>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Aug. 24, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>U.S. court rules against Serb leader
>
>THE RAPE CHARGE & WASHINGTON'S WAR PROPAGANDA
>
>By Sara Flounders
>
>On Aug. 10, a federal court in New York ruled that Radovan
>Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader during the civil war in
>Bosnia seven years ago, must pay $745 million in damages for
>the crimes of rape, torture and genocide committed during
>the civil war.
>
>Of course, no money is expected to be recovered. The charge
>was originally filed in 1993 for propaganda purposes at the
>height of the Bosnian civil war. The decision seven years
>later received the full front page and three inside pages of
>coverage in the Aug. 11 edition of Newsday, and wide
>attention in other media.
>
>How could a U.S. federal court in New York even have
>jurisdiction over what happened in another country to people
>who had no connection to the United States?
>
>This "trial" is part of a continuing effort to give the U.S.
>government the basis to charge and convict leaders of any
>country that is the target of CIA destabilization. It
>revived all the charges that were used to justify U.S.
>military intervention and occupation in the Balkans.
>
>Karadzic is not charged with committing any of the crimes
>directly. He is charged as the leader of a government that
>has been a target of continuing demonization.
>
>Karadzic could not travel to New York or present any defense
>in this one-sided trial. He is in hiding in Bosnia after
>being indicted on similar charges at the court established
>at The Hague by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright--
>the so-called International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
>Yugoslavia.
>
>Of course, no testimony presented in the U.S. federal court
>in New York or the Tribunal based at The Hague even
>mentioned Washington's role in manufacturing the break-up of
>the Yugoslav Federation, fomenting the civil war and bombing
>civilians in Bosnia and Yugoslavia.
>
>But the criminal role of the United States, Germany and
>other Western governments has been well documented by
>people's tribunals in New York, Berlin, Rome, Athens, Moscow
>and Kiev, Ukraine, over the past year.
>
>NATO BASES THE REAL GOAL
>The charges of genocide and mass rapes in Bosnia were the
>beginning of a massive, well-orchestrated public relations
>campaign to demand U.S./NATO intervention in the Balkans.
>
>Claiming to be a force for peace and stability in a bloody
>civil war, the Pentagon has now established a whole network
>of military bases in Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Kosovo,
>Hungary and the Czech Republic.
>
>Serb towns in Bosnia were the targets of more than 4,000
>U.S. bombings in 1994 and 1995. In 1999 the Pentagon and
>NATO bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days.
>
>The charge of rape made against the Serbs shaped the views
>of millions of people who previously had little interest in
>the Balkans.
>
>In late 1992 and early 1993, sensational news reports
>charged that mass rapes were a planned, deliberate strategy
>of the Bosnian Serb leadership.
>
>Women are the first victims in every war. Rape and the
>degrading abuse of women are all too often carried out as a
>stamp of conquest by invading armies imbued with patriarchal
>attitudes.
>
>But the charge of rape has also often been consciously used
>as an essential prop of war propaganda. The supposed defense
>of women is used to mobilize armies and to galvanize blind
>hatred.
>
>A LIE REPEATED BECOMES FACT
>
>Without any examination of the highly biased sources, the
>major Western media gave lurid descriptions of rape camps
>where it was claimed that between 20,000 and 100,000 Muslim
>and Croatian women were raped. This crystallized the public
>view that Serbs were the evil aggressors and Muslims and
>Croatians the helpless victims.
>
>The charge that 30,000 women and girls had been raped
>originated with the foreign minister of Bosnia, Haris
>Silajdzic, in order to stall peace talks in Geneva in late
>1992.
>
>In January 1993 the Warburton Report authorized by the
>European Community estimated that 20,000 Muslim women had
>been raped as part of a Serb strategy of conquest. This
>report was widely cited as an authoritative, independent
>source.
>
>No coverage was given to a dissenting member of the
>investigative team--European Parliament President Simone
>Veil--who revealed that the estimate of 20,000 rapes was
>based on interviews with only four victims, two women and
>two men.
>
>The Croatian Ministry of Health in Zagreb was the main
>source on which the Warburton Report based its estimate of
>20,000 rapes.
>
>Because the charge of systematic Serbian rapes of Muslim and
>Croatian women has been repeated so often, it is now
>accepted as an undisputed fact.
>
>Publications vied with each other for sensationalized
>accounts. USA Today told the story of a 5-month-old baby who
>was supposedly the result of Serbian rape. The New York
>Times carried a photo story with the caption, "Two-month-old
>baby girl born to a teen-age Muslim woman after she was
>raped in a Serbian detention camp." The war was not yet nine
>months old.
>
>Ms. Magazine ran a cover story that accused Bosnian Serb
>forces of raping for the purpose of producing pornographic
>films. No such films were ever found and the charges were
>not supported by the findings of Helsinki Watch or Human
>Rights Watch.
>
>CROATIAN (DIS)INFORMATION CENTER
>
>The woman who was the star witness and main media
>spokesperson in the New York trial and judgment, Jadranka
>Cigelj, is a paid propagandist who worked for the Croatian
>Information Center.
>
>She was well known in radical Croatian nationalist circles.
>She was also the vice-chair of Croatian President Franjo
>Tudjman's fascist HDZ Party.
>
>The HDZ is closely linked to the Ustashe Party that led
>Croatia during the Nazi occupation in World War II.
>
>Perhaps because of her fascist political background, in
>interviews Cigelj always brands the Serbs as "far worse than
>the Nazis."
>
>Cigelj's rape charges are extensively quoted in almost all
>articles and testimony on rapes in Bosnia. However, her
>accounts have changed several times.
>
>Thomas Deichmann, a German researcher and journalist, has
>documented Cigelj's varied testimony and her political
>background in a chapter of the book, "War, Lies and
>Videotape," published by the International Action Center.
>
>In one publication produced by the Croatian Information
>Center, Cigelj charged that a Serbian reserve officer raped
>her. In a later article with Roy Gutman of Newsday, she
>charged that Zeljko Mejakic, the Serbian commander of a
>refugee camp, and two camp guards raped her.
>
>Later, in a German publication, her story changed again. She
>testified in the highly publicized case of another man,
>former Serbian soldier Jezdimir Topic, who faced deportation
>from the United States in 1999.
>
>Cigelj offered to become a key prosecution witness against
>another Serb, Dusan Tadic, at the Hague Tribunal. She was
>rejected because she was seen as an unreliable source.
>
>However, Cigelj has been featured in documentaries, received
>financial awards, and was the main spokesperson of a 25-city
>U.S. tour organized by Amnesty International.
>
>None of the discrepancies in her story or her right-wing
>political activities was reported in the coverage of her
>testimony against Radovan Karadzic.
>
>CAPITALISM PROMOTES SEXUAL SLAVERY
>
>Nowhere in Newsday's three pages of coverage recounting
>charges of Serbian rapes in Bosnia were the conditions women
>face today under NATO occupation even mentioned.
>
>Throughout Eastern and Central Europe, in Russia and the
>former Soviet republics, the chaos and dislocation of the
>capitalist market have eroded the enormous gains women made
>under socialism.
>
>A decade ago these countries guaranteed full employment and
>two years paid maternity leave. Now unemployment of 30-40
>percent is the norm. Health care and child-care services
>have collapsed.
>
>Women's organizations were understandably outraged by the
>lurid reports concerning mass rapes in Bosnia seven years
>ago. They would make a contribution if they focused their
>resources on exposing the conditions for women living under
>U.S. domination today.
>
>U.S. troops and bases do not protect women. They exist to
>protect the extraction of profits for giant capitalist
>institutions. In every U.S. military operation an entire sex
>industry of bars, strip joints and brothels is created
>around the bases.
>
>This experience of Vietnam, Thailand, Korea and the
>Philippines is now the reality around U.S. bases in Tuxla,
>Bosnia, and at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo.
>
>At the United Nations Beijing Plus Five Conference of 10,000
>women in June, the worldwide status of women was examined.
>It was estimated that more than half-a-million women from
>Central and Eastern Europe are shipped abroad each year as
>part of the worldwide trafficking in prostitutes. Bosnia was
>cited as one of the worst examples. (New York Times, June
>11)
>
>Flounders is co-director of the International Action Center
>in New York. Background materials for this article appeared
>in two IAC books, "NATO in the Balkans" and "War, Lies and
>Videotape," both available at leftbooks.com.
>
>- END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>ww@.... For subscription info send message to:
>info@.... Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Aug. 24, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>U.S. court rules against Serb leader
>
>THE RAPE CHARGE & WASHINGTON'S WAR PROPAGANDA
>
>By Sara Flounders
>
>On Aug. 10, a federal court in New York ruled that Radovan
>Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader during the civil war in
>Bosnia seven years ago, must pay $745 million in damages for
>the crimes of rape, torture and genocide committed during
>the civil war.
>
>Of course, no money is expected to be recovered. The charge
>was originally filed in 1993 for propaganda purposes at the
>height of the Bosnian civil war. The decision seven years
>later received the full front page and three inside pages of
>coverage in the Aug. 11 edition of Newsday, and wide
>attention in other media.
>
>How could a U.S. federal court in New York even have
>jurisdiction over what happened in another country to people
>who had no connection to the United States?
>
>This "trial" is part of a continuing effort to give the U.S.
>government the basis to charge and convict leaders of any
>country that is the target of CIA destabilization. It
>revived all the charges that were used to justify U.S.
>military intervention and occupation in the Balkans.
>
>Karadzic is not charged with committing any of the crimes
>directly. He is charged as the leader of a government that
>has been a target of continuing demonization.
>
>Karadzic could not travel to New York or present any defense
>in this one-sided trial. He is in hiding in Bosnia after
>being indicted on similar charges at the court established
>at The Hague by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright--
>the so-called International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
>Yugoslavia.
>
>Of course, no testimony presented in the U.S. federal court
>in New York or the Tribunal based at The Hague even
>mentioned Washington's role in manufacturing the break-up of
>the Yugoslav Federation, fomenting the civil war and bombing
>civilians in Bosnia and Yugoslavia.
>
>But the criminal role of the United States, Germany and
>other Western governments has been well documented by
>people's tribunals in New York, Berlin, Rome, Athens, Moscow
>and Kiev, Ukraine, over the past year.
>
>NATO BASES THE REAL GOAL
>The charges of genocide and mass rapes in Bosnia were the
>beginning of a massive, well-orchestrated public relations
>campaign to demand U.S./NATO intervention in the Balkans.
>
>Claiming to be a force for peace and stability in a bloody
>civil war, the Pentagon has now established a whole network
>of military bases in Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Kosovo,
>Hungary and the Czech Republic.
>
>Serb towns in Bosnia were the targets of more than 4,000
>U.S. bombings in 1994 and 1995. In 1999 the Pentagon and
>NATO bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days.
>
>The charge of rape made against the Serbs shaped the views
>of millions of people who previously had little interest in
>the Balkans.
>
>In late 1992 and early 1993, sensational news reports
>charged that mass rapes were a planned, deliberate strategy
>of the Bosnian Serb leadership.
>
>Women are the first victims in every war. Rape and the
>degrading abuse of women are all too often carried out as a
>stamp of conquest by invading armies imbued with patriarchal
>attitudes.
>
>But the charge of rape has also often been consciously used
>as an essential prop of war propaganda. The supposed defense
>of women is used to mobilize armies and to galvanize blind
>hatred.
>
>A LIE REPEATED BECOMES FACT
>
>Without any examination of the highly biased sources, the
>major Western media gave lurid descriptions of rape camps
>where it was claimed that between 20,000 and 100,000 Muslim
>and Croatian women were raped. This crystallized the public
>view that Serbs were the evil aggressors and Muslims and
>Croatians the helpless victims.
>
>The charge that 30,000 women and girls had been raped
>originated with the foreign minister of Bosnia, Haris
>Silajdzic, in order to stall peace talks in Geneva in late
>1992.
>
>In January 1993 the Warburton Report authorized by the
>European Community estimated that 20,000 Muslim women had
>been raped as part of a Serb strategy of conquest. This
>report was widely cited as an authoritative, independent
>source.
>
>No coverage was given to a dissenting member of the
>investigative team--European Parliament President Simone
>Veil--who revealed that the estimate of 20,000 rapes was
>based on interviews with only four victims, two women and
>two men.
>
>The Croatian Ministry of Health in Zagreb was the main
>source on which the Warburton Report based its estimate of
>20,000 rapes.
>
>Because the charge of systematic Serbian rapes of Muslim and
>Croatian women has been repeated so often, it is now
>accepted as an undisputed fact.
>
>Publications vied with each other for sensationalized
>accounts. USA Today told the story of a 5-month-old baby who
>was supposedly the result of Serbian rape. The New York
>Times carried a photo story with the caption, "Two-month-old
>baby girl born to a teen-age Muslim woman after she was
>raped in a Serbian detention camp." The war was not yet nine
>months old.
>
>Ms. Magazine ran a cover story that accused Bosnian Serb
>forces of raping for the purpose of producing pornographic
>films. No such films were ever found and the charges were
>not supported by the findings of Helsinki Watch or Human
>Rights Watch.
>
>CROATIAN (DIS)INFORMATION CENTER
>
>The woman who was the star witness and main media
>spokesperson in the New York trial and judgment, Jadranka
>Cigelj, is a paid propagandist who worked for the Croatian
>Information Center.
>
>She was well known in radical Croatian nationalist circles.
>She was also the vice-chair of Croatian President Franjo
>Tudjman's fascist HDZ Party.
>
>The HDZ is closely linked to the Ustashe Party that led
>Croatia during the Nazi occupation in World War II.
>
>Perhaps because of her fascist political background, in
>interviews Cigelj always brands the Serbs as "far worse than
>the Nazis."
>
>Cigelj's rape charges are extensively quoted in almost all
>articles and testimony on rapes in Bosnia. However, her
>accounts have changed several times.
>
>Thomas Deichmann, a German researcher and journalist, has
>documented Cigelj's varied testimony and her political
>background in a chapter of the book, "War, Lies and
>Videotape," published by the International Action Center.
>
>In one publication produced by the Croatian Information
>Center, Cigelj charged that a Serbian reserve officer raped
>her. In a later article with Roy Gutman of Newsday, she
>charged that Zeljko Mejakic, the Serbian commander of a
>refugee camp, and two camp guards raped her.
>
>Later, in a German publication, her story changed again. She
>testified in the highly publicized case of another man,
>former Serbian soldier Jezdimir Topic, who faced deportation
>from the United States in 1999.
>
>Cigelj offered to become a key prosecution witness against
>another Serb, Dusan Tadic, at the Hague Tribunal. She was
>rejected because she was seen as an unreliable source.
>
>However, Cigelj has been featured in documentaries, received
>financial awards, and was the main spokesperson of a 25-city
>U.S. tour organized by Amnesty International.
>
>None of the discrepancies in her story or her right-wing
>political activities was reported in the coverage of her
>testimony against Radovan Karadzic.
>
>CAPITALISM PROMOTES SEXUAL SLAVERY
>
>Nowhere in Newsday's three pages of coverage recounting
>charges of Serbian rapes in Bosnia were the conditions women
>face today under NATO occupation even mentioned.
>
>Throughout Eastern and Central Europe, in Russia and the
>former Soviet republics, the chaos and dislocation of the
>capitalist market have eroded the enormous gains women made
>under socialism.
>
>A decade ago these countries guaranteed full employment and
>two years paid maternity leave. Now unemployment of 30-40
>percent is the norm. Health care and child-care services
>have collapsed.
>
>Women's organizations were understandably outraged by the
>lurid reports concerning mass rapes in Bosnia seven years
>ago. They would make a contribution if they focused their
>resources on exposing the conditions for women living under
>U.S. domination today.
>
>U.S. troops and bases do not protect women. They exist to
>protect the extraction of profits for giant capitalist
>institutions. In every U.S. military operation an entire sex
>industry of bars, strip joints and brothels is created
>around the bases.
>
>This experience of Vietnam, Thailand, Korea and the
>Philippines is now the reality around U.S. bases in Tuxla,
>Bosnia, and at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo.
>
>At the United Nations Beijing Plus Five Conference of 10,000
>women in June, the worldwide status of women was examined.
>It was estimated that more than half-a-million women from
>Central and Eastern Europe are shipped abroad each year as
>part of the worldwide trafficking in prostitutes. Bosnia was
>cited as one of the worst examples. (New York Times, June
>11)
>
>Flounders is co-director of the International Action Center
>in New York. Background materials for this article appeared
>in two IAC books, "NATO in the Balkans" and "War, Lies and
>Videotape," both available at leftbooks.com.
>
>- END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>ww@.... For subscription info send message to:
>info@.... Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------