The Global Reflexion Foundation contributes, according to her ability,
to
the distribution of information on international issues that in the
media
does not recieve proper attention or is presented in a distorted way. We
receive information from different sources, that does not necessary
reflect
our opinion. If you don't want to receive it, please send us an e-mail.
******************************************************
Wednesday, October 25, 2000
- Will Moldova be the next Kosovo
- It Turns Out Depleted Uranium Is Bad For NATO Troops In Kosovo [What
About Everyone Else?]
- Activists planned uprising that led to Milosevic's ouster
- "Democracy" will not be for all pockets
*****************************************************
TARGETS, a Dutch monthly publication on international affaires, will
organize a public meeting to discuss the current developments in
Yugoslavia and the role of the Western powers.
The meeting will be adressed by:
· Jürgen Elsässer, editor of the German monthly publication KONKRET and
· Nico Varkevisser, editor-in-chief of TARGETS
Date: Sunday, October 29
Place: Akhnaton, Nieuwezijds Kolk 25, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Time: 15.00h
Jürgen Elsässer will present his new book: 'Kriegsverbrechen'. Die
tötlichen Lügen der Nato und ihre Opfer im Kosovo-Konflikt. (including a
file on Srebrenica)
*************************************************************
Will Moldova be de next Kosovo
NEW ANTI-RUSSIAN NATO MACHINATIONS
by Denis Petrov
On October 2, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow saw fit to deny the existence
of a
secret plan cooked up by American spooks and the Organization for
Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to partition Moldova. Bearing in mind
events in the Balkans in recent years, this denial was enough to
convince
most Russian and Moldovan/Romanian patriots that the plan is already
operational.
The State Department was reacting to a September 23 article in the
influential Izvestiya daily, claiming that talks between Russia and
Moldova
on the fate of the breakaway “Dniester Moldovan Republic”
had
broken down because of a “secret plan” pushed by the West to
annex Moldova to Romania and the Dniester region to Ukraine.
(This self-styled Dniester Republic, sometimes referred to as
Transdnistria, is a predominately Slavic, Russian-speaking region. In
1940
it was fused with the former Romanian province of Bessarabia to form the
Soviet Moldovan Republic in one of Stalin’s notorious land grabs.)
According to Izvestiya, the plan would involve annexation of the
Dniester
region by a nationalist Ukraine. The paper strongly implied that the
West
was backing the resurgent Ukrainian nationalist movement in pro-NATO
Western Ukraine-as a prelude to further NATO expansion. As in Kosovo,
however, the NATO-crats plan on exploiting nationalism only tactically:
the
real aim is to force the unconditional removal of the Russian 14th army
from the Dniester region, making way for an eventual NATO military
presence. Meanwhile, a suitably tamed and re-united Romania -- one that
would be bound by OSCE guidelines on "human rights" not to enforce
recent
laws giving the Romanian language legal predominance -- would be
absorbed
by OSCE/EU structures. The price for eventual integration into the
European
Union would be the negation of a distinct Romanian identity.
Izvestiya further claimed that a delay in Russian-Moldovan talks was
forced
on the Russian delegation, led by former Prime Minister Yevgeniy
Primakov,
as a prelude to scuttling the Russian plan to transform Moldova into a
confederation that would leave the Moldovan state intact while granting
the
Dniester region autonomy. Under the American plan Russia would carry out
a
phased withdrawal of the 14th Army, which the OSCE would pay for.
The Primakov plan, which appears to have suited both the Moldovans and
the
Russians -- at least for now -- was not enough to satisfy the NATOcrats:
Russia would still maintain ties with an autonomous Dniester Republic,
ties
which would probably include a guarantee of Dniester self-determination
should Moldova eventually rejoin Romania. Moreover, the region would
probably seek admittance to the Russian-Belarussian Union under such
circumstances, thereby maintaining Russian influence in the region. The
“secret plan” was devised to pre-empt such eventualities.
On the same day as the Izvestiya article, Kommersant, a
business-oriented
Russian daily, filled in the missing pieces to the diplomatic puzzle.
Kommersant pointed out that the U.S. Congress had recently allocated $45
million for funding "military assistance" to certain former Soviet
republics, including Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and
Moldova.
The aim appears to be to weaken Russian influence in those states by
undermining the Russian-brokered CIS, a commonwealth of former Soviet
republics, and strengthening a Western-influenced GUUAM
(Georgia-Ukraine-Uzbekistan-Azerbaijan-Moldova) counterpart.
The net effect of the NATO/OSCE/EU machinations would be to isolate
Russia
by creating a NATO-dominated buffer zone on the periphery of the former
Soviet empire. This buffer zone would also just so happen to include a
number of states acting as gas and oil transit lines, states whose
importance will only increase as Caspian sea deposits are developed.
It
is small wonder then that an increasing number of Russians view the West
with suspicion and downright hostility: The ultimate objective of
NATO’s version of the Anaconda plan would be to weaken, if not
dismember, Russia.
***************************************
The URL for this article is
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/arbuth/port.htm
It Turns Out Depleted Uranium Is Bad For NATO Troops In Kosovo [What
About
Everyone Else?]
by Felicity Arbuthnot [10-26-2000]
[Felicity Arbuthnot has written a great deal about the Gulf War and
depleted uranium, as well as about the attack on Yugoslavia. An
interview
with Ms. Arbuthnot follows.]
In a week which has seen the French government follow their Italian
counterparts in launching an enquiry into the effects of depleted
uranium
(DU) on their soldiers in Kosovo, the Portugese Defence Minister, Julio
Castro Caldas has informed NATO Headquarters that he is withdrawing
Portugese troops from Kosmet. They were not, he said, going to become
uranium meat.
DU, first used in the 1991 Gulf war, is both chemically toxic and
radioactive and is used as coating, ballast or core for weapons.
Two Italian K-FOR soldiers have been flown to Rome suffering from
cancers
and the Rome Military Attorney has joined his colleagues in Milan,
Turin
and Venice in investigating DU in Kosovo and the Balkans and effects on
Italian troops. Last month the Yugoslav Ambassador to the Czech
Republic,
Djoko Stojicic told media in Prague that K-FOR soldiers in
Kosovo-Metohia
had long been experiencing health problems associated with DU. Quoting
NATO
French Air Force Commander, General Joffret he said the West apparently
wanted to get rid of their nuclear waste, contaminating the region.
Belgium
and Dutch troops are instructed by their governments not to eat local
produce and that clothes must be destroyed on departure and vehicles
decontaminated. K-FOR contingents have drinking water flown in.
Portuguese Defense Minister Julio Castro Caldas said his decision
should
have been made earlier and that Portugese forces should not have
participated in last year's 72 day war in the Balkans. Former
UK Minister of Defence, now NATO Secretary General, George Robertson
was
well aware of the dangers posed by DU, he said.
Portugese soldiers were sent on missions in the area poisoned with
depleted uranium, Pereira wrote in the influential Lisbon journal
'Diario
de Noticias'. NATO confirmed that the area was contaminted by DU and the
UN
representative also confirmed and apologised. Pereira stated that there
was
opposition in the headquarters of other countries performing missions in
poisoned areas. If it is hard to persuade military circles in
Washington,
Paris, London or Berlin to send their troops to the critical areas in
Kosovo, does that mean that the Portugese are to represent uranium
meat?
Earlier this year a seven page document warning of the hazards of DU
was
placed in the mail boxes of all personel working out of the UN building
in
Pristina and the Supreme Headquarters Allied
Command in Europe (SHAPE) issued warnings to United States Commands
urging
the widest possible dissemination to forces of other nations. A recent
meeting of the United Nations Environment
Programme attended by bodies including the International Atomic Energy
Authority and the Swedish Radiation Protection Institute resulted in
ongoing consultations as to how to proceed with a scientific field
assessment of DU sites, according to Director Klaus Toepfer. Previous
assessments had been hampered by NATO's refusal to provide maps of
affected
areas.
This Wednesday, Dr Asav Durakovic and Dr Hari Sharma, world renowned
radiation experts who tested sick Gulf war veterans for the presence of
DU
in their bodies and found up to one hundred
times the safe limit remaining eight years after the Gulf war, will
brief
the Justice and Human Rights Commission at the European Parliament.
If Balkans Syndrome is proven to affect K-FOR and reportedly other
people
working in the region, might not the native population of Kosovo also
suffer the cancers and birth deformities from DU
which as we know have devastated Iraq?
And how does this question figure in the calculations of NATO?
***
Interview with Felicity Arbuthnot
I spoke to Felicity Arbuthnot, author of the above article, in the wee
hours of this morning, October 25th. She told me the following story:
"In
June of 1999, on the day that they announced they were sending ground
troops into Kosovo, I rang the Ministry of Defense and I said, "Are we
now
going to see a wave of Balkans War Syndrome?" And they said, "Absolutely
not! The Minister himself has given strict instructions that no
personnel
must go near anything that might have been hit by depleted uranium
weapons
and if it is unavoidable they must wear full radiological protective
clothing."
Jared Israel: Doesn't that slightly contradict their other positions?
That
Gulf War Syndrome has nothing to do with depleted uranium?
Felicity Arbuthnot: Exactly. So I said, "What about refugees we're
encouraging to return not to mention the people who did not leave, the
Serbs and Roma and so on," and they said, "Oh, that has
nothing to do with us. That's UNHCR [the UN refugee organization]."
So I rang up UNHCR and put the same question to them: "What is going to
happen to these people?" And I said one of the things that the Ministry
person had told me was they had been told not to
disturb the soil lest dust should come up. I said, "How are they going
to
rebuild their homes if you don't disturb the soil?"
Israel: Especially since the homes that had been hit with shells
containing DU would be exactly the ones where you would have to tear
down,
consequently distrubing dangerous soil.
Arbuthnot: That's exactly right. Then UNHCR said to me, "What's DU?" So
I
sent them about three trees worth of material.
Israel: They didn't know what DU was?
Arbuthnot: I sent them piles and piles of stuff and they then said,
"You
know, this is really extremely alarming. Do you think we should pull our
personnel out?" And I said "Well, if you are encouraging the refugees to
go
back and you pull your personnel out and they get sick and I were they
I'd
be reaching for my lawyer." So they went very quiet. And you know, in
the
article I speak of this report which mysteriously appeared in the pigeon
holes of all the personnel that work out of the UN headquarters in
Pristina
warning of the dangers of DU. And you know there are hundreds and
hundreds
of people working out of there. And then, there are the people who live
there as well as those who have been driven out since NATO arrived and
who
should like to come back, aren't there?
www.tenc.net Emperor's Clothes]
******************************************
Activists planned uprising that led to Milosevic's ouster
Special coverage of the unrest in Yugoslavia
By DANICA KIRKA, Associated Press
CACAK, Yugoslavia (October 20, 2000 3:27 p.m. EDT
http://www.nandotimes.com) - The farmhands and factory workers who
surged
through the doors of Yugoslavia's parliament seemed to be acting on
impulse, seizing the moment to oust Slobodan Milosevic.
Truth is, every step was planned.
Activists from this central Yugoslav city had been planning the uprising
long before they drove to the Yugoslav capital on Oct. 5. They brought a
list of targets, 10 days worth of food, a front-end loader and trucks
full
of rocks - ready to do battle with the Milosevic regime.
"People were ready for this," said Dragan Kovacevic, a local coordinator
for pro-democracy forces. "We had had enough of these piecemeal acts. We
needed concrete action."
The Cacak activists had also infiltrated the ranks of Milosevic's feared
police and said they knew in advance how they were likely to react.
The groundwork for the tumultuous events that toppled Milosevic had been
laid as much as four years earlier, when the opposition won elections in
Cacak and Velimir Ilic became mayor.
The job came with a television and radio station, one of many local
media
outlets that dotted the Yugoslav countryside. Considered too small to
worry
about, Milosevic loyalists didn't bother to shut them down when they
muzzled the Belgrade media.
Tensions had been building since the Sept. 24 elections, which the
opposition claimed Vojislav Kostunica had won. A showdown loomed.
Then, Knez, Bozo, Janjo, Vaske and other activists, who spoke on
condition
they only be identified by their first names, heard radio reports that
miners in the nearby town of Kolubara were on strike to pressure
Milosevic
to step down.
Urged on by their mayor, the men, who had lost much of their youth
fighting
wars that kept Milosevic in power, headed to the mine. They joined
thousands of others who had already swept past police blockades.
The events at the Kolubara mine provided a dress rehearsal for the next
day. That's when Kovacevic unleashed the next phase of the plan.
Thousands gathered at 7:30 a.m., along with 230 trucks loaded with
rocks,
farming tools and other equipment, "ready for God knows what," Kovacevic
recalled.
The mood was somber. Most of the crowd knew only that they were going to
"liberate" Belgrade. Details weren't revealed until the convoy was under
way, passed from car to car as it snaked along the 60 miles of twisting
highway.
The first target was the parliament building. Then the state television
station. Finally, the presidential palace.
"Every time I fought, I fought for my countrymen," Knez said. "This was
the
same."
On the road to Belgrade, others joined in, heeding a call by Kostunica's
forces to converge on the capital. The Milosevic regime knew people
would
be coming and had erected roadblocks.
Ilic led the Cacak group, just behind a truck carrying the front-end
loader.
After a brief effort at negotiation, they smashed through two police
barricades, crushing trucks blocking the road, using crowbars, hammers
and
stones.
Some police officers stepped aside after subtle persuasion: Those in the
convoy reminded their neighbors they knew where they lived.
By the time the Cacak convoy arrived in Belgrade, it stretched for 10
miles. People in the capital watched in disbelief as it rolled in.
Participants stopped to smoke and regroup before taking on the
parliament,
the symbolic seat of power.
They stormed its steps, then stopped. Thousands joined the Cacak group.
After nearly two hours, someone in the crowd hit a police officer with a
bottle. Tear gas flew.
The crowd surged into the building. At about this time, the crowd split
in
two, with half staying behind to secure the parliament and the others
moving to the television station, according to plan.
Ilic said the opposition had recruited some of the elite police units
safeguarding the regime's most important asset - its propaganda voice.
"This Belgrade unit, that Milosevic counted most on for special actions,
was completely on our side," Ilic said. "We had an agreement with them
to
do this together, and they supported us fully."
Just in case the police unit changed its mind, the pro-democracy forces
sent along another front-end loader. With little resistance from police,
the station fell quickly. Ringleaders opted not to march to the third
target - Milosevic's palace. They feared their ranks were too depleted.
Back in Cacak, another element of the plan snapped into shape:
Pro-democracy operatives reminded the local police they knew where they
lived and the officers quickly surrendered.
The Kostunica camp seized a transmitter belonging to the
Milosevic-controlled state television network and broadcast news of the
events in the capital to as much as two-thirds of the country.
Soon, everyone learned about front-end loader revolution.
****************************************************
Hungary active in Yugoslav affairs
http://www.centraleurope.com/hungarytoday/news.php3?id=211147
Hungary Lobbying For Amnesty For Yugoslav War "Deserters"
BUDAPEST, Oct 19, 2000 -- (BBC Monitoring) It has been promised to the
Hungarian foreign affairs state secretary [Ivan Baba] in Yugoslavia that
those who have been convicted at home on charges of desertion from the
army
after fleeing from Vojvodina to Hungary will be given amnesty.
[Reporter] The administrative state secretary of the Hungarian Foreign
Ministry has conveyed the Hungarian government's message to the
democratic
forces of Yugoslavia. At a press briefing on his return to Budapest,
Ivan
Baba summed up the key point of this message in the following way:
[Baba] We definitely and unambiguously continue to be interested in the
strengthening of democratic forces and European democratic values in
Yugoslavia and in Yugoslavia becoming a democratic constitutional state
in
the European sense.
[Reporter] The state secretary forwarded an invitation to President
Vojislav Kostunica to take part as a special guest in the summit of the
Central European Initiative in Budapest in November. The Hungarian state
secretary's Yugoslav partners promised that they would help the
restoration
of the
navigability of the Danube as soon as possible, agree to the abolition
of
border crossing duties and deal with the question of amnesty for
Hungarian
and non-Hungarian Yugoslav citizens who had been convicted at home on
charges of desertion for fleeing from Vojvodina to Hungary. According to
Ivan Baba, their number is several thousands.
Ivan Baba repeated to his Serb negotiating partners in Vojvodina that
the
Hungarian government was interested in cross-border cooperation and
supported the autonomy demands of Vojvodina Hungarian organizations.
In Szabadka [Subotica, northern part of Vojvodina], Ivan Baba met Jozsef
Kasza [chairman of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, SVM], who was
recently elected, for the fifth time, as the mayor of Szabadka. Kasza,
as
other leaders in Yugoslavia, asked for Hungarian fuel and energy aid
before
the winter, which is expected to be hard.
Asked by "Chronicle" [this program], Ivan Baba said that the Yugoslav
side
noted Hungary's request for a Hungarian consulate to be opened in
Szabadka
and a Hungarian trade mission - with diplomatic or non-diplomatic status
-
to be opened in the smaller member republic, Montenegro.
Source: Hungarian Radio, Budapest, in Hungarian 1600 GMT 18 Oct 00
Miroslav Antic
http://www.antic.org/SNN/
*************************************************
"Democracy" will not be for all pockets
IN BELGRADE, OIL JUMPED FROM 15 TO 51 DINARS
"Democracy" will not be for all pockets
In Belgrade, the price of one liter of oil had jumped from 15 to
51dinars,
price of bread from 6 to 14 and of sugar from 6 to 45. "Democratic
prices",
mock the consumers, already disappointed. In
Kragujevac, trade unionists of Zastava are beaten and persecuted. At the
same time, financed western press celebrates "good affairs in sight".
And
finally, one US senator already threatens Kostunica to expand NATO to
Slovenia. What are the connections between these four facts?
Michel Collon
Our Western media do not speak about Yugoslavia anymore. Still,
important
things are happening there. And revealing... Before, government gave
subsidizes for the production of basic food products. So farmers and
merchants still had enough gain, but consumers could buy in spite of
embargo. Nobody was dying of hunger. But the DOS opposition had
announced,
in its "G 17 plus" program, that
"the new government will immediately suspend all the subsidization, with
no
regret or hesitation, because it will be difficult to apply this measure
latter". Indeed, it didn't take them long at all!
Los Angeles Times of 15th writes: "When Kostunica supporters forced out
most managers in state-owned shops and factories and put their own
people
in charge, that system of controls collapsed and prices immediately shot
up. New directors are moving quickly to make their plants more
profitable. "
Problem: consumers are dissatisfied and elections are in two months. So,
director of G 17, Mladjan Dinkic, is accusing...Serbian government,
still
run by SPS socialists, of "wanting to create chaos". But argument is not
holding water: this government is not functioning precisely because of
the
chaos created by DOS, its street-violence and "crisis comittees" which
forcibly took over the control of all institutions.
"We will be able to export to Yugoslavia"
Therefore we see already that the "prosperity" announced in election
promises will not benefit to all the pockets. But who will? Answer of
Italian financial supplement of International Herald Tribune of 10th
(Italy is Yugoslav economic partner No. 2) "Perspectives seem good and
Italian export goods - shoes, textile, food products - will be the first
to
profit the occasion. But privatization in Yugoslavia might also attract
the
interest of foreign investors. Lot of public sectors - counting in
energy
and airports - can be licenses soon and their re-structuring might give
the
space to new foreign capital.
What does it mean to "give space"? At the spot, at the moment of putsch,
a
friend of mine, Radmila, warned me: "Actually, our electricity worked
really well. Foreign companies would want to put its hands on it. But to
invest, they demand significant profits, which means huge tariffs
growths.
People do not understand that this G17 program will ruin them!"
About the export of Italian shoes...Having forgotten my moccasin's back
home, I had to buy a new pair in Belgrade: 1 100 dinars. Tree times
less
than the Italians, which I usually buy. Maybe somewhat less "chick", but
comfortable and solid. What will happen, with new regime? With their
financial power, western multinationals will take the control over
Yugoslav
factories, closing a big part of them, and western products will flood
over
the local market. Europe would be able to get rid of its food-stocks, at
unbeatable prices, because of European Union subsidization (so there! in
this case, it's good to subsidize, isn't it?). "Crazy cows" and other
genetically trafficked food-products can feed the Serbs then, they're
too
numerous anyway, right? But West will throw in some help, they
say..."Help"? Germany wants absolutely to re-open the Danube, so it will
open funds. Gifts? No, loans. To keep Yugoslavia "cooperative" in
extortion
of payment like numerous other countries forced by spiral of debts to
always the biggest concessions.(???) In short, Yugoslavia will pay for
the
bombing damages!
Scandalous. And what will this cleaned Danube serve for? First of all,
to
flood the country with German merchandise, which will eliminate local
products from the market.
In short, instead of promised prosperity, one New York Times editorial
of
15th predicts that "at worst Yugoslavia's economy could follow Russia's
path, to corruption and decline".
Why are syndicate activists beaten?
In Kragujevac, car factory Zastava trade unionists have been
sequestered
and beaten by ex-opposition gangs, people responsible for truck
department
were forced to resign. Progressive Italian daily Manifesto (which rather
supported Kostunica) is appalled:
" Syndicate members have been independent, as much from Milosevic as
from
opposition. They relayed humanitarian operations of Italian syndicates.
But
opposition syndicate activists (formed in Rumania by US experts) are
pressuring the workers, threatening them with massive layoffs. "We
fought
for the workers, without engaging ourselves in politics. This is our
crime!" concluded one of them".
All those facts are linked together. To push through this IMF policy -
high
prices , closing ups, layoffs and gifts to multinationals, every
possibility of syndicate or leftist resistance - must be eliminated. In
Belgrade, one office of New Communist Party has been burned down by
rightist militia.
And if all this is not enough, listen to the threats of American senator
Biden: " If Mr. Kostunica thinks he will be able to continue with one
aggressive nationalist Serbian politics, only under milder appearance,
then
we'll have to talk him out of it. In this case, we should concentrate
our
ex Yugoslavia politics on preparing more democratic and more prosperous
Slovenia, for the next NATO enlargement".
NATO, again? So there, and they kept telling us that Milosevic was the
only
problem over there! And what if the problem was the resistance of
Serbian
people in general, to economical imperialism and military interventions
of
the West? Kostunica - or some other soon - being put in charge to bring
those people up to date. The game is far from being finished in
Yugoslavia.
A lot will depend on the resistance capacity of workers. Some leftist
alternative is indispensable, and resistance is being prepared. We'll be
back there.
******************************************************
Global Reflexion - Amsterdam - The Netherlands
to
the distribution of information on international issues that in the
media
does not recieve proper attention or is presented in a distorted way. We
receive information from different sources, that does not necessary
reflect
our opinion. If you don't want to receive it, please send us an e-mail.
******************************************************
Wednesday, October 25, 2000
- Will Moldova be the next Kosovo
- It Turns Out Depleted Uranium Is Bad For NATO Troops In Kosovo [What
About Everyone Else?]
- Activists planned uprising that led to Milosevic's ouster
- "Democracy" will not be for all pockets
*****************************************************
TARGETS, a Dutch monthly publication on international affaires, will
organize a public meeting to discuss the current developments in
Yugoslavia and the role of the Western powers.
The meeting will be adressed by:
· Jürgen Elsässer, editor of the German monthly publication KONKRET and
· Nico Varkevisser, editor-in-chief of TARGETS
Date: Sunday, October 29
Place: Akhnaton, Nieuwezijds Kolk 25, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Time: 15.00h
Jürgen Elsässer will present his new book: 'Kriegsverbrechen'. Die
tötlichen Lügen der Nato und ihre Opfer im Kosovo-Konflikt. (including a
file on Srebrenica)
*************************************************************
Will Moldova be de next Kosovo
NEW ANTI-RUSSIAN NATO MACHINATIONS
by Denis Petrov
On October 2, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow saw fit to deny the existence
of a
secret plan cooked up by American spooks and the Organization for
Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to partition Moldova. Bearing in mind
events in the Balkans in recent years, this denial was enough to
convince
most Russian and Moldovan/Romanian patriots that the plan is already
operational.
The State Department was reacting to a September 23 article in the
influential Izvestiya daily, claiming that talks between Russia and
Moldova
on the fate of the breakaway “Dniester Moldovan Republic”
had
broken down because of a “secret plan” pushed by the West to
annex Moldova to Romania and the Dniester region to Ukraine.
(This self-styled Dniester Republic, sometimes referred to as
Transdnistria, is a predominately Slavic, Russian-speaking region. In
1940
it was fused with the former Romanian province of Bessarabia to form the
Soviet Moldovan Republic in one of Stalin’s notorious land grabs.)
According to Izvestiya, the plan would involve annexation of the
Dniester
region by a nationalist Ukraine. The paper strongly implied that the
West
was backing the resurgent Ukrainian nationalist movement in pro-NATO
Western Ukraine-as a prelude to further NATO expansion. As in Kosovo,
however, the NATO-crats plan on exploiting nationalism only tactically:
the
real aim is to force the unconditional removal of the Russian 14th army
from the Dniester region, making way for an eventual NATO military
presence. Meanwhile, a suitably tamed and re-united Romania -- one that
would be bound by OSCE guidelines on "human rights" not to enforce
recent
laws giving the Romanian language legal predominance -- would be
absorbed
by OSCE/EU structures. The price for eventual integration into the
European
Union would be the negation of a distinct Romanian identity.
Izvestiya further claimed that a delay in Russian-Moldovan talks was
forced
on the Russian delegation, led by former Prime Minister Yevgeniy
Primakov,
as a prelude to scuttling the Russian plan to transform Moldova into a
confederation that would leave the Moldovan state intact while granting
the
Dniester region autonomy. Under the American plan Russia would carry out
a
phased withdrawal of the 14th Army, which the OSCE would pay for.
The Primakov plan, which appears to have suited both the Moldovans and
the
Russians -- at least for now -- was not enough to satisfy the NATOcrats:
Russia would still maintain ties with an autonomous Dniester Republic,
ties
which would probably include a guarantee of Dniester self-determination
should Moldova eventually rejoin Romania. Moreover, the region would
probably seek admittance to the Russian-Belarussian Union under such
circumstances, thereby maintaining Russian influence in the region. The
“secret plan” was devised to pre-empt such eventualities.
On the same day as the Izvestiya article, Kommersant, a
business-oriented
Russian daily, filled in the missing pieces to the diplomatic puzzle.
Kommersant pointed out that the U.S. Congress had recently allocated $45
million for funding "military assistance" to certain former Soviet
republics, including Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and
Moldova.
The aim appears to be to weaken Russian influence in those states by
undermining the Russian-brokered CIS, a commonwealth of former Soviet
republics, and strengthening a Western-influenced GUUAM
(Georgia-Ukraine-Uzbekistan-Azerbaijan-Moldova) counterpart.
The net effect of the NATO/OSCE/EU machinations would be to isolate
Russia
by creating a NATO-dominated buffer zone on the periphery of the former
Soviet empire. This buffer zone would also just so happen to include a
number of states acting as gas and oil transit lines, states whose
importance will only increase as Caspian sea deposits are developed.
It
is small wonder then that an increasing number of Russians view the West
with suspicion and downright hostility: The ultimate objective of
NATO’s version of the Anaconda plan would be to weaken, if not
dismember, Russia.
***************************************
The URL for this article is
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/arbuth/port.htm
It Turns Out Depleted Uranium Is Bad For NATO Troops In Kosovo [What
About
Everyone Else?]
by Felicity Arbuthnot [10-26-2000]
[Felicity Arbuthnot has written a great deal about the Gulf War and
depleted uranium, as well as about the attack on Yugoslavia. An
interview
with Ms. Arbuthnot follows.]
In a week which has seen the French government follow their Italian
counterparts in launching an enquiry into the effects of depleted
uranium
(DU) on their soldiers in Kosovo, the Portugese Defence Minister, Julio
Castro Caldas has informed NATO Headquarters that he is withdrawing
Portugese troops from Kosmet. They were not, he said, going to become
uranium meat.
DU, first used in the 1991 Gulf war, is both chemically toxic and
radioactive and is used as coating, ballast or core for weapons.
Two Italian K-FOR soldiers have been flown to Rome suffering from
cancers
and the Rome Military Attorney has joined his colleagues in Milan,
Turin
and Venice in investigating DU in Kosovo and the Balkans and effects on
Italian troops. Last month the Yugoslav Ambassador to the Czech
Republic,
Djoko Stojicic told media in Prague that K-FOR soldiers in
Kosovo-Metohia
had long been experiencing health problems associated with DU. Quoting
NATO
French Air Force Commander, General Joffret he said the West apparently
wanted to get rid of their nuclear waste, contaminating the region.
Belgium
and Dutch troops are instructed by their governments not to eat local
produce and that clothes must be destroyed on departure and vehicles
decontaminated. K-FOR contingents have drinking water flown in.
Portuguese Defense Minister Julio Castro Caldas said his decision
should
have been made earlier and that Portugese forces should not have
participated in last year's 72 day war in the Balkans. Former
UK Minister of Defence, now NATO Secretary General, George Robertson
was
well aware of the dangers posed by DU, he said.
Portugese soldiers were sent on missions in the area poisoned with
depleted uranium, Pereira wrote in the influential Lisbon journal
'Diario
de Noticias'. NATO confirmed that the area was contaminted by DU and the
UN
representative also confirmed and apologised. Pereira stated that there
was
opposition in the headquarters of other countries performing missions in
poisoned areas. If it is hard to persuade military circles in
Washington,
Paris, London or Berlin to send their troops to the critical areas in
Kosovo, does that mean that the Portugese are to represent uranium
meat?
Earlier this year a seven page document warning of the hazards of DU
was
placed in the mail boxes of all personel working out of the UN building
in
Pristina and the Supreme Headquarters Allied
Command in Europe (SHAPE) issued warnings to United States Commands
urging
the widest possible dissemination to forces of other nations. A recent
meeting of the United Nations Environment
Programme attended by bodies including the International Atomic Energy
Authority and the Swedish Radiation Protection Institute resulted in
ongoing consultations as to how to proceed with a scientific field
assessment of DU sites, according to Director Klaus Toepfer. Previous
assessments had been hampered by NATO's refusal to provide maps of
affected
areas.
This Wednesday, Dr Asav Durakovic and Dr Hari Sharma, world renowned
radiation experts who tested sick Gulf war veterans for the presence of
DU
in their bodies and found up to one hundred
times the safe limit remaining eight years after the Gulf war, will
brief
the Justice and Human Rights Commission at the European Parliament.
If Balkans Syndrome is proven to affect K-FOR and reportedly other
people
working in the region, might not the native population of Kosovo also
suffer the cancers and birth deformities from DU
which as we know have devastated Iraq?
And how does this question figure in the calculations of NATO?
***
Interview with Felicity Arbuthnot
I spoke to Felicity Arbuthnot, author of the above article, in the wee
hours of this morning, October 25th. She told me the following story:
"In
June of 1999, on the day that they announced they were sending ground
troops into Kosovo, I rang the Ministry of Defense and I said, "Are we
now
going to see a wave of Balkans War Syndrome?" And they said, "Absolutely
not! The Minister himself has given strict instructions that no
personnel
must go near anything that might have been hit by depleted uranium
weapons
and if it is unavoidable they must wear full radiological protective
clothing."
Jared Israel: Doesn't that slightly contradict their other positions?
That
Gulf War Syndrome has nothing to do with depleted uranium?
Felicity Arbuthnot: Exactly. So I said, "What about refugees we're
encouraging to return not to mention the people who did not leave, the
Serbs and Roma and so on," and they said, "Oh, that has
nothing to do with us. That's UNHCR [the UN refugee organization]."
So I rang up UNHCR and put the same question to them: "What is going to
happen to these people?" And I said one of the things that the Ministry
person had told me was they had been told not to
disturb the soil lest dust should come up. I said, "How are they going
to
rebuild their homes if you don't disturb the soil?"
Israel: Especially since the homes that had been hit with shells
containing DU would be exactly the ones where you would have to tear
down,
consequently distrubing dangerous soil.
Arbuthnot: That's exactly right. Then UNHCR said to me, "What's DU?" So
I
sent them about three trees worth of material.
Israel: They didn't know what DU was?
Arbuthnot: I sent them piles and piles of stuff and they then said,
"You
know, this is really extremely alarming. Do you think we should pull our
personnel out?" And I said "Well, if you are encouraging the refugees to
go
back and you pull your personnel out and they get sick and I were they
I'd
be reaching for my lawyer." So they went very quiet. And you know, in
the
article I speak of this report which mysteriously appeared in the pigeon
holes of all the personnel that work out of the UN headquarters in
Pristina
warning of the dangers of DU. And you know there are hundreds and
hundreds
of people working out of there. And then, there are the people who live
there as well as those who have been driven out since NATO arrived and
who
should like to come back, aren't there?
www.tenc.net Emperor's Clothes]
******************************************
Activists planned uprising that led to Milosevic's ouster
Special coverage of the unrest in Yugoslavia
By DANICA KIRKA, Associated Press
CACAK, Yugoslavia (October 20, 2000 3:27 p.m. EDT
http://www.nandotimes.com) - The farmhands and factory workers who
surged
through the doors of Yugoslavia's parliament seemed to be acting on
impulse, seizing the moment to oust Slobodan Milosevic.
Truth is, every step was planned.
Activists from this central Yugoslav city had been planning the uprising
long before they drove to the Yugoslav capital on Oct. 5. They brought a
list of targets, 10 days worth of food, a front-end loader and trucks
full
of rocks - ready to do battle with the Milosevic regime.
"People were ready for this," said Dragan Kovacevic, a local coordinator
for pro-democracy forces. "We had had enough of these piecemeal acts. We
needed concrete action."
The Cacak activists had also infiltrated the ranks of Milosevic's feared
police and said they knew in advance how they were likely to react.
The groundwork for the tumultuous events that toppled Milosevic had been
laid as much as four years earlier, when the opposition won elections in
Cacak and Velimir Ilic became mayor.
The job came with a television and radio station, one of many local
media
outlets that dotted the Yugoslav countryside. Considered too small to
worry
about, Milosevic loyalists didn't bother to shut them down when they
muzzled the Belgrade media.
Tensions had been building since the Sept. 24 elections, which the
opposition claimed Vojislav Kostunica had won. A showdown loomed.
Then, Knez, Bozo, Janjo, Vaske and other activists, who spoke on
condition
they only be identified by their first names, heard radio reports that
miners in the nearby town of Kolubara were on strike to pressure
Milosevic
to step down.
Urged on by their mayor, the men, who had lost much of their youth
fighting
wars that kept Milosevic in power, headed to the mine. They joined
thousands of others who had already swept past police blockades.
The events at the Kolubara mine provided a dress rehearsal for the next
day. That's when Kovacevic unleashed the next phase of the plan.
Thousands gathered at 7:30 a.m., along with 230 trucks loaded with
rocks,
farming tools and other equipment, "ready for God knows what," Kovacevic
recalled.
The mood was somber. Most of the crowd knew only that they were going to
"liberate" Belgrade. Details weren't revealed until the convoy was under
way, passed from car to car as it snaked along the 60 miles of twisting
highway.
The first target was the parliament building. Then the state television
station. Finally, the presidential palace.
"Every time I fought, I fought for my countrymen," Knez said. "This was
the
same."
On the road to Belgrade, others joined in, heeding a call by Kostunica's
forces to converge on the capital. The Milosevic regime knew people
would
be coming and had erected roadblocks.
Ilic led the Cacak group, just behind a truck carrying the front-end
loader.
After a brief effort at negotiation, they smashed through two police
barricades, crushing trucks blocking the road, using crowbars, hammers
and
stones.
Some police officers stepped aside after subtle persuasion: Those in the
convoy reminded their neighbors they knew where they lived.
By the time the Cacak convoy arrived in Belgrade, it stretched for 10
miles. People in the capital watched in disbelief as it rolled in.
Participants stopped to smoke and regroup before taking on the
parliament,
the symbolic seat of power.
They stormed its steps, then stopped. Thousands joined the Cacak group.
After nearly two hours, someone in the crowd hit a police officer with a
bottle. Tear gas flew.
The crowd surged into the building. At about this time, the crowd split
in
two, with half staying behind to secure the parliament and the others
moving to the television station, according to plan.
Ilic said the opposition had recruited some of the elite police units
safeguarding the regime's most important asset - its propaganda voice.
"This Belgrade unit, that Milosevic counted most on for special actions,
was completely on our side," Ilic said. "We had an agreement with them
to
do this together, and they supported us fully."
Just in case the police unit changed its mind, the pro-democracy forces
sent along another front-end loader. With little resistance from police,
the station fell quickly. Ringleaders opted not to march to the third
target - Milosevic's palace. They feared their ranks were too depleted.
Back in Cacak, another element of the plan snapped into shape:
Pro-democracy operatives reminded the local police they knew where they
lived and the officers quickly surrendered.
The Kostunica camp seized a transmitter belonging to the
Milosevic-controlled state television network and broadcast news of the
events in the capital to as much as two-thirds of the country.
Soon, everyone learned about front-end loader revolution.
****************************************************
Hungary active in Yugoslav affairs
http://www.centraleurope.com/hungarytoday/news.php3?id=211147
Hungary Lobbying For Amnesty For Yugoslav War "Deserters"
BUDAPEST, Oct 19, 2000 -- (BBC Monitoring) It has been promised to the
Hungarian foreign affairs state secretary [Ivan Baba] in Yugoslavia that
those who have been convicted at home on charges of desertion from the
army
after fleeing from Vojvodina to Hungary will be given amnesty.
[Reporter] The administrative state secretary of the Hungarian Foreign
Ministry has conveyed the Hungarian government's message to the
democratic
forces of Yugoslavia. At a press briefing on his return to Budapest,
Ivan
Baba summed up the key point of this message in the following way:
[Baba] We definitely and unambiguously continue to be interested in the
strengthening of democratic forces and European democratic values in
Yugoslavia and in Yugoslavia becoming a democratic constitutional state
in
the European sense.
[Reporter] The state secretary forwarded an invitation to President
Vojislav Kostunica to take part as a special guest in the summit of the
Central European Initiative in Budapest in November. The Hungarian state
secretary's Yugoslav partners promised that they would help the
restoration
of the
navigability of the Danube as soon as possible, agree to the abolition
of
border crossing duties and deal with the question of amnesty for
Hungarian
and non-Hungarian Yugoslav citizens who had been convicted at home on
charges of desertion for fleeing from Vojvodina to Hungary. According to
Ivan Baba, their number is several thousands.
Ivan Baba repeated to his Serb negotiating partners in Vojvodina that
the
Hungarian government was interested in cross-border cooperation and
supported the autonomy demands of Vojvodina Hungarian organizations.
In Szabadka [Subotica, northern part of Vojvodina], Ivan Baba met Jozsef
Kasza [chairman of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, SVM], who was
recently elected, for the fifth time, as the mayor of Szabadka. Kasza,
as
other leaders in Yugoslavia, asked for Hungarian fuel and energy aid
before
the winter, which is expected to be hard.
Asked by "Chronicle" [this program], Ivan Baba said that the Yugoslav
side
noted Hungary's request for a Hungarian consulate to be opened in
Szabadka
and a Hungarian trade mission - with diplomatic or non-diplomatic status
-
to be opened in the smaller member republic, Montenegro.
Source: Hungarian Radio, Budapest, in Hungarian 1600 GMT 18 Oct 00
Miroslav Antic
http://www.antic.org/SNN/
*************************************************
"Democracy" will not be for all pockets
IN BELGRADE, OIL JUMPED FROM 15 TO 51 DINARS
"Democracy" will not be for all pockets
In Belgrade, the price of one liter of oil had jumped from 15 to
51dinars,
price of bread from 6 to 14 and of sugar from 6 to 45. "Democratic
prices",
mock the consumers, already disappointed. In
Kragujevac, trade unionists of Zastava are beaten and persecuted. At the
same time, financed western press celebrates "good affairs in sight".
And
finally, one US senator already threatens Kostunica to expand NATO to
Slovenia. What are the connections between these four facts?
Michel Collon
Our Western media do not speak about Yugoslavia anymore. Still,
important
things are happening there. And revealing... Before, government gave
subsidizes for the production of basic food products. So farmers and
merchants still had enough gain, but consumers could buy in spite of
embargo. Nobody was dying of hunger. But the DOS opposition had
announced,
in its "G 17 plus" program, that
"the new government will immediately suspend all the subsidization, with
no
regret or hesitation, because it will be difficult to apply this measure
latter". Indeed, it didn't take them long at all!
Los Angeles Times of 15th writes: "When Kostunica supporters forced out
most managers in state-owned shops and factories and put their own
people
in charge, that system of controls collapsed and prices immediately shot
up. New directors are moving quickly to make their plants more
profitable. "
Problem: consumers are dissatisfied and elections are in two months. So,
director of G 17, Mladjan Dinkic, is accusing...Serbian government,
still
run by SPS socialists, of "wanting to create chaos". But argument is not
holding water: this government is not functioning precisely because of
the
chaos created by DOS, its street-violence and "crisis comittees" which
forcibly took over the control of all institutions.
"We will be able to export to Yugoslavia"
Therefore we see already that the "prosperity" announced in election
promises will not benefit to all the pockets. But who will? Answer of
Italian financial supplement of International Herald Tribune of 10th
(Italy is Yugoslav economic partner No. 2) "Perspectives seem good and
Italian export goods - shoes, textile, food products - will be the first
to
profit the occasion. But privatization in Yugoslavia might also attract
the
interest of foreign investors. Lot of public sectors - counting in
energy
and airports - can be licenses soon and their re-structuring might give
the
space to new foreign capital.
What does it mean to "give space"? At the spot, at the moment of putsch,
a
friend of mine, Radmila, warned me: "Actually, our electricity worked
really well. Foreign companies would want to put its hands on it. But to
invest, they demand significant profits, which means huge tariffs
growths.
People do not understand that this G17 program will ruin them!"
About the export of Italian shoes...Having forgotten my moccasin's back
home, I had to buy a new pair in Belgrade: 1 100 dinars. Tree times
less
than the Italians, which I usually buy. Maybe somewhat less "chick", but
comfortable and solid. What will happen, with new regime? With their
financial power, western multinationals will take the control over
Yugoslav
factories, closing a big part of them, and western products will flood
over
the local market. Europe would be able to get rid of its food-stocks, at
unbeatable prices, because of European Union subsidization (so there! in
this case, it's good to subsidize, isn't it?). "Crazy cows" and other
genetically trafficked food-products can feed the Serbs then, they're
too
numerous anyway, right? But West will throw in some help, they
say..."Help"? Germany wants absolutely to re-open the Danube, so it will
open funds. Gifts? No, loans. To keep Yugoslavia "cooperative" in
extortion
of payment like numerous other countries forced by spiral of debts to
always the biggest concessions.(???) In short, Yugoslavia will pay for
the
bombing damages!
Scandalous. And what will this cleaned Danube serve for? First of all,
to
flood the country with German merchandise, which will eliminate local
products from the market.
In short, instead of promised prosperity, one New York Times editorial
of
15th predicts that "at worst Yugoslavia's economy could follow Russia's
path, to corruption and decline".
Why are syndicate activists beaten?
In Kragujevac, car factory Zastava trade unionists have been
sequestered
and beaten by ex-opposition gangs, people responsible for truck
department
were forced to resign. Progressive Italian daily Manifesto (which rather
supported Kostunica) is appalled:
" Syndicate members have been independent, as much from Milosevic as
from
opposition. They relayed humanitarian operations of Italian syndicates.
But
opposition syndicate activists (formed in Rumania by US experts) are
pressuring the workers, threatening them with massive layoffs. "We
fought
for the workers, without engaging ourselves in politics. This is our
crime!" concluded one of them".
All those facts are linked together. To push through this IMF policy -
high
prices , closing ups, layoffs and gifts to multinationals, every
possibility of syndicate or leftist resistance - must be eliminated. In
Belgrade, one office of New Communist Party has been burned down by
rightist militia.
And if all this is not enough, listen to the threats of American senator
Biden: " If Mr. Kostunica thinks he will be able to continue with one
aggressive nationalist Serbian politics, only under milder appearance,
then
we'll have to talk him out of it. In this case, we should concentrate
our
ex Yugoslavia politics on preparing more democratic and more prosperous
Slovenia, for the next NATO enlargement".
NATO, again? So there, and they kept telling us that Milosevic was the
only
problem over there! And what if the problem was the resistance of
Serbian
people in general, to economical imperialism and military interventions
of
the West? Kostunica - or some other soon - being put in charge to bring
those people up to date. The game is far from being finished in
Yugoslavia.
A lot will depend on the resistance capacity of workers. Some leftist
alternative is indispensable, and resistance is being prepared. We'll be
back there.
******************************************************
Global Reflexion - Amsterdam - The Netherlands