed him to 'invent' it.
Second, so what if CIA Nazis sometimes
made false reports to heighten
tensions or make themselves look good.
That sort of thing is always possible
in intelligence organizations. (Graham
Greene's wonderful novel, 'Our Man in
Havana,' is about a British intelligence
'asset' in Cuba who manufactures an entire
spy network to keep himself employed.)
Indeed, the CIA is itself famous for
telling tall tales about the misdeeds of
those resisting U.S. domination. Such
statements help create a provocative
atmosphere in which aggressive policies
seem justified.
The question is not whether the Nazis
sometimes misled Washington, or whether
Soviet intelligence could sometimes use
the Nazis against Washington. The
question is: what were and are
Washington's plans?
Did Washington want to crush the Soviet
Union and install puppet governments
throughout Eastern Europe and the
Balkans? Does Washington now wish to turn
the Balkans into a safe rear while it
moves NATO bases up to Russian borders
in order to facilitate 'low intensity
war' against Russia? I would argue that
the answer to both questions is: yes.
The Nazi apparatus was and remains
useful in carrying out these strategies.
TWO: HOW MUCH 'INVESTMENT IN NAZISM' IS TOO MUCH?
OR: HOW MUCH IS JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT?
Mr. Lee writes:
"Slow to recognize that their Nazi
hired guns would feign an allegiance to
the Western alliance as long as they
deemed it tactically advantageous, CIA
officials invested far too much in
Gehlen's spooky Nazi outfit. 'It was a
horrendous mistake, morally,
politically, and also in very pragmatic
intelligence terms,' says American
University professor Richard Breitman,
chairman of the IWG review panel."
'Feign allegiance'? What evidence is
there that the Nazis were feigning? The
problem is Mr. Lee is proceeding from
his assumption that Washington made a
mistake in recruiting the Nazis. This
assumption is wrong; that is, it is
plainly contradicted by the evidence he
presents. Like many people, he finds
it awkward to change his assumptions;
so instead he offers, by way of
compromise, this notion that the Nazis
were insincere. (Am I alone in finding
that the mind boggles at the notion of
the insincere Nazi?)
And what if these Nazis did sometimes
feign loyalty? Many employees 'feign
allegiance.' The question the employer
asks is: are they getting the job done.
Says Mr. Lee, "CIA officials invested
far too much in Gehlen's spooky Nazi
outfit." Earlier he refers to the
"Gehlen gambit." And elsewhere he comments
that this was "more than a bungled spy caper"!
This language suggests that that Mr.
Lee, like so many Americans, does not
fully grasp what is involved here. The
'people' whom Allen Dulles and Co.
rescued and recruited into the CIA were
not spooky. This was not simply 'more
than a bungled spy caper.'
These unimaginably vicious thugs were
rescued to do a job.
Therefore the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency had at the core of its field
staff, from the time of its creation,
mass murderers. They were used all over
the world to do what they had done
during World War II.
What had they done during World War II?
What skills did they bring to the CIA?
Let us consider the Croatian Ustashe.
These henchmen of a clerical-fascist
regime (the term "clerical" is used to
describe the Ustashe because the
Catholic clergy controlled this fascist
movement) carried out the slaughter
of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews
and 'Gypsies.'
"The Ustasa regime in Croatia and
particularly this drive... to exterminate
and dispossess the Serbs, was one of
the most horrendous episodes of World
War II. The murder methods applied by
Ustasha were extraordinarily primitive
and sadistic: thousands were hurled
from mountain tops, others were beaten to
death or had their throats cut, entire
villages were burned down, women
raped, people sent on death marches in
the middle of winter, and still others
starved to death..." ('Encyclopedia of
the Holocaust,' Macmillan Publishing
Company, 1995)
Members of the Ustashe were among those
whom U.S. intelligence 'rescued' and
whose ranks swelled the CIA and other
U.S. covert and semi-covert organizations.
THREE: WAS THE NAZI-CIA MARRIAGE A
'HORRENDOUS MISTAKE'?
Mr. Lee quotes IWG panel member
Professor Richard Breitman to the effect
that the CIA-NAZI marriage was a:
"horrendous mistake, morally,
politically, and also in very pragmatic
intelligence terms."
What does it mean for Professor
Breitman to describe as a mistake something
that was elaborately planned? The
recruitment of Nazi's required the movement
of thousands of war criminals, setting
them up with new identities and
financing them for half a century at a
cumulative cost of billions of
dollars. In the late 1980s and early
1990s they were dispatched with their
children to install fascist regimes in
power in Croatia and Bosnia; these
regimes were universally - and
amazingly - described in the Western
media and by Western leaders as 'democratic'.
Repatriated Nazis were used to install
a government in Lithuania that honors
pro-Nazi Lithuanians who during World
War II massacred local Jews, Orthodox
Christians and Bolsheviks.
By what standard can all of this be
described as a 'mistake'? Was it a
misake because it didn't work?
But it did work.
Or perhaps Breitman and Lee think it
was a mistake because it was evil?
But what makes an evil policy a mistake?
Professor Breitman is using sloppy
reasoning in order, one suspects, to
achieve a political effect. By labeling
the Nazi-CIA marriage, with its
'ratlines' and 'captive nations', a
mistake, he lets Washington off the hook.
"This was counter-productive," he tells
us and we think, "Well, if it was
counter productive then in a sense
Washington as suffered a fool's
punishment."
But in fact the U.S. Establishment
never paid a price for the monstrous crime
of saving the Nazis and then unleashing
them, once again, on the world.
Quite the contrary. It gained mightily
from the ruthless use of Nazi
monsters. It gained a ready-made
apparatus in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
It gained the use of an army of covert
operatives ready to carry out any
crime any place in the world.
Among other things, this apparatus
helped destroy the Soviet Union, which had
been a major obstacle to the U.S. drive
for world domination.
FOUR: IF NOTHING ELSE...
The author concludes with the following
comment:
"If nothing else, it [that is, the
revelations about CIA-Nazi ties]
underscores the need for the United
States to confront some of its own demons
now that unreconstructed Cold Warriors
are again riding top saddle in Washington."
First, why should "nothing else" be
done? Why does Washington have the
right to set up War Crimes Tribunals to
punish people (for instance, Serbian
leaders like Milosevic) whose only
crime is that they resisted Washington,
but when it comes to Washington's own
very real war crimes - such as rescuing
and unleashing these Nazi monsters -
"confronting some of its own demons" is
sufficient? (8)
And second, what about this "now that
unreconstructed Cold Warriors are again
riding top saddle in Washington"?
"Again"?
If by "Cold Warriors" Mr. Lee means
advocates of empire, then pray tell, when
did they leave the saddle? Does Mr. Lee
mean that William Clinton was not an
Imperial warrior, but Mr. Bush is?
For all or part of its eight years in
office, the Clinton administration
waged unrelenting proxy military wars
against the people of Yugoslavia, the
former Soviet Union, Colombia, Congo,
Rwanda, waged a war of sanctions
against 70 countries, routinely bombed
Iraq while starving its children, and
so on. It continued to employ 'captive
nations' Nazis in Yugoslavia and
Eastern Europe. It greatly developed
the use of the National Endowment for
'Democracy', USAID and other government
and semi-private agencies and NGOs to
create a Fifth Column apparatus in
countries around the world.
To be sure, the Bush administration is
continuing these efforts. But the
notion that Bush's foreign policy
represents some sea change from Clinton's
foreign policy is without foundation in
fact.
-- J.I. 21 May 2001
************************
FURTHER READING:
************************
(1) Concerning Allen Dulles and the
Nazis, see: "Nazis in the Attic." The
article is broken into 6 parts. Parts 3
and 5 deal specifically with Mr.
Dulles. The article begins at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/randy/swas1.htm
The sections that deal specifically
with Allen Dulles are part 3, at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/randy/swas3.htm
and part 5 at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/randy/swas4.htm#5
Part 5 also deals with involvement of
the Bush family, since the 1920s, in
helping the Nazis.
(2) For a brief introduction to the
ratlines see 'The Vatican, Croatia and
the Nazi Gold' by Seán Mac Mathúna at
http://www.flamemag.dircon.co.uk/the_vatican.htm
(3) See excerpts from 'Blowback' by
Christopher Simpson which can be read
at
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/BareFists_B_CS.html
and
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Pipelines_B_CS.html
(4) For more on U.S. support for Nazi
butchers after World War II, see the
book, "Blowback: America's Nazis and
Its Effect on the Cold War" by
Christopher Simpson, April 1988. You
can find it on Amazon.com For more on
the Nazi-like state re-created in
Croatia during the early 19900s, see
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/backin.htm#a
(5) Washington was a key force in
creating the Albanian secessionist movement
in Kosovo. The evidence is there, every
step of the way. We will soon post an
article, 'Dole Does Kosovo', which
documents Washington's open attempt to
foster secessionism in Kosovo in 1990.
Eight years later, Washington used the
cover of the Kosovo Verification
Mission to import intelligence operatives
and military experts to (attempt to)
train the Kosovo Liberation Army so it
could function as a modern Army. See:
* 'The Cat is Out of the Bag' by Jared Israel at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/ciaaided.htm
and
* 'Why Albanians Fled Kosovo During
NATO Bombing' at
http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/keys.htm
This interview includes information
unavailable elsewhere. It is well worth
reading if you want to understand just
how sophisticated and ruthless 'poor,
mistake-prone' Washington really is.
(6) For more on General Gehlen, see
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/gehlen2-a.htm
(7) The assault on Yugoslavia has
occasioned perhaps the most extreme
examples of the Washington's foreign
policy doctrine, which might be
paraphrased as follows: "The lie is
mightier than the sword."
Case in point: the Kosovo Liberation Army.
The U.S. and Germany created this
terrorist group. It's strategy, as
described by the pro-NATO publication,
'Jane's Defense Weekly', was and
remains: to commit acts of terror in
order to provoke a government response
which can be misportrayed as ethnic
repression and thereby used to justify
NATO intervention.
In other words, the KLA is openly
terrorist. In addition it is openly racist
- it appeals to and encourages hatred
of Slavs (especially Serbs) and 'Gypsies.'
Here's the point: At a rally two years
ago, Senator Joe Lieberman described
this bunch of terrorist-Nazis as follows:
"[The] United States of America and the
Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the
same human values and principles ...
Fighting for the KLA is fighting for
human rights and American values."
('Washington Post,' April 28, 1999)
The lie is mightier than the sword.
For more on Senator Joe Lieberman, see
'SENATOR JOE LIEBERMAN - APOLOGIST FOR
THE FASCIST KLA' at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/garris/duringthe.htm
8) On Slobodan Miloshevich, see 'KLA
Attacks Everyone. Media
Attacks...Miloshevich?' Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/expan.htm
and "Statement of President Slobodan
Milosevic on The Illegitimacy of The
Hague 'Tribunal'" Can be read at
http://www.icdsm.org/more/aug30.htm
***
Join our email list at
http://emperors-clothes.com/f.htm.
Receive about one article/day.
Click here to email a link to this
article to a friend.
=======================================
Emperor's Clothes can use your help.
=======================================
You can donate using PayPal - at
https://www.paypal.com/xclick/
business=emperors1000@...&no_shipping=1
Or go to our secure server at
http://emperors-clothes.com/howyour.html#donate
Or Mail a check to Emperor's Clothes,
P.O. Box 610-321, Newton, MA 02461-0321. (USA)
Or call the donation line, (U.S.) 617 916-1705.
www.tenc.net * [Emperor's Clothes]
This Website is mirrored at
http://emperor.vwh.net/ and at
http://globalresistance.com
"CI AVETE DATO PIU' SODDISFAZIONI DI TUTTI,
MA PERCHE' VOI PARTIVATE DA ZERO"
La Banca Europea per la Ricostruzione e lo Sviluppo (BERS) si dice
estremamente soddisfatta dei ritmi impressi alla ristrutturazione
del sistema economico della RF di Jugoslavia. I risultati raggiunti
nel 2001 sarebbero migliori di quelli di tutti gli altri ventisette
paesi dell'Europa centro-orientale, analogamente impegnati nelle
"riforme strutturali": privatizzazioni e liquidazioni, sfascio dello
stato sociale, attacchi ai diritti dei lavoratori, presa di controllo
dell'economia da parte dei monopolisti stranieri.
Il responsabile di Belgrado della BERS, Henry Russel, ha pero' precisato
che c'e' ancora molto da fare nel settore bancario, e che i progressi di
quest'anno nella RF di Jugoslavia "sono stati dovuti anche al fatto che
la sua posizione di partenza era piuttosto bassa". (I. Slavo)
EBRD SATISFIED WITH TEMPO OF TRANSITION IN YUGOSLAVIA
BELGRADE, Dec. 6 (Beta) - The head of the Belgrade office of the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Henry Russell,
said on Dec. 6 that great progress has been made in the process of
transition in Yugoslavia, but added that there was much more to be done,
primarily in restructuring the banking sector.
At a presentation of the bank's publication named The Report on
Transition in 2001, Russell said the report on 27 member countries for
the first time this year included Yugoslavia and that the beginning of
reforms in the country was assessed as positive.
"This year Yugoslavia made the biggest progress of all countries in
transition, but this was also due to the fact that its starting position
was rather low," Russell said.
EBRD SAYS YUGOSLAVIA MOST SUCCESSFUL OF 27 EAST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES
BELGRADE, Dec 6 (Tanjug) - European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (EBRD) analyst Peter Sanfy said on Thursday that according
to the success of reforms carried out in the process of transition in
2001, Yugoslavia ranked first among the 27 eastern European countries.
Presenting EBRD's report on transition in 2001 at the Belgrade Hyatt
Hotel, Sanfy said that on the scale from 1 to 4, Yugoslavia was marked 3
for the processes of privatization, liberalisation of prices and foreign
trade, but that it received mark 1 for the restructuring of the economic
and banking sectors.
Sanfy said that next year Yugoslavia's reforms should focus on the
structural adjustment of the economy and that the EBRD would assist in
this process.
The GNP growth will remain five percent, like this year, and the
inflation rate will be somewhat below 20 percent, he said and added that
the inflation rate was expected to range between 40 and 45 percent by
the end of 2001.
Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus said that the Yugoslav
government had not known about the EBRD report and voiced satisfaction
with the achieved results in the Yugoslav economy's transition.
Yugoslav National Bank Governor Mladjan Dinkic voiced satisfaction with
the high mark for the stability of the dinar and liberalisation of
prices and promised that the Central Bank would improve the mark for the
restructuring of the banking sector, i.e. complete this task in the
first quarter of 2002.
MA PERCHE' VOI PARTIVATE DA ZERO"
La Banca Europea per la Ricostruzione e lo Sviluppo (BERS) si dice
estremamente soddisfatta dei ritmi impressi alla ristrutturazione
del sistema economico della RF di Jugoslavia. I risultati raggiunti
nel 2001 sarebbero migliori di quelli di tutti gli altri ventisette
paesi dell'Europa centro-orientale, analogamente impegnati nelle
"riforme strutturali": privatizzazioni e liquidazioni, sfascio dello
stato sociale, attacchi ai diritti dei lavoratori, presa di controllo
dell'economia da parte dei monopolisti stranieri.
Il responsabile di Belgrado della BERS, Henry Russel, ha pero' precisato
che c'e' ancora molto da fare nel settore bancario, e che i progressi di
quest'anno nella RF di Jugoslavia "sono stati dovuti anche al fatto che
la sua posizione di partenza era piuttosto bassa". (I. Slavo)
EBRD SATISFIED WITH TEMPO OF TRANSITION IN YUGOSLAVIA
BELGRADE, Dec. 6 (Beta) - The head of the Belgrade office of the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Henry Russell,
said on Dec. 6 that great progress has been made in the process of
transition in Yugoslavia, but added that there was much more to be done,
primarily in restructuring the banking sector.
At a presentation of the bank's publication named The Report on
Transition in 2001, Russell said the report on 27 member countries for
the first time this year included Yugoslavia and that the beginning of
reforms in the country was assessed as positive.
"This year Yugoslavia made the biggest progress of all countries in
transition, but this was also due to the fact that its starting position
was rather low," Russell said.
EBRD SAYS YUGOSLAVIA MOST SUCCESSFUL OF 27 EAST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES
BELGRADE, Dec 6 (Tanjug) - European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (EBRD) analyst Peter Sanfy said on Thursday that according
to the success of reforms carried out in the process of transition in
2001, Yugoslavia ranked first among the 27 eastern European countries.
Presenting EBRD's report on transition in 2001 at the Belgrade Hyatt
Hotel, Sanfy said that on the scale from 1 to 4, Yugoslavia was marked 3
for the processes of privatization, liberalisation of prices and foreign
trade, but that it received mark 1 for the restructuring of the economic
and banking sectors.
Sanfy said that next year Yugoslavia's reforms should focus on the
structural adjustment of the economy and that the EBRD would assist in
this process.
The GNP growth will remain five percent, like this year, and the
inflation rate will be somewhat below 20 percent, he said and added that
the inflation rate was expected to range between 40 and 45 percent by
the end of 2001.
Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus said that the Yugoslav
government had not known about the EBRD report and voiced satisfaction
with the achieved results in the Yugoslav economy's transition.
Yugoslav National Bank Governor Mladjan Dinkic voiced satisfaction with
the high mark for the stability of the dinar and liberalisation of
prices and promised that the Central Bank would improve the mark for the
restructuring of the banking sector, i.e. complete this task in the
first quarter of 2002.
IL PRIGIONIERO DELL'AIA COME IN UN VIDEOGAME!
Un'opportunita' unica per visitare la sala delle udienze
del Tribunale dell'Aia e per fare un tour guidato attraverso
l'evidenza dei crimini commessi durante la guerra nella
ex Jugoslavia: Srebrenica, Vukovar, Kosovo...
La prova della pulizia etnica e, perche' no, anche del genocidio.
Basta cliccare qui:
> http://www.angelfire.com/stars3/aaart/art/tribunal.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrej Tisma"
To: "ANTINATO" <ANTINATO@...>
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 3:03 AM
Subject: Check The Hague Prisoner! [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
> HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
> ---------------------------
>
> CHECK THE HAGUE PRISONER
> IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
> You have a unique opportunity to visit the
> Hague Tribunal court room and have an illustrated tour
> through evidences of war crimes that happened during the
> war in the former Yugoslavia: Srebrenica, Vukovar, Kosovo...
> See the proof of ethnical cleansing, massacres
> and even genocide.
> We hope this web site will contribute to the final
> vedrdict against the proven war criminals.
>
> Just click here, go there and check the prisoner!
> http://www.angelfire.com/stars3/aaart/art/tribunal.htm
Un'opportunita' unica per visitare la sala delle udienze
del Tribunale dell'Aia e per fare un tour guidato attraverso
l'evidenza dei crimini commessi durante la guerra nella
ex Jugoslavia: Srebrenica, Vukovar, Kosovo...
La prova della pulizia etnica e, perche' no, anche del genocidio.
Basta cliccare qui:
> http://www.angelfire.com/stars3/aaart/art/tribunal.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrej Tisma"
To: "ANTINATO" <ANTINATO@...>
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 3:03 AM
Subject: Check The Hague Prisoner! [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
> HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
> ---------------------------
>
> CHECK THE HAGUE PRISONER
> IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
> You have a unique opportunity to visit the
> Hague Tribunal court room and have an illustrated tour
> through evidences of war crimes that happened during the
> war in the former Yugoslavia: Srebrenica, Vukovar, Kosovo...
> See the proof of ethnical cleansing, massacres
> and even genocide.
> We hope this web site will contribute to the final
> vedrdict against the proven war criminals.
>
> Just click here, go there and check the prisoner!
> http://www.angelfire.com/stars3/aaart/art/tribunal.htm
> http://globalresearch.ca/articles/PAS111A.html
U.S. Protects Al-Qaeda Terrorists in Kosovo
by Umberto Pascali
The Executive Intelligence Review, 2 November 2001
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Montréal, 21 November 2001
While the United States is relentlessly bombing
Afghanistan with the official aim of getting Osama
bin Laden, one of bin Laden's top collaborators is
running a terrorist training camp in an area of
Kosovo that is under U.S. control.
The shocking revelation has been confirmed by
multiple sources: Macedonian intelligence agencies, as
reported by several Macedonian media, including
the leading daily Dnevnik; Russian press agencies,
including Novosti and ItarTass; and the London Independent.
This intelligence coheres with Lyndon LaRouche's
assessment of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United
States, as a strategic covert operation by an enemy
within the U.S. and "allied" security services, for
geopolitical purposes.
The Russian media quoted, as the source of their
detailed revelation, the Russian troops stationed not far
from the reported terrorist training camp. This is in
itself exceptional, in the sense that there is hardly a
precedent of the Russian military in Kosovo reporting
events of such gravity to the leading news agencies.
These revelations, and the clear position
taken by Macedonian intelligence in confirming and expanding
them, are now reopening the explosive question of
the protection and sponsorship granted to the
narco-terrorists by Anglo-American agencies.
But this is only a small part of the new strategic
geometry opened up by the revelations. The red-hot
political point concerns the very basis for the
"war against terrorism" launched after the war-like attacks
of Sept. 11, and the immediate concentration on
bin Laden and Afghanistan as the perpetrators of those
attacks-and the threatened extension of the "infinite
war" to Syria, Iraq, and so on. If the
Anglo-Americans are at "war" with bin Laden's
terrorism, why are bin Laden operatives active in Kosovo
in an area totally controlled by NATO? Furthermore,
in the U.S. zone in Kosovo? Investigations on the bin
Laden connection into the Balkans and Kosovo could,
according to experts, lead to even more explosive
truths in a very short period of time.
Keep The Clash Going On Oct. 16 Novosti reported: "A
training camp of Albanian militants functions near
the village of Ropotovo, close to Kosovska Kamenica,
in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, which is
controlled by the American force, sources from the
Russian peacekeeping force in Kosovo reported on
[Oct. 16]. According to [the sources], the camp is
now training 50 Afghan and Algerian mujahideen, led by
Zaiman Zawahiri. He is reportedly the brother of
one of the closest associates of international terrorist
Osama bin Laden. This camp prepares militants for
terrorist formations in Kosovo and Macedonia. Their
'instructors' are former [ethnic] Albanian officers
who, in 1991-92, deserted from the Yugoslav Army."
The Independent reported on Oct. 21 that Interpol
has linked bin Laden to Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
crime gangs, and that he "supplied one of his top
military commanders for an elite KLA unit" in Kosovo.
That was only the beginning. The target of the terrorist
gangs' deployment into Macedonia: to prevent, by
violence, the return of Macedonian refugees into the
villages "cleansed" by the KLA during this year; and
to take over the water reserve on which the Macedonian
capital, Skopje, depends.
Beyond that, these extremists are out to re-ignite
the ethnic "Clash of Civilizations" in the Balkans, to
crush the escalating resistance of Macedonia-which
has been actively playing the LaRouche card in
response to its national crisis (see EIR, Oct. 19)-and
to continue the march of destruction, possibly
triggering in the near future, an ethnic upheaval
in Greece or Bulgaria.
The fact that such an operation is taking place in
the middle of the "war on the Taliban and al-Qaeda"-the
fact that NATO's Lord George Robertson, U.S. Ambassador
James Pardew, and the European Union's
Javier Solana insist, to this very day, that Macedonia
has to surrender to the KLA ultimata, including the
subversion of the Macedonian Constitution, opens up a
dramatic contradiction. That contradiction throws
light on the virtual reality the world has been
propelled into after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Who Runs Al-Zawahiri? The Macedonian daily Dnevnik
reported on Oct. 19 that the group led by the
brother of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the closest
associate of bin Laden, had crossed the border from
Kosovo into Macedonia. Quoting intelligence sources,
Dnevnik wrote: "The younger brother of the chief of
the Balkan headquarters of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
with around 50 mujahideen, has entered
Macedonia and has started building fortifications
in the Skopska Crna Gora region. The aim of the terrorist
group is to attack the water supply" for Skopje.
The newspaper reported that the gang had been
stationed earlier in the training camp near the village of
Ropotovo, Kosovo-as Novosti also reported-and received
orders to enter the Macedonian town of
Matejce. On Oct. 16, a convoy of refugees, who were
previously expelled by the KLA, were supposed to
visit their destroyed houses. However, the observers
from the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe entered the village first, and reported
that at least 50 armed men had communicated they were
going to fire on the convoy if they dared to enter
Matejce. The OSCE order to the heartbroken refugees
was: Go back, we cannot guarantee your security!
But who is Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, whose brother
Zaiman is running terrorist camps under NATO
protection in the U.S. zone in Kosovo? As the London
Guardian wrote recently, "Even to say he is bin
Laden's right-hand man may understate his importance."
He is considered by many to be the real head of
what is known as the bin Laden group. "Some analysts
believe that in his current role in Afghanistan,
al-Zawahiri has taken over control of much of bin
Laden's terrorist finances, operations, plans, and
resources," wrote the Guardian. His known terrorist
career started no later than 1981, with his
involvement in the assassination of Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat; it includes the massacre of 70
people on a tourist bus in 1997 Luxor, Egypt, and
the assassination attempt against Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak in 1995.
Strangely enough, according to an expert who
testified before a U.S. Congressional committee in January
2000, al-Zawahiri was granted U.S. residence by the
Immigration and Naturalization Service-something
almost impossible for many legitimate immigrants
to obtain. Should we be surprised that one of the
centers of operation for al-Zawahiri was London,
where one of his closest relatives resided? President
Mubarak is believed to have referred to him when,
after the Luxor massacre, he stated: "There are people
who carried out crimes and who were sentenced [in Egypt]
and live on British soil."
The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/PAS111A.html
Copyright, Executive The News, 2001. For fair use only.
U.S. Protects Al-Qaeda Terrorists in Kosovo
by Umberto Pascali
The Executive Intelligence Review, 2 November 2001
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Montréal, 21 November 2001
While the United States is relentlessly bombing
Afghanistan with the official aim of getting Osama
bin Laden, one of bin Laden's top collaborators is
running a terrorist training camp in an area of
Kosovo that is under U.S. control.
The shocking revelation has been confirmed by
multiple sources: Macedonian intelligence agencies, as
reported by several Macedonian media, including
the leading daily Dnevnik; Russian press agencies,
including Novosti and ItarTass; and the London Independent.
This intelligence coheres with Lyndon LaRouche's
assessment of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United
States, as a strategic covert operation by an enemy
within the U.S. and "allied" security services, for
geopolitical purposes.
The Russian media quoted, as the source of their
detailed revelation, the Russian troops stationed not far
from the reported terrorist training camp. This is in
itself exceptional, in the sense that there is hardly a
precedent of the Russian military in Kosovo reporting
events of such gravity to the leading news agencies.
These revelations, and the clear position
taken by Macedonian intelligence in confirming and expanding
them, are now reopening the explosive question of
the protection and sponsorship granted to the
narco-terrorists by Anglo-American agencies.
But this is only a small part of the new strategic
geometry opened up by the revelations. The red-hot
political point concerns the very basis for the
"war against terrorism" launched after the war-like attacks
of Sept. 11, and the immediate concentration on
bin Laden and Afghanistan as the perpetrators of those
attacks-and the threatened extension of the "infinite
war" to Syria, Iraq, and so on. If the
Anglo-Americans are at "war" with bin Laden's
terrorism, why are bin Laden operatives active in Kosovo
in an area totally controlled by NATO? Furthermore,
in the U.S. zone in Kosovo? Investigations on the bin
Laden connection into the Balkans and Kosovo could,
according to experts, lead to even more explosive
truths in a very short period of time.
Keep The Clash Going On Oct. 16 Novosti reported: "A
training camp of Albanian militants functions near
the village of Ropotovo, close to Kosovska Kamenica,
in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, which is
controlled by the American force, sources from the
Russian peacekeeping force in Kosovo reported on
[Oct. 16]. According to [the sources], the camp is
now training 50 Afghan and Algerian mujahideen, led by
Zaiman Zawahiri. He is reportedly the brother of
one of the closest associates of international terrorist
Osama bin Laden. This camp prepares militants for
terrorist formations in Kosovo and Macedonia. Their
'instructors' are former [ethnic] Albanian officers
who, in 1991-92, deserted from the Yugoslav Army."
The Independent reported on Oct. 21 that Interpol
has linked bin Laden to Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
crime gangs, and that he "supplied one of his top
military commanders for an elite KLA unit" in Kosovo.
That was only the beginning. The target of the terrorist
gangs' deployment into Macedonia: to prevent, by
violence, the return of Macedonian refugees into the
villages "cleansed" by the KLA during this year; and
to take over the water reserve on which the Macedonian
capital, Skopje, depends.
Beyond that, these extremists are out to re-ignite
the ethnic "Clash of Civilizations" in the Balkans, to
crush the escalating resistance of Macedonia-which
has been actively playing the LaRouche card in
response to its national crisis (see EIR, Oct. 19)-and
to continue the march of destruction, possibly
triggering in the near future, an ethnic upheaval
in Greece or Bulgaria.
The fact that such an operation is taking place in
the middle of the "war on the Taliban and al-Qaeda"-the
fact that NATO's Lord George Robertson, U.S. Ambassador
James Pardew, and the European Union's
Javier Solana insist, to this very day, that Macedonia
has to surrender to the KLA ultimata, including the
subversion of the Macedonian Constitution, opens up a
dramatic contradiction. That contradiction throws
light on the virtual reality the world has been
propelled into after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Who Runs Al-Zawahiri? The Macedonian daily Dnevnik
reported on Oct. 19 that the group led by the
brother of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the closest
associate of bin Laden, had crossed the border from
Kosovo into Macedonia. Quoting intelligence sources,
Dnevnik wrote: "The younger brother of the chief of
the Balkan headquarters of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
with around 50 mujahideen, has entered
Macedonia and has started building fortifications
in the Skopska Crna Gora region. The aim of the terrorist
group is to attack the water supply" for Skopje.
The newspaper reported that the gang had been
stationed earlier in the training camp near the village of
Ropotovo, Kosovo-as Novosti also reported-and received
orders to enter the Macedonian town of
Matejce. On Oct. 16, a convoy of refugees, who were
previously expelled by the KLA, were supposed to
visit their destroyed houses. However, the observers
from the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe entered the village first, and reported
that at least 50 armed men had communicated they were
going to fire on the convoy if they dared to enter
Matejce. The OSCE order to the heartbroken refugees
was: Go back, we cannot guarantee your security!
But who is Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, whose brother
Zaiman is running terrorist camps under NATO
protection in the U.S. zone in Kosovo? As the London
Guardian wrote recently, "Even to say he is bin
Laden's right-hand man may understate his importance."
He is considered by many to be the real head of
what is known as the bin Laden group. "Some analysts
believe that in his current role in Afghanistan,
al-Zawahiri has taken over control of much of bin
Laden's terrorist finances, operations, plans, and
resources," wrote the Guardian. His known terrorist
career started no later than 1981, with his
involvement in the assassination of Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat; it includes the massacre of 70
people on a tourist bus in 1997 Luxor, Egypt, and
the assassination attempt against Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak in 1995.
Strangely enough, according to an expert who
testified before a U.S. Congressional committee in January
2000, al-Zawahiri was granted U.S. residence by the
Immigration and Naturalization Service-something
almost impossible for many legitimate immigrants
to obtain. Should we be surprised that one of the
centers of operation for al-Zawahiri was London,
where one of his closest relatives resided? President
Mubarak is believed to have referred to him when,
after the Luxor massacre, he stated: "There are people
who carried out crimes and who were sentenced [in Egypt]
and live on British soil."
The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/PAS111A.html
Copyright, Executive The News, 2001. For fair use only.
RETROSPETTIVE
1989: GLI EMENDAMENTI ALLA COSTITUZIONE DELLA REPUBBLICA
SOCIALISTA DI SLOVENIA, PROPOSTI E BOCCIATI, RAGGELANO IL
CLIMA ESISTENTE TRA LE REPUBBLICHE JUGOSLAVE FEDERATE
(la traduzione italiana in fondo)
Tratto da "Vjesnik", Zagabria, 28.9.89
NE UGROZAVAJU FEDERACIJU.
Skupstina SR Slovenije: U uvodnoj rijeci
predsjedik Ustavne komisije Slovenije
Miran Potrc o spornim amandmanima
i preporuci Saveznog vijeca Skupstine SFRJ.
INTEGRALAN TEKST SEST SPORNIH AMNDMANA
Sest amandmana na Slovenski ustav koji su u Sloveniji i
Jugoslaviji izazvali najvece polemike i osporavanja.
Amandman X
Socijalisticka Republika Slovenija je u sastavu Socijalisticke
Federativne Republike Jugoslavije na temelju trajnog, cjelovitog i
neotudjivog prava slovenskog naroda na samoopredeljenje, koje
ukljucuje i pravo na otcepljenje i udruzivanje.
Amandman XI
U Socijalistickoj R. Sloveniji radni ljudi i gradjani slobodno
odlucuju o svom radu i rezultatima rada, te slobodno raspolazu
prirodnim bogatstvima i prirodnim izvorima u skladu sa svojim u
Ustavu odredjenim pravima i duznostima.
Amandman XLVI
Organi fedracije na teritoriju SR Slovenije u poslovanju s
pripadnicima drugih naroda i narodnosti uvazavaju ustavno pravo
ravnopravosti jezika naroda i narodnosti.
Ukoliko se radnjama i aktima organa federacije krse ustavni
polozaj i prava SRS, Skupstina SR Slovenije duzna je donijeti mjere u
skladu s amandmanom LXII.
Amandman XLII
Ukoliko organi federacije prihvate odluke u suprotnosti s
njihovim u Ustavu odredjenim nadleznostima i time posezu u ustavni
polozaj i prava SRS, Skupstina SRS duzna je donijeti odredjene mjere u
kojima ce osigurati cuvanje Ustavom odredjenog polozaja i prava SR
Slovenije.
Amandman LXIII
Skupstina SRS moze proglasiti izvanredne mjere na podrucju SRS ili
njezinom dijelu na prijedlog Predsjednistva SRS ukoliko iznimn opca
opasnost ugrozava opstanak SR Slovenije, odnosno njezino ustavno
uredjenje . Odluka je donijeta ukoliko su za nju glasale dvije trecine
prisutnih delegata svih vijeca Skupstine SRS.
Ukoliko se Skupstina SRS ne moze sastati, o tome odlucuje
Predsjednistvo SRS i svoju odluku predlaze Skupstini SRS na
potvrdu cim se ona moze sastati.
Na podrucju Slovenije ilio njezinom dijelu nitko ne smije bez
suglasnosti Skupstine SRS proglasiti izvanredne prilike i odrediti
bilo kakve mjere u vezi s njima. U slucaju kada je takva odluka
predlozena Skupstini SFRJ odnosno Predsjednistvu SFRJ, delegati,
odnosno clan tog organa iz SR Slovenije, duzni su o tome odmah
obavijestiti Skupstinu SRS i druge nadlezne organe SRS, te zahtijevati
odlaganje odlucivanja dok Skupstina SRS o spornom pitanju zauzme stav.
Bez njezine suglasnosti ne mogu glasati za odluku. U oizvanrednim
prilikama mogu Skupstina SRS, ili na osnovi njezinog ovlastenja
Predsjednistvo SRS odrediti izvanredne mjere kojima se mogu privremeno
ograniciti pojedina ustavna prava i slobode.
Kakve mjere se u izvanrednom prilikama mogu odrediti, regulira Zakon.
Skupstina SRS moze opozvati clana Predsjednistva SFRJ iz SRS ukoliko on
djeluje u suprotnosti s odredbama tog amandmana.
Amandman LXVI
Kod preuzimanja financijskih obaveza za ostvarivanje funkcija
federacije u okviru ustavno odredjenih zadataka saveznih organa i za
ispunjavanje zadataka za druge zajednicke potrebe federacije u skladu
sa zajednickom razvojnom politikom, odredjenom u Drustvenom planu
Jugoslavije, Supstina SRS uvazva materijalne mogucnosti republike i
potreba njeina razvoja.
Da "Vjesnik", Zagabria 28.9.1989
Il testo integrale dei 6 emendamenti contestati
Ecco i sei emendamenti alla Costituzione slovena che in Slovenia e
nella Jugoslavia hanno provocato grandi polemiche e contestazioni.
Emendamento X
La Repubblica Socialista di Slovenia fa parte della Repubblica
Socialista Federativa di Jugoslavia in base al permanente, completo e
inseparabile diritto del popolo sloveno all’autodeterminazione, che
comprende anche il diritto alla secessione ed alla associazione.
Emendamento XI
Nella RS di Slovenia i lavoratori ed i cittadini liberamente
decidono del proprio lavoro e dei risultati del lavoro, ed inoltre
usufruiscono liberamente delle ricchezze e delle risorse naturali in
relazione con i diritti e doveri inseriti nella propria Costituzione.
Emendamento XLVI
Gli organi federali sul territorio della RS di Slovenia competenti
per la gestione degli affari con gli appartenenti ad altre nazioni e
nazionalità [con "nazione" si intende uno dei "popoli costitutivi",
con "nazionalità" una delle altre minoranze, N.d.t.]
riconoscono il diritto costituzionale dell’uguaglianza della lingua
delle nazionalità.
Se con azioni ed atti degli organi federali si infrangono la
posizione costituzionale e i diritti della RS di Slovenia, l’Assemblea
della RS di Slovenia ha il dovere emanare sanzioni in base
all’emendamento LXII.
Emendamento XLII
Se gli organi della federazione assumono determinate competenze
in contrasto con quelle stabilite nella Costituzione e con ciò
intaccano la posizione e il diritto costituzionale della RSS,
l’Assemblea della RSS è obbligata ad emanare misure con le quali
assicurare la posizione e il diritto espresso nella Costituzione
della RSS.
Emendamento LXIII
L’Assemblea della RSS può emanare misure speciali sul territorio
della RSS o in una parte di esso su proposta della Presidenza della
RSS nel caso eccezionale di pericolo generale in cui venga messa a
repentaglio l’esistenza della RSS, cioè la sua Costituzione. La
decisione viene presa se viene votata con una maggioranza di 2/3
dei voti dei delegati presenti di tutti i consigli dell’Assemblea
della RS di Slovenia.
Nel caso in cui la riunione dell’Assemblea della RSS non possa aver
luogo, in merito può decidere la Presidenza della RSS, e la sua
decisione si sottopone alla valutazione dell’Assemblea della RSS non
appena questa si può radunare.
Nessuno puo' proclamare lo stato di emergenza sul territorio
della RS di Slovenia, o su parte di esso, ne' prendere decisioni
in conformita', senza il permesso dell’Assemblea della RSS.
Nel caso in cui una tale decisione venga proposta all’Assemblea
federale della RSF di Jugoslavia, oppure alla Presidenza della RSFJ,
i delegati, o il rappresentante sloveno in questo organo, devono
subito avvertire l’Assemblea della RSS e gli altri organi competenti
della Slovenia, chiedendo di rimandare la decisione fintantoché
l’Assemblea della RS di Slovenia non esprima la sua posizione.
Senza il suo accordo essi non possono votare la decisione.
In casi eccezionali, l’Assemblea della Slovenia, oppure, con il
consenso di questa, la Presidenza della Slovenia, possono emanare
decisioni speciali con le quali si possono limitare temporaneamente
alcuni diritti e libertà costituzionali.
Quali siano le misure che si possono prendere in tali casi
particolari, viene regolato dalla Legge. L’Assemblea della RSS può
revocare il suo membro dalla Presidenza collegiale federale, nel caso
in cui esso eserciti il suo ruolo in contrasto con le decisioni di
questo emendamento.
Emendamento LXVI
Nell’assumere oneri finanziari per la realizzazione delle funzioni
federali, nell’ambito dei compiti stabiliti dagli organi costituzionali
federali e per l’espletamento di altri compiti federativi,
necessari in relazione alla politica di sviluppo comune decisa dal
Piano comune jugoslavo, l’Assemblea della RSS tiene conto delle
possibilità materiali della repubblica e delle necessità del suo
sviluppo.
Traduzione a cura della Redazione di
"Voce Jugoslava" su Radio Citta' Aperta
1989: GLI EMENDAMENTI ALLA COSTITUZIONE DELLA REPUBBLICA
SOCIALISTA DI SLOVENIA, PROPOSTI E BOCCIATI, RAGGELANO IL
CLIMA ESISTENTE TRA LE REPUBBLICHE JUGOSLAVE FEDERATE
(la traduzione italiana in fondo)
Tratto da "Vjesnik", Zagabria, 28.9.89
NE UGROZAVAJU FEDERACIJU.
Skupstina SR Slovenije: U uvodnoj rijeci
predsjedik Ustavne komisije Slovenije
Miran Potrc o spornim amandmanima
i preporuci Saveznog vijeca Skupstine SFRJ.
INTEGRALAN TEKST SEST SPORNIH AMNDMANA
Sest amandmana na Slovenski ustav koji su u Sloveniji i
Jugoslaviji izazvali najvece polemike i osporavanja.
Amandman X
Socijalisticka Republika Slovenija je u sastavu Socijalisticke
Federativne Republike Jugoslavije na temelju trajnog, cjelovitog i
neotudjivog prava slovenskog naroda na samoopredeljenje, koje
ukljucuje i pravo na otcepljenje i udruzivanje.
Amandman XI
U Socijalistickoj R. Sloveniji radni ljudi i gradjani slobodno
odlucuju o svom radu i rezultatima rada, te slobodno raspolazu
prirodnim bogatstvima i prirodnim izvorima u skladu sa svojim u
Ustavu odredjenim pravima i duznostima.
Amandman XLVI
Organi fedracije na teritoriju SR Slovenije u poslovanju s
pripadnicima drugih naroda i narodnosti uvazavaju ustavno pravo
ravnopravosti jezika naroda i narodnosti.
Ukoliko se radnjama i aktima organa federacije krse ustavni
polozaj i prava SRS, Skupstina SR Slovenije duzna je donijeti mjere u
skladu s amandmanom LXII.
Amandman XLII
Ukoliko organi federacije prihvate odluke u suprotnosti s
njihovim u Ustavu odredjenim nadleznostima i time posezu u ustavni
polozaj i prava SRS, Skupstina SRS duzna je donijeti odredjene mjere u
kojima ce osigurati cuvanje Ustavom odredjenog polozaja i prava SR
Slovenije.
Amandman LXIII
Skupstina SRS moze proglasiti izvanredne mjere na podrucju SRS ili
njezinom dijelu na prijedlog Predsjednistva SRS ukoliko iznimn opca
opasnost ugrozava opstanak SR Slovenije, odnosno njezino ustavno
uredjenje . Odluka je donijeta ukoliko su za nju glasale dvije trecine
prisutnih delegata svih vijeca Skupstine SRS.
Ukoliko se Skupstina SRS ne moze sastati, o tome odlucuje
Predsjednistvo SRS i svoju odluku predlaze Skupstini SRS na
potvrdu cim se ona moze sastati.
Na podrucju Slovenije ilio njezinom dijelu nitko ne smije bez
suglasnosti Skupstine SRS proglasiti izvanredne prilike i odrediti
bilo kakve mjere u vezi s njima. U slucaju kada je takva odluka
predlozena Skupstini SFRJ odnosno Predsjednistvu SFRJ, delegati,
odnosno clan tog organa iz SR Slovenije, duzni su o tome odmah
obavijestiti Skupstinu SRS i druge nadlezne organe SRS, te zahtijevati
odlaganje odlucivanja dok Skupstina SRS o spornom pitanju zauzme stav.
Bez njezine suglasnosti ne mogu glasati za odluku. U oizvanrednim
prilikama mogu Skupstina SRS, ili na osnovi njezinog ovlastenja
Predsjednistvo SRS odrediti izvanredne mjere kojima se mogu privremeno
ograniciti pojedina ustavna prava i slobode.
Kakve mjere se u izvanrednom prilikama mogu odrediti, regulira Zakon.
Skupstina SRS moze opozvati clana Predsjednistva SFRJ iz SRS ukoliko on
djeluje u suprotnosti s odredbama tog amandmana.
Amandman LXVI
Kod preuzimanja financijskih obaveza za ostvarivanje funkcija
federacije u okviru ustavno odredjenih zadataka saveznih organa i za
ispunjavanje zadataka za druge zajednicke potrebe federacije u skladu
sa zajednickom razvojnom politikom, odredjenom u Drustvenom planu
Jugoslavije, Supstina SRS uvazva materijalne mogucnosti republike i
potreba njeina razvoja.
Da "Vjesnik", Zagabria 28.9.1989
Il testo integrale dei 6 emendamenti contestati
Ecco i sei emendamenti alla Costituzione slovena che in Slovenia e
nella Jugoslavia hanno provocato grandi polemiche e contestazioni.
Emendamento X
La Repubblica Socialista di Slovenia fa parte della Repubblica
Socialista Federativa di Jugoslavia in base al permanente, completo e
inseparabile diritto del popolo sloveno all’autodeterminazione, che
comprende anche il diritto alla secessione ed alla associazione.
Emendamento XI
Nella RS di Slovenia i lavoratori ed i cittadini liberamente
decidono del proprio lavoro e dei risultati del lavoro, ed inoltre
usufruiscono liberamente delle ricchezze e delle risorse naturali in
relazione con i diritti e doveri inseriti nella propria Costituzione.
Emendamento XLVI
Gli organi federali sul territorio della RS di Slovenia competenti
per la gestione degli affari con gli appartenenti ad altre nazioni e
nazionalità [con "nazione" si intende uno dei "popoli costitutivi",
con "nazionalità" una delle altre minoranze, N.d.t.]
riconoscono il diritto costituzionale dell’uguaglianza della lingua
delle nazionalità.
Se con azioni ed atti degli organi federali si infrangono la
posizione costituzionale e i diritti della RS di Slovenia, l’Assemblea
della RS di Slovenia ha il dovere emanare sanzioni in base
all’emendamento LXII.
Emendamento XLII
Se gli organi della federazione assumono determinate competenze
in contrasto con quelle stabilite nella Costituzione e con ciò
intaccano la posizione e il diritto costituzionale della RSS,
l’Assemblea della RSS è obbligata ad emanare misure con le quali
assicurare la posizione e il diritto espresso nella Costituzione
della RSS.
Emendamento LXIII
L’Assemblea della RSS può emanare misure speciali sul territorio
della RSS o in una parte di esso su proposta della Presidenza della
RSS nel caso eccezionale di pericolo generale in cui venga messa a
repentaglio l’esistenza della RSS, cioè la sua Costituzione. La
decisione viene presa se viene votata con una maggioranza di 2/3
dei voti dei delegati presenti di tutti i consigli dell’Assemblea
della RS di Slovenia.
Nel caso in cui la riunione dell’Assemblea della RSS non possa aver
luogo, in merito può decidere la Presidenza della RSS, e la sua
decisione si sottopone alla valutazione dell’Assemblea della RSS non
appena questa si può radunare.
Nessuno puo' proclamare lo stato di emergenza sul territorio
della RS di Slovenia, o su parte di esso, ne' prendere decisioni
in conformita', senza il permesso dell’Assemblea della RSS.
Nel caso in cui una tale decisione venga proposta all’Assemblea
federale della RSF di Jugoslavia, oppure alla Presidenza della RSFJ,
i delegati, o il rappresentante sloveno in questo organo, devono
subito avvertire l’Assemblea della RSS e gli altri organi competenti
della Slovenia, chiedendo di rimandare la decisione fintantoché
l’Assemblea della RS di Slovenia non esprima la sua posizione.
Senza il suo accordo essi non possono votare la decisione.
In casi eccezionali, l’Assemblea della Slovenia, oppure, con il
consenso di questa, la Presidenza della Slovenia, possono emanare
decisioni speciali con le quali si possono limitare temporaneamente
alcuni diritti e libertà costituzionali.
Quali siano le misure che si possono prendere in tali casi
particolari, viene regolato dalla Legge. L’Assemblea della RSS può
revocare il suo membro dalla Presidenza collegiale federale, nel caso
in cui esso eserciti il suo ruolo in contrasto con le decisioni di
questo emendamento.
Emendamento LXVI
Nell’assumere oneri finanziari per la realizzazione delle funzioni
federali, nell’ambito dei compiti stabiliti dagli organi costituzionali
federali e per l’espletamento di altri compiti federativi,
necessari in relazione alla politica di sviluppo comune decisa dal
Piano comune jugoslavo, l’Assemblea della RSS tiene conto delle
possibilità materiali della repubblica e delle necessità del suo
sviluppo.
Traduzione a cura della Redazione di
"Voce Jugoslava" su Radio Citta' Aperta
Sources: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK, ANTINATO@...
From: "Gregory Elich"
Subject: This is Peace? NATO's Balkan Occupation
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 20:43:42 -0500
International Action Center
39 W. 14 Street, #206
New York, NY 10011
(212) 633-6646
www.iacenter.org
TO CHALLENGE THE US/NATO OCCUPATION OF THE BALKANS,
THE TRUTH MUST BE KNOWN
Dear Friend,
We need your help. The outrageous demonization that
the wars of the past decade in the Balkans are the fault
of the Serbian people and their leaders must be answered.
Our second book on the decade of wars that dismembered
Yugoslavia is ready to go to the printers.
This well-researched and documented book,
'This is Peace? NATO's Balkan Occupation,' has involved
hundreds of hours of work by a dedicated staff of volunteers.
Now we are depending on your support.
Four years ago the International Action Center
published 'NATO in the Balkans.' That book proved to be a
powerful tool for informing the public about US war plans in
the Balkans. It went into three printings, was
translated into Serbian and Greek, and sections of it
appeared in publications in Italian, Spanish, Dutch, French,
German and Russian.
Our new book, 'This is Peace? NATO's Balkan Occupation,'
fills a great void. There is no truthful record published in
the US of NATO war crimes in the bombing of Yugoslavia.
No one has exposed the illegal kidnapping and
detention of President Slobodan Milosevic by the
US-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia
or the crime of NATO occupation of the entire region.
The truth needs to be told. The US/NATO attack on
Yugoslavia was truly the "foot in the door," as the late
Sean Gervasi pointed out in 'NATO in the Balkans.' It has
led to yet another US war, this time in Afghanistan. As
the United States military moves deeper into Central Asia,
once again keeping the truth about this new war from the
people of the United States, we must not forget the lies and
aggression in Yugoslavia.
Over 30 of the most courageous and articulate voices
opposing US/NATO war crimes during and after the bombing
of Yugoslavia have contributed to 'This is Peace?
NATO's Balkan Occupation.' This 360-page book details the
media campaign that hid the brutal destruction of
Yugoslavia in the 79-day NATO war. The 20-page photo section
clearly shows the civilian targets.
The historical record of the People's Tribunals held in
the United States and Europe charging NATO with war crimes
are included in this volume along with the US funding and
control of the International Criminal Tribunal based
at The Hague.
You know how important it is that there be an
accurate record of these crimes. You know how difficult it
is to live knowing the truth, but unable to get it out.
'This is Peace? NATO's Balkan Occupation' will enable
activists and scholars here and abroad to understand what
is at stake. NATO occupation is no solution for any of
the peoples in the region. The prospect for a common
struggle against outside domination and the thugs who
have sold out to the multi-national corporations will be
aided by the knowledge this book has to offer.
You can do something important. You can help the
International Action Center publish 'This is Peace? NATO's
Balkan Occupation.'
Please help to sponsor the printing and distribution of
this vital work, which will be available both in English
and in Greek by February 2002. The Serbian
edition will be available soon after. The budget for this
book is modest because our labor is voluntary, but we need
to raise $25,000 to do a first press run.
You can have your name listed as one of the people who
made this book possible. Donors of $1,000 will be featured
in the book as sponsors.
Contributors of $100 or more will be thanked in print as
well. You will also receive two copies of the book that
can be given to a library, school, journalist, elected
official or whoever you choose. In order to have your
name listed in the acknowledgements we must hear from you
by December 31.
You can make a tax-deductible donation by writing your
check to People's Rights Fund/NATO Book II.
Your help has been decisive in the past. Please
ensure that the truth about Yugoslavia is documented for
the 21st century and for future generations.
Your contribution will enable this to happen.
With enduring appreciation for your generosity and
commitment,
Brian Becker Heather Cottin Sara Flounders
Gloria La Riva Milos Raickovich Nadja Tesich
This is Peace? NATO's Balkan Occupation
The war in Yugoslavia signalled the start of US
strategy to move into
Eastern Europe and beyond....
How did the United States achieve the breakup and
occupation of Yugoslavia?
What was the role of US media lies and the
manipulation of international agencies, including the UN?
Why did the campaign to demonize the Serbian people
and Slobodan Milosevic accompany the 70 day NATO bombing
of Yugoslavia?
Who benefited? US/NATO military bases have been set
up throughout the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and the Middle
East and Central Asia to protect Western corporate plunder
of the labor and resources of the region.
'This is Peace? NATO's Balkan Occupation' represents
the only historical record in English of NATO's illegal war
in Yugoslavia.
360 pages, photo section, maps, index, chronology.
$19.95 (Bulk orders of 10 or more copies at a 40 percent
discount)
Donations written to: People's Rights Fund / NATO Book II
are tax deducible.
Mail your donation or sponsorship to:
International Action Center
39 W. 14th St., #206
New York, NY 10011
Credit card tax deductible donations can be made on-line
at:
www.peoplesrightsfund.org at This is Peace? book project
"My heart is always with the people who are the poorest
and most deprived. For the past ten years, the people in the
Balkans have been the victims of US/NATO war crimes that
remain largely hidden from people around the world.
Help us get out the truth aout the wars in Yugoslavia.
Help us publish 'This is Peace? NATO's Balkan Occupation."
Ramsey Clark
From: "Gregory Elich"
Subject: This is Peace? NATO's Balkan Occupation
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 20:43:42 -0500
International Action Center
39 W. 14 Street, #206
New York, NY 10011
(212) 633-6646
www.iacenter.org
TO CHALLENGE THE US/NATO OCCUPATION OF THE BALKANS,
THE TRUTH MUST BE KNOWN
Dear Friend,
We need your help. The outrageous demonization that
the wars of the past decade in the Balkans are the fault
of the Serbian people and their leaders must be answered.
Our second book on the decade of wars that dismembered
Yugoslavia is ready to go to the printers.
This well-researched and documented book,
'This is Peace? NATO's Balkan Occupation,' has involved
hundreds of hours of work by a dedicated staff of volunteers.
Now we are depending on your support.
Four years ago the International Action Center
published 'NATO in the Balkans.' That book proved to be a
powerful tool for informing the public about US war plans in
the Balkans. It went into three printings, was
translated into Serbian and Greek, and sections of it
appeared in publications in Italian, Spanish, Dutch, French,
German and Russian.
Our new book, 'This is Peace? NATO's Balkan Occupation,'
fills a great void. There is no truthful record published in
the US of NATO war crimes in the bombing of Yugoslavia.
No one has exposed the illegal kidnapping and
detention of President Slobodan Milosevic by the
US-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia
or the crime of NATO occupation of the entire region.
The truth needs to be told. The US/NATO attack on
Yugoslavia was truly the "foot in the door," as the late
Sean Gervasi pointed out in 'NATO in the Balkans.' It has
led to yet another US war, this time in Afghanistan. As
the United States military moves deeper into Central Asia,
once again keeping the truth about this new war from the
people of the United States, we must not forget the lies and
aggression in Yugoslavia.
Over 30 of the most courageous and articulate voices
opposing US/NATO war crimes during and after the bombing
of Yugoslavia have contributed to 'This is Peace?
NATO's Balkan Occupation.' This 360-page book details the
media campaign that hid the brutal destruction of
Yugoslavia in the 79-day NATO war. The 20-page photo section
clearly shows the civilian targets.
The historical record of the People's Tribunals held in
the United States and Europe charging NATO with war crimes
are included in this volume along with the US funding and
control of the International Criminal Tribunal based
at The Hague.
You know how important it is that there be an
accurate record of these crimes. You know how difficult it
is to live knowing the truth, but unable to get it out.
'This is Peace? NATO's Balkan Occupation' will enable
activists and scholars here and abroad to understand what
is at stake. NATO occupation is no solution for any of
the peoples in the region. The prospect for a common
struggle against outside domination and the thugs who
have sold out to the multi-national corporations will be
aided by the knowledge this book has to offer.
You can do something important. You can help the
International Action Center publish 'This is Peace? NATO's
Balkan Occupation.'
Please help to sponsor the printing and distribution of
this vital work, which will be available both in English
and in Greek by February 2002. The Serbian
edition will be available soon after. The budget for this
book is modest because our labor is voluntary, but we need
to raise $25,000 to do a first press run.
You can have your name listed as one of the people who
made this book possible. Donors of $1,000 will be featured
in the book as sponsors.
Contributors of $100 or more will be thanked in print as
well. You will also receive two copies of the book that
can be given to a library, school, journalist, elected
official or whoever you choose. In order to have your
name listed in the acknowledgements we must hear from you
by December 31.
You can make a tax-deductible donation by writing your
check to People's Rights Fund/NATO Book II.
Your help has been decisive in the past. Please
ensure that the truth about Yugoslavia is documented for
the 21st century and for future generations.
Your contribution will enable this to happen.
With enduring appreciation for your generosity and
commitment,
Brian Becker Heather Cottin Sara Flounders
Gloria La Riva Milos Raickovich Nadja Tesich
This is Peace? NATO's Balkan Occupation
The war in Yugoslavia signalled the start of US
strategy to move into
Eastern Europe and beyond....
How did the United States achieve the breakup and
occupation of Yugoslavia?
What was the role of US media lies and the
manipulation of international agencies, including the UN?
Why did the campaign to demonize the Serbian people
and Slobodan Milosevic accompany the 70 day NATO bombing
of Yugoslavia?
Who benefited? US/NATO military bases have been set
up throughout the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and the Middle
East and Central Asia to protect Western corporate plunder
of the labor and resources of the region.
'This is Peace? NATO's Balkan Occupation' represents
the only historical record in English of NATO's illegal war
in Yugoslavia.
360 pages, photo section, maps, index, chronology.
$19.95 (Bulk orders of 10 or more copies at a 40 percent
discount)
Donations written to: People's Rights Fund / NATO Book II
are tax deducible.
Mail your donation or sponsorship to:
International Action Center
39 W. 14th St., #206
New York, NY 10011
Credit card tax deductible donations can be made on-line
at:
www.peoplesrightsfund.org at This is Peace? book project
"My heart is always with the people who are the poorest
and most deprived. For the past ten years, the people in the
Balkans have been the victims of US/NATO war crimes that
remain largely hidden from people around the world.
Help us get out the truth aout the wars in Yugoslavia.
Help us publish 'This is Peace? NATO's Balkan Occupation."
Ramsey Clark
Subject: Mariella Cataldo - Appunti di viaggio della
delegazione dell'associazione Most za Beograd (6)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 23:47:03 +0100
From: "most za Beograd" <most.za.beograd@...>
Most za Beograd - Un ponte per Belgrado in terra di Bari
Associazione culturale di solidarietà con la popolazione jugoslava
via Abbrescia 97, 70121 BARI - CF:93242490725 - tel/fax 0805562663
e-mail: most.za.beograd@...
conto corrente postale n. 13087754
Mariella Cataldo
Le foglie morte di Belgrado
Appunti di viaggio della delegazione dell'associazione
Most za Beograd
31 ottobre 2001. Alle 12 e 45 saluto Belgrado mentre
sorvolo i suoi campi rigati dalle coltivazioni triennali o
quadriennali. All'aeroporto ci attende l'autista del pullmino
della Zastava che ci porterà a Kragujevac attraverso
un'autostrada rappezzata. Lungo tutto il percorso, Claudio, il
medico di Napoli che ha "adottato" ben quattro bambini, rivela
insospettabili capacità di intavolare con l'autista, in un
serbo-napoletano vocal-gestuale, una conversazione che trova il
suo acme nella comune conoscenza - a me e ad Andrea, ahimé,
ignota - dei nomi dei calciatori delle squadre di calcio
italiane, a partire, va da sé, da quelli jugoslavi. Paola
sembra invece intenta ad evitare che il prezioso dono - un
computer portatile! - che la sua amica Brigitta le ha affidato
per la quattordicenne Jasna subisca eccessivi contraccolpi di
qualche buca impietosa.
Mentre circumnavighiamo la periferia di Belgrado coi suoi
palazzi di cemento, tra cui si intravede qualche cupola a
cipolla, lungo la strada ci salutano tante casette bianche in
prati verdi e tante foglie gialle di tiglio e aceri in un
agonizzante autunno balcanico.
Quando varchiamo il portoncino della sede del sindacato
Samostalni, ci accolgono un pesante odore di fritto dal
ristorante sottostante ed una raggiante Rajka, e Srba, giovane
segretario del sindacato e poi l'esuberante Milja, che è stata
licenziata e collabora ora al progetto di adozioni a distanza
come volontaria Ci sembra di tornare a casa! Saluti, abbracci,
feste. Un bicchierino di rakija e anche due, per festeggiare
l'incontro con vecchi amici. Bisogna mettere a punto subito il
programma, intensissimo, degli incontri di questi giorni, e
preparare la busta con i soldi per ognuna delle 215 famiglie.
Andrea è ben lieto di liberarsi dei 31.900 marchi che gli
gonfiavano le tasche, Srba e Claudio vanno in banca a cambiare
i biglietti da 1000 marchi in tagli più piccoli, mentre noi
rimaniamo a parlare con Rajka, che ci racconta di cose che
purtroppo in gran parte conosciamo già: 15.000 lavoratori
licenziati, nessuna seria prospettiva di ripresa della
produzione, la Zastava scorporata in diverse imprese per minare
la compattezza dei lavoratori, che, nonostante tutto, in tutta
la Serbia hanno scioperato il 18 ottobre contro la "Carta del
lavoro" proposta dal nuovo governo che prevede "libertà di
licenziamento"...
Oggi, 31 ottobre, comincia per i bambini serbi la veronauka
(l'insegnamento della religione serbo-ortodossa nelle scuole)
con cui il "laico" Djindjic ha voluto bruciare sul tempo il
"religioso" Kostunica. Segno dei nuovi tempi - e nuovo non
sempre vuol dire migliore: nella Jugoslavia di Tito e nella
"piccola Jugoslavia" (Serbia e Montenegro) governata dai
socialisti (fino al 5 ottobre 2000) la scuola era laica, a
garanzia della multietnicità e convivenza con pari dignità di
tutti i popoli che abitavano questo paese.
Nel Parco della memoria - dedicato alla terribile esecuzione
nazista di 7000 persone in un sol giorno - mi sveglia all'alba
una folata di vento tra gli alberi; danzano per l'aria in una
sinfonia d'autunno centinaia di foglie morte come grandi
fiocchi di neve gialla ed io rimango incantata a respirare a
pieni polmoni l'aria del mio "ritorno a casa", con la finestra
aperta a due gradi sottozero.
Con Srba attraversiamo il quartiere zigano con casette e
appartamenti e orticelli di crisantemi; Paola intravede anche i
caprioli. Qui, gli zigani sono perfettamente integrati nella
società e non sono emarginati come da noi. Tante vecchie
"Seicento" (che la Zastava costruiva sul modello FIAT). La
televisione è sempre accesa, anche a casa di Dusan, dove il
papà, che non ha voluto tagliare l'albero di fico per sistemare
la casa, ci dice: "La vita è come se si fosse fermata dieci
anni fa, ora la nostra vita ce la mangiamo così, la sprechiamo,
cercando di arrangiarci per sopravvivere, ma questa non è vita,
non è la vita alla quale pure abbiamo diritto".
Dalibor, uno dei bambini adottati a distanza da Claudio, è
figlio di profughi. Nella stanza fa caldo, con la cucina a
legna già accesa (ci viene forte il sospetto che sia così in
attesa di freddolosi ospiti italiani). Il papà ci racconta la
sua fuga dal Kosovo. Lì ben prima del '99, in molte zone, la
vita per i serbi era diventata invivibile. In Kosovo era
importante conoscere la lingua albanese, ma lui non la
conosceva e non ha saputo mimetizzarsi ed è dovuto scappare.
Scappò con il trattore, senza armi, nel '92. Poco dopo ritornò
per riprendersi alcune cose che aveva lasciato nella sua casa e
portare anche suo zio fuori dal Kosovo. Si nascose sotto il
trattore quando attraversò una strada disabitata e sentì gli
spari. Riuscì a riprendere il frigorifero, un po' di farina, ma
lasciò lì tutte le provviste dell'inverno: fagioli, carote, e
le mucche. Dopo la guerra del '99, la terribile "guerra
umanitaria" della NATO, provò forte il desiderio di rivedere,
senza fermarsi, il luogo dov'era la sua casa. Lo accompagnarono
gli uomini della KFOR. Non c'era traccia di casa, c'era solo la
terra spianata. Aveva un bosco che valeva 10.000 marchi e che
suo nonno voleva tenere per il matrimonio di Dalibor; ora hanno
perso tutto. Ora, a chi potrà far vedere le carte della
proprietà?
Pranzo a casa di Maja, con il pesce e i dolci leggerissimi
della festa di San Luca: nonna splendida, la piccola Milica, la
cuginetta di Maja, dispettosa e desiderosa di essere al centro
dell'attenzione, la nuora Bilja in attesa di un fratellino per
Milica, assorta, in silenzio... e poi le dalie rosa per
ringraziarci e il nonno con una grande valigia piena di dolci,
marmellate e rakija, tutto fatto in casa naturalmente. E non si
può dire di no. I serbi accettano il tuo aiuto e ti sono molto
riconoscenti, ma intendono ricambiare, per come possono, per
quel che sanno fare. Accade talvolta che ti regalino un
centrino da tavola fatto a mano, come è tradizione da queste
parti, ore e ore e ore di lavoro sapiente.
Maja è cresciuta, è alta, è una bella signorina e ci sorride di
un sorriso dolcissimo velato di tristezza. Le sue condizioni
sembrano ora stazionarie, va periodicamente a Belgrado per la
visita oculistica, c'è la speranza - tenue, con tanti forse, se
e ma - che riesca a salvare l'unico occhio che le è rimasto
vivo. Il suo sguardo si illumina quando le prometto che le
comprerò l'abito da sposa, e diventa perplesso quando aggiungo
che il suo sposo dovrà essere bravo, onesto, lavoratore e,
soprattutto, dovrà piacere a nonna Rada. Milja scherza: "Ma è
il ragazzo di Maja o della nonna?"
I ragazzi spostano a gran fatica un pianoforte a coda nel
liceo di Kragujevac, dove un lontano ma ancora vivo nella
memoria 21 ottobre 1941 furono fucilati 300 liceali e il
professore disse ai suoi carnefici nazisti: "sparate pure, io
continuo la mia lezione". Nelle scuole serbe non esiste un
bidello di professione: gli alunni più grandi, a turno, per un
giorno all'anno svolgono questo compito e Boris, il figlio di
Rajka, non vede l'ora che arrivi il suo turno.
In serata ci riservano una sorpresa: assisteremo alle prove del
gruppo folcloristico della Zastava. In uno scantinato, che
durante i bombardamenti della nefasta primavera del '99 era
servito da rifugio, bambini e ragazzi - dai tre ai vent'anni,
ci dice con un certo orgoglio l'istruttrice di danza - alcuni
con impaccio, altri con scioltezza e leggiadria , intrecciano
un ballo popolare, accompagnati da un'immancabile fisarmonica e
dalla voce profonda e armoniosa di una giovane cantante. Alle
prove i ragazzi sono vestiti in modo molto semplice e modesto,
non ci sono soldi per comprarsi abiti nuovi, soprattutto ora,
quando 15.000 operai sono stati licenziati.
Ma anche chi ha avuto la "fortuna" di conservare il lavoro deve
stringere la cinghia oltre il dovuto e oltre l'immaginabile.
Per le strade di Kragujevac le vetrine di negozi desolatamente
deserti espongono in bella mostra scarpe a tre-quattromila
dinari (circa 120.000 lire). Concludiamo che troviamo di meglio
e a minor prezzo nelle vetrine di corso Cavour a Bari. Eccetto,
forse, soltanto il pane, fermo a 20-30 dinari al chilo (600-900
lire), tutto costa quanto da noi, con la differenza che qui i
salari sono sette-otto volte più bassi dei nostri salari più
bassi. Al supermercato, ora che la Serbia di Djindjic si è
aperta all'Occidente, si trovano anche costosissimi dentifrici
"Colgate" e spaghetti "Granoro", che non hanno forse molti
acquirenti. Ma qualsiasi cosa sembra avere ormai "prezzi
occidentali". Chiediamo a uno stupito Srba di accompagnarci in
un negozio di materiale elettrico: anche una semplice lampadina
costa come da noi, 1.500 lire, e rimane fitto il mistero di
come in questo paese riescano ancora a vivere con dignità.
Ma i ragazzi del gruppo folcloristico danzano, Milija,
accompagnata dalla giovane nuora che parla un ottimo inglese e
le assomiglia come una figlia, non riesce a star ferma e si
inserisce tra loro, la vita continua, nonostante tutto, e
mentre si danza si scaccia la malinconia e non si pensa al
presente. A pensarci troppo si cade in depressione. Sta
crescendo il numero di suicidi. E' la mancanza di prospettive
ad ammazzarti più di ogni altra cosa. Ci diceva Boba, che molto
spesso, da Napoli, telefona ai suoi parenti a Belgrado: "Prima
c'era l'embargo, si stava male, ma c'era la speranza che
finisse e l'economia si riprendesse; c'era la guerra, si stava
peggio, ma la guerra prima o poi sarebbe finita, si stringevano
i denti e si tirava avanti sperando nel futuro. Poi hanno fatto
credere alla gente che le cose andavano male perché c'era
Milosevic; Milosevic ora non c'è, venduto per trenta denari al
tribunale dell'Aja, e la vita è peggiorata molto di più. Ora
non c'è più nulla a cui appigliarsi, non c'è speranza, il
futuro si prospetta più nero del presente...".
La direttrice del gruppo artistico ci mostra le foto degli
spettacoli e i premi vinti dal gruppo, ne è fiera, spera che
questi bravissimi ragazzi possano essere invitati in Italia.
Per la verità, sarebbero dovuti venire lo scorso anno, a
luglio, nell'ambito di alcune iniziative di solidarietà, ma poi
la cosa sfumò, con grande amarezza e delusione. Paola ci dice
che se ne potrebbe parlare col sindaco di Alberobello,
organizzare uno scambio di gruppi folcloristici. Riceviamo in
dono un libro di poesie e ci accompagnano a visitare il gruppo
di pittura. Milorad, l'insegnante, quando sente che siamo
italiani, ci saluta emozionato, credendo di scorgere sui nostri
visi i cromosomi del grande Leonardo, ma gli spieghiamo che
siamo solo i conterranei incazzati di D'Alema, che ha avallato
la "guerra umanitaria" contro questo popolo che, nonostante
tutto, ricorda l'Italia come terra di artisti e di brava gente,
mai di soldati!
In una stanza poco distante vi sono una dozzina di postazioni
di personal computer, si tengono corsi di riconversione per i
lavoratori, che imparano l'uso di alcuni programmi di base: due
timidi, ma affettuosi scolaretti - Ruzica e George, gli ex
presidente e segretario del sindacato - ci salutano molto
calorosamente.
Nella delegazione dell'associazione ci sono due medici, Paola,
neurologa, e Claudio, medico del lavoro; Rajka ci propone di
visitare il presidio sanitario della Zastava. Lì c'è la apoteka
humanitarna, costituita dal sindacato con farmaci donati
dall'estero. Apprendiamo che ora qualsiasi visita o analisi,
che prima per gli operai era gratis, costa 20 dinari di
"participacija": il nuovo governo ha importato dall'Occidente
la moda dei ticket, insieme con quella di abolire i prezzi
politici di luce, gas, affitto di casa. Qui tutto è vecchio di
vent'anni (come la macchina audiometrica e l'apparecchio
mammografico), molte cose sono italiane e niente basta (servono
urgentemente medicine per cardiopatie, come la digitalina).
Mentre visitiamo i reparti (dentistica, oftalmologia,
dermatologia, il gabinetto di spirometria, radiologia, medicina
del lavoro o medicina rada) le infermiere, intorno ad un
tavolo, tagliano garze. Nel reparto di neuropsichiatria (dove
hanno solo l'elettroencefalogramma) un baffuto serbo dà una
pacca sulla spalla ad Andrea (non sappiamo se è un medico, un
paziente, un operaio, un amico). Lo rincontreremo più tardi e
Andrea riceverà un'altra pacca e ricambierà come a un vecchio
amico. L'apparecchio mammografico, di cui sulla parete c'è
anche una vecchia raffigurazione ad olio, è stato portato più
di un anno fa da una delegazione del coordinamento RSU
Lombardia, ma purtroppo non può ancora essere messo in
funzione, manca qualche pezzo che non si riesce a trovare, e
così per fare l'esame mammografico le donne di Kragujevac
devono andare a Belgrado spendendo 150 marchi, praticamente il
salario di un mese.
In casa di Ivan arriviamo attraversando un ponticello di legno
su un ruscello. La casa è misera, in un prato con un enorme
albero di noci, e l'aria è fina. Il nonno è nero ed è di sangue
zigano. Viene dal Kosovo ed era stampatore alla Zastava. Ha
fatto la Resistenza ed ha partecipato, dopo la guerra, alla
ricostruzione del paese, ha costruito la ferrovia di Sarajevo.
Per accogliere gli ospiti italiani hanno preparato una pagnotta
di pane per noi e poiché erano indaffaratissimi nei
preparativi, hanno lasciato il nonno a guardia del pane nel
forno, ma lui si è addormentato ed il pane è diventato nero
come la sua faccia. Poiché i bambini non mangiano con noi e noi
li invitiamo a farlo, il papà ci rassicura: "da noi prima
mangiano i bambini, poi i vecchi, poi i genitori".
Sulla via del ritorno, Rajka ci dice che durante e dopo i
bombardamenti la gente era incazzata ma era in grado di essere
felice o infelice. Ora non è in grado di essere né felice né
infelice, è semplicemente apatica, indifferente, e aggiunge:
"chi restituirà l'infanzia a Boris? È nato nel 1989, quando
cominciava a sbriciolarsi la Jugoslavia ed è vissuto sempre
nella precarietà e nell'insicurezza. Era il suo compleanno quel
24 marzo 1999 quando sono iniziati i bombardamenti".
La casa di Jasna è in un villaggio sperduto lontano una
ventina di chilometri da Kragujevac - se ne vanno almeno una
quarantina di minuti per arrivarci. In un cortile con pavoni,
galline, tacchini e una gatta incinta, un nonno sanguigno ci
saluta dicendo: "Io sono jugoslavo!". Noi rispondiamo che siamo
internazionalisti. Il nonno si commuove quando racconta la
storia di un italiano che si rifugiò nella sua casa durante la
seconda guerra mondiale (come accadde a tanti altri, scampati
al bombardamento americano del campo di prigionia tedesco di
Zemun, alla periferia di Belgrado), quando lui aveva cinque
anni e il papà era fuori in guerra. L'italiano mangiava
peperoncini - fortissimi, se sono come quelli che ci hanno
offerto qui - e gli fece un po' da padre, poi ripartì per
l'Italia portandosi nella valigia i semi dei peperoncini, ma
non poté piantarli, perché perì in mare sulla via del ritorno.
Si commuove a sentir parlare italiano.
Il computer portatile che Brigitta ha regalato a Jasna perché
impari l'inglese è come un mostro sacro che viene aperto con
grandissima circospezione su un tavolinetto del cucinino,
l'unico che abbia a portata di mano una vecchia presa elettrica
in questa piccola casa contadina, dove non c'è acqua corrente e
bisogna usare quella del pozzo, con una pompa a mano; la
"toilette" è fuori casa, in un angolo del cortile, una piccola
cabina di vecchie assi di legno e una porta sgangherata. La
"modernità" sembra irrompere in questa casa a turbare sonni
contadini. La mamma e i nonni di Jasna, che ci hanno preparato
una calorosissima accoglienza (il papà non ha avuto il permesso
di assentarsi dal lavoro), hanno sui visi, stampata, la
consapevolezza della gravità di una "svolta epocale" nella loro
vita.
Al primo pomeriggio di venerdì 2 novembre è fissato l'incontro
con le 24 famiglie che la provincia di Napoli, da oltre un anno
e mezzo - da quando i delegati della Zastava giunti in Italia
per una serie di manifestazioni organizzate dalla nostra
associazione e dai compagni della RSU Lombardia ebbero un
incontro con il presidente Lamberti - si era impegnata a
sostenere. Difficoltà burocratiche e continui rinvii avevano
fatto incancrenire la situazione. Per poterla sbloccare, dopo
ripetuti incontri non sempre sereni e pacati, abbiamo dovuto
anticipare personalmente le somme e inviarle ad ogni singola
famiglia con vaglia postale, in attesa del rimborso,
augurandoci che la poco solerte burocrazia napoletana non ci
giochi qualche brutto scherzo... Poiché non ci fidiamo delle
poste, abbiamo portato con noi le copie delle ricevute, ma ci
rendiamo conto che per quelle famiglie che aspettano da tanto
tempo, quel pezzo di carta potrebbe anche apparire una beffa.
Miracolosamente le poste hanno funzionato e oltre la metà -
dopo appena 5 giorni, con uno festivo in mezzo - ha già
incassato la somma; sono venuti tutti a ringraziarci di cuore.
Claudio, emozionatissimo e teso, quasi non proferisce parola.
Sabato mattina i bambini della Zastava ricevono da noi 31.900
marchi e una montagna di cioccolatini. C'è la televisione
locale e nazionale che ci dedicheranno alcuni minuti di
trasmissione, sottolineando che ci siamo opposti alla guerra
contro il loro paese. Il presidente del sindacato Samostalni,
Radosav Bjeletic, introduce con poche essenziali parole.
Nel mio discorso ricordo di essere stata colpita dalla dignità
conservata da questo popolo nelle ingiuste sofferenze che gli
sono state inflitte; nei pochi giorni trascorsi qui l'anno
passato, il mio cuore era diventato così pesante di emozioni
che era impossibile metterlo in valigia e riportarlo in Italia,
perciò avevo deciso di seppellirlo a Kragujevac sotto un albero
di betulle. Ed ora sono qui a riprendermelo. Con la mia
presenza ho intenzione di disonorare la guerra, perché la
guerra possa diventare per le future generazioni una curiosità
filologica. La mia speranza è che in futuro i bambini di tutto
il mondo, quando troveranno sui libri di storia la parola
"guerra" non sapranno cos'è e andranno a cercarne il
significato sul vocabolario. Purtroppo, i bambini jugoslavi,
palestinesi, iracheni, afgani, hanno provato sulla loro pelle
che cosa significa la parola "guerra", ma ho speranza che i
loro figli vivranno in un mondo di pace. Il futuro, il mondo,
dobbiamo schiodarlo dalle corna del toro di Wall Street. Il
futuro, il mondo, è nelle nostre mani, nei nostri cuori,
dobbiamo correre a riprenderlo! Dobbiamo rispondere con
l'internazionalismo e la solidarietà ai nazionalismi, agli
etnicismi e agli egoismi che sono stati coltivati in
laboratorio dai signori della guerra come arma batteriologica
per fare ammalare e dividere i popoli di tutto il mondo. Ai
signori della guerra dobbiamo rispondere con un unico grido:
lavoratori di tutto il mondo uniamoci!
Prima che si consegni il denaro, ricordo all'assemblea che è
morto un lavoratore della Zastava mentre faceva legna nel bosco
per riscaldare i suoi bambini, e la famiglia, come non aveva i
soldi per vivere, adesso non ha i soldi per seppellirlo.
Improvvisiamo una colletta tra i lavoratori e raggiungiamo
quasi 300 marchi a cui aggiungiamo altri 300 come associazione
Most za Beograd. I bambini si divertiranno come matti a contare
i soldi.
I fiammeggianti parchi belgradesi ci attendono. È impossibile
contare le foglie morte lungo i viali. È straziante vedere
cadere le foglie come assistere all'agonia di un malato
terminale che ha imboccato la strada di una freccia nel tempo.
A Belgrado siamo ospiti di Gordana, vedova di un tenente medico
morto in guerra in Croazia. È dell'associazione Decie Istina
(la verità dei bambini) che si occupa dei profughi cacciati
dalla Croazia, dalla Bosnia, dal Kosovo. L'associazione non è
finanziata da nessuno: vi lavorano tante donne che fanno
microprogetti per intervenire concretamente nelle piccole
situazioni. In tutta la Jugoslavia arrivano aiuti che loro
distribuiscono anche ai pensionati.
Con il ricavato di una festa di beneficenza in una sera
d'estate alla casa in campagna di Andrea Navach a Mola di Bari,
si è riusciti ad adottare alcuni di questi sfortunati bambini.
A casa di Iljana e Mikolina che ha cominciato a studiare
l'italiano all'Università, siamo in un caseggiato misero
all'ultimo piano, dove un torrente di sole inonda la stanza.
Vengono da Spalato, hanno perso il papà in guerra ("Operazione
Tempesta", agosto 1995, quando gli americani armarono i croati
e fecero un blitz scacciando 200.000 serbi). Pagano 200 marchi
per questo appartamento diviso con la figlia del proprietario.
La pensione del papà morto in guerra è di 350 marchi. Il
paniere dei beni di prima necessità è di circa 400 marchi. In
tutta la casa ci sono icone di legno (San Basilio, la madonna
di Costantinopoli). Mikolina - un po' d'inglese e qualche
parola d'italiano - ci dice che il governo croato è rimasto
nazionalista e xenofobo. Anche la loro casa in Croazia è stata
rasa al suolo.
Petar è semicieco e così la sorella. La madre ha un tumore al
cervello. L'appartamento è misero, ma stranamente è privo di
odori (come tutti gli altri visitati). In una minuscola stanza
vivono tutti insieme. In un armadio senza porte si vedono
coperte ripiegate - serviranno come giaciglio per la notte.
Petar ci fa vedere con orgoglio la sua collezione di biglietti
per le partite di calcio. Ha anche una fotografia della squadra
"Stella rossa" che vinse al San Nicola di Bari. Li regalerà
tutti ad un Andrea piuttosto riluttante e restio a portarsi via
quei biglietti che per Petar evidentemente significano tante
cose, tante passioni, speranze, illusioni, sogni. Petar ha
scritto con scrittura incerta una lettera per Andrea Navach.
Dovranno lasciare la casa tra un anno. E la madre e i due
ragazzi infermi a cui il "perfido" Milosevic aveva assicurato
la casa per dieci anni, saranno cacciati in un gelida strada di
Belgrado dal "democratico" Djindjic. Mentre ascolto,
dall'albero di platano, al di là del vetro, nel cortile, cadono
tante foglie gialle, così come sfioriscono prematuramente i
fiori di questa giovinezza mai sbocciata.
Anche Slavko è semicieco, anche il suo è un povero
appartamentino all'ultimo piano, una stanza un cucinino e un
bagno. Da una finestra sconquassata si vede - ormai è buio - il
cielo sopra Belgrado, in cui è conficcata una stella
tremolante, come una foglia malata che sta per cadere: è la
metafora di queste vite appese ad un filo che la nostra
solidarietà tiene ancora teso. Il padre di Slavko è morto nel
'94, la famiglia viveva a Zagabria. Slavko fa il tifo per il
Kinder, Andrea, colto di sorpresa, e sprovvisto della spalla di
Claudio, in visita turistica nella capitale in cui non era mai
stato, si dice tifoso dell'Inter, ma è preoccupato di essere
interrogato sui giocatori di cui non conosce neppure il nome.
La prima volta scapparono da Zagabria, la seconda volta nel '95
da Knin, nella Krajna. I trisavoli erano bosniaci, sono serbi
di Bosnia e Croazia. Slavko e Mikolina dagli occhi sgranati
vengono inghiottiti dalla notte come dall'orco di una favola
dei fratelli Grimm e si chiudono a chiave mentre la mamma ci
accompagna a piazza della Repubblica.
Non vediamo l'ora di scappare da Belgrado che ci ha depresso!
La visita ai profughi ci ha fatto uscire dalla festosa
atmosfera di Kragujevac, dove ci sentivamo a casa nostra.
E' l'ora della visita al prof. Niksa Stipcevic nel suo
bell'appartamento pieno di libri, molti in lingua italiana,
rari anche per noi, che dall'Italia veniamo. Abita in una via
che ancora l'anno scorso si chiamava Srpski Vladara ed ora,
invece, Kralja Milana. Nell'arco di 10 anni molte strade hanno
cambiato più volte i loro nomi: quelli legati alla resistenza
antinazista, o alla tradizione comunista ne hanno fatto
impietosamente le spese. La gatta Milica, in assenza di
Svetlana, come una sultana, si stira sul tappeto mentre scansa
vasi preziosi facendoci trattenere il fiato. Ha gli occhi rossi
e Niksa mi avverte che è pericolosa. Il discorso
immancabilmente scivola sulla guerra: l'Afghanistan è una terra
infelice! Lì si sono impantanati Alessandro Magno, Tamerlano, i
sovietici. Riguardo la nostra associazione si esprime in
maniera lusinghiera: le azioni dell'associazione sono
memorabili e incrementeranno l'amore jugoslavo verso l'Italia.
L'Italia è nel cuore degli jugoslavi. L'ambasciatore Sessa è
stato l'unico italiano insieme a tre diplomatici a rimanere
durante i 78 giorni di bombardamento a Belgrado, nonostante
l'ordine di tornare. Da un punto di vista sociologico c'è una
cosa interessantissima: negli ultimi 10 anni, lo studio della
lingua Italiana supera quello dell'Inglese all'Università di
Belgrado. Su un massimo di 100 punti di ammissione ai corsi,
l'Italianistica ha chiuso ad 88, l'Inglese ad 82, il Francese a
55. Durante i bombardamenti, c'erano per le strade alcuni
italiani; nessuno li ha offesi, perché i piloti italiani hanno
buttato le bombe in Adriatico e non sulle popolazioni civili. A
lui piace pensare così, e forse anche a noi... Molti suoi amici
di Belgrado sanno che esiste Most za Beograd, che contribuisce
a rafforzare l'amicizia tra due popoli. Le prime maestranze
della Zastava di Kragujevac venivano dall'Italia (dalla
fabbrica di Agnelli). Nel frattempo Milica si è adagiata sotto
l'abat jour e approva con la testa.
Il lunedì mattina, dopo aver fatto visita alla sede
dell'associazione Decie Istina, veniamo accompagnati
all'aeroporto da Ranka, presidente dell'associazione, e Ivka,
profuga dal Kosovo. Ivka sembra Medea, sembra fuggita or ora
dal Kosovo, è tutta scarmigliata, arruffata. Ivka è fuggita con
una busta di plastica da Pec, in essa conserva tutto ciò che
per lei è significativo: un portafoglio sgualcito in cui sono
racchiuse le foto delle figlie.
Al momento della partenza, mentre sbrighiamo le
pratiche d'imbarco, all'aeroporto di Belgrado scoppia un
piccolo giallo. Un gelido doganiere balcanico mi chiede se ho
nulla da dichiarare e mi intima di aprire borsa e valigia.
Fruga dappertutto e, come se sapesse cosa cercare, a colpo
sicuro mi sequestra un carillonino cinese che una bambina della
Zastava mi ha regalato. Da esso proviene un forte ticchettio,
come di una bomba ad orologeria, in esso batte il mio cuore che
ho da poco disseppellito a Kragujevac con l'intenzione di
riportarmelo in Italia, nascosto tra foglie morte raccolte nei
parchi. Io mi faccio piccola piccola e imploro il cortese
doganiere, cercando di spiegare che trattasi solo del mio
piccolo cuore, che esso mi appartiene... ma come posso fare a
sopravvivere senza... che esso è solo un'arma di legittima
difesa che mi ha permesso di sopravvivere quando il mondo
crollava addosso ai nostri amici della Zastava, al
petrolchimico di Pancevo, e alla Jugoslavia tutta. Certo, ne ho
fatto un uso improprio, internazionalista, perché le leggi
italiane ne vietano espressamente l'esportazione ... ma qui
siamo in Jugoslavia ed è assurdo che le sue frontiere me lo
trattengano senza motivo. Non me l'hanno sequestrato neppure a
Fiumicino... lì sì che si trattava di esportazione illegale di
materiale altamente pericoloso... Signor doganiere, come potrò
continuare la mia attività del Most za Beograd? Andrea cerca di
convincerlo parlando in russo. Niente da fare. Il cortese
doganiere balcanico, soddisfatto del suo bottino, mi attraversa
con un gelido sguardo come se io fossi un trasparente fantasma
e, sequestrato il carillonino, mi dà il permesso di partire.
Ormai ho perso anche le foglie gialle che vi erano racchiuse.
Le foglie gialle le porterò ormai solo nei miei ricordi come
sigla del mio viaggio d'autunno balcanico, come la metafora di
un popolo che muore per colpa della nostra dimenticanza. Mentre
il rombo dell'aereo culla i miei ricordi e mi procura
sonnolenza, come un rosario sgrano nella mia mente i versi del
mio poeta preferito, il turco Nazim Hikmet:
Veder cadere le foglie mi lacera dentro
soprattutto le foglie dei viali
soprattutto se sono ippocastani
soprattutto se passano dei bimbi
soprattutto se il cielo è sereno
soprattutto se ho avuto, quel giorno
una buona notizia
soprattutto se il cuore quel giorno
non mi fa male!
soprattutto se credo quel giorno
che quella che amo mi ami!
soprattutto se quel giorno
mi sento d'accordo con gli uomini
e con me stesso.
Veder cadere le foglie mi lacera dentro
soprattutto le foglie dei viali
dei viali di ippocastani!
Arrivederci Belgrado! questa volta mi hai imprigionata nel
cerchio stregato del tuo fiammeggiante barocco danubiano, la
cui polvere dorata mi è rimasta impiastricciata tra le mani!
Ormai sono passati 15 giorni dal nostro rientro in Italia:
stamattina il postino citofona invitandomi giù a ritirare una
raccomandata. Firmo e, con occhi impazienti leggo dalla
intestazione della busta che essa proviene dalle dogane
jugoslave. La apro e cade per terra una minuscola foglia dorata
di tiglio. La lettera è scritta in serbo e c'è anche la
traduzione italiana. Sono informata in perfetto linguaggio
burocratico, con mille scuse, che il materiale sequestratomi,
per uno spiacevole errore dalla polizia di frontiera, è
custodito in località segreta a Kragujevac e che, poiché mi
appartiene (trattasi di sequestro e non di confisca), è
trattenuto solo momentaneamente dalle autorità locali e che
sarò la ben accetta in Jugoslavia quando vorrò andarmelo a
riprendere. Dopo aver letto, riletto e ripiegato la lettera, mi
chino per terra a raccogliere la minuscola foglia dorata di
tiglio che il cuore balcanico di un austero funzionario del
ministero degli esteri jugoslavo ha voluto inviarmi per
invogliarmi a tornare a Kragujevac.
delegazione dell'associazione Most za Beograd (6)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 23:47:03 +0100
From: "most za Beograd" <most.za.beograd@...>
Most za Beograd - Un ponte per Belgrado in terra di Bari
Associazione culturale di solidarietà con la popolazione jugoslava
via Abbrescia 97, 70121 BARI - CF:93242490725 - tel/fax 0805562663
e-mail: most.za.beograd@...
conto corrente postale n. 13087754
Mariella Cataldo
Le foglie morte di Belgrado
Appunti di viaggio della delegazione dell'associazione
Most za Beograd
31 ottobre 2001. Alle 12 e 45 saluto Belgrado mentre
sorvolo i suoi campi rigati dalle coltivazioni triennali o
quadriennali. All'aeroporto ci attende l'autista del pullmino
della Zastava che ci porterà a Kragujevac attraverso
un'autostrada rappezzata. Lungo tutto il percorso, Claudio, il
medico di Napoli che ha "adottato" ben quattro bambini, rivela
insospettabili capacità di intavolare con l'autista, in un
serbo-napoletano vocal-gestuale, una conversazione che trova il
suo acme nella comune conoscenza - a me e ad Andrea, ahimé,
ignota - dei nomi dei calciatori delle squadre di calcio
italiane, a partire, va da sé, da quelli jugoslavi. Paola
sembra invece intenta ad evitare che il prezioso dono - un
computer portatile! - che la sua amica Brigitta le ha affidato
per la quattordicenne Jasna subisca eccessivi contraccolpi di
qualche buca impietosa.
Mentre circumnavighiamo la periferia di Belgrado coi suoi
palazzi di cemento, tra cui si intravede qualche cupola a
cipolla, lungo la strada ci salutano tante casette bianche in
prati verdi e tante foglie gialle di tiglio e aceri in un
agonizzante autunno balcanico.
Quando varchiamo il portoncino della sede del sindacato
Samostalni, ci accolgono un pesante odore di fritto dal
ristorante sottostante ed una raggiante Rajka, e Srba, giovane
segretario del sindacato e poi l'esuberante Milja, che è stata
licenziata e collabora ora al progetto di adozioni a distanza
come volontaria Ci sembra di tornare a casa! Saluti, abbracci,
feste. Un bicchierino di rakija e anche due, per festeggiare
l'incontro con vecchi amici. Bisogna mettere a punto subito il
programma, intensissimo, degli incontri di questi giorni, e
preparare la busta con i soldi per ognuna delle 215 famiglie.
Andrea è ben lieto di liberarsi dei 31.900 marchi che gli
gonfiavano le tasche, Srba e Claudio vanno in banca a cambiare
i biglietti da 1000 marchi in tagli più piccoli, mentre noi
rimaniamo a parlare con Rajka, che ci racconta di cose che
purtroppo in gran parte conosciamo già: 15.000 lavoratori
licenziati, nessuna seria prospettiva di ripresa della
produzione, la Zastava scorporata in diverse imprese per minare
la compattezza dei lavoratori, che, nonostante tutto, in tutta
la Serbia hanno scioperato il 18 ottobre contro la "Carta del
lavoro" proposta dal nuovo governo che prevede "libertà di
licenziamento"...
Oggi, 31 ottobre, comincia per i bambini serbi la veronauka
(l'insegnamento della religione serbo-ortodossa nelle scuole)
con cui il "laico" Djindjic ha voluto bruciare sul tempo il
"religioso" Kostunica. Segno dei nuovi tempi - e nuovo non
sempre vuol dire migliore: nella Jugoslavia di Tito e nella
"piccola Jugoslavia" (Serbia e Montenegro) governata dai
socialisti (fino al 5 ottobre 2000) la scuola era laica, a
garanzia della multietnicità e convivenza con pari dignità di
tutti i popoli che abitavano questo paese.
Nel Parco della memoria - dedicato alla terribile esecuzione
nazista di 7000 persone in un sol giorno - mi sveglia all'alba
una folata di vento tra gli alberi; danzano per l'aria in una
sinfonia d'autunno centinaia di foglie morte come grandi
fiocchi di neve gialla ed io rimango incantata a respirare a
pieni polmoni l'aria del mio "ritorno a casa", con la finestra
aperta a due gradi sottozero.
Con Srba attraversiamo il quartiere zigano con casette e
appartamenti e orticelli di crisantemi; Paola intravede anche i
caprioli. Qui, gli zigani sono perfettamente integrati nella
società e non sono emarginati come da noi. Tante vecchie
"Seicento" (che la Zastava costruiva sul modello FIAT). La
televisione è sempre accesa, anche a casa di Dusan, dove il
papà, che non ha voluto tagliare l'albero di fico per sistemare
la casa, ci dice: "La vita è come se si fosse fermata dieci
anni fa, ora la nostra vita ce la mangiamo così, la sprechiamo,
cercando di arrangiarci per sopravvivere, ma questa non è vita,
non è la vita alla quale pure abbiamo diritto".
Dalibor, uno dei bambini adottati a distanza da Claudio, è
figlio di profughi. Nella stanza fa caldo, con la cucina a
legna già accesa (ci viene forte il sospetto che sia così in
attesa di freddolosi ospiti italiani). Il papà ci racconta la
sua fuga dal Kosovo. Lì ben prima del '99, in molte zone, la
vita per i serbi era diventata invivibile. In Kosovo era
importante conoscere la lingua albanese, ma lui non la
conosceva e non ha saputo mimetizzarsi ed è dovuto scappare.
Scappò con il trattore, senza armi, nel '92. Poco dopo ritornò
per riprendersi alcune cose che aveva lasciato nella sua casa e
portare anche suo zio fuori dal Kosovo. Si nascose sotto il
trattore quando attraversò una strada disabitata e sentì gli
spari. Riuscì a riprendere il frigorifero, un po' di farina, ma
lasciò lì tutte le provviste dell'inverno: fagioli, carote, e
le mucche. Dopo la guerra del '99, la terribile "guerra
umanitaria" della NATO, provò forte il desiderio di rivedere,
senza fermarsi, il luogo dov'era la sua casa. Lo accompagnarono
gli uomini della KFOR. Non c'era traccia di casa, c'era solo la
terra spianata. Aveva un bosco che valeva 10.000 marchi e che
suo nonno voleva tenere per il matrimonio di Dalibor; ora hanno
perso tutto. Ora, a chi potrà far vedere le carte della
proprietà?
Pranzo a casa di Maja, con il pesce e i dolci leggerissimi
della festa di San Luca: nonna splendida, la piccola Milica, la
cuginetta di Maja, dispettosa e desiderosa di essere al centro
dell'attenzione, la nuora Bilja in attesa di un fratellino per
Milica, assorta, in silenzio... e poi le dalie rosa per
ringraziarci e il nonno con una grande valigia piena di dolci,
marmellate e rakija, tutto fatto in casa naturalmente. E non si
può dire di no. I serbi accettano il tuo aiuto e ti sono molto
riconoscenti, ma intendono ricambiare, per come possono, per
quel che sanno fare. Accade talvolta che ti regalino un
centrino da tavola fatto a mano, come è tradizione da queste
parti, ore e ore e ore di lavoro sapiente.
Maja è cresciuta, è alta, è una bella signorina e ci sorride di
un sorriso dolcissimo velato di tristezza. Le sue condizioni
sembrano ora stazionarie, va periodicamente a Belgrado per la
visita oculistica, c'è la speranza - tenue, con tanti forse, se
e ma - che riesca a salvare l'unico occhio che le è rimasto
vivo. Il suo sguardo si illumina quando le prometto che le
comprerò l'abito da sposa, e diventa perplesso quando aggiungo
che il suo sposo dovrà essere bravo, onesto, lavoratore e,
soprattutto, dovrà piacere a nonna Rada. Milja scherza: "Ma è
il ragazzo di Maja o della nonna?"
I ragazzi spostano a gran fatica un pianoforte a coda nel
liceo di Kragujevac, dove un lontano ma ancora vivo nella
memoria 21 ottobre 1941 furono fucilati 300 liceali e il
professore disse ai suoi carnefici nazisti: "sparate pure, io
continuo la mia lezione". Nelle scuole serbe non esiste un
bidello di professione: gli alunni più grandi, a turno, per un
giorno all'anno svolgono questo compito e Boris, il figlio di
Rajka, non vede l'ora che arrivi il suo turno.
In serata ci riservano una sorpresa: assisteremo alle prove del
gruppo folcloristico della Zastava. In uno scantinato, che
durante i bombardamenti della nefasta primavera del '99 era
servito da rifugio, bambini e ragazzi - dai tre ai vent'anni,
ci dice con un certo orgoglio l'istruttrice di danza - alcuni
con impaccio, altri con scioltezza e leggiadria , intrecciano
un ballo popolare, accompagnati da un'immancabile fisarmonica e
dalla voce profonda e armoniosa di una giovane cantante. Alle
prove i ragazzi sono vestiti in modo molto semplice e modesto,
non ci sono soldi per comprarsi abiti nuovi, soprattutto ora,
quando 15.000 operai sono stati licenziati.
Ma anche chi ha avuto la "fortuna" di conservare il lavoro deve
stringere la cinghia oltre il dovuto e oltre l'immaginabile.
Per le strade di Kragujevac le vetrine di negozi desolatamente
deserti espongono in bella mostra scarpe a tre-quattromila
dinari (circa 120.000 lire). Concludiamo che troviamo di meglio
e a minor prezzo nelle vetrine di corso Cavour a Bari. Eccetto,
forse, soltanto il pane, fermo a 20-30 dinari al chilo (600-900
lire), tutto costa quanto da noi, con la differenza che qui i
salari sono sette-otto volte più bassi dei nostri salari più
bassi. Al supermercato, ora che la Serbia di Djindjic si è
aperta all'Occidente, si trovano anche costosissimi dentifrici
"Colgate" e spaghetti "Granoro", che non hanno forse molti
acquirenti. Ma qualsiasi cosa sembra avere ormai "prezzi
occidentali". Chiediamo a uno stupito Srba di accompagnarci in
un negozio di materiale elettrico: anche una semplice lampadina
costa come da noi, 1.500 lire, e rimane fitto il mistero di
come in questo paese riescano ancora a vivere con dignità.
Ma i ragazzi del gruppo folcloristico danzano, Milija,
accompagnata dalla giovane nuora che parla un ottimo inglese e
le assomiglia come una figlia, non riesce a star ferma e si
inserisce tra loro, la vita continua, nonostante tutto, e
mentre si danza si scaccia la malinconia e non si pensa al
presente. A pensarci troppo si cade in depressione. Sta
crescendo il numero di suicidi. E' la mancanza di prospettive
ad ammazzarti più di ogni altra cosa. Ci diceva Boba, che molto
spesso, da Napoli, telefona ai suoi parenti a Belgrado: "Prima
c'era l'embargo, si stava male, ma c'era la speranza che
finisse e l'economia si riprendesse; c'era la guerra, si stava
peggio, ma la guerra prima o poi sarebbe finita, si stringevano
i denti e si tirava avanti sperando nel futuro. Poi hanno fatto
credere alla gente che le cose andavano male perché c'era
Milosevic; Milosevic ora non c'è, venduto per trenta denari al
tribunale dell'Aja, e la vita è peggiorata molto di più. Ora
non c'è più nulla a cui appigliarsi, non c'è speranza, il
futuro si prospetta più nero del presente...".
La direttrice del gruppo artistico ci mostra le foto degli
spettacoli e i premi vinti dal gruppo, ne è fiera, spera che
questi bravissimi ragazzi possano essere invitati in Italia.
Per la verità, sarebbero dovuti venire lo scorso anno, a
luglio, nell'ambito di alcune iniziative di solidarietà, ma poi
la cosa sfumò, con grande amarezza e delusione. Paola ci dice
che se ne potrebbe parlare col sindaco di Alberobello,
organizzare uno scambio di gruppi folcloristici. Riceviamo in
dono un libro di poesie e ci accompagnano a visitare il gruppo
di pittura. Milorad, l'insegnante, quando sente che siamo
italiani, ci saluta emozionato, credendo di scorgere sui nostri
visi i cromosomi del grande Leonardo, ma gli spieghiamo che
siamo solo i conterranei incazzati di D'Alema, che ha avallato
la "guerra umanitaria" contro questo popolo che, nonostante
tutto, ricorda l'Italia come terra di artisti e di brava gente,
mai di soldati!
In una stanza poco distante vi sono una dozzina di postazioni
di personal computer, si tengono corsi di riconversione per i
lavoratori, che imparano l'uso di alcuni programmi di base: due
timidi, ma affettuosi scolaretti - Ruzica e George, gli ex
presidente e segretario del sindacato - ci salutano molto
calorosamente.
Nella delegazione dell'associazione ci sono due medici, Paola,
neurologa, e Claudio, medico del lavoro; Rajka ci propone di
visitare il presidio sanitario della Zastava. Lì c'è la apoteka
humanitarna, costituita dal sindacato con farmaci donati
dall'estero. Apprendiamo che ora qualsiasi visita o analisi,
che prima per gli operai era gratis, costa 20 dinari di
"participacija": il nuovo governo ha importato dall'Occidente
la moda dei ticket, insieme con quella di abolire i prezzi
politici di luce, gas, affitto di casa. Qui tutto è vecchio di
vent'anni (come la macchina audiometrica e l'apparecchio
mammografico), molte cose sono italiane e niente basta (servono
urgentemente medicine per cardiopatie, come la digitalina).
Mentre visitiamo i reparti (dentistica, oftalmologia,
dermatologia, il gabinetto di spirometria, radiologia, medicina
del lavoro o medicina rada) le infermiere, intorno ad un
tavolo, tagliano garze. Nel reparto di neuropsichiatria (dove
hanno solo l'elettroencefalogramma) un baffuto serbo dà una
pacca sulla spalla ad Andrea (non sappiamo se è un medico, un
paziente, un operaio, un amico). Lo rincontreremo più tardi e
Andrea riceverà un'altra pacca e ricambierà come a un vecchio
amico. L'apparecchio mammografico, di cui sulla parete c'è
anche una vecchia raffigurazione ad olio, è stato portato più
di un anno fa da una delegazione del coordinamento RSU
Lombardia, ma purtroppo non può ancora essere messo in
funzione, manca qualche pezzo che non si riesce a trovare, e
così per fare l'esame mammografico le donne di Kragujevac
devono andare a Belgrado spendendo 150 marchi, praticamente il
salario di un mese.
In casa di Ivan arriviamo attraversando un ponticello di legno
su un ruscello. La casa è misera, in un prato con un enorme
albero di noci, e l'aria è fina. Il nonno è nero ed è di sangue
zigano. Viene dal Kosovo ed era stampatore alla Zastava. Ha
fatto la Resistenza ed ha partecipato, dopo la guerra, alla
ricostruzione del paese, ha costruito la ferrovia di Sarajevo.
Per accogliere gli ospiti italiani hanno preparato una pagnotta
di pane per noi e poiché erano indaffaratissimi nei
preparativi, hanno lasciato il nonno a guardia del pane nel
forno, ma lui si è addormentato ed il pane è diventato nero
come la sua faccia. Poiché i bambini non mangiano con noi e noi
li invitiamo a farlo, il papà ci rassicura: "da noi prima
mangiano i bambini, poi i vecchi, poi i genitori".
Sulla via del ritorno, Rajka ci dice che durante e dopo i
bombardamenti la gente era incazzata ma era in grado di essere
felice o infelice. Ora non è in grado di essere né felice né
infelice, è semplicemente apatica, indifferente, e aggiunge:
"chi restituirà l'infanzia a Boris? È nato nel 1989, quando
cominciava a sbriciolarsi la Jugoslavia ed è vissuto sempre
nella precarietà e nell'insicurezza. Era il suo compleanno quel
24 marzo 1999 quando sono iniziati i bombardamenti".
La casa di Jasna è in un villaggio sperduto lontano una
ventina di chilometri da Kragujevac - se ne vanno almeno una
quarantina di minuti per arrivarci. In un cortile con pavoni,
galline, tacchini e una gatta incinta, un nonno sanguigno ci
saluta dicendo: "Io sono jugoslavo!". Noi rispondiamo che siamo
internazionalisti. Il nonno si commuove quando racconta la
storia di un italiano che si rifugiò nella sua casa durante la
seconda guerra mondiale (come accadde a tanti altri, scampati
al bombardamento americano del campo di prigionia tedesco di
Zemun, alla periferia di Belgrado), quando lui aveva cinque
anni e il papà era fuori in guerra. L'italiano mangiava
peperoncini - fortissimi, se sono come quelli che ci hanno
offerto qui - e gli fece un po' da padre, poi ripartì per
l'Italia portandosi nella valigia i semi dei peperoncini, ma
non poté piantarli, perché perì in mare sulla via del ritorno.
Si commuove a sentir parlare italiano.
Il computer portatile che Brigitta ha regalato a Jasna perché
impari l'inglese è come un mostro sacro che viene aperto con
grandissima circospezione su un tavolinetto del cucinino,
l'unico che abbia a portata di mano una vecchia presa elettrica
in questa piccola casa contadina, dove non c'è acqua corrente e
bisogna usare quella del pozzo, con una pompa a mano; la
"toilette" è fuori casa, in un angolo del cortile, una piccola
cabina di vecchie assi di legno e una porta sgangherata. La
"modernità" sembra irrompere in questa casa a turbare sonni
contadini. La mamma e i nonni di Jasna, che ci hanno preparato
una calorosissima accoglienza (il papà non ha avuto il permesso
di assentarsi dal lavoro), hanno sui visi, stampata, la
consapevolezza della gravità di una "svolta epocale" nella loro
vita.
Al primo pomeriggio di venerdì 2 novembre è fissato l'incontro
con le 24 famiglie che la provincia di Napoli, da oltre un anno
e mezzo - da quando i delegati della Zastava giunti in Italia
per una serie di manifestazioni organizzate dalla nostra
associazione e dai compagni della RSU Lombardia ebbero un
incontro con il presidente Lamberti - si era impegnata a
sostenere. Difficoltà burocratiche e continui rinvii avevano
fatto incancrenire la situazione. Per poterla sbloccare, dopo
ripetuti incontri non sempre sereni e pacati, abbiamo dovuto
anticipare personalmente le somme e inviarle ad ogni singola
famiglia con vaglia postale, in attesa del rimborso,
augurandoci che la poco solerte burocrazia napoletana non ci
giochi qualche brutto scherzo... Poiché non ci fidiamo delle
poste, abbiamo portato con noi le copie delle ricevute, ma ci
rendiamo conto che per quelle famiglie che aspettano da tanto
tempo, quel pezzo di carta potrebbe anche apparire una beffa.
Miracolosamente le poste hanno funzionato e oltre la metà -
dopo appena 5 giorni, con uno festivo in mezzo - ha già
incassato la somma; sono venuti tutti a ringraziarci di cuore.
Claudio, emozionatissimo e teso, quasi non proferisce parola.
Sabato mattina i bambini della Zastava ricevono da noi 31.900
marchi e una montagna di cioccolatini. C'è la televisione
locale e nazionale che ci dedicheranno alcuni minuti di
trasmissione, sottolineando che ci siamo opposti alla guerra
contro il loro paese. Il presidente del sindacato Samostalni,
Radosav Bjeletic, introduce con poche essenziali parole.
Nel mio discorso ricordo di essere stata colpita dalla dignità
conservata da questo popolo nelle ingiuste sofferenze che gli
sono state inflitte; nei pochi giorni trascorsi qui l'anno
passato, il mio cuore era diventato così pesante di emozioni
che era impossibile metterlo in valigia e riportarlo in Italia,
perciò avevo deciso di seppellirlo a Kragujevac sotto un albero
di betulle. Ed ora sono qui a riprendermelo. Con la mia
presenza ho intenzione di disonorare la guerra, perché la
guerra possa diventare per le future generazioni una curiosità
filologica. La mia speranza è che in futuro i bambini di tutto
il mondo, quando troveranno sui libri di storia la parola
"guerra" non sapranno cos'è e andranno a cercarne il
significato sul vocabolario. Purtroppo, i bambini jugoslavi,
palestinesi, iracheni, afgani, hanno provato sulla loro pelle
che cosa significa la parola "guerra", ma ho speranza che i
loro figli vivranno in un mondo di pace. Il futuro, il mondo,
dobbiamo schiodarlo dalle corna del toro di Wall Street. Il
futuro, il mondo, è nelle nostre mani, nei nostri cuori,
dobbiamo correre a riprenderlo! Dobbiamo rispondere con
l'internazionalismo e la solidarietà ai nazionalismi, agli
etnicismi e agli egoismi che sono stati coltivati in
laboratorio dai signori della guerra come arma batteriologica
per fare ammalare e dividere i popoli di tutto il mondo. Ai
signori della guerra dobbiamo rispondere con un unico grido:
lavoratori di tutto il mondo uniamoci!
Prima che si consegni il denaro, ricordo all'assemblea che è
morto un lavoratore della Zastava mentre faceva legna nel bosco
per riscaldare i suoi bambini, e la famiglia, come non aveva i
soldi per vivere, adesso non ha i soldi per seppellirlo.
Improvvisiamo una colletta tra i lavoratori e raggiungiamo
quasi 300 marchi a cui aggiungiamo altri 300 come associazione
Most za Beograd. I bambini si divertiranno come matti a contare
i soldi.
I fiammeggianti parchi belgradesi ci attendono. È impossibile
contare le foglie morte lungo i viali. È straziante vedere
cadere le foglie come assistere all'agonia di un malato
terminale che ha imboccato la strada di una freccia nel tempo.
A Belgrado siamo ospiti di Gordana, vedova di un tenente medico
morto in guerra in Croazia. È dell'associazione Decie Istina
(la verità dei bambini) che si occupa dei profughi cacciati
dalla Croazia, dalla Bosnia, dal Kosovo. L'associazione non è
finanziata da nessuno: vi lavorano tante donne che fanno
microprogetti per intervenire concretamente nelle piccole
situazioni. In tutta la Jugoslavia arrivano aiuti che loro
distribuiscono anche ai pensionati.
Con il ricavato di una festa di beneficenza in una sera
d'estate alla casa in campagna di Andrea Navach a Mola di Bari,
si è riusciti ad adottare alcuni di questi sfortunati bambini.
A casa di Iljana e Mikolina che ha cominciato a studiare
l'italiano all'Università, siamo in un caseggiato misero
all'ultimo piano, dove un torrente di sole inonda la stanza.
Vengono da Spalato, hanno perso il papà in guerra ("Operazione
Tempesta", agosto 1995, quando gli americani armarono i croati
e fecero un blitz scacciando 200.000 serbi). Pagano 200 marchi
per questo appartamento diviso con la figlia del proprietario.
La pensione del papà morto in guerra è di 350 marchi. Il
paniere dei beni di prima necessità è di circa 400 marchi. In
tutta la casa ci sono icone di legno (San Basilio, la madonna
di Costantinopoli). Mikolina - un po' d'inglese e qualche
parola d'italiano - ci dice che il governo croato è rimasto
nazionalista e xenofobo. Anche la loro casa in Croazia è stata
rasa al suolo.
Petar è semicieco e così la sorella. La madre ha un tumore al
cervello. L'appartamento è misero, ma stranamente è privo di
odori (come tutti gli altri visitati). In una minuscola stanza
vivono tutti insieme. In un armadio senza porte si vedono
coperte ripiegate - serviranno come giaciglio per la notte.
Petar ci fa vedere con orgoglio la sua collezione di biglietti
per le partite di calcio. Ha anche una fotografia della squadra
"Stella rossa" che vinse al San Nicola di Bari. Li regalerà
tutti ad un Andrea piuttosto riluttante e restio a portarsi via
quei biglietti che per Petar evidentemente significano tante
cose, tante passioni, speranze, illusioni, sogni. Petar ha
scritto con scrittura incerta una lettera per Andrea Navach.
Dovranno lasciare la casa tra un anno. E la madre e i due
ragazzi infermi a cui il "perfido" Milosevic aveva assicurato
la casa per dieci anni, saranno cacciati in un gelida strada di
Belgrado dal "democratico" Djindjic. Mentre ascolto,
dall'albero di platano, al di là del vetro, nel cortile, cadono
tante foglie gialle, così come sfioriscono prematuramente i
fiori di questa giovinezza mai sbocciata.
Anche Slavko è semicieco, anche il suo è un povero
appartamentino all'ultimo piano, una stanza un cucinino e un
bagno. Da una finestra sconquassata si vede - ormai è buio - il
cielo sopra Belgrado, in cui è conficcata una stella
tremolante, come una foglia malata che sta per cadere: è la
metafora di queste vite appese ad un filo che la nostra
solidarietà tiene ancora teso. Il padre di Slavko è morto nel
'94, la famiglia viveva a Zagabria. Slavko fa il tifo per il
Kinder, Andrea, colto di sorpresa, e sprovvisto della spalla di
Claudio, in visita turistica nella capitale in cui non era mai
stato, si dice tifoso dell'Inter, ma è preoccupato di essere
interrogato sui giocatori di cui non conosce neppure il nome.
La prima volta scapparono da Zagabria, la seconda volta nel '95
da Knin, nella Krajna. I trisavoli erano bosniaci, sono serbi
di Bosnia e Croazia. Slavko e Mikolina dagli occhi sgranati
vengono inghiottiti dalla notte come dall'orco di una favola
dei fratelli Grimm e si chiudono a chiave mentre la mamma ci
accompagna a piazza della Repubblica.
Non vediamo l'ora di scappare da Belgrado che ci ha depresso!
La visita ai profughi ci ha fatto uscire dalla festosa
atmosfera di Kragujevac, dove ci sentivamo a casa nostra.
E' l'ora della visita al prof. Niksa Stipcevic nel suo
bell'appartamento pieno di libri, molti in lingua italiana,
rari anche per noi, che dall'Italia veniamo. Abita in una via
che ancora l'anno scorso si chiamava Srpski Vladara ed ora,
invece, Kralja Milana. Nell'arco di 10 anni molte strade hanno
cambiato più volte i loro nomi: quelli legati alla resistenza
antinazista, o alla tradizione comunista ne hanno fatto
impietosamente le spese. La gatta Milica, in assenza di
Svetlana, come una sultana, si stira sul tappeto mentre scansa
vasi preziosi facendoci trattenere il fiato. Ha gli occhi rossi
e Niksa mi avverte che è pericolosa. Il discorso
immancabilmente scivola sulla guerra: l'Afghanistan è una terra
infelice! Lì si sono impantanati Alessandro Magno, Tamerlano, i
sovietici. Riguardo la nostra associazione si esprime in
maniera lusinghiera: le azioni dell'associazione sono
memorabili e incrementeranno l'amore jugoslavo verso l'Italia.
L'Italia è nel cuore degli jugoslavi. L'ambasciatore Sessa è
stato l'unico italiano insieme a tre diplomatici a rimanere
durante i 78 giorni di bombardamento a Belgrado, nonostante
l'ordine di tornare. Da un punto di vista sociologico c'è una
cosa interessantissima: negli ultimi 10 anni, lo studio della
lingua Italiana supera quello dell'Inglese all'Università di
Belgrado. Su un massimo di 100 punti di ammissione ai corsi,
l'Italianistica ha chiuso ad 88, l'Inglese ad 82, il Francese a
55. Durante i bombardamenti, c'erano per le strade alcuni
italiani; nessuno li ha offesi, perché i piloti italiani hanno
buttato le bombe in Adriatico e non sulle popolazioni civili. A
lui piace pensare così, e forse anche a noi... Molti suoi amici
di Belgrado sanno che esiste Most za Beograd, che contribuisce
a rafforzare l'amicizia tra due popoli. Le prime maestranze
della Zastava di Kragujevac venivano dall'Italia (dalla
fabbrica di Agnelli). Nel frattempo Milica si è adagiata sotto
l'abat jour e approva con la testa.
Il lunedì mattina, dopo aver fatto visita alla sede
dell'associazione Decie Istina, veniamo accompagnati
all'aeroporto da Ranka, presidente dell'associazione, e Ivka,
profuga dal Kosovo. Ivka sembra Medea, sembra fuggita or ora
dal Kosovo, è tutta scarmigliata, arruffata. Ivka è fuggita con
una busta di plastica da Pec, in essa conserva tutto ciò che
per lei è significativo: un portafoglio sgualcito in cui sono
racchiuse le foto delle figlie.
Al momento della partenza, mentre sbrighiamo le
pratiche d'imbarco, all'aeroporto di Belgrado scoppia un
piccolo giallo. Un gelido doganiere balcanico mi chiede se ho
nulla da dichiarare e mi intima di aprire borsa e valigia.
Fruga dappertutto e, come se sapesse cosa cercare, a colpo
sicuro mi sequestra un carillonino cinese che una bambina della
Zastava mi ha regalato. Da esso proviene un forte ticchettio,
come di una bomba ad orologeria, in esso batte il mio cuore che
ho da poco disseppellito a Kragujevac con l'intenzione di
riportarmelo in Italia, nascosto tra foglie morte raccolte nei
parchi. Io mi faccio piccola piccola e imploro il cortese
doganiere, cercando di spiegare che trattasi solo del mio
piccolo cuore, che esso mi appartiene... ma come posso fare a
sopravvivere senza... che esso è solo un'arma di legittima
difesa che mi ha permesso di sopravvivere quando il mondo
crollava addosso ai nostri amici della Zastava, al
petrolchimico di Pancevo, e alla Jugoslavia tutta. Certo, ne ho
fatto un uso improprio, internazionalista, perché le leggi
italiane ne vietano espressamente l'esportazione ... ma qui
siamo in Jugoslavia ed è assurdo che le sue frontiere me lo
trattengano senza motivo. Non me l'hanno sequestrato neppure a
Fiumicino... lì sì che si trattava di esportazione illegale di
materiale altamente pericoloso... Signor doganiere, come potrò
continuare la mia attività del Most za Beograd? Andrea cerca di
convincerlo parlando in russo. Niente da fare. Il cortese
doganiere balcanico, soddisfatto del suo bottino, mi attraversa
con un gelido sguardo come se io fossi un trasparente fantasma
e, sequestrato il carillonino, mi dà il permesso di partire.
Ormai ho perso anche le foglie gialle che vi erano racchiuse.
Le foglie gialle le porterò ormai solo nei miei ricordi come
sigla del mio viaggio d'autunno balcanico, come la metafora di
un popolo che muore per colpa della nostra dimenticanza. Mentre
il rombo dell'aereo culla i miei ricordi e mi procura
sonnolenza, come un rosario sgrano nella mia mente i versi del
mio poeta preferito, il turco Nazim Hikmet:
Veder cadere le foglie mi lacera dentro
soprattutto le foglie dei viali
soprattutto se sono ippocastani
soprattutto se passano dei bimbi
soprattutto se il cielo è sereno
soprattutto se ho avuto, quel giorno
una buona notizia
soprattutto se il cuore quel giorno
non mi fa male!
soprattutto se credo quel giorno
che quella che amo mi ami!
soprattutto se quel giorno
mi sento d'accordo con gli uomini
e con me stesso.
Veder cadere le foglie mi lacera dentro
soprattutto le foglie dei viali
dei viali di ippocastani!
Arrivederci Belgrado! questa volta mi hai imprigionata nel
cerchio stregato del tuo fiammeggiante barocco danubiano, la
cui polvere dorata mi è rimasta impiastricciata tra le mani!
Ormai sono passati 15 giorni dal nostro rientro in Italia:
stamattina il postino citofona invitandomi giù a ritirare una
raccomandata. Firmo e, con occhi impazienti leggo dalla
intestazione della busta che essa proviene dalle dogane
jugoslave. La apro e cade per terra una minuscola foglia dorata
di tiglio. La lettera è scritta in serbo e c'è anche la
traduzione italiana. Sono informata in perfetto linguaggio
burocratico, con mille scuse, che il materiale sequestratomi,
per uno spiacevole errore dalla polizia di frontiera, è
custodito in località segreta a Kragujevac e che, poiché mi
appartiene (trattasi di sequestro e non di confisca), è
trattenuto solo momentaneamente dalle autorità locali e che
sarò la ben accetta in Jugoslavia quando vorrò andarmelo a
riprendere. Dopo aver letto, riletto e ripiegato la lettera, mi
chino per terra a raccogliere la minuscola foglia dorata di
tiglio che il cuore balcanico di un austero funzionario del
ministero degli esteri jugoslavo ha voluto inviarmi per
invogliarmi a tornare a Kragujevac.
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