(italiano / english)
In memory of Harold Pinter
Lo scorso dicembre,
a 78 anni, moriva Harold Pinter, il più celebre drammaturgo inglese
contemporaneo, premio Nobel per la letteratura 2005.
Pinter era noto
anche per le sue prese di posizione contro la guerra e contro la
demonizzazione dei popoli e dei leader politici individuati come nemici
dall'imperialismo occidentale.
Per ricordare Harold Pinter, e
nell'approssimarsi del Decimo anniversario della aggressione NATO
contro la RF di Jugoslavia, cui Pinter si oppose pubblicamente e
limpidamente, riproponiamo testi e link relativi ad alcune di queste
prese di posizione.
1) Nobel-winning playwright Harold Pinter dies at
78
By Paisley Dodds (AP)
2) Harold Pinter unraveled the ‘Tapestry of
Lies’
By Heather Cottin (WW)
3) Playwright Harold Pinter presents a
powerful case in opposition to NATO bombardment of Serbia
By Ann Talbot
- 7 May 1999
4) ANNIVERSARY OF NATO BOMBING OF SERBIA - By Harold
Pinter (June 10th 2000) / Intervento di Harold Pinter alla Conferenza
dei Balcani del Comitato per la Pace, nella Sala Conway, il 10 Giugno
2000
5) E’ morto Harold Pinter, uomo libero e grande amico dei popoli,
grande amico del popolo serbo e jugoslavo
di Enrico Vigna (dicembre
2008)
6) Liberare Milosevic, dice Pinter (luglio 2001)
MORE LINKS /
ALTRI TESTI:
[icdsm-italia] Harold Pinter sul "tribunale" dell'Aia
H.
Pinter: non starò in silenzio - Intervista di Matthew Tempest - da The
Guardian, Venerdì 3 agosto 2001
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-
mailinglist/message/4743
[JUGOINFO] Harold Pinter, a friend of
Yugoslavia
the Nobel Prize speech / il discorso di accettazione del
premio Nobel / Discours de réception du Prix Nobel / Nobelpreis-Rede
Harold Pinter takes on Nato (June 1999)
http://it.groups.yahoo.
com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/4676
[icdsm-italia] Harold Pinter,
amico della Jugoslavia, Nobel
A Pinter il Nobel per la letteratura
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/4592
=== 1
===
Nobel-winning playwright Harold Pinter dies at 78
By PAISLEY
DODDS, Associated Press Writer Paisley Dodds, Associated Press Writer
-
LONDON - Harold Pinter, praised as the most influential British
playwright of his generation and a longtime voice of political protest,
has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 78.
Pinter, whose
distinctive contribution to the stage was recognized with the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 2005, died on Wednesday, according to his
second wife, Lady Antonia Fraser.
"Pinter restored theater to its
basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where
people are at the mercy of each other and pretense crumbles," the Nobel
Academy said when it announced Pinter's award. "With a minimum of plot,
drama emerges from the power struggle and hide-and-seek of
interlocution."
The Nobel Prize gave Pinter a global platform which he
seized enthusiastically to denounce U.S. President George W. Bush and
then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"The invasion of Iraq was a
bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute
contempt for the concept of international law," Pinter said in his
Nobel lecture, which he recorded rather than traveling to Stockholm .
"How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described
as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand?" he asked,
in a hoarse voice.
Weakened by cancer and bandaged from a fall on a
slippery pavement, Pinter seemed a vulnerable old man when he emerged
from his London home to speak about the Nobel Award.
Though he had
been looking forward to giving a Nobel lecture - "the longest speech I
will ever have made" - he first canceled plans to attend the awards,
then announced he would skip the lecture as well on his doctor's
advice.
Pinter wrote 32 plays; one novel, "The Dwarfs," in 1990; and
put his hand to 22 screenplays including "The Quiller Memorandum"
(1965) and "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (1980). He admitted, and
said he deeply regretted, voting for Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and Tony
Blair in 1997.
Pinter fulminated against what he saw as the
overweening arrogance of American power, and belittled Blair as seeming
like a "deluded idiot" in support of Bush's war in Iraq .
In his Nobel
lecture, Pinter accused the United States of supporting "every right-
wing military dictatorship in the world" after World War II.
"The
crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious,
remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them," he
said.
The United States , he added, "also has its own bleating little
lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain
."
Most prolific between 1957 and 1965, Pinter relished the
juxtaposition of brutality and the banal and turned the conversational
pause into an emotional minefield.
His characters' internal fears and
longings, their guilt and difficult sexual drives are set against the
neat lives they have constructed in order to try to survive.
Usually
enclosed in one room, they organize their lives as a sort of grim game
and their actions often contradict their words. Gradually, the layers
are peeled back to reveal the characters' nakedness.
The protection
promised by the room usually disappears and the language begins to
disintegrate.
Pinter once said of language, "The speech we hear is an
indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a
violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the
other in its true place. When true silence falls we are left with echo
but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that
it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness."
Pinter's influence
was felt in the United States in the plays of Sam Shepard and David
Mamet and throughout British literature.
"With his earliest work, he
stood alone in British theater up against the bewilderment and
incomprehension of critics, the audience and writers too," British
playwright Tom Stoppard said when the Nobel Prize was announced.
"Not
only has Harold Pinter written some of the outstanding plays of his
time, he has also blown fresh air into the musty attic of conventional
English literature, by insisting that everything he does has a public
and political dimension," added British playwright David Hare, who also
writes politically charged dramas.
The working-class milieu of plays
like "The Birthday Party" and "The Homecoming" reflected Pinter's early
life as the son of a Jewish tailor from London 's East End . He began
his career in the provinces as an actor.
In his first major play,
"The Birthday Party" (1958), intruders enter the retreat of Stanley, a
young man who is hiding from childhood guilt. He becomes violent,
telling them, "You stink of sin, you contaminate womankind."
And in
"The Caretaker," a manipulative old man threatens the fragile
relationship of two brothers while "The Homecoming" explores the hidden
rage and confused sexuality of an all-male household by inserting a
woman.
In "Silence and Landscape," Pinter moved from exploring the
dark underbelly of human life to showing the simultaneous levels of
fantasy and reality that equally occupy the individual.
In the 1980s,
Pinter's only stage plays were one-acts: "A Kind of Alaska " (1982),
"One for the Road" (1984) and the 20-minute "Mountain Language"
(1988).
During the late 1980s, his work became more overtly
political; he said he had a responsibility to pursue his role as "a
citizen of the world in which I live, (and) insist upon taking
responsibility."
In March 2005 Pinter announced his retirement as a
playwright to concentrate on politics. But he created a radio play,
"Voices," that was broadcast on BBC radio to mark his 75th birthday.
"I have written 29 plays and I think that's really enough," Pinter said
. "I think the world has had enough of my plays."
Pinter had a son,
Daniel, from his marriage to actress Vivien Merchant, which ended in
divorce in 1980. That year he married the writer Fraser.
"It was a
privilege to live with him for over 33 years. He will never be
forgotten," Fraser said.
http://news.yahoo.
com/s/ap/20081225/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_obit_pinter
=== 2 ===
http:
//www.workers.org/2009/world/harold_pinter_0115/
Harold Pinter
unraveled the ‘Tapestry of Lies’
By Heather Cottin
Published Jan 11,
2009 5:20 PM
Harold Pinter, Nobel-prize-winning British playwright,
died of cancer on Dec. 24 at the age of 78.
Pinter was regarded as the
foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20th
century, but his 29 plays, numerous screenplays, prose and poetry made
the British bourgeoisie uncomfortable.
Pinter’s plays and poetry
exposed hypocrisy, corruption and viciousness. As one of his characters
said, “The present is truly unscrupulous.” [“No Man’s Land,” 1975]
An
outspoken critic of imperialism, Pinter spoke against the Gulf War, the
invasion and breakup of Yugoslavia and the war on Iraq. At a conference
on the Balkans in 2000, one year after NATO’s “humanitarian bombing” of
Yugoslavia, Pinter said, “The United States has opened up the way for
... more ‘humanitarian intervention’, more demonstrations of its total
indifference to the fate of thousands upon thousands of people.”
(haroldpinter.org)
When he received the Nobel Prize for literature in
2005 Pinter said, “The United States supported and in many cases
engendered every right-wing military dictatorship in the world. ... [It
has] brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts
of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and
calls it ‘bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East.’ ...
“Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay ... suffocating
your intelligence and your critical faculties.”
He saw that the U.S.
was openly creating what it called “full spectrum dominance”—control of
land, sea, air and space. In his Nobel lecture, he called the U.S.
“brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless,” exercising a “clinical
manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for
universal good.” (nobelprize.org)
He won’t be buried at Westminster
Abbey. The British establishment won’t allow it. (Telegraph, Jan. 3).
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and
distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without
royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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St., NY, NY 10011
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org/orders/donate.php
=== 3 ===
Playwright Harold Pinter presents a
powerful case in opposition to NATO bombardment of Serbia
By Ann
Talbot
7 May 1999
Playwright Harold Pinter, an outspoken opponent of
NATO's war against Serbia, presented a coherent and well-argued case
opposing the military action on BBC 2 television last Tuesday evening.
Using news footage and interviews specially recorded for the programme,
Pinter showed how the media are being manipulated, and that the
humanitarian justification for the war is false.
In a powerful
condemnation of the war, Pinter described the NATO onslaught against
Serbia as "a bandit action, committed with no serious consideration of
the consequences, ill-judged, ill-thought, miscalculated, an act of
deplorable machismo".
Pinter was shown questioning British Defence
Minister George Robertson at a news conference. The playwright, citing
the Geneva Convention outlawing military attacks on civilian targets,
demanded to know how the bombing of a Serbian TV station could be
described as anything other than murder. "Mr. Pinter has obviously got
a new occupation now but I know his views," was the arrogant reply from
Robertson. He justified the bombing by claiming that such targets were
the "brains behind the brutality", and "part and parcel of the
apparatus that is driving ethnic genocide".
Such claims--which have
been used repeatedly to justify whatever horrors NATO perpetrates--were
challenged in the programme. Former Labour Foreign Secretary Dennis
Healey rejected the idea that the expulsion of the Kosovar Albanians
was the same as genocide. He pointed out that NATO's actions were
contrary to the United Nations charter, which Britain had signed. NATO
was bombing a fellow UN member, without UN authority.
Jake Lynch of
Sky News explained how the news media are being manipulated to support
the aggressive war drive. When NATO bombed a refugee convoy there was a
delay of several days before the cockpit video, normally shown at the
next daily press conference, was released to the media. This was to
enable NATO to cause the maximum confusion, he explained. First NATO
claimed there had been two separate incidents. The next day this was
amended to one incident, and then later a US Brigadier General cited
the figure of two again.
Lynch said this was a graphic exercise in
news management. When the video was eventually shown, an audible murmur
went round the press conference--"that's a tractor". Lynch pointed out
that if it had been shown straight away, without the lavishly composed
graphics, the "PR impact would have been much more negative for NATO".
Reporters were sent to Brussels to report the war, not to help NATO,
yet there was a slippage in journalistic technique. NATO "confirms"
things have happened; Belgrade only ever "claims" things.
Pinter gave
a detailed account of the bombing of the Serbian television station. He
showed the letter in which NATO spokesman Jamie Shea had assured the
International Federation of Journalists only days before the bombing
that the television station would not be attacked. Philip Knightley,
author of The First Casualty--History of Propaganda, explained why the
TV station was targeted: "NATO didn't want it revealed that it had
bombed a civilian convoy and left to itself would never have revealed
it until the war was over. But they were forced to admit to the bombing
of the civilian convoy because Serbian TV said that it had happened,
then took Western reporters in a bus to show them the results of it."
NATO had rightly described the murder of an anti-Milosevic journalist
as a brutal act of repression, Pinter said, yet they have never
expressed any regret for the killing of those people who were told they
were safe at the TV station. "Both are ugly murders of human beings who
propagate words or images that somebody else doesn't like."
Turning to
the refugee crisis Pinter showed that there is a direct correlation
between the number of refugees and the amount of popular support for
NATO bombing. He derided the talk of moral authority, demanding to know
"who bestowed it on the NATO countries?... Bombs and power--that's your
moral authority." The moral position of the US was highly ambiguous, he
went on. "When human rights groups discovered US jets used by the
Turkish airforce to bomb Kurdish villages within its own territory the
Clinton administration found ways to evade laws requiring suspension of
arms deliveries. 1.4 million Kurds fled Turkish repression from 1990 to
1994. Yet Turkey is invited to the top of the table at NATO's birthday
party."
The US denied that genocide was taking place in Rwanda--with
800,000 dead--because it was not in the interests of the United States
to be part of a UN intervention force. But it calls the Serbian ethnic
cleansing "genocide" because it was politically expedient to do so, he
continued. He also made clear his disgust for Prime Minister Tony
Blair: "Under the rhetoric, Blair's real character has become clear.
There's nothing like a missile, there's nothing like power, it was
really worth waiting for!"
Pinter revealed the US record of complicity
with ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. The greatest single act
of displacement and ethnic cleansing in the entire Yugoslav war was
that of 200,000 Serbs from Croatia in 1995. He showed an extract from
an interview with the then US Secretary of State, Warren Christopher,
who said of this episode, "It always had the prospect of simplifying
matters." Pinter explained that the "operation was carried out by
officers trained by NPRI, an organisation of US army veteran commanders
and was armed with a great deal of US weaponry, in an attack of which
the US had full knowledge." Its purpose was "creating convenient
ethnically-pure maps without committing US ground forces."
In his
memoirs, US Ambassador Holbrook admits to encouraging Croatian assaults
on the Serbs, telling the Croatians to hurry up before the Serbs
regroup, and then merely rebuking the Croatian leader, Franjo Tudjman,
during their cosy chats. Madeline Albright, then US ambassador to the
UN, timed the release of aerial photos of mass graves of Muslims killed
by Serbs at Srebrenica for the same day as the Croats were expelling
the Serbs, in order to divert the world media's attention. These photos
had been taken weeks before by a US spy satellite but were held back in
order to mask one atrocity with another.
Pinter also showed the
cynical way in which the US government deals with the UN. In 1995 the
bombing of the Bosnian Serbs needed direct authority from the UN, but
Secretary General Boutros Boutros Gali was unwilling to grant it. So
Madeline Albright by-passed the secretary general, getting permission
from his deputy Kofi Annan, while Boutros Boutros Gali could not be
contacted as he was on a commercial flight. Kofi Annan effectively
secured himself the secretary general's job that day, Pinter declared.
Now, the US did not even bother to contact the UN.
The US had
exacerbated the situation in Kosovo, Pinter argued. He pointed out that
over the course of 10 years, before the West had begun negotiating with
the hard line KLA and despite the fact that war was often raging in
other parts of former Yugoslavia, Kosovo saw tension but little
bloodshed. In fact, a comparable number of people were killed there as
in Northern Ireland. However, once the KLA began their uprising 2,000
died in one year of violence.
Mark Almond of Oxford University, and a
writer on Balkan history, was interviewed about the Rambouillet talks.
"In a little-noticed annexe to the agreement, NATO insisted that its
forces should be allowed to have freedom of movement over the whole of
Yugoslavia, not just Kosovo. There was no real constraint over what
sort of forces there would be, and, to a great extent, what their
activities would be." Pinter explained what this meant: whether "you
are a dictator, the prime minister of a democratic country, or even
Mrs. Thatcher, and your sovereign territory is going to be occupied,
you might as well resist or your time in power is over."
Almond said
there was a cynical aspect to the build-up of the crisis, with
"deliberate provocation of reprisals by the KLA". He went on, "This
aspect has been neglected in the press. It wasn't simply unprovoked and
meaningless racial violence on the part of the Serbs--though we've seen
quite a lot of that too--but a complex struggle for power over Kosovo,
in which the loss of lives of ordinary Kosovo Albanians and others were
really treated as pawns."
Showing video footage of crowds on a bridge
over the Danube inside Serbia, Pinter commented, "Only two years ago
hundreds of thousands of young people were out on the streets against
Milosevic. Our blundering policy of bombing now finds them linking
hands on bridges waiting to be hit." He warned that if ground troops
were sent in, civilian casualties would mount and Kosovo would be made
a wasteland. "By the time NATO land forces will have finished their
work there will be nothing left to liberate". This was the "crazed
logic of escalation," he said.
Pinter brought together academics,
politicians and relief workers in condemning the war against Serbia.
The programme showed that opposition to it runs deep.
http://www.wsws.
org/articles/1999/may1999/pint-m07.shtml
=== 4 ===
Speech given at
the Committee for Peace in the Balkans Conference at The Conway Hall
June 10th 2000
http://www.haroldpinter.org/home/balk.html
Harold
Pinter
ANNIVERSARY OF NATO BOMBING OF SERBIA
I'd like to read you
an extract from Eve-Ann Prentice's powerful and important book about
the NATO action in Serbia One Woman's War.
"The little old lady
looked as if she had three eyes. On closer inspection, it was the
effect of the shrapnel which had drilled into her forehead and killed
her. One of her shoes had been torn off and the radishes she had just
bought at the market lay like splashes of blood near her outstretched
hand.
At first, the dead had seemed almost camouflaged among the
rubble, splintered trees and broken glass but once you began to notice
them, the bodies were everywhere, some covered in table cloths and
blankets, others simply lying exposed where they had fallen. There was
barely a square inch of wall, tree, car or human being which had not
been raked by shrapnel. Houses which had been pretty hours before, with
picket fences and window boxes bursting with blooms were now riddled
with scars from the strafing. Widows in black leant on their garden
gates, whimpering into handkerchiefs, as they surveyed their dead
neighbours lying amid the broken glass, gashed trees, smouldering cars
and crumpled bicycles. Plastic bags lay strewn near many of the dead,
spilling parcels of fruit, eggs and vegetables, fresh from the market
but now never to be eaten.
It was Friday 7th May 1999 in the southern
city of Nis and NATO had made a mistake. Instead of hitting a military
building near the airport about three miles away the bombers had
dropped their lethal load in a tangle of back streets close to the city
centre. At least thirty-three people were killed and scores more
suffered catastrophic injuries; hands, feet and arms shredded or blown
away altogether, abdomens and chests ripped open by shards of flying
metal.
This had been no "ordinary" shelling, if such a thing exists.
The area had been hit by cluster bombs, devices designed to cause a
deadly spray of hot metal fragments when they explode. The Yugoslav
government had accused the Alliance of using these weapons in other
attacks which had cut down civilians but the suggestion had been mostly
laughed to scorn in the West."
The bombing of Nis was no 'mistake'.
General Wesley K Clark declared, as the NATO bombing began: "We are
going to systematically and progressively attack, disrupt, degrade,
devastate and ultimately - unless President Milosevic complies with the
demands of the international community - destroy these forces and their
facilities and support". Milosevic's 'forces', as we know, included
television stations, schools, hospitals, theatres, old people's homes -
and the market-place in Nis. It was in fact a fundamental feature of
NATO policy to terrorise the civilian population.
I would ask you to
compare those images of the market place in Nis with the photographs of
Tony Blair with his new- born baby which were all over the front pages
recently. What a nice looking dad and what a pretty baby. Most readers
would not have connected the proud father with the man who launched
cluster bombs and missiles containing depleted uranium into Serbia. As
we know from the effects of depleted uranium used on Iraq, there will
be babies born in Serbia in the near future who won't look quite so
pretty as little Leo but they won't get their pictures in the papers
either.
The United States was determined to wage war against Serbia
for one reason and one reason only - to assert its domination over
Europe. And it seems very clear that it won't stop there. In showing
its contempt for the United Nations and International Law the United
States has opened up the way for more "moral outrage", more
"humanitarian intervention", more demonstrations of its total
indifference to the fate of thousands upon thousands of people, more
lies, more bullshit, more casual sadism, more destruction.
And the
government of Great Britain follows suit with an eagerness which can
only merit our disgust. We are confronted by a brutal, ruthless and
malignant machine. This machine must be recognised for what it is and
resisted.
Harold Pinter
---
Anniversario del bombardamento Nato
della Repubblica Federale Jugoslava
di Harold Pinter
Intervento
tenuto alla Conferenza dei Balcani del Comitato per la Pace, nella Sala
Conway, il 10 Giugno 2000
Fonte: http://www.resistenze.
org/sito/te/cu/po/cupo9a05-004263.htm
Gradirei leggervi un estratto
del libro, potente e importante, di Eve Ann Prentice, la Guerra di una
Donna, sull’azione della Nato in Serbia.
“La piccola vecchia signora
sembrava che avesse tre occhi. Ad un’analisi più attenta, era l’effetto
della granata che era finita sulla sua fronte e l’aveva uccisa. Una
delle sue scarpe era stata strappata via ed i rapanelli che lei aveva
appena comperato al mercato, giacevano come schizzi di sangue vicino
alla sua mano distesa.
Subito i morti sembravano pressoché camuffati
tra macerie, pezzi li legno e vetri infranti ma una volta che
cominciavi ad osservare, i corpi erano dappertutto, alcuni coperti con
tovaglie o lenzuola, altri che giacevano semplicemente esposti la dove
erano caduti. Non c’era un pollice quadrato di muro, albero, macchina o
essere umano che non fosse stato torturato dalla granata. Case che ore
prima erano state graziose, con i loro recinti di legno e le finestre
incorniciate dai fiori sbocciati, adesso erano crivellate dai colpi
dell’artiglieria. Vedove in nero, appoggiate al cancello del loro orto,
singhiozzando nel fazzoletto, osservavano i loro vicini morti, stesi
tra vetro rotto, alberi divelti, auto bruciate, biciclette contorte.
Proprio vicino ai cadaveri erano sparpagliate borse di plastica, con
sparsi attorno pacchetti, uova, frutta, freschi di mercato ma che ormai
non sarebbero più stati mangiati.
Era Venerdì 7 Maggio 1999 nella
città meridionale di Nis; e la Nato aveva commesso un errore. Invece di
colpire un edificio militare vicino all’aeroporto, a circa tre miglia,
i bombardieri avevano lasciato cadere il loro carico letale in un
groviglio di viuzze vicino al centro cittadino. Almeno trentatre
persone vennero uccise e un’altra ventina subì ferite tremende;
brandelli di mani, piedi, braccia completamente volati via, addomi e
toraci sventrati da frammenti di metallo volanti.
Questo non era
stato un bombardamento “ordinario”, se può esistere una cosa del
genere. L’area era stata colpita da bombe a grappolo, congegni
progettati per causare, alla loro esplosione, una dispersione mortale
di frammenti di metallo roventi. Il governo jugoslavo aveva accusato l’
Alleanza di aver usato queste armi in altri attacchi che avevano
abbattuto civili ma l’indicazione ad Ovest era stata irrisa con
sdegno”.
Il bombardamento di Nis non era nessun ‘errore’. Il generale
Wesley K Clark, all’inizio dei bombardamenti Nato, dichiarò: “noi
stiamo portando sistematicamente e progressivamente attacchi,
distruzione, degrado, devastazione e alla fine- a meno che il
Presidente Milosevic acconsenta alle richieste della comunità
internazionale- distruggeremo queste forze e le loro installazioni e i
loro appoggi”. Le ‘forze’ di Milosevic, come noi sappiamo, includevano
stazioni della televisione, scuole, ospedali, teatri, case di anziani-
e la piazza del mercato di Nis. Era in effetti una rappresentazione
fondamentale della politica della Nato per terrorizzare la popolazione
civile.
Io vi chiederei di comparare quelle immagini della piazza del
mercato di Nis con le fotografie di Tony Blair con suo figlio appena
nato che era contemporaneamente su tutte le prime pagine. Che bel papà
e che bel bambino. La maggior parte dei lettori non avrebbe messo in
relazione il padre orgoglioso con l’uomo che aveva lanciato bombe a
grappolo e missili all’uranio impoverito sulla Serbia. Come noi
sappiamo, dagli effetti dell’uranio impoverito usato in Iraq, nel
prossimo futuro in Serbia nasceranno bambini che non sembreranno così
carini come il piccolo Leone. Ma loro non avranno i loro ritratti nei
giornali.
Gli Stati Uniti furono determinati ad intraprendere la
guerra contro la Serbia per una e una sola ragione: affermare il
proprio dominio sull’Europa. E sembra molto chiaro che non si
fermeranno là. Nel mostrare il loro disprezzo per le Nazioni Unite e la
Legge Internazionale, gli Stati Uniti hanno aperto la via a più
oltraggi alla morale, più “interventi umanitari”, più dimostrazioni
della loro indifferenza al destino di migliaia e migliaia di persone,
più bugie, più stupidaggini, più sadismo casuale, più distruzione.
Ed
il governo della Gran Bretagna segue la causa con un’ansia che può
meritare solamente il nostro disgusto. Noi siamo di fronte ad una
macchina brutale, spietata e malvagia. Questa macchina deve essere
riconosciuta per quello che è e affrontata.
=== 5 ===
http://www.
resistenze.org/sito/te/cu/po/cupo9a05-004263.htm
www.resistenze.org -
cultura e memoria resistenti - poesia e letteratura - - n. 255
E’
morto Harold Pinter, uomo libero e grande amico dei popoli, grande
amico del popolo serbo e jugoslavo
di Enrico Vigna - portavoce del
Forum Belgrado per un mondo di Eguali, Italia
04/01/2009
Il 25
dicembre 2008 è morto all’età di 78 anni, un grande amico dei popoli,
considerato il più grande scrittore inglese del dopoguerra, poeta,
attore e regista. Ricevette nel 2005 il Premio Nobel per la
Letteratura, ma durante la sua vita furono decine le onorificenze e i
riconoscimenti internazionali, tra cui la Legion d’Onore francese, il
Premio Europeo per la Letteratura, il Premio Pirandello, il Premio
Shakespeare e il Moliere d’Onore. Vinse anche il Premio Fondazione
Serba della città di Kragujevac e nel novembre 2006 fu eletto d’onore
quale membro dell’Accademia delle Scienze e delle Arti Serba.
A causa
della sua totale libertà di pensiero ed il suo coraggio nel denunciare
i crimini e le ingiustizie contro i popoli, Pinter è sempre stato
osteggiato e denigrato dai più grandi mass media occidentali.
Nonostante questo, egli non ha mai disertato dal suo impegno di libero
pensatore e implacabile accusatore dei crimini e delle politiche
imperialiste statunitensi, inglesi e della NATO.
Egli diceva sempre
che avere l’ostilità della stampa asservita ai potenti, era per lui un
onore, come e più di ricevere un onorificenza: “... io so che sono
attaccato e denigrato perché penso con la mia testa... la tradizione
vuole che la gran parte degli scrittori di successo evitino di pensare,
accettino e scrivano... chi esce da questi confini e usa la sua testa
diventa scomodo o un nemico...”.
Pinter è sempre stato dalla parte
della giustizia, della verità e dei popoli, fino alla fine della vita,
con intatta coerenza. Egli fu il primo intellettuale inglese a
condannare pubblicamente con espressioni dure l’invasione USA dell’
Iraq, definendola: “... un atto di banditismo e di terrorismo di stato,
che dimostra l’assoluto disprezzo per il Diritto Internazionale...”.
Quando vi fu l’aggressione della NATO contro la Repubblica Federale
Jugoslava, la quasi totalità dell’elite intellettuale e politica
inglese si scatenò nei media britannici contro Pinter, il quale
pubblicamente e in vari articoli attaccò duramente Tony Blair (allora
primo ministro inglese), con veemenza: “...Come può Mr Blair, con la
sua ipocrita morale cristiana, definire le “cluster bombs” (bombe a
frammentazione, ndt), che fanno a pezzi bambini e civili, un atto di
civiltà contro la barbarie?... Queste bombe sono una barbarie! Così
come il bombardamento della RFJ è un atto illegale, immorale, pazzo e
stupido...”.
Più volte egli si è scontrato pubblicamente con l’ex
primo ministro inglese Blair, arrivando a definirlo un “genocida”. In
ogni manifestazione di piazza a Londra egli prendeva la parola per
smascherare i veri obiettivi della guerra contro la RFJ, dietro cui vi
erano solamente gli interessi dell’imperialismo USA ed occidentale, da
lui sintetizzati come un piano globale di “dominazione ed affermazione
brutale di potere”.
“...Diciamo noi la verità. La verità è che a
nessun Clinton, a nessun Blair interessa alcunché dei kosovari
albanesi...Questi bombardamenti e questa guerra, vogliono solo
barbaramente dimostrare chi è il più forte: il potere USA garantito
attraverso la NATO ed i suoi missili. Tutto ciò mira a consolidare una
cosa: l’egemonia statunitense sull’Europa. Questo deve essere capito ed
a questo bisogna resistere e impedirlo...”.
Pinter si schierò anche
contro l’illegale Tribunale NATO dell’Aja, aderendo al ICDSM e
denunciando il sequestro del Presidente jugoslavo Milosevic e la
brutalità dell’operazione del suo rapimento, completamente fuori da
qualsiasi legalità internazionale. Chi, come il sottoscritto, fu tra i
fondatori del CIDSM in Italia sa bene quanto era difficile allora avere
e tenere quella posizione, sommersi anche a sinistra da ingiurie e
accuse.
Questo e tanto altro è stato Harold Pinter, un coerente
militante della pace, della giustizia, della verità. Un intellettuale
libero che, nonostante ingiurie ed insulti ricevuti, si è sempre posto
negli avvenimenti della storia contemporanea, a partire dalla sua
coscienza e dalla parte della ragione degli aggrediti e delle vittime
dell’imperialismo, senza paura e senza timore di essere penalizzato nel
suo lavoro e nella sua carriera artistica. D’altro canto, egli ha
sempre affermato che: “...Non sono un artista, prima di tutto sono un
uomo...”.
E così sarà sempre ricordato dagli uomini liberi, dai
popoli aggrediti che lo hanno avuto al fianco, da chiunque cerca la
verità e la giustizia.
=== 6 ===
Nella primavera 2004 Pinter fu tra
i sottoscrittori dell'Appello di intellettuali ed artisti, promosso
dall'ICDSM, nel quale si chiedeva la liberazione di Milosevic, lo
scioglimento dell'illegittimo "tribunale ad hoc" dell'Aia, ed una vera
indagine e condanna dei crimini di guerra commessi in tutti questi anni
contro la Jugoslavia ed i suoi abitanti:
http://it.groups.yahoo.
com/group/icdsm-italia/message/68
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-
mailinglist/message/4592
Ma già nel 2001 Pinter si era espresso con
grande chiarezza e coraggio su questo tema:
(in english: FREE
MILOSEVIC, SAYS PINTER
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-
mailinglist/message/1215 )
Estratto da The Guardian, 28 luglio 2001
Liberare Milosevic, dice Pinter
di Fiachra Gibbons
(Fonte: http://www.
resistenze.org/sito/te/cu/po/cupo9a05-004263.htm )
Il drammaturgo
Harold Pinter è entrato a far parte di una campagna per liberare l'ex
leader serbo Slobodan Milosevic.
Pinter, che era un feroce oppositore
del bombardamenti NATO della Serbia e una volta ha definito la politica
degli Stati Uniti per la ex Jugoslavia come "bacia il mio culo o ti
darò un calcio in testa", ha detto che l'estradizione di Milosevic al
processo del Tribunale per crimini di guerra all'Aia è stata illegale.
"Credo che il suo arresto e la detenzione da parte del tribunale
penale internazionale è incostituzionale, e va contro la Repubblica
Jugoslava e il diritto internazionale. Essi non hanno il diritto di
processarlo", ha detto.
La sua decisione di dare il suo nome al
Comitato Internazionale per la Difesa di Slobodan Milosevic, una
coalizione di attivisti di sinistra e dei diritti umani, e di
simpatizzanti Serbi, costituito nel mese di marzo, segue anni di
critica di ciò che egli vede come una moralità dell’occidente
differenziata per i Balcani e una " persecuzione " dei serbi...
...
Pinter dice anche che, se Milosevic deve essere giudicato, l'ex
presidente degli Stati Uniti Bill Clinton dovrebbe unirsi a lui sul
banco degli imputati per il lancio di milioni di "bombe a grappolo che
amputano a pezzi i bambini _ da quei coraggiosi bombardieri che volano
a 15000 piedi. E questo è un atto che [Tony] Blair, con il suo
cristianesimo moralista, applaude... ".
Egli ha inoltre indicato il
bombardamento della stazione televisiva di Belgrado da parte della NATO
come un "assassinio" e ha sentito "vergogna di essere britannico".
Alla petizione per liberare Milosevic hanno aderito finora circa 1.200
persone...tra i gruppi britannici la Campagna per la Pace di Cambridge
e i Cristiani contro l’aggressione della NATO, sono stati tra i primi a
firmare.
In memory of Harold Pinter
Lo scorso dicembre,
a 78 anni, moriva Harold Pinter, il più celebre drammaturgo inglese
contemporaneo, premio Nobel per la letteratura 2005.
Pinter era noto
anche per le sue prese di posizione contro la guerra e contro la
demonizzazione dei popoli e dei leader politici individuati come nemici
dall'imperialismo occidentale.
Per ricordare Harold Pinter, e
nell'approssimarsi del Decimo anniversario della aggressione NATO
contro la RF di Jugoslavia, cui Pinter si oppose pubblicamente e
limpidamente, riproponiamo testi e link relativi ad alcune di queste
prese di posizione.
1) Nobel-winning playwright Harold Pinter dies at
78
By Paisley Dodds (AP)
2) Harold Pinter unraveled the ‘Tapestry of
Lies’
By Heather Cottin (WW)
3) Playwright Harold Pinter presents a
powerful case in opposition to NATO bombardment of Serbia
By Ann Talbot
- 7 May 1999
4) ANNIVERSARY OF NATO BOMBING OF SERBIA - By Harold
Pinter (June 10th 2000) / Intervento di Harold Pinter alla Conferenza
dei Balcani del Comitato per la Pace, nella Sala Conway, il 10 Giugno
2000
5) E’ morto Harold Pinter, uomo libero e grande amico dei popoli,
grande amico del popolo serbo e jugoslavo
di Enrico Vigna (dicembre
2008)
6) Liberare Milosevic, dice Pinter (luglio 2001)
MORE LINKS /
ALTRI TESTI:
[icdsm-italia] Harold Pinter sul "tribunale" dell'Aia
H.
Pinter: non starò in silenzio - Intervista di Matthew Tempest - da The
Guardian, Venerdì 3 agosto 2001
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-
mailinglist/message/4743
[JUGOINFO] Harold Pinter, a friend of
Yugoslavia
the Nobel Prize speech / il discorso di accettazione del
premio Nobel / Discours de réception du Prix Nobel / Nobelpreis-Rede
Harold Pinter takes on Nato (June 1999)
http://it.groups.yahoo.
com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/4676
[icdsm-italia] Harold Pinter,
amico della Jugoslavia, Nobel
A Pinter il Nobel per la letteratura
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/4592
=== 1
===
Nobel-winning playwright Harold Pinter dies at 78
By PAISLEY
DODDS, Associated Press Writer Paisley Dodds, Associated Press Writer
-
LONDON - Harold Pinter, praised as the most influential British
playwright of his generation and a longtime voice of political protest,
has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 78.
Pinter, whose
distinctive contribution to the stage was recognized with the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 2005, died on Wednesday, according to his
second wife, Lady Antonia Fraser.
"Pinter restored theater to its
basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where
people are at the mercy of each other and pretense crumbles," the Nobel
Academy said when it announced Pinter's award. "With a minimum of plot,
drama emerges from the power struggle and hide-and-seek of
interlocution."
The Nobel Prize gave Pinter a global platform which he
seized enthusiastically to denounce U.S. President George W. Bush and
then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"The invasion of Iraq was a
bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute
contempt for the concept of international law," Pinter said in his
Nobel lecture, which he recorded rather than traveling to Stockholm .
"How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described
as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand?" he asked,
in a hoarse voice.
Weakened by cancer and bandaged from a fall on a
slippery pavement, Pinter seemed a vulnerable old man when he emerged
from his London home to speak about the Nobel Award.
Though he had
been looking forward to giving a Nobel lecture - "the longest speech I
will ever have made" - he first canceled plans to attend the awards,
then announced he would skip the lecture as well on his doctor's
advice.
Pinter wrote 32 plays; one novel, "The Dwarfs," in 1990; and
put his hand to 22 screenplays including "The Quiller Memorandum"
(1965) and "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (1980). He admitted, and
said he deeply regretted, voting for Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and Tony
Blair in 1997.
Pinter fulminated against what he saw as the
overweening arrogance of American power, and belittled Blair as seeming
like a "deluded idiot" in support of Bush's war in Iraq .
In his Nobel
lecture, Pinter accused the United States of supporting "every right-
wing military dictatorship in the world" after World War II.
"The
crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious,
remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them," he
said.
The United States , he added, "also has its own bleating little
lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain
."
Most prolific between 1957 and 1965, Pinter relished the
juxtaposition of brutality and the banal and turned the conversational
pause into an emotional minefield.
His characters' internal fears and
longings, their guilt and difficult sexual drives are set against the
neat lives they have constructed in order to try to survive.
Usually
enclosed in one room, they organize their lives as a sort of grim game
and their actions often contradict their words. Gradually, the layers
are peeled back to reveal the characters' nakedness.
The protection
promised by the room usually disappears and the language begins to
disintegrate.
Pinter once said of language, "The speech we hear is an
indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a
violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the
other in its true place. When true silence falls we are left with echo
but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that
it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness."
Pinter's influence
was felt in the United States in the plays of Sam Shepard and David
Mamet and throughout British literature.
"With his earliest work, he
stood alone in British theater up against the bewilderment and
incomprehension of critics, the audience and writers too," British
playwright Tom Stoppard said when the Nobel Prize was announced.
"Not
only has Harold Pinter written some of the outstanding plays of his
time, he has also blown fresh air into the musty attic of conventional
English literature, by insisting that everything he does has a public
and political dimension," added British playwright David Hare, who also
writes politically charged dramas.
The working-class milieu of plays
like "The Birthday Party" and "The Homecoming" reflected Pinter's early
life as the son of a Jewish tailor from London 's East End . He began
his career in the provinces as an actor.
In his first major play,
"The Birthday Party" (1958), intruders enter the retreat of Stanley, a
young man who is hiding from childhood guilt. He becomes violent,
telling them, "You stink of sin, you contaminate womankind."
And in
"The Caretaker," a manipulative old man threatens the fragile
relationship of two brothers while "The Homecoming" explores the hidden
rage and confused sexuality of an all-male household by inserting a
woman.
In "Silence and Landscape," Pinter moved from exploring the
dark underbelly of human life to showing the simultaneous levels of
fantasy and reality that equally occupy the individual.
In the 1980s,
Pinter's only stage plays were one-acts: "A Kind of Alaska " (1982),
"One for the Road" (1984) and the 20-minute "Mountain Language"
(1988).
During the late 1980s, his work became more overtly
political; he said he had a responsibility to pursue his role as "a
citizen of the world in which I live, (and) insist upon taking
responsibility."
In March 2005 Pinter announced his retirement as a
playwright to concentrate on politics. But he created a radio play,
"Voices," that was broadcast on BBC radio to mark his 75th birthday.
"I have written 29 plays and I think that's really enough," Pinter said
. "I think the world has had enough of my plays."
Pinter had a son,
Daniel, from his marriage to actress Vivien Merchant, which ended in
divorce in 1980. That year he married the writer Fraser.
"It was a
privilege to live with him for over 33 years. He will never be
forgotten," Fraser said.
http://news.yahoo.
com/s/ap/20081225/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_obit_pinter
=== 2 ===
http:
//www.workers.org/2009/world/harold_pinter_0115/
Harold Pinter
unraveled the ‘Tapestry of Lies’
By Heather Cottin
Published Jan 11,
2009 5:20 PM
Harold Pinter, Nobel-prize-winning British playwright,
died of cancer on Dec. 24 at the age of 78.
Pinter was regarded as the
foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20th
century, but his 29 plays, numerous screenplays, prose and poetry made
the British bourgeoisie uncomfortable.
Pinter’s plays and poetry
exposed hypocrisy, corruption and viciousness. As one of his characters
said, “The present is truly unscrupulous.” [“No Man’s Land,” 1975]
An
outspoken critic of imperialism, Pinter spoke against the Gulf War, the
invasion and breakup of Yugoslavia and the war on Iraq. At a conference
on the Balkans in 2000, one year after NATO’s “humanitarian bombing” of
Yugoslavia, Pinter said, “The United States has opened up the way for
... more ‘humanitarian intervention’, more demonstrations of its total
indifference to the fate of thousands upon thousands of people.”
(haroldpinter.org)
When he received the Nobel Prize for literature in
2005 Pinter said, “The United States supported and in many cases
engendered every right-wing military dictatorship in the world. ... [It
has] brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts
of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and
calls it ‘bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East.’ ...
“Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay ... suffocating
your intelligence and your critical faculties.”
He saw that the U.S.
was openly creating what it called “full spectrum dominance”—control of
land, sea, air and space. In his Nobel lecture, he called the U.S.
“brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless,” exercising a “clinical
manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for
universal good.” (nobelprize.org)
He won’t be buried at Westminster
Abbey. The British establishment won’t allow it. (Telegraph, Jan. 3).
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and
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=== 3 ===
Playwright Harold Pinter presents a
powerful case in opposition to NATO bombardment of Serbia
By Ann
Talbot
7 May 1999
Playwright Harold Pinter, an outspoken opponent of
NATO's war against Serbia, presented a coherent and well-argued case
opposing the military action on BBC 2 television last Tuesday evening.
Using news footage and interviews specially recorded for the programme,
Pinter showed how the media are being manipulated, and that the
humanitarian justification for the war is false.
In a powerful
condemnation of the war, Pinter described the NATO onslaught against
Serbia as "a bandit action, committed with no serious consideration of
the consequences, ill-judged, ill-thought, miscalculated, an act of
deplorable machismo".
Pinter was shown questioning British Defence
Minister George Robertson at a news conference. The playwright, citing
the Geneva Convention outlawing military attacks on civilian targets,
demanded to know how the bombing of a Serbian TV station could be
described as anything other than murder. "Mr. Pinter has obviously got
a new occupation now but I know his views," was the arrogant reply from
Robertson. He justified the bombing by claiming that such targets were
the "brains behind the brutality", and "part and parcel of the
apparatus that is driving ethnic genocide".
Such claims--which have
been used repeatedly to justify whatever horrors NATO perpetrates--were
challenged in the programme. Former Labour Foreign Secretary Dennis
Healey rejected the idea that the expulsion of the Kosovar Albanians
was the same as genocide. He pointed out that NATO's actions were
contrary to the United Nations charter, which Britain had signed. NATO
was bombing a fellow UN member, without UN authority.
Jake Lynch of
Sky News explained how the news media are being manipulated to support
the aggressive war drive. When NATO bombed a refugee convoy there was a
delay of several days before the cockpit video, normally shown at the
next daily press conference, was released to the media. This was to
enable NATO to cause the maximum confusion, he explained. First NATO
claimed there had been two separate incidents. The next day this was
amended to one incident, and then later a US Brigadier General cited
the figure of two again.
Lynch said this was a graphic exercise in
news management. When the video was eventually shown, an audible murmur
went round the press conference--"that's a tractor". Lynch pointed out
that if it had been shown straight away, without the lavishly composed
graphics, the "PR impact would have been much more negative for NATO".
Reporters were sent to Brussels to report the war, not to help NATO,
yet there was a slippage in journalistic technique. NATO "confirms"
things have happened; Belgrade only ever "claims" things.
Pinter gave
a detailed account of the bombing of the Serbian television station. He
showed the letter in which NATO spokesman Jamie Shea had assured the
International Federation of Journalists only days before the bombing
that the television station would not be attacked. Philip Knightley,
author of The First Casualty--History of Propaganda, explained why the
TV station was targeted: "NATO didn't want it revealed that it had
bombed a civilian convoy and left to itself would never have revealed
it until the war was over. But they were forced to admit to the bombing
of the civilian convoy because Serbian TV said that it had happened,
then took Western reporters in a bus to show them the results of it."
NATO had rightly described the murder of an anti-Milosevic journalist
as a brutal act of repression, Pinter said, yet they have never
expressed any regret for the killing of those people who were told they
were safe at the TV station. "Both are ugly murders of human beings who
propagate words or images that somebody else doesn't like."
Turning to
the refugee crisis Pinter showed that there is a direct correlation
between the number of refugees and the amount of popular support for
NATO bombing. He derided the talk of moral authority, demanding to know
"who bestowed it on the NATO countries?... Bombs and power--that's your
moral authority." The moral position of the US was highly ambiguous, he
went on. "When human rights groups discovered US jets used by the
Turkish airforce to bomb Kurdish villages within its own territory the
Clinton administration found ways to evade laws requiring suspension of
arms deliveries. 1.4 million Kurds fled Turkish repression from 1990 to
1994. Yet Turkey is invited to the top of the table at NATO's birthday
party."
The US denied that genocide was taking place in Rwanda--with
800,000 dead--because it was not in the interests of the United States
to be part of a UN intervention force. But it calls the Serbian ethnic
cleansing "genocide" because it was politically expedient to do so, he
continued. He also made clear his disgust for Prime Minister Tony
Blair: "Under the rhetoric, Blair's real character has become clear.
There's nothing like a missile, there's nothing like power, it was
really worth waiting for!"
Pinter revealed the US record of complicity
with ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. The greatest single act
of displacement and ethnic cleansing in the entire Yugoslav war was
that of 200,000 Serbs from Croatia in 1995. He showed an extract from
an interview with the then US Secretary of State, Warren Christopher,
who said of this episode, "It always had the prospect of simplifying
matters." Pinter explained that the "operation was carried out by
officers trained by NPRI, an organisation of US army veteran commanders
and was armed with a great deal of US weaponry, in an attack of which
the US had full knowledge." Its purpose was "creating convenient
ethnically-pure maps without committing US ground forces."
In his
memoirs, US Ambassador Holbrook admits to encouraging Croatian assaults
on the Serbs, telling the Croatians to hurry up before the Serbs
regroup, and then merely rebuking the Croatian leader, Franjo Tudjman,
during their cosy chats. Madeline Albright, then US ambassador to the
UN, timed the release of aerial photos of mass graves of Muslims killed
by Serbs at Srebrenica for the same day as the Croats were expelling
the Serbs, in order to divert the world media's attention. These photos
had been taken weeks before by a US spy satellite but were held back in
order to mask one atrocity with another.
Pinter also showed the
cynical way in which the US government deals with the UN. In 1995 the
bombing of the Bosnian Serbs needed direct authority from the UN, but
Secretary General Boutros Boutros Gali was unwilling to grant it. So
Madeline Albright by-passed the secretary general, getting permission
from his deputy Kofi Annan, while Boutros Boutros Gali could not be
contacted as he was on a commercial flight. Kofi Annan effectively
secured himself the secretary general's job that day, Pinter declared.
Now, the US did not even bother to contact the UN.
The US had
exacerbated the situation in Kosovo, Pinter argued. He pointed out that
over the course of 10 years, before the West had begun negotiating with
the hard line KLA and despite the fact that war was often raging in
other parts of former Yugoslavia, Kosovo saw tension but little
bloodshed. In fact, a comparable number of people were killed there as
in Northern Ireland. However, once the KLA began their uprising 2,000
died in one year of violence.
Mark Almond of Oxford University, and a
writer on Balkan history, was interviewed about the Rambouillet talks.
"In a little-noticed annexe to the agreement, NATO insisted that its
forces should be allowed to have freedom of movement over the whole of
Yugoslavia, not just Kosovo. There was no real constraint over what
sort of forces there would be, and, to a great extent, what their
activities would be." Pinter explained what this meant: whether "you
are a dictator, the prime minister of a democratic country, or even
Mrs. Thatcher, and your sovereign territory is going to be occupied,
you might as well resist or your time in power is over."
Almond said
there was a cynical aspect to the build-up of the crisis, with
"deliberate provocation of reprisals by the KLA". He went on, "This
aspect has been neglected in the press. It wasn't simply unprovoked and
meaningless racial violence on the part of the Serbs--though we've seen
quite a lot of that too--but a complex struggle for power over Kosovo,
in which the loss of lives of ordinary Kosovo Albanians and others were
really treated as pawns."
Showing video footage of crowds on a bridge
over the Danube inside Serbia, Pinter commented, "Only two years ago
hundreds of thousands of young people were out on the streets against
Milosevic. Our blundering policy of bombing now finds them linking
hands on bridges waiting to be hit." He warned that if ground troops
were sent in, civilian casualties would mount and Kosovo would be made
a wasteland. "By the time NATO land forces will have finished their
work there will be nothing left to liberate". This was the "crazed
logic of escalation," he said.
Pinter brought together academics,
politicians and relief workers in condemning the war against Serbia.
The programme showed that opposition to it runs deep.
http://www.wsws.
org/articles/1999/may1999/pint-m07.shtml
=== 4 ===
Speech given at
the Committee for Peace in the Balkans Conference at The Conway Hall
June 10th 2000
http://www.haroldpinter.org/home/balk.html
Harold
Pinter
ANNIVERSARY OF NATO BOMBING OF SERBIA
I'd like to read you
an extract from Eve-Ann Prentice's powerful and important book about
the NATO action in Serbia One Woman's War.
"The little old lady
looked as if she had three eyes. On closer inspection, it was the
effect of the shrapnel which had drilled into her forehead and killed
her. One of her shoes had been torn off and the radishes she had just
bought at the market lay like splashes of blood near her outstretched
hand.
At first, the dead had seemed almost camouflaged among the
rubble, splintered trees and broken glass but once you began to notice
them, the bodies were everywhere, some covered in table cloths and
blankets, others simply lying exposed where they had fallen. There was
barely a square inch of wall, tree, car or human being which had not
been raked by shrapnel. Houses which had been pretty hours before, with
picket fences and window boxes bursting with blooms were now riddled
with scars from the strafing. Widows in black leant on their garden
gates, whimpering into handkerchiefs, as they surveyed their dead
neighbours lying amid the broken glass, gashed trees, smouldering cars
and crumpled bicycles. Plastic bags lay strewn near many of the dead,
spilling parcels of fruit, eggs and vegetables, fresh from the market
but now never to be eaten.
It was Friday 7th May 1999 in the southern
city of Nis and NATO had made a mistake. Instead of hitting a military
building near the airport about three miles away the bombers had
dropped their lethal load in a tangle of back streets close to the city
centre. At least thirty-three people were killed and scores more
suffered catastrophic injuries; hands, feet and arms shredded or blown
away altogether, abdomens and chests ripped open by shards of flying
metal.
This had been no "ordinary" shelling, if such a thing exists.
The area had been hit by cluster bombs, devices designed to cause a
deadly spray of hot metal fragments when they explode. The Yugoslav
government had accused the Alliance of using these weapons in other
attacks which had cut down civilians but the suggestion had been mostly
laughed to scorn in the West."
The bombing of Nis was no 'mistake'.
General Wesley K Clark declared, as the NATO bombing began: "We are
going to systematically and progressively attack, disrupt, degrade,
devastate and ultimately - unless President Milosevic complies with the
demands of the international community - destroy these forces and their
facilities and support". Milosevic's 'forces', as we know, included
television stations, schools, hospitals, theatres, old people's homes -
and the market-place in Nis. It was in fact a fundamental feature of
NATO policy to terrorise the civilian population.
I would ask you to
compare those images of the market place in Nis with the photographs of
Tony Blair with his new- born baby which were all over the front pages
recently. What a nice looking dad and what a pretty baby. Most readers
would not have connected the proud father with the man who launched
cluster bombs and missiles containing depleted uranium into Serbia. As
we know from the effects of depleted uranium used on Iraq, there will
be babies born in Serbia in the near future who won't look quite so
pretty as little Leo but they won't get their pictures in the papers
either.
The United States was determined to wage war against Serbia
for one reason and one reason only - to assert its domination over
Europe. And it seems very clear that it won't stop there. In showing
its contempt for the United Nations and International Law the United
States has opened up the way for more "moral outrage", more
"humanitarian intervention", more demonstrations of its total
indifference to the fate of thousands upon thousands of people, more
lies, more bullshit, more casual sadism, more destruction.
And the
government of Great Britain follows suit with an eagerness which can
only merit our disgust. We are confronted by a brutal, ruthless and
malignant machine. This machine must be recognised for what it is and
resisted.
Harold Pinter
---
Anniversario del bombardamento Nato
della Repubblica Federale Jugoslava
di Harold Pinter
Intervento
tenuto alla Conferenza dei Balcani del Comitato per la Pace, nella Sala
Conway, il 10 Giugno 2000
Fonte: http://www.resistenze.
org/sito/te/cu/po/cupo9a05-004263.htm
Gradirei leggervi un estratto
del libro, potente e importante, di Eve Ann Prentice, la Guerra di una
Donna, sull’azione della Nato in Serbia.
“La piccola vecchia signora
sembrava che avesse tre occhi. Ad un’analisi più attenta, era l’effetto
della granata che era finita sulla sua fronte e l’aveva uccisa. Una
delle sue scarpe era stata strappata via ed i rapanelli che lei aveva
appena comperato al mercato, giacevano come schizzi di sangue vicino
alla sua mano distesa.
Subito i morti sembravano pressoché camuffati
tra macerie, pezzi li legno e vetri infranti ma una volta che
cominciavi ad osservare, i corpi erano dappertutto, alcuni coperti con
tovaglie o lenzuola, altri che giacevano semplicemente esposti la dove
erano caduti. Non c’era un pollice quadrato di muro, albero, macchina o
essere umano che non fosse stato torturato dalla granata. Case che ore
prima erano state graziose, con i loro recinti di legno e le finestre
incorniciate dai fiori sbocciati, adesso erano crivellate dai colpi
dell’artiglieria. Vedove in nero, appoggiate al cancello del loro orto,
singhiozzando nel fazzoletto, osservavano i loro vicini morti, stesi
tra vetro rotto, alberi divelti, auto bruciate, biciclette contorte.
Proprio vicino ai cadaveri erano sparpagliate borse di plastica, con
sparsi attorno pacchetti, uova, frutta, freschi di mercato ma che ormai
non sarebbero più stati mangiati.
Era Venerdì 7 Maggio 1999 nella
città meridionale di Nis; e la Nato aveva commesso un errore. Invece di
colpire un edificio militare vicino all’aeroporto, a circa tre miglia,
i bombardieri avevano lasciato cadere il loro carico letale in un
groviglio di viuzze vicino al centro cittadino. Almeno trentatre
persone vennero uccise e un’altra ventina subì ferite tremende;
brandelli di mani, piedi, braccia completamente volati via, addomi e
toraci sventrati da frammenti di metallo volanti.
Questo non era
stato un bombardamento “ordinario”, se può esistere una cosa del
genere. L’area era stata colpita da bombe a grappolo, congegni
progettati per causare, alla loro esplosione, una dispersione mortale
di frammenti di metallo roventi. Il governo jugoslavo aveva accusato l’
Alleanza di aver usato queste armi in altri attacchi che avevano
abbattuto civili ma l’indicazione ad Ovest era stata irrisa con
sdegno”.
Il bombardamento di Nis non era nessun ‘errore’. Il generale
Wesley K Clark, all’inizio dei bombardamenti Nato, dichiarò: “noi
stiamo portando sistematicamente e progressivamente attacchi,
distruzione, degrado, devastazione e alla fine- a meno che il
Presidente Milosevic acconsenta alle richieste della comunità
internazionale- distruggeremo queste forze e le loro installazioni e i
loro appoggi”. Le ‘forze’ di Milosevic, come noi sappiamo, includevano
stazioni della televisione, scuole, ospedali, teatri, case di anziani-
e la piazza del mercato di Nis. Era in effetti una rappresentazione
fondamentale della politica della Nato per terrorizzare la popolazione
civile.
Io vi chiederei di comparare quelle immagini della piazza del
mercato di Nis con le fotografie di Tony Blair con suo figlio appena
nato che era contemporaneamente su tutte le prime pagine. Che bel papà
e che bel bambino. La maggior parte dei lettori non avrebbe messo in
relazione il padre orgoglioso con l’uomo che aveva lanciato bombe a
grappolo e missili all’uranio impoverito sulla Serbia. Come noi
sappiamo, dagli effetti dell’uranio impoverito usato in Iraq, nel
prossimo futuro in Serbia nasceranno bambini che non sembreranno così
carini come il piccolo Leone. Ma loro non avranno i loro ritratti nei
giornali.
Gli Stati Uniti furono determinati ad intraprendere la
guerra contro la Serbia per una e una sola ragione: affermare il
proprio dominio sull’Europa. E sembra molto chiaro che non si
fermeranno là. Nel mostrare il loro disprezzo per le Nazioni Unite e la
Legge Internazionale, gli Stati Uniti hanno aperto la via a più
oltraggi alla morale, più “interventi umanitari”, più dimostrazioni
della loro indifferenza al destino di migliaia e migliaia di persone,
più bugie, più stupidaggini, più sadismo casuale, più distruzione.
Ed
il governo della Gran Bretagna segue la causa con un’ansia che può
meritare solamente il nostro disgusto. Noi siamo di fronte ad una
macchina brutale, spietata e malvagia. Questa macchina deve essere
riconosciuta per quello che è e affrontata.
=== 5 ===
http://www.
resistenze.org/sito/te/cu/po/cupo9a05-004263.htm
www.resistenze.org -
cultura e memoria resistenti - poesia e letteratura - - n. 255
E’
morto Harold Pinter, uomo libero e grande amico dei popoli, grande
amico del popolo serbo e jugoslavo
di Enrico Vigna - portavoce del
Forum Belgrado per un mondo di Eguali, Italia
04/01/2009
Il 25
dicembre 2008 è morto all’età di 78 anni, un grande amico dei popoli,
considerato il più grande scrittore inglese del dopoguerra, poeta,
attore e regista. Ricevette nel 2005 il Premio Nobel per la
Letteratura, ma durante la sua vita furono decine le onorificenze e i
riconoscimenti internazionali, tra cui la Legion d’Onore francese, il
Premio Europeo per la Letteratura, il Premio Pirandello, il Premio
Shakespeare e il Moliere d’Onore. Vinse anche il Premio Fondazione
Serba della città di Kragujevac e nel novembre 2006 fu eletto d’onore
quale membro dell’Accademia delle Scienze e delle Arti Serba.
A causa
della sua totale libertà di pensiero ed il suo coraggio nel denunciare
i crimini e le ingiustizie contro i popoli, Pinter è sempre stato
osteggiato e denigrato dai più grandi mass media occidentali.
Nonostante questo, egli non ha mai disertato dal suo impegno di libero
pensatore e implacabile accusatore dei crimini e delle politiche
imperialiste statunitensi, inglesi e della NATO.
Egli diceva sempre
che avere l’ostilità della stampa asservita ai potenti, era per lui un
onore, come e più di ricevere un onorificenza: “... io so che sono
attaccato e denigrato perché penso con la mia testa... la tradizione
vuole che la gran parte degli scrittori di successo evitino di pensare,
accettino e scrivano... chi esce da questi confini e usa la sua testa
diventa scomodo o un nemico...”.
Pinter è sempre stato dalla parte
della giustizia, della verità e dei popoli, fino alla fine della vita,
con intatta coerenza. Egli fu il primo intellettuale inglese a
condannare pubblicamente con espressioni dure l’invasione USA dell’
Iraq, definendola: “... un atto di banditismo e di terrorismo di stato,
che dimostra l’assoluto disprezzo per il Diritto Internazionale...”.
Quando vi fu l’aggressione della NATO contro la Repubblica Federale
Jugoslava, la quasi totalità dell’elite intellettuale e politica
inglese si scatenò nei media britannici contro Pinter, il quale
pubblicamente e in vari articoli attaccò duramente Tony Blair (allora
primo ministro inglese), con veemenza: “...Come può Mr Blair, con la
sua ipocrita morale cristiana, definire le “cluster bombs” (bombe a
frammentazione, ndt), che fanno a pezzi bambini e civili, un atto di
civiltà contro la barbarie?... Queste bombe sono una barbarie! Così
come il bombardamento della RFJ è un atto illegale, immorale, pazzo e
stupido...”.
Più volte egli si è scontrato pubblicamente con l’ex
primo ministro inglese Blair, arrivando a definirlo un “genocida”. In
ogni manifestazione di piazza a Londra egli prendeva la parola per
smascherare i veri obiettivi della guerra contro la RFJ, dietro cui vi
erano solamente gli interessi dell’imperialismo USA ed occidentale, da
lui sintetizzati come un piano globale di “dominazione ed affermazione
brutale di potere”.
“...Diciamo noi la verità. La verità è che a
nessun Clinton, a nessun Blair interessa alcunché dei kosovari
albanesi...Questi bombardamenti e questa guerra, vogliono solo
barbaramente dimostrare chi è il più forte: il potere USA garantito
attraverso la NATO ed i suoi missili. Tutto ciò mira a consolidare una
cosa: l’egemonia statunitense sull’Europa. Questo deve essere capito ed
a questo bisogna resistere e impedirlo...”.
Pinter si schierò anche
contro l’illegale Tribunale NATO dell’Aja, aderendo al ICDSM e
denunciando il sequestro del Presidente jugoslavo Milosevic e la
brutalità dell’operazione del suo rapimento, completamente fuori da
qualsiasi legalità internazionale. Chi, come il sottoscritto, fu tra i
fondatori del CIDSM in Italia sa bene quanto era difficile allora avere
e tenere quella posizione, sommersi anche a sinistra da ingiurie e
accuse.
Questo e tanto altro è stato Harold Pinter, un coerente
militante della pace, della giustizia, della verità. Un intellettuale
libero che, nonostante ingiurie ed insulti ricevuti, si è sempre posto
negli avvenimenti della storia contemporanea, a partire dalla sua
coscienza e dalla parte della ragione degli aggrediti e delle vittime
dell’imperialismo, senza paura e senza timore di essere penalizzato nel
suo lavoro e nella sua carriera artistica. D’altro canto, egli ha
sempre affermato che: “...Non sono un artista, prima di tutto sono un
uomo...”.
E così sarà sempre ricordato dagli uomini liberi, dai
popoli aggrediti che lo hanno avuto al fianco, da chiunque cerca la
verità e la giustizia.
=== 6 ===
Nella primavera 2004 Pinter fu tra
i sottoscrittori dell'Appello di intellettuali ed artisti, promosso
dall'ICDSM, nel quale si chiedeva la liberazione di Milosevic, lo
scioglimento dell'illegittimo "tribunale ad hoc" dell'Aia, ed una vera
indagine e condanna dei crimini di guerra commessi in tutti questi anni
contro la Jugoslavia ed i suoi abitanti:
http://it.groups.yahoo.
com/group/icdsm-italia/message/68
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-
mailinglist/message/4592
Ma già nel 2001 Pinter si era espresso con
grande chiarezza e coraggio su questo tema:
(in english: FREE
MILOSEVIC, SAYS PINTER
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-
mailinglist/message/1215 )
Estratto da The Guardian, 28 luglio 2001
Liberare Milosevic, dice Pinter
di Fiachra Gibbons
(Fonte: http://www.
resistenze.org/sito/te/cu/po/cupo9a05-004263.htm )
Il drammaturgo
Harold Pinter è entrato a far parte di una campagna per liberare l'ex
leader serbo Slobodan Milosevic.
Pinter, che era un feroce oppositore
del bombardamenti NATO della Serbia e una volta ha definito la politica
degli Stati Uniti per la ex Jugoslavia come "bacia il mio culo o ti
darò un calcio in testa", ha detto che l'estradizione di Milosevic al
processo del Tribunale per crimini di guerra all'Aia è stata illegale.
"Credo che il suo arresto e la detenzione da parte del tribunale
penale internazionale è incostituzionale, e va contro la Repubblica
Jugoslava e il diritto internazionale. Essi non hanno il diritto di
processarlo", ha detto.
La sua decisione di dare il suo nome al
Comitato Internazionale per la Difesa di Slobodan Milosevic, una
coalizione di attivisti di sinistra e dei diritti umani, e di
simpatizzanti Serbi, costituito nel mese di marzo, segue anni di
critica di ciò che egli vede come una moralità dell’occidente
differenziata per i Balcani e una " persecuzione " dei serbi...
...
Pinter dice anche che, se Milosevic deve essere giudicato, l'ex
presidente degli Stati Uniti Bill Clinton dovrebbe unirsi a lui sul
banco degli imputati per il lancio di milioni di "bombe a grappolo che
amputano a pezzi i bambini _ da quei coraggiosi bombardieri che volano
a 15000 piedi. E questo è un atto che [Tony] Blair, con il suo
cristianesimo moralista, applaude... ".
Egli ha inoltre indicato il
bombardamento della stazione televisiva di Belgrado da parte della NATO
come un "assassinio" e ha sentito "vergogna di essere britannico".
Alla petizione per liberare Milosevic hanno aderito finora circa 1.200
persone...tra i gruppi britannici la Campagna per la Pace di Cambridge
e i Cristiani contro l’aggressione della NATO, sono stati tra i primi a
firmare.