Jugoinfo
The story of the independent muslim unit "Mesa Selimovic" may be read in
the english version at
> http://www.vorstadtzentrum.net/cgi-bin/joesb/
news/viewnews.cgi?category=all&id01232785
or
> http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/1327
---
L'histoire de la � Mesa Selimovic �, unit� musulmane ind�pendante
� D'abord, il faut se d�barrasser des communistes. Vous savez qui c'est,
voil� les listes ici. Et apr�s �a, on liquide les Serbes. �
Cet article a �t� publi� dans le journal Dani. Il pr�sente un compte
rendu int�ressant sur le d�but de la guerre en Bosnie-Herz�govine. C'est
l'interview d'Ismet Djuheric, commandant d'une division musulmane qui a
combattu aux c�t�s des Serbes.
Une compagnie d'honn�tes combattants
par Vlado Mrkic
Ismet Djuheric a �t� le premier commandant de l'unit� �Mesa Selimovic�,
appartenant � l'arm�e de la r�publique serbe, et dont les membres
�taient pour la plupart des musulmans en provenance des villages des
municipalit�s de Bosanski Brod et Derventa. Cette unit� de � Chetniks
musulmans �, comme certains l'ont appel�e, a �t� et reste encore
aujourd'hui l'une des grosses controverses de la guerre �coul�e.
Ismet Djuheric parle dans Dani des �v�nements auxquels il a particip� ou
assist� en tant que simple t�moin.
Aujourd'hui, Ismet Djuheric vit en compagnie de son �pouse Hanumica dans
le village de Sijekovac, pr�s de Bosanski Brod. Sa fille et lui sont
employ�s � la raffinerie de p�trole de Brod. Hormis plusieurs mois
pass�s comme r�fugi�s dans les villages avoisinants de Dubocac et de
Kobas, les Djuheric sont la seule famille musulmane � avoir pass� toute
la guerre dans le village de Sijekovac.
Cet article ne repr�sente qu'une petite partie de l'histoire, c'est un
t�moignage sur une �poque tragique, sur des �v�nements qui ne pourraient
avoir eu lieu, nous semble-t-il, que dans ce chaudron bosniaque chauff�
� blanc par les dissensions et la haine des voisins des deux rives de la
Sava et de la Drina.
Le d�but des troubles
Avant la guerre, je travaillais � l'H�tel de Ville de Brod, en Bosnie,
et mon travail se rapportait � certaines activit�s des autorit�s.
J'�tais �galement en relation avec les autorit�s elles-m�mes. Je
mentionne ce d�tail parce qu'il devait affecter ma destin�e ult�rieure.
J'ai toujours �t� actif en politique, j'ai toujours �t� � gauche, comme
membre du Parti communiste et, plus tard, de la Ligue communiste.
Aujourd'hui, je suis socialiste. Je pense que ce choix est correct. J'ai
toujours dit, et je le pense toujours, que ce sont les extr�mistes qui
ont d�clench� cette guerre. Ils �taient un outil dans les mains de ceux
qui sont venus au pouvoir � l'issue des premi�res �lections
multipartites, c'est-�-dire au moment o� nos malheurs ont commenc�.
Avant la guerre, j'�tais officier de r�serve de l'arm�e populaire
yougoslave (APY). J'avais le grade de capitaine et j'�tait membre de la
327e Brigade (� l'�poque), � Derventa. Le bataillon de Brod faisait
partie de cette m�me 327e Brigade. J'effectuais certaines t�ches. A
l'�poque, c'�tait l�gal. La guerre n'avait pas encore d�but� dans cette
r�gion, mais j'appr�hendais d�j� sa venue. Mes activit�s � l'H�tel de
Ville �taient d'ailleurs en rapport avec les �v�nements. Beaucour de
gens n'aimaient pas cela, surtout les extr�mistes, la plupart �taient
des Croates, et puis des musulmans, aussi.
Je dis �musulmans� parce que j'en suis un. Avant, j'�tais un Yougoslave.
Aujourd'hui, je suis un musulman [aujourd'hui, on d�signe les musulmans
de Bosnie par le terme de Bosniaques].
Apr�s la chute des casernes de l'APY � Slavonski Brod [de l'autre c�t�
du cours d'eau, en Croatie], les tensions dans la r�gion ont
consid�rablement augment�. Des heurts de sont produits: les gens avaient
des armes. J'�tais du nombre de ceux qui �taient d'avis de laisser la
vie suivre normalement son cours, � d�faut de fraternit� et d'unit�. La
Croatie �tait d�j� un Etat nouveau. Si nous avons besoin de nous
prot�ger contre qui que ce soit, avais-je l'habitude de dire,
prot�geons-nous au moins tous ensemble, puisque
nous vivons d�j� ensemble, Serbes, Croates et musulmans. Les
extr�mistes, tant chez les Croates que chez les musulmans, �taient
oppos�s � cette id�e et je peux vous dire que les deux groupes ont tent�
de me convaincre de me joindre � eux. Non en raison d'id�aux, mais pour
des questions d'int�r�ts, du fait qu'ils esp�raient probablement que ma
r�putation et mes connaissances dans le cadre de mon travail auraient pu
aider leur cause.
Ils m'ont dit : � Viens avec nous, et rien ne t'arrivera. � C'a �t�
�vident quand ils m'ont attaqu� par la suite. J'ai �t� attaqu� par les
membres de la milice qui avait �t� constitu�e � Brod au d�but mars 1992
et qui comptait exclusivement des membres croates et musulmans. Le
premier commandant de la police militaire de Bosanski Brod fut Josip
Bilic. Tous ces gens avaient �t� nomm�s selon des ordres venant de
Slavonski Brod. Les Serbes s'�taient d�j� repli�s sur Lijesce.
De violentes fusillades
J'�tais pr�sident de la Commune locale de Sijekovac et lorsque certains
habitants m'ont approch� pour que je leur explique la mani�re dont nous
allions nous prot�ger, surtout des tueurs. L'attitude g�n�rale a �t�
pour dire que nous tous, Serbes, musulmans et Croates, devions
participer � des patrouilles locales. Toutefois, les extr�mistes l'ont
emport� � la fin et ont �vinc� tous ceux qui voulaient vivre ensemble.
Toute de suite, j'ai �t� vir� de mon poste de pr�sident de la commune
locale. En fait, ils ne m'ont pas vir�. Ils ont tout simplement repris
mes fonctions.
Dix-sept membres de la pr�tendue police militaire ont pris part � une
agression physique contre moi-m�me et ma famille. Ils nous ont attaqu�s
� notre domicile en exigeant que je leur c�de des armes. Ils pensaient
que l'APY avait stock� des armes chez moi. Je n'�tais pas en possession
de ces armes mais, par contre, j'avais les miennes propres. Ils ont
d'abord tir�, puis ont exig� que je me rende. La fusillade a �t�
nourrie. Cette nuit-l�, je me suis entretenu avec le g�n�ral Kukanjac,
avec le commandant de la Brigade de Derventa, avec le quartier g�n�ral
de Brod, avec le quartier g�n�ral de Lijesce, et j'ai exig� qu'on fasse
cesser cette attaque contre ma personne. Je n'avais pas l'intention de
me rendre. Ma femme, mon fils et ma fille, qui �taient encore mineurs, �
l'�poque, �taient avec moi dans notre maison. Ce qui m'avait choqu� le
plus, c'est que parmi les agresseurs, il y avait certains de mes voisins
et leurs enfants.
Les murs de notre maison �taient cribl�s d'impacts de balles. Une
intervention pour mettre un terme � ces attaques est venue d'en haut,
mais nous n'avons pas eu d'autre choix que de nous en aller. Ce jour-l�,
il y avait un enterrement. Un personnage important dans je ne sais quel
domaine �tait d�c�d� et tout le monde assistait aux fun�railles. Lorsque
nous avons vu que la sentinelle avait quitt� son poste, nous nous somes
�loign�s quelque peu de Sijekovac et nous nous sommes rendus � Dubocac,
la localit� o� je suis n�. Je suis entr� en contact avec la garnison et
me suis rendu ensuite � Derventa.
Les HOS arrivent
Toutefois, le m�me groupe qui m'avait attaqu� � Sijekovac, renforc� par
un groupe de soldats des HOS [Les HOS, ou Forces croates de D�fense,
�taient une milice croate d'extr�me droite (pro-oustachi), active � la
fois en Croatie et en Bosnie-Herz�govine en 1991 et 1992] sous le
commandement d'Obradovic, un homme bien connu dans cette r�gion, a
attaqu� Dubovac et s'en est empar�. Obradovic vivait � Slavonski Brod,
o� il poss�dait un bar. C'�tait un Serbe. Il provenait de Kraljevo, en
Serbie, mais �tait toujours dans les HOS. Apr�s la chute de Dubocac,
nous nous sommes enfuis vers le village musulman de Kobas, o� ma famille
s�journa durant tout le temps o� je fus � Derventa avec la Brigade.
Un groupe de 22 soldats des HOS, les fameux Handzars, dont le commandant
�tait un certain Ekrem Mendela, originaire de quelque part en Bosnie
centrale, quitta la Croatie pour s'installer � Sijekovac et s'installa
dans un camp de conteneurs appartenant � une compagnie provenant de
Teslic, non loin de chez moi. Ils contr�laient Sijekovac, en m�me temps
que le pr�tendu peloton d'intervention de Nijaz Causevic, de Sijekovac,
connu aussi sous le surnom de Medo. Obradovic et Causevic ont �cum� la
r�gion avec leurs groupes jusqu'au moment de la lib�ration de Brod.
Obradovic est mort plus tard, tu� par ses propres soldats, au moment o�
ils s'enfuyaient de Zboriste. Il avait essay� de les arr�ter et l'un de
ses hommes l'avait abattu.
Un renard � Kobas
Depuis lors, et jusqu'� la lib�ration de Brod, je suis rest� � Derventa.
En ao�t 1992, j'ai form� ma propre unit� au sein de l'Arm�e de la
r�publique de Serbie. La plupart de ses membres �taient des musulmans,
mais il y avait �galement quelques Serbes et quelques Croates. On
l'avait baptis�e l'unit� musulmane ind�pendante �Mesa Selimovic� [un
c�l�bre �crivain musulman de Bosnie], et elle servit dans l'arm�e de la
r�p�blique serbe jusqu'� la fin de la guerre. Elle �tait cantonn�e dans
le village de Kulina, pr�s de Derventa, en face de l'�cole du village.
C'est le g�n�ral Kelecevic et le colonel Slavko Lisica, aujourd'hui
g�n�ral, qui lui avaient donn� son nom.
Je fus le premier commandant de l'unit�, jusqu'en janvier 1993. Par la
suite, je quittai l'arm�e et travaillai � Brod. L'unit� comptait environ
120 hommes, mais les effectifs variaient de temps � autre. Elle avait
donc la taille d'une compagnie. Elle a �t� op�rationnelle dans tous les
combats aux alentours de Bord et de Derventa, et a �galement particip�
aux combats des environs de Teslic, Tesanj, Maglaj et Zavidovici. Ses
membres �taient tous des gars honn�tes, sans exception, et ils sont
d'ailleurs rest�s ici pour y vivre, par la suite. L'unit� faisait son
boulot honn�tement, consciencieusement. A notre avis, nous avions le
droit de d�fendre notre pays et nos biens, et c'est ce que nous avons
fait, nous sommes rest�s dans la r�gion et nous avons fait ce que nous
estimions juste. Et, bien s�r, aujourd'hui, la plupart de ces gens
vivent et travaillent toujours ici.
Comment cette unit� avait-elle �t� constitu�e ? Qu'il n'y ait pas de
confusion. Nous �tions des volontaires. D'une certaine fa�on, je voulais
prot�ger les gens qui �taient rest�s chez eux. Nous avons contact�
Lisica et il a accept� notre proposition. A l'�poque, il �tait colonel
et commandait un groupe tactique. Il vint � Kobas, o� nous nous �tions
r�fugi�s apr�s nous �tre �chapp�s de Dubocac, il rassembla des musulmans
dans la cour de la maison o� je vivais, leur tint un petit discours et
promit � la population que personne ne leur ferait le moindre mal. Puis,
il ajouta : � Si vous le d�sirez, je vous enverrai des v�hicules. � Il
n'y a eu aucune coercition.
Plus tard, nous nous sommes rassembl�s en face de l'�cole de Kulina et
nous avons r�fl�chi au nom que nous allions donner � notre unit�. Pour
autant que je m'en souvienne, je pense que c'est Lisica qui a sugg�r� le
nom de Mesa Selimovic, et que le g�n�ral Kelecevic a ensuite �t�
d'accord. Moi aussi, ce nom me plaisait, et je marquai �galement mon
accord. J'avais lu Mesa, en partie parce que ses oeuvres figuraient sur
la liste des lectures obligatoires de l'�cole, mais aussi parce que
j'aimais beaucoup ce qu'il �crivait. Et c'est ainsi que le nom est
rest�. En tant qu'unit�, nous n'avons commis aucun acte r�pr�hensible,
m�me si nos ennemis pr�tendent que c'est faux. Nous avons re�u la visite
de journalistes �trangers, et m�me la princesse Jelisaveta s'est rendue
au front pour nous rencontrer. Nous avons �galement re�u la visite de
parlementaires britanniques qui ont bu du caf� avec nous. Nous �tions
r�put�s pour notre cuisine. Comme la plupart des gens originaires des
rives de la Sava, nous pr�parions tr�s bien le poisson.
Des agresseurs de leur propre pays?
Ce que j'ai fait, ce que tous, parmi nous, nous avons fait, nous avons
choisi de le faire et n'en sommes nullement d�sol�s. Je sais que les
Serbes ont �t� trait�s d'agresseurs, mais nous ne l'avons pas accept�.
Nous faisions partie de l'arm�e de la r�publique serbe, nous �tions avec
nos voisins, et il n'y avait personne d'autre, ici. Il n'y avait
personne du Montenegro ou de la Serbie. S'ils �taient des agresseurs,
nous �tions nous aussi des agresseurs, dans ce cas, puisque nous �tions
avec eux. Et comment pourrais-je �tre l'agresseur de mon propre pays ?
C'est quelque chose que je ne puis comprendre. C'�tait la guerre, il y
avait ceux qui portaient les armes et qui n'�taient pas assez m�rs pour
le faire. Il se passait toutes sortes de choses et il fallait faire
attention � sa peau et rester dans son propre pays. Certains ne l'ont
pas support� et ils sont partis, mais d'autres ont pers�v�r� et sont
rest�s. Tous les villages musulmans sont rest�s. Prenez, par exemple,
Luzani et Omeragici, dans la municipalit� de Derventa, c'�taient des
villages essentiellement peupl�s de musulmans et tous ces gens sont
toujours l�, aujourd'hui.
Il y avait beaucoup de musulmans de Derventa, dans ma compagnie, mais
�galement dans le reste de la Brigade Derventa. Il est impossible de
juger cette affaire sur les apparences, sur tout ce que l'on a racont� �
propos de l'agression. Jusqu'en mai 1992, lorsque ces gosses, les
conscrits de 18 ans de l'APY, ont �t� tu�s � Kolibe, l'APY �tait une
force militaire l�gale, dans la r�gion. M�me � l'�poque, il �tait
impossible de parler d'agression.
Le mot a �t� utilis� pour faire pencher la communaut� internationale
vers l'un des camps du conflit. Tout le monde le souhaitait. Je connais
des cas o� les trois camps ont attaqu� leurs propres villages afin
d'accuser les autres camps et cela ne peut donc constituer un alibi pour
aucun des trois camps. C'est la stricte v�rit�. Tout cela a �t� organis�
de fa�on � semer le chaos et la confusion, puisque les gens, hormis les
extr�mistes, voulaient toujours rester dans leur propre pays et vivre
avec leurs voisins. Et, voyez, ils reviennent, aujourd'hui.
Il est vrai que l'on trouvait beaucoup plus de musulmans dans l'autre
camp. Mais ils ne l'avaient pas choisi d'eux-m�mes. Ils combattaient au
sein des HVO. Ils devaient ob�ir aux ordres. Chaque unit� musulmane des
HVO avait un �conseiller� croate, et nous savons tous ce que cela veut
dire. J'�tais compl�tement ind�pendant, et je jouissais de la pleine
confiance de mes sup�rieurs. Je n'avais pas de � conseillers �, dans ma
compagnie. La m�me chose est d'ailleurs vraie aussi pour mon successeur.
Le � crime � de Sijekovac
Le � crime � de Sijekovac a eu lieu le 26 mars 1992. A l'�poque, j'�tais
� Derventa, en compagnie de mon unit�, op�rationnelle au sein du QG de
la Brigade. J'ai �t� le premier, � Derventa, � recevoir des informations
sur ce qui s'est pass�. Je sais que l'�tat-major de crise de l'�poque, �
Sijekovac, avait d�cid� d'attaquer et de d�sarmer une partie du village.
Des documents �crits le confirment, d'ailleurs. L'ordre fut sign� par
Smajo Havic, � l'�poque pr�sident de l'�quipe de crise de Sijekovac. Peu
apr�s, il d�missionna, probablement apr�s avoir compris ce qu'il avait
fait. Les troupes des HOS d'Obradovic et le peloton d'intervention de
Nijaz Causevic Medo particip�rent � l'attaque. Les membres du peloton
d'intervention �taient des extr�mistes originaires de Sijekovac, des
musulmans et des Croates. Huit Serbes perdirent la vie dans l'attaque.
Tous �taient innocents, certains �taient m�me des attard�s mentaux.
J'appris la nouvelle du crime � Derventa, de la bouche de feu Miso
Bacic. J'esp�re qu'on le r�habilitera, puisque la fa�on dont on l'a tu�
est une insulte pour tous les gens d'ici.
Avant la guerre, les musulmans �taient les plus nombreux, dans la
population de Sijekovac. Puis, venaient les Serbes, puis les Croates.
S'il n 'y avait eu ces extr�mistes et ces criminels, Sijekovac aurait pu
garder le statut de village neutre, bien qu'� l'�poque il f�t
particuli�rement difficile de demeurer neutre.
On se servit de cet incident comme d'une excuse pour poursuivre la
guerre et, en fin de compte, il exer�a une grande influence sur
celle-ci. Ce fut l'un des �v�nements qui allait indiquer qu'il n'y
aurait plus de retour en arri�re. Sans ce crime, bien des personnes
n'auraient pu s'en sortir lorsque nous sommes arriv�s. Beaucoup ne
voulaient pas partir, mais elles craignaient les repr�sailles.
Piklovic tourne un film
Le HVO [Conseil croate de D�fense, la milice bosniaque � officielle �,
le HVO a absorb� les membres des HOS apr�s le meurtre non �lucid� de
leur dirigeant en Herz�govine] s'�tait vu confier cette r�gion. Par
exemple, la 102e Brigade de Bosanski Bord comptait un bataillon en
provenance de Sijekovac; Adnan Ramadanovic (tu� plus tard par ses
voisins) commandait le bataillon. Il fut le premier commandant de la
police militaire de Sijekovac, au d�but mars 1992. Tous les ordres
�manaient du HVO. Ivan Brzic �tait pr�sident de l'�tat-major de crise.
Armin Pohara �tait en quelque sorte son principal ex�cutant, mais tous
les ordres venaient de Slavonski Brod. Il existe un film, tourn� par les
gens du HVO, et qui montre comment les villages ont �t� br�l�s apr�s le
retrait des Serbes, � commencer par Lijesce, etc. Piklovic en personne
�tait mont� dans une voiture et avait observ� la destruction
syst�matique de ces villages par le feu; le film a �t� tourn� � partir
de sa voiture. A l'�poque, il �tait pr�sident du conseil
ex�cutif de la municipalit� de Slavonski Brod. Je pense que c'est
Tudjman en personne qui a donn� l'autorisation � Ante Prkacin d'agir �
sa guise en Posavina. Le HVO a d�truit par le feu tous les villages
serbes en direction de Doboj. On a probablement agi de la sorte pour
emp�cher les musulmans de Kotorsko et de Modrica d'emm�nager dans ces
villages serbes et de modifier ainsi la composition ethnique de la
population de la r�gion.
Il y a des documents, avec des noms, qui montrent que les membres du
bataillon dit de Sijekovac, qui comptait en ses rangs de tr�s nombreux
musulmans, ont �t� pay�s par la Croatie. Dans ce cas, qui �tait
l'agresseur? Plusieurs formations de l'arm�e croate ont combattu dans
cette r�gion. L'une d'entre elles �tait la 108e Brigade, la premi�re
brigade de l'arm�e croate qui, comme ils le pr�tendent, a lib�r� les
casernes de l'APY � Slavonski Brod. Elle a connu un cuisante revers �
Kostres et � Novo Selo, o� entre 60 et 70% de ses effectifs ont �t�
tu�s. J'ai fait main basse sur toutes ses archives. Le commandement de
la Brigade se tenait dans un restaurant pr�s d'Ukrina. Je me souviens
que le commandant se pr�nommait Martin, mais je ne me souviens plus de
son nom de famille. Je me rappelle aussi qu'il avait �t� officier de
r�serve dans une compagnie d'ing�nierie de l'APY de la Brigade de
Derventa.
Ils �taient venus ici en mission, depuis la Croatie. La Brigade de
Bjelovar et quelques autres brigades de l'arm�e croate se sont �galement
battues ici.
Lorsque nous avons lib�r� Brod et captur� plusieurs personnes, celles-ci
nous ont dit qu'elles avaient �t� embarqu�es en Posavina [r�gion
avoisinant la rivi�re Sava, en Bosnie du Nord] par tromperie. On leur
avait dit qu'elles allaient marcher sur Okucani et, ensuite, on les
avait emmen�es � Brod.
J'�tais de service aux casernes de Derventa lorsque le HVO a captur�
Fikret Abdic � Radic. J'ai d�croch� le t�l�phone et quelqu'un m'a dit :
�Vous pouvez avoir Abdic, refilez-nous simplement Vencelovka et Stanic.�
C'�taient deux Croates que nous avions captur�s, mais nous les avions
imm�diatement rel�ch�s. J'ai appel� le responsable de la d�fense des
casernes, le major Stajcic. Nous n'avions nullement l'intention de
n�gocier quelque �change que ce soit.
Ce que tout le monde sait
Une fosse commune de Serbes assassin�s par le HVO avant octobre 1992 a
�t� d�couverte � Brod, mais l'affaire n'a'pas �t� publi�e. Il existe des
documents sur les actions de Nijaz Causevic Medo, des t�moins ont fait
des d�clarations, il existe aussi des preuves film�es. Causevic a tourn�
un film de trois heures sur son unit�. Des hommes de son groupe ont
viol� une femme serbe originaire de Sijekovac, l'ont d�pec�e et ont
ensuite jet� ses restes en p�ture aux chiens. Il y a eu d'autres viols
et bien d'autres histoires encore. Un membre de l'unit� de Medo a tu� un
homme qui avait vendu un cheval, un Croate. Tous ces actes ont �t�
examin�s, tant par l'arm�e que par la police, et ont fait l'objet de
poursuites. Le 26 mars, les personnes suivantes �taient assassin�es �
Sijekovac : les trois Zecevic, Milan, Vaso et Petar (Milan �tait
chauffeur � la raffinerie), puis Luka Milosevic et ses
deux fils. Sreto Trivic, un grand ami � moi . Puis un homme plus �g�, un
retrait�, a �t� massacr� dans sa chaise roulante. Cela a �t� prouv�. Ils
sont venus chez lui et l'ont massacr�.
Mustafa Kovacevic, un ing�nieur �lectricien de la raffinerie, expert de
renomm�e mondiale, ainsi que sa femme Mirsada ont �t� tu�s pendant que
le HVO et Medo �taient au pouvoir. Leurs corps ont �t� incin�r�s, mais
nous avons d�couvert leurs restes et leur avons donn� une s�pulture. Mon
ami Mustafa Alic a �t� assassin� dans sa propre maison, mais on n'a
jamais retrouv� son corps, par contre. Quelques autres personnes,
surtout des Serbes et des musulmans, ont disparu sans laisser de traces.
La section croate de la direction extr�miste avait l'habitude de dire :
�D'abord, il faut se d�barrasser des communistes. Vous savez qui c'est,
voil� les listes ici. Et apr�s �a, on liquide les Serbes.�
C'est la v�rit�. Tout le monde le sait. Aujourd'hui, certains des
coupables circulent toujours librement dans les environs.
Medo � l'assembl�e
Cela s'est poursuivi jusqu'au 7 octobre 1992, lorsque nous sommes entr�s
� Brod. Je dis � nous � parce que j'�tais l'un des commandants qui ont
particip� � ce que nous appelons la lib�ration de Bosanski Brod. Quoi
qu'il en soit, nous avons mis un terme � nos op�rations dans la r�gion
de Sijekovac, et nous sommes rentr�s chez nous. Nous �tions press�s
parce que nous savions que l�, il y avait des gens honn�tes et braves et
que certains d'entre eux nous attendaient. Voil� comment les choses se
sont pass�es.
Malheureusement, certains sont rest�s et l'ont pay� de leur vie. C'est
ainsi que les choses se sont pass�es, voil� comment a �t� la guerre,
telle est notre infortune.
Je suis assez m�content de la fa�on dont on s'y est pris pour �lucider
les crimes. Nos autorit�s ont fait un certain travail, l'IPTF aussi.
Quelques-unes de ces personnes, dont Nijaz Causevic Medo, qui est en fin
de compte responsable de nombreux crimes qui se sont produits dans cette
r�gion, et sp�cialement � Sijekovac, n'ont jamais �t� inqui�t�es.
Obradovic a �t� tu�, il est parti, mais nombre de ses hommes qui ont
particip� � toutes ses op�rations sont toujours en libert� ici. Par
exemple, Zeljko Barisic, qui �tait ici � l'�poque en qualit� de g�n�ral
du HVO. Il existe un film montrant Barisic � la t�te de ce groupe et
l'emmenant se battre contre des francs-tireurs, � proximit� du bureau de
poste de Brod. Ce film a �t� truqu�. Blazen Kljajic est un autre type de
ce genre.
Progressivement, la vie reprend son cours normal, � Sijekovac. Environ
70% des Serbes sont revenus, il y a plusieurs r�fugi�s et, r�cemment,
une petite douzaine de musulmans ainsi qu'une famille croate sont
revenus. La plupart d'entre eux sont des gens �g�s. Les jeunes viennent
jeter un oeil, puis s'en vont. Mais m�me apr�s tout ce qui s'est pass�,
les gens veulent � nouveau vivre ensemble.
Traduit de l'anglais
par Jean-Marie FLEMAL
avec mes remerciements.
Roger ROMAIN <r.romain@...>
---
Questa lista e' curata da componenti del
Coordinamento Nazionale per la Jugoslavia (CNJ).
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente
le posizioni ufficiali o condivise da tutto il CNJ, ma
vengono fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al
solo scopo di segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only").
Archivio:
> http://www.domeus.it/circles/jugoinfo oppure:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/messages
Per iscriversi al bollettino: <jugoinfo-subscribe@...>
Per cancellarsi: <jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...>
Per inviare materiali e commenti: <jugocoord@...>
---- Spot ------------------------------------------------------------
Le offerte piu' vantaggiose su Borsa & Finanza
Nuovo Mercato, Warrant, Analisi Finanziarie, ...
direttamente nella tua casella di posta eMail
http://www.domeus.it/ad3820640/valuemail.domeus
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Per cancellarti da questo gruppo, invia un messaggio vuoto a: jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...
the english version at
> http://www.vorstadtzentrum.net/cgi-bin/joesb/
news/viewnews.cgi?category=all&id01232785
or
> http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/1327
---
L'histoire de la � Mesa Selimovic �, unit� musulmane ind�pendante
� D'abord, il faut se d�barrasser des communistes. Vous savez qui c'est,
voil� les listes ici. Et apr�s �a, on liquide les Serbes. �
Cet article a �t� publi� dans le journal Dani. Il pr�sente un compte
rendu int�ressant sur le d�but de la guerre en Bosnie-Herz�govine. C'est
l'interview d'Ismet Djuheric, commandant d'une division musulmane qui a
combattu aux c�t�s des Serbes.
Une compagnie d'honn�tes combattants
par Vlado Mrkic
Ismet Djuheric a �t� le premier commandant de l'unit� �Mesa Selimovic�,
appartenant � l'arm�e de la r�publique serbe, et dont les membres
�taient pour la plupart des musulmans en provenance des villages des
municipalit�s de Bosanski Brod et Derventa. Cette unit� de � Chetniks
musulmans �, comme certains l'ont appel�e, a �t� et reste encore
aujourd'hui l'une des grosses controverses de la guerre �coul�e.
Ismet Djuheric parle dans Dani des �v�nements auxquels il a particip� ou
assist� en tant que simple t�moin.
Aujourd'hui, Ismet Djuheric vit en compagnie de son �pouse Hanumica dans
le village de Sijekovac, pr�s de Bosanski Brod. Sa fille et lui sont
employ�s � la raffinerie de p�trole de Brod. Hormis plusieurs mois
pass�s comme r�fugi�s dans les villages avoisinants de Dubocac et de
Kobas, les Djuheric sont la seule famille musulmane � avoir pass� toute
la guerre dans le village de Sijekovac.
Cet article ne repr�sente qu'une petite partie de l'histoire, c'est un
t�moignage sur une �poque tragique, sur des �v�nements qui ne pourraient
avoir eu lieu, nous semble-t-il, que dans ce chaudron bosniaque chauff�
� blanc par les dissensions et la haine des voisins des deux rives de la
Sava et de la Drina.
Le d�but des troubles
Avant la guerre, je travaillais � l'H�tel de Ville de Brod, en Bosnie,
et mon travail se rapportait � certaines activit�s des autorit�s.
J'�tais �galement en relation avec les autorit�s elles-m�mes. Je
mentionne ce d�tail parce qu'il devait affecter ma destin�e ult�rieure.
J'ai toujours �t� actif en politique, j'ai toujours �t� � gauche, comme
membre du Parti communiste et, plus tard, de la Ligue communiste.
Aujourd'hui, je suis socialiste. Je pense que ce choix est correct. J'ai
toujours dit, et je le pense toujours, que ce sont les extr�mistes qui
ont d�clench� cette guerre. Ils �taient un outil dans les mains de ceux
qui sont venus au pouvoir � l'issue des premi�res �lections
multipartites, c'est-�-dire au moment o� nos malheurs ont commenc�.
Avant la guerre, j'�tais officier de r�serve de l'arm�e populaire
yougoslave (APY). J'avais le grade de capitaine et j'�tait membre de la
327e Brigade (� l'�poque), � Derventa. Le bataillon de Brod faisait
partie de cette m�me 327e Brigade. J'effectuais certaines t�ches. A
l'�poque, c'�tait l�gal. La guerre n'avait pas encore d�but� dans cette
r�gion, mais j'appr�hendais d�j� sa venue. Mes activit�s � l'H�tel de
Ville �taient d'ailleurs en rapport avec les �v�nements. Beaucour de
gens n'aimaient pas cela, surtout les extr�mistes, la plupart �taient
des Croates, et puis des musulmans, aussi.
Je dis �musulmans� parce que j'en suis un. Avant, j'�tais un Yougoslave.
Aujourd'hui, je suis un musulman [aujourd'hui, on d�signe les musulmans
de Bosnie par le terme de Bosniaques].
Apr�s la chute des casernes de l'APY � Slavonski Brod [de l'autre c�t�
du cours d'eau, en Croatie], les tensions dans la r�gion ont
consid�rablement augment�. Des heurts de sont produits: les gens avaient
des armes. J'�tais du nombre de ceux qui �taient d'avis de laisser la
vie suivre normalement son cours, � d�faut de fraternit� et d'unit�. La
Croatie �tait d�j� un Etat nouveau. Si nous avons besoin de nous
prot�ger contre qui que ce soit, avais-je l'habitude de dire,
prot�geons-nous au moins tous ensemble, puisque
nous vivons d�j� ensemble, Serbes, Croates et musulmans. Les
extr�mistes, tant chez les Croates que chez les musulmans, �taient
oppos�s � cette id�e et je peux vous dire que les deux groupes ont tent�
de me convaincre de me joindre � eux. Non en raison d'id�aux, mais pour
des questions d'int�r�ts, du fait qu'ils esp�raient probablement que ma
r�putation et mes connaissances dans le cadre de mon travail auraient pu
aider leur cause.
Ils m'ont dit : � Viens avec nous, et rien ne t'arrivera. � C'a �t�
�vident quand ils m'ont attaqu� par la suite. J'ai �t� attaqu� par les
membres de la milice qui avait �t� constitu�e � Brod au d�but mars 1992
et qui comptait exclusivement des membres croates et musulmans. Le
premier commandant de la police militaire de Bosanski Brod fut Josip
Bilic. Tous ces gens avaient �t� nomm�s selon des ordres venant de
Slavonski Brod. Les Serbes s'�taient d�j� repli�s sur Lijesce.
De violentes fusillades
J'�tais pr�sident de la Commune locale de Sijekovac et lorsque certains
habitants m'ont approch� pour que je leur explique la mani�re dont nous
allions nous prot�ger, surtout des tueurs. L'attitude g�n�rale a �t�
pour dire que nous tous, Serbes, musulmans et Croates, devions
participer � des patrouilles locales. Toutefois, les extr�mistes l'ont
emport� � la fin et ont �vinc� tous ceux qui voulaient vivre ensemble.
Toute de suite, j'ai �t� vir� de mon poste de pr�sident de la commune
locale. En fait, ils ne m'ont pas vir�. Ils ont tout simplement repris
mes fonctions.
Dix-sept membres de la pr�tendue police militaire ont pris part � une
agression physique contre moi-m�me et ma famille. Ils nous ont attaqu�s
� notre domicile en exigeant que je leur c�de des armes. Ils pensaient
que l'APY avait stock� des armes chez moi. Je n'�tais pas en possession
de ces armes mais, par contre, j'avais les miennes propres. Ils ont
d'abord tir�, puis ont exig� que je me rende. La fusillade a �t�
nourrie. Cette nuit-l�, je me suis entretenu avec le g�n�ral Kukanjac,
avec le commandant de la Brigade de Derventa, avec le quartier g�n�ral
de Brod, avec le quartier g�n�ral de Lijesce, et j'ai exig� qu'on fasse
cesser cette attaque contre ma personne. Je n'avais pas l'intention de
me rendre. Ma femme, mon fils et ma fille, qui �taient encore mineurs, �
l'�poque, �taient avec moi dans notre maison. Ce qui m'avait choqu� le
plus, c'est que parmi les agresseurs, il y avait certains de mes voisins
et leurs enfants.
Les murs de notre maison �taient cribl�s d'impacts de balles. Une
intervention pour mettre un terme � ces attaques est venue d'en haut,
mais nous n'avons pas eu d'autre choix que de nous en aller. Ce jour-l�,
il y avait un enterrement. Un personnage important dans je ne sais quel
domaine �tait d�c�d� et tout le monde assistait aux fun�railles. Lorsque
nous avons vu que la sentinelle avait quitt� son poste, nous nous somes
�loign�s quelque peu de Sijekovac et nous nous sommes rendus � Dubocac,
la localit� o� je suis n�. Je suis entr� en contact avec la garnison et
me suis rendu ensuite � Derventa.
Les HOS arrivent
Toutefois, le m�me groupe qui m'avait attaqu� � Sijekovac, renforc� par
un groupe de soldats des HOS [Les HOS, ou Forces croates de D�fense,
�taient une milice croate d'extr�me droite (pro-oustachi), active � la
fois en Croatie et en Bosnie-Herz�govine en 1991 et 1992] sous le
commandement d'Obradovic, un homme bien connu dans cette r�gion, a
attaqu� Dubovac et s'en est empar�. Obradovic vivait � Slavonski Brod,
o� il poss�dait un bar. C'�tait un Serbe. Il provenait de Kraljevo, en
Serbie, mais �tait toujours dans les HOS. Apr�s la chute de Dubocac,
nous nous sommes enfuis vers le village musulman de Kobas, o� ma famille
s�journa durant tout le temps o� je fus � Derventa avec la Brigade.
Un groupe de 22 soldats des HOS, les fameux Handzars, dont le commandant
�tait un certain Ekrem Mendela, originaire de quelque part en Bosnie
centrale, quitta la Croatie pour s'installer � Sijekovac et s'installa
dans un camp de conteneurs appartenant � une compagnie provenant de
Teslic, non loin de chez moi. Ils contr�laient Sijekovac, en m�me temps
que le pr�tendu peloton d'intervention de Nijaz Causevic, de Sijekovac,
connu aussi sous le surnom de Medo. Obradovic et Causevic ont �cum� la
r�gion avec leurs groupes jusqu'au moment de la lib�ration de Brod.
Obradovic est mort plus tard, tu� par ses propres soldats, au moment o�
ils s'enfuyaient de Zboriste. Il avait essay� de les arr�ter et l'un de
ses hommes l'avait abattu.
Un renard � Kobas
Depuis lors, et jusqu'� la lib�ration de Brod, je suis rest� � Derventa.
En ao�t 1992, j'ai form� ma propre unit� au sein de l'Arm�e de la
r�publique de Serbie. La plupart de ses membres �taient des musulmans,
mais il y avait �galement quelques Serbes et quelques Croates. On
l'avait baptis�e l'unit� musulmane ind�pendante �Mesa Selimovic� [un
c�l�bre �crivain musulman de Bosnie], et elle servit dans l'arm�e de la
r�p�blique serbe jusqu'� la fin de la guerre. Elle �tait cantonn�e dans
le village de Kulina, pr�s de Derventa, en face de l'�cole du village.
C'est le g�n�ral Kelecevic et le colonel Slavko Lisica, aujourd'hui
g�n�ral, qui lui avaient donn� son nom.
Je fus le premier commandant de l'unit�, jusqu'en janvier 1993. Par la
suite, je quittai l'arm�e et travaillai � Brod. L'unit� comptait environ
120 hommes, mais les effectifs variaient de temps � autre. Elle avait
donc la taille d'une compagnie. Elle a �t� op�rationnelle dans tous les
combats aux alentours de Bord et de Derventa, et a �galement particip�
aux combats des environs de Teslic, Tesanj, Maglaj et Zavidovici. Ses
membres �taient tous des gars honn�tes, sans exception, et ils sont
d'ailleurs rest�s ici pour y vivre, par la suite. L'unit� faisait son
boulot honn�tement, consciencieusement. A notre avis, nous avions le
droit de d�fendre notre pays et nos biens, et c'est ce que nous avons
fait, nous sommes rest�s dans la r�gion et nous avons fait ce que nous
estimions juste. Et, bien s�r, aujourd'hui, la plupart de ces gens
vivent et travaillent toujours ici.
Comment cette unit� avait-elle �t� constitu�e ? Qu'il n'y ait pas de
confusion. Nous �tions des volontaires. D'une certaine fa�on, je voulais
prot�ger les gens qui �taient rest�s chez eux. Nous avons contact�
Lisica et il a accept� notre proposition. A l'�poque, il �tait colonel
et commandait un groupe tactique. Il vint � Kobas, o� nous nous �tions
r�fugi�s apr�s nous �tre �chapp�s de Dubocac, il rassembla des musulmans
dans la cour de la maison o� je vivais, leur tint un petit discours et
promit � la population que personne ne leur ferait le moindre mal. Puis,
il ajouta : � Si vous le d�sirez, je vous enverrai des v�hicules. � Il
n'y a eu aucune coercition.
Plus tard, nous nous sommes rassembl�s en face de l'�cole de Kulina et
nous avons r�fl�chi au nom que nous allions donner � notre unit�. Pour
autant que je m'en souvienne, je pense que c'est Lisica qui a sugg�r� le
nom de Mesa Selimovic, et que le g�n�ral Kelecevic a ensuite �t�
d'accord. Moi aussi, ce nom me plaisait, et je marquai �galement mon
accord. J'avais lu Mesa, en partie parce que ses oeuvres figuraient sur
la liste des lectures obligatoires de l'�cole, mais aussi parce que
j'aimais beaucoup ce qu'il �crivait. Et c'est ainsi que le nom est
rest�. En tant qu'unit�, nous n'avons commis aucun acte r�pr�hensible,
m�me si nos ennemis pr�tendent que c'est faux. Nous avons re�u la visite
de journalistes �trangers, et m�me la princesse Jelisaveta s'est rendue
au front pour nous rencontrer. Nous avons �galement re�u la visite de
parlementaires britanniques qui ont bu du caf� avec nous. Nous �tions
r�put�s pour notre cuisine. Comme la plupart des gens originaires des
rives de la Sava, nous pr�parions tr�s bien le poisson.
Des agresseurs de leur propre pays?
Ce que j'ai fait, ce que tous, parmi nous, nous avons fait, nous avons
choisi de le faire et n'en sommes nullement d�sol�s. Je sais que les
Serbes ont �t� trait�s d'agresseurs, mais nous ne l'avons pas accept�.
Nous faisions partie de l'arm�e de la r�publique serbe, nous �tions avec
nos voisins, et il n'y avait personne d'autre, ici. Il n'y avait
personne du Montenegro ou de la Serbie. S'ils �taient des agresseurs,
nous �tions nous aussi des agresseurs, dans ce cas, puisque nous �tions
avec eux. Et comment pourrais-je �tre l'agresseur de mon propre pays ?
C'est quelque chose que je ne puis comprendre. C'�tait la guerre, il y
avait ceux qui portaient les armes et qui n'�taient pas assez m�rs pour
le faire. Il se passait toutes sortes de choses et il fallait faire
attention � sa peau et rester dans son propre pays. Certains ne l'ont
pas support� et ils sont partis, mais d'autres ont pers�v�r� et sont
rest�s. Tous les villages musulmans sont rest�s. Prenez, par exemple,
Luzani et Omeragici, dans la municipalit� de Derventa, c'�taient des
villages essentiellement peupl�s de musulmans et tous ces gens sont
toujours l�, aujourd'hui.
Il y avait beaucoup de musulmans de Derventa, dans ma compagnie, mais
�galement dans le reste de la Brigade Derventa. Il est impossible de
juger cette affaire sur les apparences, sur tout ce que l'on a racont� �
propos de l'agression. Jusqu'en mai 1992, lorsque ces gosses, les
conscrits de 18 ans de l'APY, ont �t� tu�s � Kolibe, l'APY �tait une
force militaire l�gale, dans la r�gion. M�me � l'�poque, il �tait
impossible de parler d'agression.
Le mot a �t� utilis� pour faire pencher la communaut� internationale
vers l'un des camps du conflit. Tout le monde le souhaitait. Je connais
des cas o� les trois camps ont attaqu� leurs propres villages afin
d'accuser les autres camps et cela ne peut donc constituer un alibi pour
aucun des trois camps. C'est la stricte v�rit�. Tout cela a �t� organis�
de fa�on � semer le chaos et la confusion, puisque les gens, hormis les
extr�mistes, voulaient toujours rester dans leur propre pays et vivre
avec leurs voisins. Et, voyez, ils reviennent, aujourd'hui.
Il est vrai que l'on trouvait beaucoup plus de musulmans dans l'autre
camp. Mais ils ne l'avaient pas choisi d'eux-m�mes. Ils combattaient au
sein des HVO. Ils devaient ob�ir aux ordres. Chaque unit� musulmane des
HVO avait un �conseiller� croate, et nous savons tous ce que cela veut
dire. J'�tais compl�tement ind�pendant, et je jouissais de la pleine
confiance de mes sup�rieurs. Je n'avais pas de � conseillers �, dans ma
compagnie. La m�me chose est d'ailleurs vraie aussi pour mon successeur.
Le � crime � de Sijekovac
Le � crime � de Sijekovac a eu lieu le 26 mars 1992. A l'�poque, j'�tais
� Derventa, en compagnie de mon unit�, op�rationnelle au sein du QG de
la Brigade. J'ai �t� le premier, � Derventa, � recevoir des informations
sur ce qui s'est pass�. Je sais que l'�tat-major de crise de l'�poque, �
Sijekovac, avait d�cid� d'attaquer et de d�sarmer une partie du village.
Des documents �crits le confirment, d'ailleurs. L'ordre fut sign� par
Smajo Havic, � l'�poque pr�sident de l'�quipe de crise de Sijekovac. Peu
apr�s, il d�missionna, probablement apr�s avoir compris ce qu'il avait
fait. Les troupes des HOS d'Obradovic et le peloton d'intervention de
Nijaz Causevic Medo particip�rent � l'attaque. Les membres du peloton
d'intervention �taient des extr�mistes originaires de Sijekovac, des
musulmans et des Croates. Huit Serbes perdirent la vie dans l'attaque.
Tous �taient innocents, certains �taient m�me des attard�s mentaux.
J'appris la nouvelle du crime � Derventa, de la bouche de feu Miso
Bacic. J'esp�re qu'on le r�habilitera, puisque la fa�on dont on l'a tu�
est une insulte pour tous les gens d'ici.
Avant la guerre, les musulmans �taient les plus nombreux, dans la
population de Sijekovac. Puis, venaient les Serbes, puis les Croates.
S'il n 'y avait eu ces extr�mistes et ces criminels, Sijekovac aurait pu
garder le statut de village neutre, bien qu'� l'�poque il f�t
particuli�rement difficile de demeurer neutre.
On se servit de cet incident comme d'une excuse pour poursuivre la
guerre et, en fin de compte, il exer�a une grande influence sur
celle-ci. Ce fut l'un des �v�nements qui allait indiquer qu'il n'y
aurait plus de retour en arri�re. Sans ce crime, bien des personnes
n'auraient pu s'en sortir lorsque nous sommes arriv�s. Beaucoup ne
voulaient pas partir, mais elles craignaient les repr�sailles.
Piklovic tourne un film
Le HVO [Conseil croate de D�fense, la milice bosniaque � officielle �,
le HVO a absorb� les membres des HOS apr�s le meurtre non �lucid� de
leur dirigeant en Herz�govine] s'�tait vu confier cette r�gion. Par
exemple, la 102e Brigade de Bosanski Bord comptait un bataillon en
provenance de Sijekovac; Adnan Ramadanovic (tu� plus tard par ses
voisins) commandait le bataillon. Il fut le premier commandant de la
police militaire de Sijekovac, au d�but mars 1992. Tous les ordres
�manaient du HVO. Ivan Brzic �tait pr�sident de l'�tat-major de crise.
Armin Pohara �tait en quelque sorte son principal ex�cutant, mais tous
les ordres venaient de Slavonski Brod. Il existe un film, tourn� par les
gens du HVO, et qui montre comment les villages ont �t� br�l�s apr�s le
retrait des Serbes, � commencer par Lijesce, etc. Piklovic en personne
�tait mont� dans une voiture et avait observ� la destruction
syst�matique de ces villages par le feu; le film a �t� tourn� � partir
de sa voiture. A l'�poque, il �tait pr�sident du conseil
ex�cutif de la municipalit� de Slavonski Brod. Je pense que c'est
Tudjman en personne qui a donn� l'autorisation � Ante Prkacin d'agir �
sa guise en Posavina. Le HVO a d�truit par le feu tous les villages
serbes en direction de Doboj. On a probablement agi de la sorte pour
emp�cher les musulmans de Kotorsko et de Modrica d'emm�nager dans ces
villages serbes et de modifier ainsi la composition ethnique de la
population de la r�gion.
Il y a des documents, avec des noms, qui montrent que les membres du
bataillon dit de Sijekovac, qui comptait en ses rangs de tr�s nombreux
musulmans, ont �t� pay�s par la Croatie. Dans ce cas, qui �tait
l'agresseur? Plusieurs formations de l'arm�e croate ont combattu dans
cette r�gion. L'une d'entre elles �tait la 108e Brigade, la premi�re
brigade de l'arm�e croate qui, comme ils le pr�tendent, a lib�r� les
casernes de l'APY � Slavonski Brod. Elle a connu un cuisante revers �
Kostres et � Novo Selo, o� entre 60 et 70% de ses effectifs ont �t�
tu�s. J'ai fait main basse sur toutes ses archives. Le commandement de
la Brigade se tenait dans un restaurant pr�s d'Ukrina. Je me souviens
que le commandant se pr�nommait Martin, mais je ne me souviens plus de
son nom de famille. Je me rappelle aussi qu'il avait �t� officier de
r�serve dans une compagnie d'ing�nierie de l'APY de la Brigade de
Derventa.
Ils �taient venus ici en mission, depuis la Croatie. La Brigade de
Bjelovar et quelques autres brigades de l'arm�e croate se sont �galement
battues ici.
Lorsque nous avons lib�r� Brod et captur� plusieurs personnes, celles-ci
nous ont dit qu'elles avaient �t� embarqu�es en Posavina [r�gion
avoisinant la rivi�re Sava, en Bosnie du Nord] par tromperie. On leur
avait dit qu'elles allaient marcher sur Okucani et, ensuite, on les
avait emmen�es � Brod.
J'�tais de service aux casernes de Derventa lorsque le HVO a captur�
Fikret Abdic � Radic. J'ai d�croch� le t�l�phone et quelqu'un m'a dit :
�Vous pouvez avoir Abdic, refilez-nous simplement Vencelovka et Stanic.�
C'�taient deux Croates que nous avions captur�s, mais nous les avions
imm�diatement rel�ch�s. J'ai appel� le responsable de la d�fense des
casernes, le major Stajcic. Nous n'avions nullement l'intention de
n�gocier quelque �change que ce soit.
Ce que tout le monde sait
Une fosse commune de Serbes assassin�s par le HVO avant octobre 1992 a
�t� d�couverte � Brod, mais l'affaire n'a'pas �t� publi�e. Il existe des
documents sur les actions de Nijaz Causevic Medo, des t�moins ont fait
des d�clarations, il existe aussi des preuves film�es. Causevic a tourn�
un film de trois heures sur son unit�. Des hommes de son groupe ont
viol� une femme serbe originaire de Sijekovac, l'ont d�pec�e et ont
ensuite jet� ses restes en p�ture aux chiens. Il y a eu d'autres viols
et bien d'autres histoires encore. Un membre de l'unit� de Medo a tu� un
homme qui avait vendu un cheval, un Croate. Tous ces actes ont �t�
examin�s, tant par l'arm�e que par la police, et ont fait l'objet de
poursuites. Le 26 mars, les personnes suivantes �taient assassin�es �
Sijekovac : les trois Zecevic, Milan, Vaso et Petar (Milan �tait
chauffeur � la raffinerie), puis Luka Milosevic et ses
deux fils. Sreto Trivic, un grand ami � moi . Puis un homme plus �g�, un
retrait�, a �t� massacr� dans sa chaise roulante. Cela a �t� prouv�. Ils
sont venus chez lui et l'ont massacr�.
Mustafa Kovacevic, un ing�nieur �lectricien de la raffinerie, expert de
renomm�e mondiale, ainsi que sa femme Mirsada ont �t� tu�s pendant que
le HVO et Medo �taient au pouvoir. Leurs corps ont �t� incin�r�s, mais
nous avons d�couvert leurs restes et leur avons donn� une s�pulture. Mon
ami Mustafa Alic a �t� assassin� dans sa propre maison, mais on n'a
jamais retrouv� son corps, par contre. Quelques autres personnes,
surtout des Serbes et des musulmans, ont disparu sans laisser de traces.
La section croate de la direction extr�miste avait l'habitude de dire :
�D'abord, il faut se d�barrasser des communistes. Vous savez qui c'est,
voil� les listes ici. Et apr�s �a, on liquide les Serbes.�
C'est la v�rit�. Tout le monde le sait. Aujourd'hui, certains des
coupables circulent toujours librement dans les environs.
Medo � l'assembl�e
Cela s'est poursuivi jusqu'au 7 octobre 1992, lorsque nous sommes entr�s
� Brod. Je dis � nous � parce que j'�tais l'un des commandants qui ont
particip� � ce que nous appelons la lib�ration de Bosanski Brod. Quoi
qu'il en soit, nous avons mis un terme � nos op�rations dans la r�gion
de Sijekovac, et nous sommes rentr�s chez nous. Nous �tions press�s
parce que nous savions que l�, il y avait des gens honn�tes et braves et
que certains d'entre eux nous attendaient. Voil� comment les choses se
sont pass�es.
Malheureusement, certains sont rest�s et l'ont pay� de leur vie. C'est
ainsi que les choses se sont pass�es, voil� comment a �t� la guerre,
telle est notre infortune.
Je suis assez m�content de la fa�on dont on s'y est pris pour �lucider
les crimes. Nos autorit�s ont fait un certain travail, l'IPTF aussi.
Quelques-unes de ces personnes, dont Nijaz Causevic Medo, qui est en fin
de compte responsable de nombreux crimes qui se sont produits dans cette
r�gion, et sp�cialement � Sijekovac, n'ont jamais �t� inqui�t�es.
Obradovic a �t� tu�, il est parti, mais nombre de ses hommes qui ont
particip� � toutes ses op�rations sont toujours en libert� ici. Par
exemple, Zeljko Barisic, qui �tait ici � l'�poque en qualit� de g�n�ral
du HVO. Il existe un film montrant Barisic � la t�te de ce groupe et
l'emmenant se battre contre des francs-tireurs, � proximit� du bureau de
poste de Brod. Ce film a �t� truqu�. Blazen Kljajic est un autre type de
ce genre.
Progressivement, la vie reprend son cours normal, � Sijekovac. Environ
70% des Serbes sont revenus, il y a plusieurs r�fugi�s et, r�cemment,
une petite douzaine de musulmans ainsi qu'une famille croate sont
revenus. La plupart d'entre eux sont des gens �g�s. Les jeunes viennent
jeter un oeil, puis s'en vont. Mais m�me apr�s tout ce qui s'est pass�,
les gens veulent � nouveau vivre ensemble.
Traduit de l'anglais
par Jean-Marie FLEMAL
avec mes remerciements.
Roger ROMAIN <r.romain@...>
---
Questa lista e' curata da componenti del
Coordinamento Nazionale per la Jugoslavia (CNJ).
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente
le posizioni ufficiali o condivise da tutto il CNJ, ma
vengono fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al
solo scopo di segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only").
Archivio:
> http://www.domeus.it/circles/jugoinfo oppure:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/messages
Per iscriversi al bollettino: <jugoinfo-subscribe@...>
Per cancellarsi: <jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...>
Per inviare materiali e commenti: <jugocoord@...>
---- Spot ------------------------------------------------------------
Le offerte piu' vantaggiose su Borsa & Finanza
Nuovo Mercato, Warrant, Analisi Finanziarie, ...
direttamente nella tua casella di posta eMail
http://www.domeus.it/ad3820640/valuemail.domeus
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Per cancellarti da questo gruppo, invia un messaggio vuoto a: jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...
1. NATO'S Peace in Macedonia: Kosovo Redux
by Jared Israel [29 August 2001]
2. NATO playing favourites in treatment of
indicted war criminal
Indicted war criminal Agim Ceku still collects a UN
paycheque. By S. Taylor on Target. Monday,
September 10, 2001
3. "What do we have to fear if they stop
us? Three days in Camp Bondsteel, then freedom"
AFP, Tuesday September 4, 10:15 PM
4. T�moignage sur les livraisons d'armes clandestines
Un article de Scott Taylor - Tetovo, 20/8/01
5. Canadian Officer Confirms NATO Backing
Albanian Rebels in Macedonia
Truth in Media's GLOBAL WATCH Bulletin 2001/8-3
http://www.truthinmedia.org/Bulletins2001/
tim2001-8-3.html
====================================================
URL for this article:
http://emperors-clothes.com/mac/terror.htm
www.tenc.net * [Emperor's Clothes]
======================================NATO'S Peace in Macedonia: Kosovo Redux
by Jared Israel [29 August 2001]
======================================
The people who bombed Yugoslavia and decimated
Kosovo by installing the Kosovo Liberation Army
in power are trying to bring Peace to Macedonia.
What that peace would mean if fully realized (and
hopefully the Macedonian people will prevent
this) is described in an astonishingly honest
article in the London Telegraph. The article
describes how the so-called NLA rebels target
Macedonian civilians, killing them and driving
them from their homes.
The pattern is eerily familiar.
In Macedonia, as in Kosovo, NATO stonewalls
reality, claiming it only wants to halt abuses
and bring ethnic peace.
At first these propaganda/promises fooled most of
the Serbian residents of the Kosovo town of
Orahovac. Initially they fooled Chedomir
Pralinchevich, the Jewish leader who was driven
from Kosovo by the KLA with NATO's consent.
Soon the horrific truth became clear: while NATO
broadcasted soothing platitudes, its proxy force,
the Kosovo Liberation Army marched in through the
open border with Albania, slaughtering farmers,
terrorizing people simply for being Serbs,
killing residents for their apartments,
instituting a reign of terror that combined
Nazi-like ethnic terror with gangsterism, so that
no one, not even ethnic Albanians, was safe
All this was neatly packaged for politically
correct western consumption. The province filled
with Western NGOs who spoke of conflict
resolution and healing and building democratic
institutions even as the KLA bumped off its
opponents and drove out the same people Hitler
had targeted during World War II.
The KLA was then recycled as a UN outfit called
the Kosovo Protection Corps, or KPC. The NATO/UN
occupiers even hired the KLA terrorists (now KPC)
a liberal Swedish outfit to hold consciousness
raising sessions and put out public statements
describing how the KPC death squad folks were
getting in touch with their feminine side:
"In the first part of my lecture, I think, I
succeeded in getting the participants to actively
take part and reflect. In the second part about
reconciliation I could feel and see the deep
affection in the eyes of the participants,
although it was such a large group. They were
very active in the first part of the lecture,
giving comments and asking questions. In the
second part I could experience a silent, very
active listening.
"A rose - and other reactions
"After the lecture I got several positive
responses from the audience; as well as from the
interpreters. Some of them told me that they had
really learned something, something new. They not
only applauded, I also received a red rose from
the participants. We were all very touched of the
situation." (From "Training the Kosovo
Protection Corps in Kosovo. A Report," by Kerstin
Schultz of Jan Oberg's Transnational Foundation
for Peace and Future Research, at
www.transnational.org/forum/meet/2000/
KerstinKPCrep.html
Fortunately, most Macedonians know that NATO and
its NGO groupies are the enemy. So perhaps NATO
will not succeed in recreating Kosovo so easily.
In which case, the NLA (NATO's name for their pet
terrorists when they operate in Macedonia) may
not get their training and maybe, just maybe, the
world will get a little consciousness-raising.
Which it sorely needs.
-- Jared Israel
Further Reading:
1) The 'Telegraph' article, documenting
terrorist ethnic violence can be read at
http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/
news//2001/08/28/wmac228.xml
2) For articles documenting NATO's
responsibility for anti-Macedonian terror,
see http://emperors-clothes.com/mac/list-m.htm
3) On NATO's terror in the Kosovo town of
Orahovac, see "The Women of Orahovac Answer the
Colonel" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/trouw.htm
4) A Jewish leader tells how he, other Jews and
indeed all Yugoslav loyalists were driven from
Pristina, capital of Kosovo, while NATO looked on at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/interviews/ceda.htm
5) On how NATO's policy of opening the border
between Kosovo and Albania led to slaughter, see
"Gracko survivors blame NATO" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/grack.htm
6) On how those running Kosovo have mixed business
and race hate, see "Death of a Yugoslav," at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/news/letter.htm
7) More on the mix of gangsterism and
fascism: "Concentration camps in Kosovo:
The KLA Archipelago" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/reporter.htm
8) The UN is fully aware that its Kosovo
Protection Corps is the Kosovo Liberation Army
death squad recycled. See "How will you plead at
your trial, Mr. Annan?" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/howwill.htm
9) Being a Serb in Kosovo has become a fatal
condition. See "I cannot give it a name but it
seems like hell" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/name.htm
10) On the heroic resistance of the Macedonian
people, please see "People of Tetovo Refuse to be
Left on the Mercy of the Terrorists" at
http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/news/s_mia14.html
***
To join Emperor's Clothes email list, go to:
http://emperors-clothes.com/feedback.htm
===================================================
Subject: NATO Playing Favourites In Treatment Of
Indicted War Criminal
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 23:07:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: Rick Rozoff
http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2001/09/10/
f121.raw.html
Monday, September 10, 2001
The Halifax Herald Limited
NATO playing favourites in treatment of indicted war
criminal
Indicted war criminal Agim Ceku still collects a UN
paycheque.
By Scott Taylor ON TARGET
WITH SOME 200 troops now on the ground in Macedonia,
as part of NATO's latest intervention force, it's
about time somebody started seriously questioning
Canada's long-range Balkan policy.
Throughout the decade of bloody civil wars in the 90s,
which accompanied the disintegration of Yugoslavia,
Canadian soldiers have been on continuous deployment
to the region. Originally serving as UN peacekeepers
(who evolved into NATO peacemakers by the time of the
Kosovo crisis), Canada's military had become a
belligerent in this complex conflict. Despite our oft
changing role, one constant that has remained is the
reality experienced by our frontline soldiers, which
is rarely reflected by the Western (read: U.S. State
Department inspired) media portrayals of the ongoing
Yugoslavian tragedy.
The most vivid examples of this dichotomy became
evident during the 1999, 78-day NATO air campaign
against Yugoslavia. As cockney spokesman Jamie Shea
took to the airwaves to demonize the Serbian people
and justify NATO's attacks, respected veteran officers
such as General Lewis Mackenzie and Colonel Don Ethell
spoke out to publicly denounce Canada's participation
in the bombing. Having witnessed first-hand the
multi-factional hatred which pervades the Balkan
theatre, Canadian soldiers are unwilling to assign
blame and/or take sides in this brutal civil war.
However, driven by U.S. interests and fuelled by a
jingoistic media corps, NATO leaders have not been so
hesitant to play favourites.
This current crisis in Macedonia originated last March
with Albanian guerrillas attacking from inside
NATO-occupied Kosovo. The guns carried by the
Albanians were the same weapons that NATO was to have
removed from the Kososvo Liberation Army (known as the
UCK) back in 1999. However, over the past two years
with a powerful 40,000 strong occupation force, NATO
has been unwilling and/or unable to strip these
Albanian (UCK) guerrillas of their arsenal. Only now
that a wave of terror has been successfully exported
into heretofore peaceful Macedonia, and the UCK have
seized control of some 30 per cent of Macedonia
territory, has NATO decided to intervene.
The Canadian Combat Group which has been hastily
dispatched from service in Bosnia to participate in
the Macedonia mission is equipped with new Coyote
reconnaissance vehicles. These state of the art
armoured personnel carriers have been roundly praised
by NATO spokesmen for "providing a vital asset in
monitoring the flow of illegal arms across
Macedonian/Kosovo border."
Disgruntled Macedonian citizens are correct in asking
"if such a surveillance capability existed within
NATO's arsenal-why wasn't it employed to prevent
Albanians from entering Macedonia in the first place?"
A similar stumper could be posed to NATO spokesmen
regarding their reluctance to arrest the UCK's
military figurehead General Agim Ceku, an indicted war
criminal. Many of our peacekeepers witnessed the
barbarism committed by Ceku's troops in Croatia in
1993 and 1995 and it is largely on the strength of
Canadian soldiers testimony that The Hague War Crimes
Tribunal has been forced to issue this rogue commander
a sealed indictment.
Agim Ceku, an Albanian Kosovar by birth, began his
military career as an officer in the former federal
Yugoslavian Army (JNA). When the initial Yugoslav
break-up occurred in 1991, Ceku was quick to switch
his loyalty to the Croatian cause of independence. As
a colonel in the Croatian army, Ceku commanded the
notorious 1993 operation now known as the Medak
Pocket.
It was here that the men of the Second Battalion
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry came face
to face with the vulgar savagery of which Ceku was
capable. Over 200 Serbian inhabitants of the Medak
Pocket were slaughtered in a grotesque manner (female
rape victims were found after being burned alive). Our
traumatized troops that buried the grisly remains were
encouraged to collect evidence.
Nevertheless in 1995, Ceku, by then a general of
artillery, was still at large. In fact, he was the
officer responsible for shelling the Serbian refugee
columns and for targeting the UN "safe" city of Knin
during the Croatian offensive known as Operation
Storm.
Just a few months after the Storm atrocities, Canada's
own Louise Arbour began making a name for herself as
the chief prosecutor for The Hague tribunal. Despite
the Canadian connection to these alleged crimes,
Arbour and her lawyers chose instead to pursue more
"politically prominent" individuals and seemingly
little was done to bring Ceku to justice.
Fast forward to January 1999 and the world's attention
begins to focus on a war ravaged Kosovo. With the
blessing of the U.S. State Department, Agim Ceku took
his retirement (at age 37) from the Croatian army and
was pronounced Supreme Commander of the Kosovo
Liberation Army (UCK).
Throughout the air campaign against Yugoslavia, Ceku
was portrayed as a loyal ally and he was frequently
present at the NATO briefings with top generals such
as Wesley Clark and Michael Jackson.
Under terms of the Kosovo peace deal, Ceku's Albanian
guerrillas were to be disarmed and re-constituted into
a UN sponsored, (non-military) disaster relief
organization known as the Kosovo Protection Corps
(KPC). ButCeku's UCK never gave up their guns - nor
their quest for a Greater Albania.
Although he is nominally maintaining an 'arms-length'
posture towards his former comrades, Agim Ceku is
still worshipped as a saviour by both the UCK troops
and Albanian-minority in Macedonia.
As this indicted war criminal continues to enjoy his
freedom, bask in public attention, and collect a UN
paycheque, our Canadian soldiers are risking their
lives to disarm his UCK in Macedonia.
All in the name of peace and justice.
E-mail: espritdecorp@...
===================================================
Subject: NATO Provides KLA R&R
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 07:58:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Rick Rozoff
"What do we have to fear if they stop us? Three days
in Camp Bondsteel, then freedom?"
Tuesday September 4, 10:15 PM
Rebel Albanians from Macedonia lay low in Kosovo
UROSEVAC, Yugoslavia, Sept 4 (AFP) -
Hundreds of ethnic Albanian guerrillas have crossed
over from Macedonia to the Serbian province of Kosovo
since demobilising under an August peace deal aimed at
ending a seven-month insurgency.
For members of the National Liberation Army who come
from Kosovo itself, it is a return home, but for those
coming from Macedonia it is a question of lying low
for a few months before returning home when conditions
are safer.
Most of those who have chosen to go to Kosovo do so by
crossing the mountains which separate the mainly
ethnic-Albanian province of Serbia from Macedonia,
with little heed for NATO-led (KFOR) peacekeepers in
the UN-administered province.
"What do we have to fear if they stop us? Three days
in Camp Bondsteel, then freedom?" said commander Ali
Daja, a former official of rebe brigade 113 in the
northern region of Kumanovo, refering to KFOR's
detention centre.
Many witnesses said that commanders and other fighters
stroll the streets of the Kosovo towns of Urosevac,
Prizren and Gnjilane having crossed either legally or
illegally into Kosovo territory.
Since the peace accord struck in the southwestern
Macedonian town of Ohrid on August 13 aimed at ending
the rebellion over minority rights, several hundreds
of fighters have been stopped by KFOR entering Kosovo
illegally, but most were released shortly afterwards.
According to Captain Daniel Byer, spokesman for the
KFOR brigade, only around 100 fighters are still in
detention in Camp Bondsteel. Over a thousand have been
arrested since the beginning of the conflict in
February.
A 21-year-old man, nicknamed Barut, says that he was
detained for three days by KFOR after being
demobilised by the rebels' 113 brigade. Then he was
taken by KFOR soldiers to the bus station several
kilometres (miles) away.
"Last week between 10 and 50 former combatants were
released each day," a witness at the bus station cafe
said.
A welcome committee has been set up by the rebels in
Kosovo to help those coming from Macedonia who have
nowhere to go.
On Friday 140 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo who claimed
they were former rebel soldiers came to Kosovo legally
right under the noses of KFOR troops and the United
Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
They went first to Albania, then they presented
themselves as unarmed civilians at a border post at
Verbnica, 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Prizren.
Embarrassed UNMIK officials finally allowed their
entry. "Not one of them was stopped because they had
regulation Macedonian passports," said an UNMIK
spokesman.
A number of KLA guerrillas injured in the war have
also found refuge in hospitals in Kosovo where they
are treated just like other patients. Doctors and
nurses know where their injuries came from, but they
maintain a code of silence.
According to witnesses, one rebel shot in the leg at
Slupcane in northern Macedonia has already spent two
months in hospital in Kosovo without receiving a
single visit from the police or KFOR forces.
====================================================
----- Original Message -----
From: Roger ROMAIN
To: r.romain@...
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2001 8:00 PM
Subject: MACEDOINE : oui, la "moisson
indispensable" en Mac�doine est bien une
nouvelle fumisterie am�ricano-otano-europ�enne
occidentale !
MAC�DOINE : oui, la "moisson indispensable" en
Mac�doine est bien une nouvelle fumisterie
am�ricano-otano-europ�enne occidentale !
Mac�doine : une guerre Made in USA !
T�moignage sur les livraisons d'armes clandestines
Ancien soldat canadien, devenu journaliste
sp�cialiste des questions militaires, le Canadien
Scott Taylor le confirme sur le terrain :
Washington, avide de dominer militairement les
Balkans, joue double jeu en armant l'UCK
albanaise.
Un article de Scott Taylor - Tetovo
Tetovo - 20 ao�t. Lundi, un accord de paix a �t�
sign�. Mais cette tentative de la onzi�me heure
d'�viter une autre guerre civile balkanique
risque bien de rester vaine.
Les 3.000 hommes de l'Otan auront pour t�che de
d�sarmer la gu�rilla albanaise, ma�tresse de 30%
du territoire. Mais leur arriv�e sera une pilule
am�re pour les forces de s�curit� mac�doniennes
combattant l'UCK depuis six mois : �Si l'Otan
n'avait pas arm� et �quip� l'UCK au Kosovo, il ne
serait pas n�cessaire de la d�sarmer � pr�sent en
Mac�doine�, explique le sergent Goran Stevanovic.
"God bless America !"
Les diplomates d�noncent vivement l'aide
militaire apport�e � l'UCK, mais sur le terrain,
personne ne conteste l'aide massive (mat�riel et
experts) que leur apporte l'Otan. D'ailleurs, les
commandants UCK m'accueillent par un �Dieu
b�nisse l'Am�rique, et le Canada, pour tout ce
qu'ils nous ont fournis!�
Dans leurs bunkers bien construits, tout - des
armes de poing aux fusils de snipers - porte le
Made in USA. Un abondant stock de lunettes de
vision nocturne, tr�s sophistiqu�es, leur fournit
un �norme avantage sur les forces de s�curit�
mac�doniennes, oblig�es de rester terr�es dans
leurs bunkers pendant que l'UCK d�ambule � son
aise dans les rues de Tetovo. "Serpent" Arifaj
(22 ans), fier commandant d'un peloton UCK, se
f�licite : �Gr�ce � l'Oncle Sam, les Mac�doniens
ne nous posent pas de probl�mes.�
Il y a deux mois, les protestations diplomatiques
ont afflu� lorsqu'on a vu des h�licopt�res US
effectuer des livraisons � un village albanais
surplombant Tetovo. Version officielle : �aide
humanitaire�. Mais le commandant UCK "Mouse" a
confirm� qu'il s'agissait de canons lourds et
munitions. La preuve : le 16, l'UCK a bombard�
Tetovo avec des canons de 120 mm et 82 mm. Et vu
la dur�e et l'intensit� des tirs, les munitions
ne sont pas un probl�me pour eux.
Fr�quemment aussi, les Etats-Unis envoient leurs
h�licopt�res tactiques d'espionnage, sans
autorisation du gouvernement mac�donien. Et les
villageois albanais l�vent les bras pour saluer
�leur force a�rienne�. Enfin, au Q - G de l'UCK,
� la sortie de Tetovo, les gardiens portent des
T-shirts au logo Nike: "NATO Air : Just do it!"
Untertitre
De l'autre c�t�, la Mac�doine - Tr�sor en
faillite et �conomie en d�gringolade - n'avait
pas donn� la priorit� � �quiper son arm�e. Apr�s
le d�but de l'insurrection, en mars, elle a
import� en masse du mat�riel et des conseillers
mercenaires, principalement d'Ukraine.
Mais, la semaine pass�e, George Robertson et
Javier Solana, secr�taires-g�n�raux
respeectivement de l'Otan et de l'Union
Europ�enne, se sont entretenus avec les
Ukrainiens pour arr�ter cet approvisionnement.
Cette ing�rence explique que la majorit� des
Mac�doniens se soit engag�e dans de violentes
�meutes anti-Otan, attaquant r�cemment les
ambassades et les restos McDonald's.
Roger ROMAIN
a/conseiller communal PCB
B6180 COURCELLES
sites :
http://homeusers.brutele.be/r.romain/Sommario.html
==================================================
---------------------------------------------------
Truth in Media's GLOBAL WATCH Bulletin 2001/8-3
26-Aug-2001
---------------------------------------------------
Topic: BALKAN AFFAIRS
-----------------------------------
HEADLINES
Ottawa 1. Canadian Officer Confirms NATO Backing
Albanian Rebels in Macedonia
Skopje 2. Ukraine, Russia Continue to Arm
Macedonia?
Kiev 3. Macedonian President Gets Putin's,
Kuchma's "Support"
Skopje 4. NATO "Peace Farce" Unfolding
Skopje 5. Angry Macedonians Block NATO
Supply Route
http://www.truthinmedia.org/Bulletins2001/
tim2001-8-3.html
-------------
NOTE: To cancel the e-mail editions of our
reports, just reply REMOVE or
UNSUBSCRIBE, followed by your e-mail address.
-------------
Canadian Officer Confirms NATO's Backing of
Albanian Rebels in Macedonia
OTTAWA, Aug. 26 - Once again, we have to turn to
Canada to find out what's really going on in
Washington or Brussels, not to mention Skopje or
Pristina. This time, it was an Ottawa-based
journalist that quoted a former Canadian officer,
now also turned journalist and author, as saying
that the Canadian had seen evidence during of
NATO's backing (and arming!) the Albanian rebels
his recent trip to Macedonia.
Of course, this is nothing new to TiM readers.
But while we arrived at the same conclusion via a
geopolitical analysis (see Macedonia: Another
Farcical American Oil War, Aug. 10), this
Canadian officer did it the old-fashioned way -
he saw it with his own eyes.
"A Canadian journalist has evidence that NATO is
arming and equipping the ethnic Albanian
guerillas who have waged a five-month long
insurgency against the Macedonian government in
Skopje" wrote Stephen Gowans in an Aug. 23
special report published first at the Media
Monitors web site. "Scott Taylor, editor of
Espirit de Corps magazine, says that on a visit
to guerilla bunkers overlooking the besieged
Macedonian city of Tetovo he was welcomed with
shouts of, "God bless America and Canada too for
all they have provided to us." Canada is a member
of the US-led NATO coalition."
Taylor should be no stranger to longtime TiM
readers, either. Just like the TiM editor, he
was in Belgrade in the spring of 1999, while the
NATO bombs were raining down on the Yugoslav
capital and on much of the country (see his
moving account of a funeral he attended in June
1999, published contemporaneously in the NATO War
section of the TiM web site -
http://www.truthinmedia.org/Kosovo/War/day78.html
).
The two of us met for the first time in Toronto,
in December 1999, following the TiM editor's
lecture on NATO's war on Serbia (see New World
Order Pits Canadians vs. Serbs, Dec. 1999 -
http://www.truthinmedia.org/Tour-de-Canada/tor-12-99.html).
That's when we learned that Taylor had also
served as a Canadian officer within the UN
peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Krajina. In
other words, he knows of what he speaks - inside
out.
And now, with this as a brief preamble, here's
the rest of Steve Gowans article, republished
here by TiM with permission of the Media
Monitors' publisher:
More signs NATO is behind ethnic Albanian attacks
on Macedonia by Stephen Gowans
Taylor says guerrilla commanders showed off their
arsenal, which included side arms, sniper rifles
and grenade launchers, all marked "Made in the
USA."
Says Taylor, one commander remarked that, "thanks
to Uncle Sam, the Macedonians are no match for
us." Taylor isn't the first to charge that
Washington is aiding the guerillas. The
Macedonian government alleged that US helicopters
were delivering supplies to guerillas in the
mountains above Tetovo. US officials don't deny
that airdrops were made, but say helicopters were
transporting vital humanitarian aid. But Taylor
says the local guerilla commander told him that
the helicopters were delivering heavy mortars and
ammunition. The guerillas have bombarded Tetovo
with artillery.
Taylor says ethnic Albanian villagers cheer at
the sight of US helicopters, while guerillas at
brigade headquarters wear Nike-style T-shirts
bearing the phrase, "NATO Air - Just do it!"
Meanwhile, one Macedonian police officer lamented
to Taylor that "if NATO hadn't been arming and
equipping the (KLA) in Kosovo there would be no
need for them to disarm these guerillas now."
This isn't the first time complaints about the US
and NATO arming ethnic Albanian guerillas have
been made. In March, a European K-For battalion
commander told the London Observer that, "the CIA
has been allowed to run riot in Kosovo with a
private army designed to overthrow Slobodan
Milosevic...Most of last year, there was a
growing frustration with US support for the
radical Albanians." And in January the BBC
reported that Western forces were training
guerillas, then opening a new front in southern
Serbia and Macedonia.
In June, when Macedonian forces were closing in
on guerillas in the town of Aracinovo, NATO
intervened, transporting ethnic Albanian rebels
out of the besieged town in air-conditioned
busses. According to the German newspaper
Hamburger Abendblatt, 17 US advisors, belonging
to an American mercenary firm involved in other
Balkan conflicts, were among the guerillas. And
the newspaper pointed out that 70 percent of the
equipment carried away by the guerillas was US
made.
Days earlier, a American diplomat was slightly
wounded by Macedonian gunfire as he emerged from
the woods (around Aracinovo) with two other
Americans," according to the International Herald
Tribune. The diplomats were emerging from
rebel-held territory. Two months ago, the London
Sunday Times reported that at least 800 ethnic
Albanian guerillas fighting in Macedonia are
members of the Kosovo Protection Corps, a
paramilitary police unit created by the UN from
the KLA. The Times says, "Hundreds of KPC
reservists were called up by their Albanian
commander Agim Ceku, in March. They subsequently
disappeared to former KLA training camps in
Albania and are now re-emerging in Macedonia."
Ceku, one of the top leaders of the KLA, along
with Hacim Thaci, was artillery chief of the
Croatian army when it launched a war in the
Krajina region of Croatia, which led to 250,000
Serbs being driven from their homes. Under the
KPC, 250,000 Serbs, and another 100,000 Roma,
Gorani, Turks and Jews have been driven from
Kosovo. Now, the KLA offshoot in Macedonia, the
NLA, seems intent on ethnically cleansing the
largely Albanian Tetovo region. Over 120,000
Macedonians have fled or have been driven from
their Tetovo area homes by guerillas. Ilir Hoxha,
a 25-year old ethnic Albanian said, "Let them
leave. They should never return. Tetovo is
Albanian and it will remain Albanian."
For years, many Albanians have dreamed of
resurrecting the greater Albania established
under the Italian fascists, and then under the
Nazis. It incorporated parts of Macedonia and
Greece, southern Serbia, and Kosovo into Albania
proper. Some reports say an ethnic Albanian
Liberation Army of Chameria will open a new front
in Greece soon.
Skopje has been hampered in its response to the
guerillas. NATO and the EU have warned Macedonia
not to crack down on the guerillas, and Ukraine,
which was providing equipment to the
under-equipped Macedonian army, was warned to
stop shipments of materiel. Meanwhile, press
reports in the West describe NATO and EU
diplomatic efforts as aimed at preventing a civil
war, though the intention appears to be to
prevent a strong Macedonian response.
The guerillas say they're fighting to win
language rights, but critics point out that an
armed attack is highly disproportional to the
NLA's stated aims. Moreover, the fact that the
guerillas have been recruited from Kosovo, pass
freely over a Kosovo-Macedonia border presumably
patrolled by NATO K-For forces, and have driven
non-Albanians from their homes in an apparent
effort to ethnically cleanse the Tetovo region,
points to the pursuit of other goals, fully
backed by NATO.
Taylor, who served in the Canadian Armed Forces,
says NATO's support of the guerillas is so
blatant "it is little wonder that the Macedonian
majority have staged violent anti-NATO riots."
Mr. Steve Gowans is a writer and political
activist who lives in Ottawa, Canada.
---
Questa lista e' curata da componenti del
Coordinamento Nazionale per la Jugoslavia (CNJ).
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente
le posizioni ufficiali o condivise da tutto il CNJ, ma
vengono fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al
solo scopo di segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only").
Archivio:
> http://www.domeus.it/circles/jugoinfo oppure:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/messages
Per iscriversi al bollettino: <jugoinfo-subscribe@...>
Per cancellarsi: <jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...>
Per inviare materiali e commenti: <jugocoord@...>
---- Spot ------------------------------------------------------------
IL FONDO PER LA TERRA HA SUONATO LA CARICA DEI 100.000!
Entra a far parte della comunita' online del Fondo per la Terra
e insieme potremo creare la piu' grande comunita' online italiana
per la tutela dell'ambiente e raccogliere, senza interventi economici
diretti dai soci, importanti risorse economiche da destinare
a progetti di conservazione dell'ambiente in Italia e ai tropici.
Se vuoi saperne di piu':
http://www.domeus.it/ad3894140/clicktheplanet
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Per cancellarti da questo gruppo, invia un messaggio vuoto a: jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...
by Jared Israel [29 August 2001]
2. NATO playing favourites in treatment of
indicted war criminal
Indicted war criminal Agim Ceku still collects a UN
paycheque. By S. Taylor on Target. Monday,
September 10, 2001
3. "What do we have to fear if they stop
us? Three days in Camp Bondsteel, then freedom"
AFP, Tuesday September 4, 10:15 PM
4. T�moignage sur les livraisons d'armes clandestines
Un article de Scott Taylor - Tetovo, 20/8/01
5. Canadian Officer Confirms NATO Backing
Albanian Rebels in Macedonia
Truth in Media's GLOBAL WATCH Bulletin 2001/8-3
http://www.truthinmedia.org/Bulletins2001/
tim2001-8-3.html
====================================================
URL for this article:
http://emperors-clothes.com/mac/terror.htm
www.tenc.net * [Emperor's Clothes]
======================================NATO'S Peace in Macedonia: Kosovo Redux
by Jared Israel [29 August 2001]
======================================
The people who bombed Yugoslavia and decimated
Kosovo by installing the Kosovo Liberation Army
in power are trying to bring Peace to Macedonia.
What that peace would mean if fully realized (and
hopefully the Macedonian people will prevent
this) is described in an astonishingly honest
article in the London Telegraph. The article
describes how the so-called NLA rebels target
Macedonian civilians, killing them and driving
them from their homes.
The pattern is eerily familiar.
In Macedonia, as in Kosovo, NATO stonewalls
reality, claiming it only wants to halt abuses
and bring ethnic peace.
At first these propaganda/promises fooled most of
the Serbian residents of the Kosovo town of
Orahovac. Initially they fooled Chedomir
Pralinchevich, the Jewish leader who was driven
from Kosovo by the KLA with NATO's consent.
Soon the horrific truth became clear: while NATO
broadcasted soothing platitudes, its proxy force,
the Kosovo Liberation Army marched in through the
open border with Albania, slaughtering farmers,
terrorizing people simply for being Serbs,
killing residents for their apartments,
instituting a reign of terror that combined
Nazi-like ethnic terror with gangsterism, so that
no one, not even ethnic Albanians, was safe
All this was neatly packaged for politically
correct western consumption. The province filled
with Western NGOs who spoke of conflict
resolution and healing and building democratic
institutions even as the KLA bumped off its
opponents and drove out the same people Hitler
had targeted during World War II.
The KLA was then recycled as a UN outfit called
the Kosovo Protection Corps, or KPC. The NATO/UN
occupiers even hired the KLA terrorists (now KPC)
a liberal Swedish outfit to hold consciousness
raising sessions and put out public statements
describing how the KPC death squad folks were
getting in touch with their feminine side:
"In the first part of my lecture, I think, I
succeeded in getting the participants to actively
take part and reflect. In the second part about
reconciliation I could feel and see the deep
affection in the eyes of the participants,
although it was such a large group. They were
very active in the first part of the lecture,
giving comments and asking questions. In the
second part I could experience a silent, very
active listening.
"A rose - and other reactions
"After the lecture I got several positive
responses from the audience; as well as from the
interpreters. Some of them told me that they had
really learned something, something new. They not
only applauded, I also received a red rose from
the participants. We were all very touched of the
situation." (From "Training the Kosovo
Protection Corps in Kosovo. A Report," by Kerstin
Schultz of Jan Oberg's Transnational Foundation
for Peace and Future Research, at
www.transnational.org/forum/meet/2000/
KerstinKPCrep.html
Fortunately, most Macedonians know that NATO and
its NGO groupies are the enemy. So perhaps NATO
will not succeed in recreating Kosovo so easily.
In which case, the NLA (NATO's name for their pet
terrorists when they operate in Macedonia) may
not get their training and maybe, just maybe, the
world will get a little consciousness-raising.
Which it sorely needs.
-- Jared Israel
Further Reading:
1) The 'Telegraph' article, documenting
terrorist ethnic violence can be read at
http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/
news//2001/08/28/wmac228.xml
2) For articles documenting NATO's
responsibility for anti-Macedonian terror,
see http://emperors-clothes.com/mac/list-m.htm
3) On NATO's terror in the Kosovo town of
Orahovac, see "The Women of Orahovac Answer the
Colonel" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/trouw.htm
4) A Jewish leader tells how he, other Jews and
indeed all Yugoslav loyalists were driven from
Pristina, capital of Kosovo, while NATO looked on at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/interviews/ceda.htm
5) On how NATO's policy of opening the border
between Kosovo and Albania led to slaughter, see
"Gracko survivors blame NATO" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/grack.htm
6) On how those running Kosovo have mixed business
and race hate, see "Death of a Yugoslav," at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/news/letter.htm
7) More on the mix of gangsterism and
fascism: "Concentration camps in Kosovo:
The KLA Archipelago" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/reporter.htm
8) The UN is fully aware that its Kosovo
Protection Corps is the Kosovo Liberation Army
death squad recycled. See "How will you plead at
your trial, Mr. Annan?" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/howwill.htm
9) Being a Serb in Kosovo has become a fatal
condition. See "I cannot give it a name but it
seems like hell" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/name.htm
10) On the heroic resistance of the Macedonian
people, please see "People of Tetovo Refuse to be
Left on the Mercy of the Terrorists" at
http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/news/s_mia14.html
***
To join Emperor's Clothes email list, go to:
http://emperors-clothes.com/feedback.htm
===================================================
Subject: NATO Playing Favourites In Treatment Of
Indicted War Criminal
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 23:07:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: Rick Rozoff
http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2001/09/10/
f121.raw.html
Monday, September 10, 2001
The Halifax Herald Limited
NATO playing favourites in treatment of indicted war
criminal
Indicted war criminal Agim Ceku still collects a UN
paycheque.
By Scott Taylor ON TARGET
WITH SOME 200 troops now on the ground in Macedonia,
as part of NATO's latest intervention force, it's
about time somebody started seriously questioning
Canada's long-range Balkan policy.
Throughout the decade of bloody civil wars in the 90s,
which accompanied the disintegration of Yugoslavia,
Canadian soldiers have been on continuous deployment
to the region. Originally serving as UN peacekeepers
(who evolved into NATO peacemakers by the time of the
Kosovo crisis), Canada's military had become a
belligerent in this complex conflict. Despite our oft
changing role, one constant that has remained is the
reality experienced by our frontline soldiers, which
is rarely reflected by the Western (read: U.S. State
Department inspired) media portrayals of the ongoing
Yugoslavian tragedy.
The most vivid examples of this dichotomy became
evident during the 1999, 78-day NATO air campaign
against Yugoslavia. As cockney spokesman Jamie Shea
took to the airwaves to demonize the Serbian people
and justify NATO's attacks, respected veteran officers
such as General Lewis Mackenzie and Colonel Don Ethell
spoke out to publicly denounce Canada's participation
in the bombing. Having witnessed first-hand the
multi-factional hatred which pervades the Balkan
theatre, Canadian soldiers are unwilling to assign
blame and/or take sides in this brutal civil war.
However, driven by U.S. interests and fuelled by a
jingoistic media corps, NATO leaders have not been so
hesitant to play favourites.
This current crisis in Macedonia originated last March
with Albanian guerrillas attacking from inside
NATO-occupied Kosovo. The guns carried by the
Albanians were the same weapons that NATO was to have
removed from the Kososvo Liberation Army (known as the
UCK) back in 1999. However, over the past two years
with a powerful 40,000 strong occupation force, NATO
has been unwilling and/or unable to strip these
Albanian (UCK) guerrillas of their arsenal. Only now
that a wave of terror has been successfully exported
into heretofore peaceful Macedonia, and the UCK have
seized control of some 30 per cent of Macedonia
territory, has NATO decided to intervene.
The Canadian Combat Group which has been hastily
dispatched from service in Bosnia to participate in
the Macedonia mission is equipped with new Coyote
reconnaissance vehicles. These state of the art
armoured personnel carriers have been roundly praised
by NATO spokesmen for "providing a vital asset in
monitoring the flow of illegal arms across
Macedonian/Kosovo border."
Disgruntled Macedonian citizens are correct in asking
"if such a surveillance capability existed within
NATO's arsenal-why wasn't it employed to prevent
Albanians from entering Macedonia in the first place?"
A similar stumper could be posed to NATO spokesmen
regarding their reluctance to arrest the UCK's
military figurehead General Agim Ceku, an indicted war
criminal. Many of our peacekeepers witnessed the
barbarism committed by Ceku's troops in Croatia in
1993 and 1995 and it is largely on the strength of
Canadian soldiers testimony that The Hague War Crimes
Tribunal has been forced to issue this rogue commander
a sealed indictment.
Agim Ceku, an Albanian Kosovar by birth, began his
military career as an officer in the former federal
Yugoslavian Army (JNA). When the initial Yugoslav
break-up occurred in 1991, Ceku was quick to switch
his loyalty to the Croatian cause of independence. As
a colonel in the Croatian army, Ceku commanded the
notorious 1993 operation now known as the Medak
Pocket.
It was here that the men of the Second Battalion
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry came face
to face with the vulgar savagery of which Ceku was
capable. Over 200 Serbian inhabitants of the Medak
Pocket were slaughtered in a grotesque manner (female
rape victims were found after being burned alive). Our
traumatized troops that buried the grisly remains were
encouraged to collect evidence.
Nevertheless in 1995, Ceku, by then a general of
artillery, was still at large. In fact, he was the
officer responsible for shelling the Serbian refugee
columns and for targeting the UN "safe" city of Knin
during the Croatian offensive known as Operation
Storm.
Just a few months after the Storm atrocities, Canada's
own Louise Arbour began making a name for herself as
the chief prosecutor for The Hague tribunal. Despite
the Canadian connection to these alleged crimes,
Arbour and her lawyers chose instead to pursue more
"politically prominent" individuals and seemingly
little was done to bring Ceku to justice.
Fast forward to January 1999 and the world's attention
begins to focus on a war ravaged Kosovo. With the
blessing of the U.S. State Department, Agim Ceku took
his retirement (at age 37) from the Croatian army and
was pronounced Supreme Commander of the Kosovo
Liberation Army (UCK).
Throughout the air campaign against Yugoslavia, Ceku
was portrayed as a loyal ally and he was frequently
present at the NATO briefings with top generals such
as Wesley Clark and Michael Jackson.
Under terms of the Kosovo peace deal, Ceku's Albanian
guerrillas were to be disarmed and re-constituted into
a UN sponsored, (non-military) disaster relief
organization known as the Kosovo Protection Corps
(KPC). ButCeku's UCK never gave up their guns - nor
their quest for a Greater Albania.
Although he is nominally maintaining an 'arms-length'
posture towards his former comrades, Agim Ceku is
still worshipped as a saviour by both the UCK troops
and Albanian-minority in Macedonia.
As this indicted war criminal continues to enjoy his
freedom, bask in public attention, and collect a UN
paycheque, our Canadian soldiers are risking their
lives to disarm his UCK in Macedonia.
All in the name of peace and justice.
E-mail: espritdecorp@...
===================================================
Subject: NATO Provides KLA R&R
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 07:58:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Rick Rozoff
"What do we have to fear if they stop us? Three days
in Camp Bondsteel, then freedom?"
Tuesday September 4, 10:15 PM
Rebel Albanians from Macedonia lay low in Kosovo
UROSEVAC, Yugoslavia, Sept 4 (AFP) -
Hundreds of ethnic Albanian guerrillas have crossed
over from Macedonia to the Serbian province of Kosovo
since demobilising under an August peace deal aimed at
ending a seven-month insurgency.
For members of the National Liberation Army who come
from Kosovo itself, it is a return home, but for those
coming from Macedonia it is a question of lying low
for a few months before returning home when conditions
are safer.
Most of those who have chosen to go to Kosovo do so by
crossing the mountains which separate the mainly
ethnic-Albanian province of Serbia from Macedonia,
with little heed for NATO-led (KFOR) peacekeepers in
the UN-administered province.
"What do we have to fear if they stop us? Three days
in Camp Bondsteel, then freedom?" said commander Ali
Daja, a former official of rebe brigade 113 in the
northern region of Kumanovo, refering to KFOR's
detention centre.
Many witnesses said that commanders and other fighters
stroll the streets of the Kosovo towns of Urosevac,
Prizren and Gnjilane having crossed either legally or
illegally into Kosovo territory.
Since the peace accord struck in the southwestern
Macedonian town of Ohrid on August 13 aimed at ending
the rebellion over minority rights, several hundreds
of fighters have been stopped by KFOR entering Kosovo
illegally, but most were released shortly afterwards.
According to Captain Daniel Byer, spokesman for the
KFOR brigade, only around 100 fighters are still in
detention in Camp Bondsteel. Over a thousand have been
arrested since the beginning of the conflict in
February.
A 21-year-old man, nicknamed Barut, says that he was
detained for three days by KFOR after being
demobilised by the rebels' 113 brigade. Then he was
taken by KFOR soldiers to the bus station several
kilometres (miles) away.
"Last week between 10 and 50 former combatants were
released each day," a witness at the bus station cafe
said.
A welcome committee has been set up by the rebels in
Kosovo to help those coming from Macedonia who have
nowhere to go.
On Friday 140 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo who claimed
they were former rebel soldiers came to Kosovo legally
right under the noses of KFOR troops and the United
Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
They went first to Albania, then they presented
themselves as unarmed civilians at a border post at
Verbnica, 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Prizren.
Embarrassed UNMIK officials finally allowed their
entry. "Not one of them was stopped because they had
regulation Macedonian passports," said an UNMIK
spokesman.
A number of KLA guerrillas injured in the war have
also found refuge in hospitals in Kosovo where they
are treated just like other patients. Doctors and
nurses know where their injuries came from, but they
maintain a code of silence.
According to witnesses, one rebel shot in the leg at
Slupcane in northern Macedonia has already spent two
months in hospital in Kosovo without receiving a
single visit from the police or KFOR forces.
====================================================
----- Original Message -----
From: Roger ROMAIN
To: r.romain@...
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2001 8:00 PM
Subject: MACEDOINE : oui, la "moisson
indispensable" en Mac�doine est bien une
nouvelle fumisterie am�ricano-otano-europ�enne
occidentale !
MAC�DOINE : oui, la "moisson indispensable" en
Mac�doine est bien une nouvelle fumisterie
am�ricano-otano-europ�enne occidentale !
Mac�doine : une guerre Made in USA !
T�moignage sur les livraisons d'armes clandestines
Ancien soldat canadien, devenu journaliste
sp�cialiste des questions militaires, le Canadien
Scott Taylor le confirme sur le terrain :
Washington, avide de dominer militairement les
Balkans, joue double jeu en armant l'UCK
albanaise.
Un article de Scott Taylor - Tetovo
Tetovo - 20 ao�t. Lundi, un accord de paix a �t�
sign�. Mais cette tentative de la onzi�me heure
d'�viter une autre guerre civile balkanique
risque bien de rester vaine.
Les 3.000 hommes de l'Otan auront pour t�che de
d�sarmer la gu�rilla albanaise, ma�tresse de 30%
du territoire. Mais leur arriv�e sera une pilule
am�re pour les forces de s�curit� mac�doniennes
combattant l'UCK depuis six mois : �Si l'Otan
n'avait pas arm� et �quip� l'UCK au Kosovo, il ne
serait pas n�cessaire de la d�sarmer � pr�sent en
Mac�doine�, explique le sergent Goran Stevanovic.
"God bless America !"
Les diplomates d�noncent vivement l'aide
militaire apport�e � l'UCK, mais sur le terrain,
personne ne conteste l'aide massive (mat�riel et
experts) que leur apporte l'Otan. D'ailleurs, les
commandants UCK m'accueillent par un �Dieu
b�nisse l'Am�rique, et le Canada, pour tout ce
qu'ils nous ont fournis!�
Dans leurs bunkers bien construits, tout - des
armes de poing aux fusils de snipers - porte le
Made in USA. Un abondant stock de lunettes de
vision nocturne, tr�s sophistiqu�es, leur fournit
un �norme avantage sur les forces de s�curit�
mac�doniennes, oblig�es de rester terr�es dans
leurs bunkers pendant que l'UCK d�ambule � son
aise dans les rues de Tetovo. "Serpent" Arifaj
(22 ans), fier commandant d'un peloton UCK, se
f�licite : �Gr�ce � l'Oncle Sam, les Mac�doniens
ne nous posent pas de probl�mes.�
Il y a deux mois, les protestations diplomatiques
ont afflu� lorsqu'on a vu des h�licopt�res US
effectuer des livraisons � un village albanais
surplombant Tetovo. Version officielle : �aide
humanitaire�. Mais le commandant UCK "Mouse" a
confirm� qu'il s'agissait de canons lourds et
munitions. La preuve : le 16, l'UCK a bombard�
Tetovo avec des canons de 120 mm et 82 mm. Et vu
la dur�e et l'intensit� des tirs, les munitions
ne sont pas un probl�me pour eux.
Fr�quemment aussi, les Etats-Unis envoient leurs
h�licopt�res tactiques d'espionnage, sans
autorisation du gouvernement mac�donien. Et les
villageois albanais l�vent les bras pour saluer
�leur force a�rienne�. Enfin, au Q - G de l'UCK,
� la sortie de Tetovo, les gardiens portent des
T-shirts au logo Nike: "NATO Air : Just do it!"
Untertitre
De l'autre c�t�, la Mac�doine - Tr�sor en
faillite et �conomie en d�gringolade - n'avait
pas donn� la priorit� � �quiper son arm�e. Apr�s
le d�but de l'insurrection, en mars, elle a
import� en masse du mat�riel et des conseillers
mercenaires, principalement d'Ukraine.
Mais, la semaine pass�e, George Robertson et
Javier Solana, secr�taires-g�n�raux
respeectivement de l'Otan et de l'Union
Europ�enne, se sont entretenus avec les
Ukrainiens pour arr�ter cet approvisionnement.
Cette ing�rence explique que la majorit� des
Mac�doniens se soit engag�e dans de violentes
�meutes anti-Otan, attaquant r�cemment les
ambassades et les restos McDonald's.
Roger ROMAIN
a/conseiller communal PCB
B6180 COURCELLES
sites :
http://homeusers.brutele.be/r.romain/Sommario.html
==================================================
---------------------------------------------------
Truth in Media's GLOBAL WATCH Bulletin 2001/8-3
26-Aug-2001
---------------------------------------------------
Topic: BALKAN AFFAIRS
-----------------------------------
HEADLINES
Ottawa 1. Canadian Officer Confirms NATO Backing
Albanian Rebels in Macedonia
Skopje 2. Ukraine, Russia Continue to Arm
Macedonia?
Kiev 3. Macedonian President Gets Putin's,
Kuchma's "Support"
Skopje 4. NATO "Peace Farce" Unfolding
Skopje 5. Angry Macedonians Block NATO
Supply Route
http://www.truthinmedia.org/Bulletins2001/
tim2001-8-3.html
-------------
NOTE: To cancel the e-mail editions of our
reports, just reply REMOVE or
UNSUBSCRIBE, followed by your e-mail address.
-------------
Canadian Officer Confirms NATO's Backing of
Albanian Rebels in Macedonia
OTTAWA, Aug. 26 - Once again, we have to turn to
Canada to find out what's really going on in
Washington or Brussels, not to mention Skopje or
Pristina. This time, it was an Ottawa-based
journalist that quoted a former Canadian officer,
now also turned journalist and author, as saying
that the Canadian had seen evidence during of
NATO's backing (and arming!) the Albanian rebels
his recent trip to Macedonia.
Of course, this is nothing new to TiM readers.
But while we arrived at the same conclusion via a
geopolitical analysis (see Macedonia: Another
Farcical American Oil War, Aug. 10), this
Canadian officer did it the old-fashioned way -
he saw it with his own eyes.
"A Canadian journalist has evidence that NATO is
arming and equipping the ethnic Albanian
guerillas who have waged a five-month long
insurgency against the Macedonian government in
Skopje" wrote Stephen Gowans in an Aug. 23
special report published first at the Media
Monitors web site. "Scott Taylor, editor of
Espirit de Corps magazine, says that on a visit
to guerilla bunkers overlooking the besieged
Macedonian city of Tetovo he was welcomed with
shouts of, "God bless America and Canada too for
all they have provided to us." Canada is a member
of the US-led NATO coalition."
Taylor should be no stranger to longtime TiM
readers, either. Just like the TiM editor, he
was in Belgrade in the spring of 1999, while the
NATO bombs were raining down on the Yugoslav
capital and on much of the country (see his
moving account of a funeral he attended in June
1999, published contemporaneously in the NATO War
section of the TiM web site -
http://www.truthinmedia.org/Kosovo/War/day78.html
).
The two of us met for the first time in Toronto,
in December 1999, following the TiM editor's
lecture on NATO's war on Serbia (see New World
Order Pits Canadians vs. Serbs, Dec. 1999 -
http://www.truthinmedia.org/Tour-de-Canada/tor-12-99.html).
That's when we learned that Taylor had also
served as a Canadian officer within the UN
peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Krajina. In
other words, he knows of what he speaks - inside
out.
And now, with this as a brief preamble, here's
the rest of Steve Gowans article, republished
here by TiM with permission of the Media
Monitors' publisher:
More signs NATO is behind ethnic Albanian attacks
on Macedonia by Stephen Gowans
Taylor says guerrilla commanders showed off their
arsenal, which included side arms, sniper rifles
and grenade launchers, all marked "Made in the
USA."
Says Taylor, one commander remarked that, "thanks
to Uncle Sam, the Macedonians are no match for
us." Taylor isn't the first to charge that
Washington is aiding the guerillas. The
Macedonian government alleged that US helicopters
were delivering supplies to guerillas in the
mountains above Tetovo. US officials don't deny
that airdrops were made, but say helicopters were
transporting vital humanitarian aid. But Taylor
says the local guerilla commander told him that
the helicopters were delivering heavy mortars and
ammunition. The guerillas have bombarded Tetovo
with artillery.
Taylor says ethnic Albanian villagers cheer at
the sight of US helicopters, while guerillas at
brigade headquarters wear Nike-style T-shirts
bearing the phrase, "NATO Air - Just do it!"
Meanwhile, one Macedonian police officer lamented
to Taylor that "if NATO hadn't been arming and
equipping the (KLA) in Kosovo there would be no
need for them to disarm these guerillas now."
This isn't the first time complaints about the US
and NATO arming ethnic Albanian guerillas have
been made. In March, a European K-For battalion
commander told the London Observer that, "the CIA
has been allowed to run riot in Kosovo with a
private army designed to overthrow Slobodan
Milosevic...Most of last year, there was a
growing frustration with US support for the
radical Albanians." And in January the BBC
reported that Western forces were training
guerillas, then opening a new front in southern
Serbia and Macedonia.
In June, when Macedonian forces were closing in
on guerillas in the town of Aracinovo, NATO
intervened, transporting ethnic Albanian rebels
out of the besieged town in air-conditioned
busses. According to the German newspaper
Hamburger Abendblatt, 17 US advisors, belonging
to an American mercenary firm involved in other
Balkan conflicts, were among the guerillas. And
the newspaper pointed out that 70 percent of the
equipment carried away by the guerillas was US
made.
Days earlier, a American diplomat was slightly
wounded by Macedonian gunfire as he emerged from
the woods (around Aracinovo) with two other
Americans," according to the International Herald
Tribune. The diplomats were emerging from
rebel-held territory. Two months ago, the London
Sunday Times reported that at least 800 ethnic
Albanian guerillas fighting in Macedonia are
members of the Kosovo Protection Corps, a
paramilitary police unit created by the UN from
the KLA. The Times says, "Hundreds of KPC
reservists were called up by their Albanian
commander Agim Ceku, in March. They subsequently
disappeared to former KLA training camps in
Albania and are now re-emerging in Macedonia."
Ceku, one of the top leaders of the KLA, along
with Hacim Thaci, was artillery chief of the
Croatian army when it launched a war in the
Krajina region of Croatia, which led to 250,000
Serbs being driven from their homes. Under the
KPC, 250,000 Serbs, and another 100,000 Roma,
Gorani, Turks and Jews have been driven from
Kosovo. Now, the KLA offshoot in Macedonia, the
NLA, seems intent on ethnically cleansing the
largely Albanian Tetovo region. Over 120,000
Macedonians have fled or have been driven from
their Tetovo area homes by guerillas. Ilir Hoxha,
a 25-year old ethnic Albanian said, "Let them
leave. They should never return. Tetovo is
Albanian and it will remain Albanian."
For years, many Albanians have dreamed of
resurrecting the greater Albania established
under the Italian fascists, and then under the
Nazis. It incorporated parts of Macedonia and
Greece, southern Serbia, and Kosovo into Albania
proper. Some reports say an ethnic Albanian
Liberation Army of Chameria will open a new front
in Greece soon.
Skopje has been hampered in its response to the
guerillas. NATO and the EU have warned Macedonia
not to crack down on the guerillas, and Ukraine,
which was providing equipment to the
under-equipped Macedonian army, was warned to
stop shipments of materiel. Meanwhile, press
reports in the West describe NATO and EU
diplomatic efforts as aimed at preventing a civil
war, though the intention appears to be to
prevent a strong Macedonian response.
The guerillas say they're fighting to win
language rights, but critics point out that an
armed attack is highly disproportional to the
NLA's stated aims. Moreover, the fact that the
guerillas have been recruited from Kosovo, pass
freely over a Kosovo-Macedonia border presumably
patrolled by NATO K-For forces, and have driven
non-Albanians from their homes in an apparent
effort to ethnically cleanse the Tetovo region,
points to the pursuit of other goals, fully
backed by NATO.
Taylor, who served in the Canadian Armed Forces,
says NATO's support of the guerillas is so
blatant "it is little wonder that the Macedonian
majority have staged violent anti-NATO riots."
Mr. Steve Gowans is a writer and political
activist who lives in Ottawa, Canada.
---
Questa lista e' curata da componenti del
Coordinamento Nazionale per la Jugoslavia (CNJ).
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente
le posizioni ufficiali o condivise da tutto il CNJ, ma
vengono fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al
solo scopo di segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only").
Archivio:
> http://www.domeus.it/circles/jugoinfo oppure:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/messages
Per iscriversi al bollettino: <jugoinfo-subscribe@...>
Per cancellarsi: <jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...>
Per inviare materiali e commenti: <jugocoord@...>
---- Spot ------------------------------------------------------------
IL FONDO PER LA TERRA HA SUONATO LA CARICA DEI 100.000!
Entra a far parte della comunita' online del Fondo per la Terra
e insieme potremo creare la piu' grande comunita' online italiana
per la tutela dell'ambiente e raccogliere, senza interventi economici
diretti dai soci, importanti risorse economiche da destinare
a progetti di conservazione dell'ambiente in Italia e ai tropici.
Se vuoi saperne di piu':
http://www.domeus.it/ad3894140/clicktheplanet
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Per cancellarti da questo gruppo, invia un messaggio vuoto a: jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...
Militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan
By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
03/16/00 1:04 AM Eastern
Following are some of the Islamic militant groups the
United States is pressuring Pakistan to close down or ban:
HARAKAT-UL-MUJAHEDEEN: Previously Harakat-ul-Ansar,
but changed its name after United States declared the
group a terrorist organization. Harakat-ul-Ansar was
founded by Masood Azhar, one of three Kashmiri
militants freed by India last December to end the
hijacking of an Indian Airlines jetliner.
Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen's leader is Fazal-ur-Rehman
Khalil. Headquartered in Pakistan, with a membership
believed to be in the hundreds, the group is committed
to fighting Indian soldiers in Indian-ruled Kashmir.
It's fighters, trained in Afghanistan, are believed to
have also fought in the breakaway republic of
Chechnya, Bosnia and Algeria.
HARAKAT-UL-JEHAD-E-ISLAMI: The parent organization of
Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, led by Qari Saifullah Akhtar,
who spends most of his time in Afghanistan. It is
believed to have thousands of fighters, who train in
Afghanistan and have fought in Chechnya and Bosnia.
LASHKAR-E-TAYYABA: Led by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, it is
based in Muridke, in Pakistan's eastern Punjab
province, and has a membership in the thousands, who
are trained in Afghanistan and in Pakistan-ruled
Kashmir.
AL QAIDA: Led by Osama bin Laden, Al Qaida is
committed to forcing the United States to withdraw its
army from Saudi Arabia, where two of Islam's holiest
sites are located. Its membership figure is unknown
but bin Laden is believed to have thousands of
followers. His popularity soared after 1998, when the
United States fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at
eastern Afghanistan where bin Laden is believed to
operate military training camps. Bin Laden, a
millionaire Saudi, also raises millions of dollars
from sympathizers throughout the Muslim world. Al
Qaida members fight alongside the Taliban in
Afghanistan and reportedly train militants to fight in
Indian-held Kashmir. Al Qaida also is known to have
sent fighters to Chechnya, Bosnia and Kosovo.
==========================================
Osama Bin Laden
Le ditte del terrorista islamico Bin Laden in tutta Europa
Un giornalista del giornale "Vecernji list" di Zagabria, ha soggiornato
segretamente nel segreto campo di addestramento dei seguaci del più
famoso e ricercato terrorista del mondo, Osam Bin Laden.
Il giornalista conferma che, questo ricchissimo estremista musulmano
ha delle ditte in tutta la Europa, comprese la Croazia e la Bosnia.
- Bin Laden i soldi li guadagna attraverso le sue ditte che sono
registrate con i nomi dei presta nomi, o con i nomi falsi.
Le ditte si trovano in Albania, Olanda, Gran Bretagna, Romania,
Croazia, Bosnia ...- ha dichiarato Abu Baker, uno dei più stretti
collaboratori di Bin Laden e aggiunge che, "durante la ultima guerra
in Zagabria operava una organizzazione pseudo-umanitaria di Bin Laden
"Moafak".
Nel testo del detto quotidiano si dice pure che, le ditte di Bin Laden
in Croazia sono abbastanza bene organizzate e funzionano molto bene, e
la maggioranza delle persone che fanno gli affari con queste ditte non
sanno con chi hanno che fare.
... e in lingua originale:
"VECERNJI LIST" O NAJTRA?ENIJEM TERORISTI
LADENOVE FIRME PO CELOJ EVROPI
Reporter zagrebackog "Vecernjeg lista" koji je boravio u tajnom kampu za
obuku sledbenika najtra?enijeg teroriste na svetu Osame Bin Ladena tvrdi
da ovaj bogati muslimanski ekstremista ima preduzeæa sirom Evrope,
ukljucujuci Bosnu i Hrvatsku.
- Bin Laden novac zaradjuje preko svojih preduzeæa koja su registrovana
na tudja i la?na imena koja su rasuta po celom svetu. Preduzeca su u
Albaniji, Holandiji, Britaniji, Rumuniji, Hrvatskoj, Bosni... - ka?e Abu
Baker, jedan od najbli?ih saradnika Bin Ladena i dodaje da je za vreme
poslednjeg rata u Zagrebu radila Ben Ladenova navodna humanitarna
organizacija "Moafak".
U tekstu se navodi da je Bin Ladenovo preduzece u Hrvatskoj veoma
razgranato i da vecina ljudi koja posluje sa njim nema pojma sa kim se
upusta u biznis.
V. Mt.
(tratto da Vecernji List, aprile 2000; comunicazione personale)
=================================================
Subject: [COMMUNISM LIST]Afghanistan background
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:15:58 +0100
From: "Karl Carlile" <dagda@...>
Reply-To: communism@...
Organization: Communism List
To: <communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
Afghanistan 1979-1992: America's Jihad
His followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of
women who refused to wear the veil. CIA and State Department
officials I have spoken with call him "a fascist," "definite
dictatorship material."
This did not prevent the United States government from showering the
man with large amounts of aid to fight against the Soviet-supported
government of Afghanistan. His name was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. He was
the head of the Islamic Party and he hated the United States almost
as much as he hated the Russians. His followers screamed "Death to
America" along with "Death to the Soviet Union'", only the Russians
were not showering him with large amounts of aid.
The United States began supporting Afghan Islamic fundamentalists in
1979 despite the fact that in February of that year some of them had
kidnapped the American ambassador in he capital city of Kabul,
leading to his death in the rescue attempt. The support continued
even after their brother Islamic fundamentalists in next-door Iran
seized the US Embassy in Teheran in November and held 55 Americans
hostage for over a year. Hekmatyar and his were, after all, in battle
against the Soviet Evil Empire; he was thus an important member of
those forces Ronald Reagan called "freedom fighters".
On 27 April 1978, a coup staged by the People's Democratic Party
(PDP) overthrew the government of Mohammad Daoud. Daoud, five years
earlier, had overthrown the monarchy and established a republic,
although he himself was a member of the royal family. He had been
supported by the left in this endeavor, but it turned out that
Daoud's royal blood was thicker than his progressive water. When the
Daoud regime had a PDP leader killed, arrested the rest of the
leadership, and purged hundreds of suspected party sympathizers from
government posts, the PDP, aided by its supporters in the army,
revolted and took power.
Afghanistan was a backward nation: a life expectancy of about 40,
infant mortality of at least 25 percent, absolutely primitive
sanitation, widespread malnutrition, illiteracy of more than 90
percent, very few highways, not one mile of railway, most people
living in nomadic tribes or as impoverished farmers in mud villages,
identifying more with ethnic groups than with a larger political
concept, a life scarcely different from many centuries earlier.
Reform with a socialist bent was the new government's ambition; land
reform (while still retaining private property), controls on prices
and profits, and strengthening of the public sector, as well as
separation of church and state, eradication of illiteracy,
legalization of trade unions, and the emancipation of women in a land
almost entirely Muslim.
Afghanistan's thousand-mile border with the Soviet Union had always
produced a special relationship. Even while it was a monarchy, the
country had been under the strong influence of its powerful northern
neighbor, which had long been its largest trading partner, aid donor,
and military supplier. But the country had never been gobbled up by
the Soviets, a fact that perhaps lends credence to the oft-repeated
Soviet claim that their hegemony over Eastern Europe was only created
as a buffer between themselves and the frequently-invading West.
Nevertheless, for decades Washington and the Shah of Iran tried to
pressure and bribe Afghanistan in order to roll back Russian
influence in the country. During the Daoud regime, Iran, encouraged
by the United States, sought to replace the Soviet Union as Kabul's
biggest donor with a $2 billion economic aid agreement, and urged
Afghanistan to join the Regional Cooperation for Development, which
consisted of Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. (This organization was
attacked by the Soviet Union and its friends in Afghanistan as being
"a branch of CENTO" the 1950s regional security pact that was part of
the US policy of containment of the Soviet Union.) At the same time,
Iran's infamous secret police SAVAK was busy fingering suspected
Communist sympathizers in the Afghan government. In September 1975,
prodded by Iran which was conditioning its aid on such policies,
Daoud gradually dismissed 40 Soviet-trained military officers and
moved to reduce future Afghan dependence on officer training in the
USSR by initiating training arrangements with India and Egypt. Most
important, in Soviet eyes, Daoud gradually broke off his alliance
with the PDP, announcing that he would start his own party and ban
all other political activity under a projected new constitution.
Selig Harrison, the Washington Post's South Asia specialist, wrote an
article in 1970 entitled "'The Shah, Not the Kremlin, Touched off
Afghan Coup", concluding:
"The Communist takeover in Kabul (April 1978] came about when it did,
and in the way that it did, because the Shah disturbed the tenuous
equilibrium that had existed in Afghanistan between the Soviet Union
and the West for neatly three decades. In Iranian and American eyes,
Teheran's offensive was merely- designed to make Kabul more truly
nonaligned, but it went far beyond that Given the unusually long
frontier with Afghanistan, the Soviet Union would clearly go to great
lengths to prevent Kabul from moving once again toward a pro-western
stance."
When the Shah was overthrown in January 1979, the United States lost
its chief ally and outpost in the Soviet-border region, as well as
its military installations and electronic monitoring stations aimed
at the Soviet Union. Washington's cold warriors could only eye
Afghanistan even more covetously than before.
After the April revolution, the new government under President Noor
Mohammed Taraki declared a commitment to Islam within a secular
state, and to non-alignment in foreign affairs. It maintained that
the coup had not been foreign inspired, that it was not a "Communist
takeover", and that they were not "Communists" but rather
nationalists and revolutionaries. (No official or traditional
Communist Party had ever existed in Afghanistan.) But because of its
radical reform program, its class-struggle and anti-imperialist-type
rhetoric, its support of all the usual suspects (Cuba, North Korea,
etc.), its signing of a friendship treaty and other cooperative
agreements with the Soviet Union, and an increased presence in the
country of Soviet civilian and military advisers (though probably
less than the US had in Iran at the time), it was labeled "communist"
by the world's media and by its domestic opponents.
Whether or not the new government in Afghanistan should properly have
been called communist, whether or not it made any difference what it
was called, the lines were now drawn for political, military, and
propaganda battle: a jihad (holy war) between fundamentalist Muslims
and "godless atheistic communists"; Afghan nationalism vs. a
"Soviet-run" government; large landowners, tribal chiefs,
businessmen, the extended royal family, and others vs. the
government's economic reforms. Said the new prime minister about this
elite, who were needed to keep the country running, "every effort
will be made to attract them. But we want to re-educate them in such
a manner that they should think about the people, and not, as
previously, just about themselves-to have a good house and a nice
car" while other people die of hunger."
The Afghan government was trying to drag the country into the 20th
century. In May 1979, British political scientist Fred Halliday
observed that "probably more has changed in the countryside over the
last year than in the two centuries since the state was established."
Peasant debts to landlords had been canceled, the system of usury (by
which peasant were forced to borrow money against future crops, were
left in perpetual debt to lenders) was abolished, and hundreds of
schools and medical clinics were being built in the countryside.
Halliday also reported that a substantial land-redistribution program
was underway, with many of the 200,000 rural families scheduled to
receive land under this reform already having done so. But this last
claim must be approached with caution. Revolutionary land reform is
always an extremely complex and precarious under the best of
conditions, and ultra-backward, tradition-hound Afghanistan in the
midst of nascent civil war hardly offered the best of conditions for
social experiment.
The reforms also encroached into the sensitive area of Islamic
subjugation of women by outlawing child marriage and the giving of a
woman in marriage in exchange for money or commodities, and teaching
women to read, at a time when certain Islamic sectors were openly
calling for reinforcement of 'purdah', the seclusion of women from
public observation.
Halliday noted that the People's Democratic Party saw the Soviet
Union as the only realistic source of support for the long-overdue
modernization. The illiterate Afghan peasant's ethnic cousins across
the border in the Soviet Union were, after all, often university
graduates and professionals.
The argument of the Moujahedeen ("holy warriors") rebels that the
"communist" government would curtail their religious freedom was
never borne out in practice. A year and a half after the change in
government, the conservative British magazine The Economist reported
that "no restrictions had been imposed on religious practice".
Earlier, the New York Times stated that the religious issue "is being
used by some Afghans who actually object more to President Taraki's
plans for land reforms and other changes in this feudal society."
Many of the Muslim clergy were in fact rich landowners. The rebels,
concluded a BBC reporter who spent four months with them, are
"fighting to retain their feudal system and stop the Kabul
government's left-wing reforms which [are] considered anti-Islamic."
The two other nations which shared a long border with Afghanistan,
and were closely allied to the United States, expressed their fears
of the new government. To the west, Iran, still under the Shah,
worried about "threats to oil-passage routes in the Persian Gulf".
Pakistan, to the south, spoke of "threats from a hostile and
expansionist Afghanistan." A former US ambassador to Afghanistan saw
it as part of a "gradually closing pincer movement aimed at Iran and
the oil regions of the Middle East." None of these alleged fears
turned out to have any substance or evidence to back them up, but to
the anti-communist mind this might prove only that the Russians and
their Afghan puppets had been stopped in time.
Two months after the April 1978 coup, an alliance formed by a number
of conservative Islamic factions was waging guerrilla war against the
government. By spring 1979, fighting was taking place on many fronts,
and the State Department was cautioning the Soviet Union that its
advisers in Afghanistan should not interfere militarily in the civil
strife. One such warning in the summer by State Department spokesman
Hodding Carter was another of those Washington monuments to chutzpah;
"We expect the principle of nonintervention to be respected by all
parties in the area, including the Soviet Union." This while the
Soviets were charging the CIA with arming Afghan exiles in Pakistan;
and the Afghanistan government was accusing Pakistan and Iran of also
aiding the guerrillas and even of crossing the border to take part in
the fighting. Pakistan had recently taken its own turn toward strict
Muslim orthodoxy, which the Afghan government deplored as a
"fanatic," while in January, Iran had established a Muslim state
after overthrowing the Shah. (As opposed to the Afghan fundamentalist
freedom fighters, the Iranian Islamic fundamentalists were regularly
described in the West as terrorists, ultra-conservatives, and
anti-democratic.)
A "favorite tactic" of the Afghan freedom fighters was "to torture
victims [often Russians] by first cutting off their noses, ears, and
genitals, then removing one slice of skin after another", producing
"a slow, very painful death". The Moujahedeen also killed a Canadian
tourist and six West Germans, including two children, and a U.S.
military attaché was dragged from his car and beaten; all due to the
rebels' apparent inability to distinguish Russians from other
Europeans.
In March 1979, Taraki went to Moscow to press the Soviets to send
ground troops to help the Afghan army put down the Moujahedeen. He
was promised military assistance, but ground troops could not be
committed. Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin told the Afghan leader:
"The entry of our troops into Afghanistan would outrage the
international community, triggering a string of extremely negative
consequences in many different areas. Our common enemies are just
waiting for the moment when Soviet troops appear in Afghanistan. This
will give them the excuse they need to send armed bands into the
country."
In September, the question became completely academic for Noor
Mohammed Taraki, for he was ousted (and his death soon announced) in
an intra -party struggle and replaced by his own deputy prime
minister, Hafizullah Amin. Although Taraki had sometimes been
heavy-handed in implementing the reform program, and had created
opposition even amongst the intended beneficiaries, he turned out to
be a moderate compared to Amin who tried to institute social change
by riding roughshod over tradition and tribal and ethnic autonomy.
The Kremlin was unhappy with Amin. The fact that he had been involved
in the overthrow and death of the much-favored Taraki was bad enough.
But the Soviets also regarded him as thoroughly unsuitable for the
task that was Moscow's sine qua non; preventing an anti-communist
Islamic state from arising in Afghanistan. Amin gave reform an
exceedingly bad name. The KGB station in Kabul, in pressing for
Amin's removal, stated that his usurpation of power would lead to
"harsh repressions and, as a reaction, the activation and
consolidation of the opposition". Moreover, as we shall see, the
Soviets were highly suspicious about Amin's ideological convictions.
Thus it was, that what in March had been unthinkable, in December
became a reality. Soviet troops began to arrive in Afghanistan around
the 8th of the month - to what extent at Amin's request or with his
approval, and, consequently, whether to call the action an "invasion"
or not, has been the subject of much discussion and controversy.
On the 23rd the Washington Post commented "There was no charge [by
the State Department] that the Soviets have invaded Afghanistan,
since the troops apparently were invited."
However, at a meeting with Soviet-bloc ambassadors in October, Amin's
foreign minister had openly criticized the Soviet Union for
interfering in Afghan affairs. Amin himself insisted that Moscow
replace its ambassador. Yet, on 26 December, while the main body of
Soviet troops was arriving in Afghanistan, Amin gave "a relaxed
interview" to an Arab journalist. "The Soviets," he said, "supply my
country with economic and military aid, but at the same time they
respect our independence and our sovereignty. They do not interfere
in our domestic affairs." He also spoke approvingly of the USSR's
willingness to accept his veto on military bases.
The very next day, a Soviet military force stormed the presidential
palace and shot Amin dead.
He was replaced by Babrak Karmal, who had been vice president and
deputy prime minister in the 1978 revolutionary government.
Moscow denied any part in Amin's death, though they didn't pretend to
be sorry about it, as Brezhnev made clear:
"The actions of the aggressors against Afghanistan were facilitated
by Amin who, on seizing power, started cruelly repressing broad
sections of Afghan society, party and military cadres, members of the
intelligentsia and of the Moslem clergy, that is, the very sections
on which the April revolution relied. And the people under the
leadership of the People's Democratic Party,' headed by Babrak
Karmal, rose against Amin's tyranny and put an end to it. Now in
Washington and some other capitals they are mourning Amin. This
exposes their hypocrisy with particular clarity. Where were these
mourners when Amin was conducting mass repressions, when he forcibly
removed and unlawfully killed Taraki, the founder of the new Afghan
state?"
After Amin's ouster and execution, the public thronged the streets in
"a holiday spirit". "If Karmal could have overthrown Amin without the
Russians," observed a Western diplomat, "he would have been seen as a
hero of the people."
The Soviet government and press repeatedly referred to Amin as a "CIA
agent", a charge which was greeted with great skepticism in the
United States and elsewhere. However, enough circumstantial evidence
supporting the charge exists so that it perhaps should not be
dismissed entirely out of hand.
During the late 1950s and early '60s, Amin had attended Columbia
University Teachers College and the University of Wisconsin. This was
a heyday period for the CIA-using impressive bribes and threats-to
regularly try to recruit foreign students in the United States to act
as agents for them when they returned home. During this period, at
least one president of the Afghanistan Students Association (ASA),
Zia H. Noorzay, was working with the CIA in the United States and
later became president of the Afghanistan state treasury. One of the
Afghan students whom Noorzay and the CIA tried in vain to recruit,
Abdul Latif Hotaki, declared in 1967 that a good number of the key
officials in the Afghanistan government who studied in the United
States "are either CIA trained or indoctrinated. Some are cabinet
level people." It has been reported that in 1963 Amin became head of
the ASA, but this has not been corroborated. However, it is known
that the ASA received part of its funding from the Asia Foundation,
the CIA's principal front in Asia for many years, and that at one
time Amin was associated with this organization.
In September 1979, the month that Amin took power, the American
charge d'affaires in Kabul, Bruce Amstutz, began to hold friendly
meetings with him to reassure him that he need not worry about his
unhappy Soviet allies as long as the US maintained a strong presence
in Afghanistan. The strategy may have worked, for later in the month,
Amin made a special appeal to Amstutz for improved relations with the
United States. Two days later in New York, the Afghan Foreign
Minister quietly expressed the same sentiments to State Department
officials. And at the end of October, the US Embassy in Kabul
reported that Amin was "painfully aware of the exiled leadership the
Soviets [were] keeping on the shelf" (a reference to Karmal who was
living in Czechoslovakia). Under normal circumstances, the Amin-US
meetings might be regarded as routine and innocent diplomatic
contact, but these were hardly normal circumstances-the Afghan
government was engaged in a civil war, and the United States was
supporting the other side.
Moreover, it can be said that Amin, by his ruthlessness, was doing
just what an American agent would be expected to do: discrediting the
People's Democratic Party, the Party's reforms, the idea of socialism
or communism, and the Soviet Union, all associated in one package.
Amin also conducted purges in the army officer corps which seriously
underlined the army's combat capabilities.
But why would Amin, if he were actually plotting with the Americans,
request Soviet military forces on several occasions? The main reason
appears to be that he was being pressed to do so by high levels of
the PDP and he had to comply for the sake of appearances. Babrak
Karmal has suggested other, more Machiavellian, scenarios.
"The Carter administration jumped on the issue of the Soviet
"invasion" and soon launched a campaign of righteous indignation,
imposing what President Carter called "Penalties"-from halting the
delivery of grain to the Soviet Union to keeping the US team out of
the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
The Russians countered that the US was enraged by the intervention
because Washington had been plotting to turn the country into an
American base to replace the loss of lran.
Unsurprisingly, on this seemingly clear-cut anti-communist issue, the
American public and media easily fell in line with the president. The
Wall Street Journal called for a "military" reaction, the
establishment of US bases in the Middle East, "reinstatement of draft
registration", development of a new missile, and giving the CIA more
leeway, adding "Clearly we ought to keep open the chance of covert
aid to Afghan rebels." The last, whether the newspaper knew it or
not, had actually been going on for some time. In February 1980, the
Washington Post disclosed that while the United States was now
supplying weapons to the guerrillas,
"U.S. covert aid prior to the December invasion, according to
sources, was limited to funneling small amounts of medical supplies
and communications equipment to scattered rebel tribes, plus what is
described as "technical advice" to the rebels about where they could
acquire arms on their own ."
US foreign service officers had been meeting with rebel leaders to
determine their need at least as early as April 1979, and the CIA had
been training guerrillas in Pakistan and beaming radio propaganda
into Afghanistan since the year before.
Intervention in the Afghan civil war by the United States, Iran,
Pakistan, China and others gave the Russians grave concern about who
was going to wield power next door. They consistently cited these
"aggressive imperialist forces" to rationalize their own intervention
into Afghanistan, which was the first time Soviet ground troops had
engaged in military action anywhere in the world outside its post-
World War II Eastern European borders. The potential establishment of
an anti-communist Islamic state on the borders of the Soviet Union's
own republics in Soviet Central Asia that were home to some 40
million Muslims could not be regarded with equanimity by the Kremlin
any more than Washington could be unruffled about a communist
takeover in Mexico.
As we have seen repeatedly, the United States did not limit its
defense perimeter to its immediate neighbors, or even to Western
Europe, but to the entire globe. President Carter declared that the
Persian Gulf area was "now threatened by Soviet troops in
Afghanistan," that this area was synonymous with US interests, and
that the United States would "defend" it against any threat by all
means necessary. He called the Soviet action "the greatest threat to
peace since the Second World War", a statement that required
overlooking a great deal of post-war history. But 1980 was an
election year.
Brezhnev, on the other hand, declared that "the national interests or
security of the United States of America and other states are in no
way affected by the events Afghanistan. All attempts to portray
matters otherwise are sheer nonsense."
The Carter administration was equally dismissive of Soviet concerns.
National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski later stated that "the
issue was not what might have Brezhnev's subjective motives in going
into Afghanistan but the objective consequences of a Soviet military
presence so much closer to the Persian Gulf."
The stage was now set for 12 long years of the most horrific kind of
warfare, a daily atrocity for the vast majority of the Afghan people
who never asked for or wanted this war.
But the Soviet Union was determined that its borders must be
unthreatening. The Afghan government was committed to its goal of a
secular, reformed Afghanistan. The United States was determined that,
at a minimum, this should be the Soviets' Vietnam that they should
slowly bleed as the Americans had at a minimum; at a maximum ... that
was perhaps not as well thought out but American policymakers could
not fail to understand - though they dared not say it publicly and
explicitly - that support of the Moujahedeen (many of whom carried
pictures of the Ayatollah Khomeini with them) could lead to a
fundamentalist Islamic state established in Afghanistan every bit as
repressive as in next-door Iran, which in the 1980s; was Public Enemy
Number One in America. Neither could the word "terrorist" cross the
lips of Washington officials in speaking of their new allies/clients,
though these same people shot down civilian airliners and planted
bombs at the airport. In 1986, British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher, whose emotional invectives against "terrorists" were second
to none, welcomed Abdul Haq, an Afghan rebel leader who admitted that
he had ordered the planting of a bomb at Kabul airport in 1984 which
killed at least 28 people. Such, then, were the scruples of cold-war
anti-communists in late 20th century. As Anastasio Somoza had been
"our son of a bitch", the Moujahedeen were now "our fanatic
terrorists". At the beginning there had been some thought given to
the morality of the policy. "The question here," a senior official in
the Carter administration said, "was whether it was morally
acceptable that, in order to keep the Soviets off balance, which was
the reason for the operation, it was permissible to use other lives
for our geopolitical interests."
But such sentiments could not survive. Afghanistan was a
cold-warrior's dream: The CIA and the Pentagon, finally, had one of
their proxy armies in direct confrontation with the forces of the
Evil Empire. There was no price too high to pay for this Super
Nintendo game, neither the hundreds of thousands of Afghan lives, nor
the destruction of Afghan society, nor three billion (sic) dollars of
American taxpayer money poured into a bottomless hole, much of it
going only to make a few Afghans and Pakistanis rich. Congress was
equally enthused-without even the moral uncertainty that made them
cautious about arming the Nicaraguan contras-and became a veritable
bipartisan horn of plenty as it allocated more and more money for the
effort each year. Rep. Charles Wilson of Texas expressed a
not-atypical sentiment of official Washington when he declared:
"There were 58,000 dead in Vietnam and we owe the Russians one ... I
have a slight obsession with it, because of Vietnam. I thought the
Soviets ought to get a dose of it ... I've been of the opinion that
this money was better spent to hurt our adversaries than other money
in the Defense Department budget."
--
Louis Proyect, lnp3@... on 09/16/2001
Marxism list: http://www.marxmail.org
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...
By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
03/16/00 1:04 AM Eastern
Following are some of the Islamic militant groups the
United States is pressuring Pakistan to close down or ban:
HARAKAT-UL-MUJAHEDEEN: Previously Harakat-ul-Ansar,
but changed its name after United States declared the
group a terrorist organization. Harakat-ul-Ansar was
founded by Masood Azhar, one of three Kashmiri
militants freed by India last December to end the
hijacking of an Indian Airlines jetliner.
Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen's leader is Fazal-ur-Rehman
Khalil. Headquartered in Pakistan, with a membership
believed to be in the hundreds, the group is committed
to fighting Indian soldiers in Indian-ruled Kashmir.
It's fighters, trained in Afghanistan, are believed to
have also fought in the breakaway republic of
Chechnya, Bosnia and Algeria.
HARAKAT-UL-JEHAD-E-ISLAMI: The parent organization of
Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, led by Qari Saifullah Akhtar,
who spends most of his time in Afghanistan. It is
believed to have thousands of fighters, who train in
Afghanistan and have fought in Chechnya and Bosnia.
LASHKAR-E-TAYYABA: Led by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, it is
based in Muridke, in Pakistan's eastern Punjab
province, and has a membership in the thousands, who
are trained in Afghanistan and in Pakistan-ruled
Kashmir.
AL QAIDA: Led by Osama bin Laden, Al Qaida is
committed to forcing the United States to withdraw its
army from Saudi Arabia, where two of Islam's holiest
sites are located. Its membership figure is unknown
but bin Laden is believed to have thousands of
followers. His popularity soared after 1998, when the
United States fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at
eastern Afghanistan where bin Laden is believed to
operate military training camps. Bin Laden, a
millionaire Saudi, also raises millions of dollars
from sympathizers throughout the Muslim world. Al
Qaida members fight alongside the Taliban in
Afghanistan and reportedly train militants to fight in
Indian-held Kashmir. Al Qaida also is known to have
sent fighters to Chechnya, Bosnia and Kosovo.
==========================================
Osama Bin Laden
Le ditte del terrorista islamico Bin Laden in tutta Europa
Un giornalista del giornale "Vecernji list" di Zagabria, ha soggiornato
segretamente nel segreto campo di addestramento dei seguaci del più
famoso e ricercato terrorista del mondo, Osam Bin Laden.
Il giornalista conferma che, questo ricchissimo estremista musulmano
ha delle ditte in tutta la Europa, comprese la Croazia e la Bosnia.
- Bin Laden i soldi li guadagna attraverso le sue ditte che sono
registrate con i nomi dei presta nomi, o con i nomi falsi.
Le ditte si trovano in Albania, Olanda, Gran Bretagna, Romania,
Croazia, Bosnia ...- ha dichiarato Abu Baker, uno dei più stretti
collaboratori di Bin Laden e aggiunge che, "durante la ultima guerra
in Zagabria operava una organizzazione pseudo-umanitaria di Bin Laden
"Moafak".
Nel testo del detto quotidiano si dice pure che, le ditte di Bin Laden
in Croazia sono abbastanza bene organizzate e funzionano molto bene, e
la maggioranza delle persone che fanno gli affari con queste ditte non
sanno con chi hanno che fare.
... e in lingua originale:
"VECERNJI LIST" O NAJTRA?ENIJEM TERORISTI
LADENOVE FIRME PO CELOJ EVROPI
Reporter zagrebackog "Vecernjeg lista" koji je boravio u tajnom kampu za
obuku sledbenika najtra?enijeg teroriste na svetu Osame Bin Ladena tvrdi
da ovaj bogati muslimanski ekstremista ima preduzeæa sirom Evrope,
ukljucujuci Bosnu i Hrvatsku.
- Bin Laden novac zaradjuje preko svojih preduzeæa koja su registrovana
na tudja i la?na imena koja su rasuta po celom svetu. Preduzeca su u
Albaniji, Holandiji, Britaniji, Rumuniji, Hrvatskoj, Bosni... - ka?e Abu
Baker, jedan od najbli?ih saradnika Bin Ladena i dodaje da je za vreme
poslednjeg rata u Zagrebu radila Ben Ladenova navodna humanitarna
organizacija "Moafak".
U tekstu se navodi da je Bin Ladenovo preduzece u Hrvatskoj veoma
razgranato i da vecina ljudi koja posluje sa njim nema pojma sa kim se
upusta u biznis.
V. Mt.
(tratto da Vecernji List, aprile 2000; comunicazione personale)
=================================================
Subject: [COMMUNISM LIST]Afghanistan background
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:15:58 +0100
From: "Karl Carlile" <dagda@...>
Reply-To: communism@...
Organization: Communism List
To: <communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
Afghanistan 1979-1992: America's Jihad
His followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of
women who refused to wear the veil. CIA and State Department
officials I have spoken with call him "a fascist," "definite
dictatorship material."
This did not prevent the United States government from showering the
man with large amounts of aid to fight against the Soviet-supported
government of Afghanistan. His name was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. He was
the head of the Islamic Party and he hated the United States almost
as much as he hated the Russians. His followers screamed "Death to
America" along with "Death to the Soviet Union'", only the Russians
were not showering him with large amounts of aid.
The United States began supporting Afghan Islamic fundamentalists in
1979 despite the fact that in February of that year some of them had
kidnapped the American ambassador in he capital city of Kabul,
leading to his death in the rescue attempt. The support continued
even after their brother Islamic fundamentalists in next-door Iran
seized the US Embassy in Teheran in November and held 55 Americans
hostage for over a year. Hekmatyar and his were, after all, in battle
against the Soviet Evil Empire; he was thus an important member of
those forces Ronald Reagan called "freedom fighters".
On 27 April 1978, a coup staged by the People's Democratic Party
(PDP) overthrew the government of Mohammad Daoud. Daoud, five years
earlier, had overthrown the monarchy and established a republic,
although he himself was a member of the royal family. He had been
supported by the left in this endeavor, but it turned out that
Daoud's royal blood was thicker than his progressive water. When the
Daoud regime had a PDP leader killed, arrested the rest of the
leadership, and purged hundreds of suspected party sympathizers from
government posts, the PDP, aided by its supporters in the army,
revolted and took power.
Afghanistan was a backward nation: a life expectancy of about 40,
infant mortality of at least 25 percent, absolutely primitive
sanitation, widespread malnutrition, illiteracy of more than 90
percent, very few highways, not one mile of railway, most people
living in nomadic tribes or as impoverished farmers in mud villages,
identifying more with ethnic groups than with a larger political
concept, a life scarcely different from many centuries earlier.
Reform with a socialist bent was the new government's ambition; land
reform (while still retaining private property), controls on prices
and profits, and strengthening of the public sector, as well as
separation of church and state, eradication of illiteracy,
legalization of trade unions, and the emancipation of women in a land
almost entirely Muslim.
Afghanistan's thousand-mile border with the Soviet Union had always
produced a special relationship. Even while it was a monarchy, the
country had been under the strong influence of its powerful northern
neighbor, which had long been its largest trading partner, aid donor,
and military supplier. But the country had never been gobbled up by
the Soviets, a fact that perhaps lends credence to the oft-repeated
Soviet claim that their hegemony over Eastern Europe was only created
as a buffer between themselves and the frequently-invading West.
Nevertheless, for decades Washington and the Shah of Iran tried to
pressure and bribe Afghanistan in order to roll back Russian
influence in the country. During the Daoud regime, Iran, encouraged
by the United States, sought to replace the Soviet Union as Kabul's
biggest donor with a $2 billion economic aid agreement, and urged
Afghanistan to join the Regional Cooperation for Development, which
consisted of Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. (This organization was
attacked by the Soviet Union and its friends in Afghanistan as being
"a branch of CENTO" the 1950s regional security pact that was part of
the US policy of containment of the Soviet Union.) At the same time,
Iran's infamous secret police SAVAK was busy fingering suspected
Communist sympathizers in the Afghan government. In September 1975,
prodded by Iran which was conditioning its aid on such policies,
Daoud gradually dismissed 40 Soviet-trained military officers and
moved to reduce future Afghan dependence on officer training in the
USSR by initiating training arrangements with India and Egypt. Most
important, in Soviet eyes, Daoud gradually broke off his alliance
with the PDP, announcing that he would start his own party and ban
all other political activity under a projected new constitution.
Selig Harrison, the Washington Post's South Asia specialist, wrote an
article in 1970 entitled "'The Shah, Not the Kremlin, Touched off
Afghan Coup", concluding:
"The Communist takeover in Kabul (April 1978] came about when it did,
and in the way that it did, because the Shah disturbed the tenuous
equilibrium that had existed in Afghanistan between the Soviet Union
and the West for neatly three decades. In Iranian and American eyes,
Teheran's offensive was merely- designed to make Kabul more truly
nonaligned, but it went far beyond that Given the unusually long
frontier with Afghanistan, the Soviet Union would clearly go to great
lengths to prevent Kabul from moving once again toward a pro-western
stance."
When the Shah was overthrown in January 1979, the United States lost
its chief ally and outpost in the Soviet-border region, as well as
its military installations and electronic monitoring stations aimed
at the Soviet Union. Washington's cold warriors could only eye
Afghanistan even more covetously than before.
After the April revolution, the new government under President Noor
Mohammed Taraki declared a commitment to Islam within a secular
state, and to non-alignment in foreign affairs. It maintained that
the coup had not been foreign inspired, that it was not a "Communist
takeover", and that they were not "Communists" but rather
nationalists and revolutionaries. (No official or traditional
Communist Party had ever existed in Afghanistan.) But because of its
radical reform program, its class-struggle and anti-imperialist-type
rhetoric, its support of all the usual suspects (Cuba, North Korea,
etc.), its signing of a friendship treaty and other cooperative
agreements with the Soviet Union, and an increased presence in the
country of Soviet civilian and military advisers (though probably
less than the US had in Iran at the time), it was labeled "communist"
by the world's media and by its domestic opponents.
Whether or not the new government in Afghanistan should properly have
been called communist, whether or not it made any difference what it
was called, the lines were now drawn for political, military, and
propaganda battle: a jihad (holy war) between fundamentalist Muslims
and "godless atheistic communists"; Afghan nationalism vs. a
"Soviet-run" government; large landowners, tribal chiefs,
businessmen, the extended royal family, and others vs. the
government's economic reforms. Said the new prime minister about this
elite, who were needed to keep the country running, "every effort
will be made to attract them. But we want to re-educate them in such
a manner that they should think about the people, and not, as
previously, just about themselves-to have a good house and a nice
car" while other people die of hunger."
The Afghan government was trying to drag the country into the 20th
century. In May 1979, British political scientist Fred Halliday
observed that "probably more has changed in the countryside over the
last year than in the two centuries since the state was established."
Peasant debts to landlords had been canceled, the system of usury (by
which peasant were forced to borrow money against future crops, were
left in perpetual debt to lenders) was abolished, and hundreds of
schools and medical clinics were being built in the countryside.
Halliday also reported that a substantial land-redistribution program
was underway, with many of the 200,000 rural families scheduled to
receive land under this reform already having done so. But this last
claim must be approached with caution. Revolutionary land reform is
always an extremely complex and precarious under the best of
conditions, and ultra-backward, tradition-hound Afghanistan in the
midst of nascent civil war hardly offered the best of conditions for
social experiment.
The reforms also encroached into the sensitive area of Islamic
subjugation of women by outlawing child marriage and the giving of a
woman in marriage in exchange for money or commodities, and teaching
women to read, at a time when certain Islamic sectors were openly
calling for reinforcement of 'purdah', the seclusion of women from
public observation.
Halliday noted that the People's Democratic Party saw the Soviet
Union as the only realistic source of support for the long-overdue
modernization. The illiterate Afghan peasant's ethnic cousins across
the border in the Soviet Union were, after all, often university
graduates and professionals.
The argument of the Moujahedeen ("holy warriors") rebels that the
"communist" government would curtail their religious freedom was
never borne out in practice. A year and a half after the change in
government, the conservative British magazine The Economist reported
that "no restrictions had been imposed on religious practice".
Earlier, the New York Times stated that the religious issue "is being
used by some Afghans who actually object more to President Taraki's
plans for land reforms and other changes in this feudal society."
Many of the Muslim clergy were in fact rich landowners. The rebels,
concluded a BBC reporter who spent four months with them, are
"fighting to retain their feudal system and stop the Kabul
government's left-wing reforms which [are] considered anti-Islamic."
The two other nations which shared a long border with Afghanistan,
and were closely allied to the United States, expressed their fears
of the new government. To the west, Iran, still under the Shah,
worried about "threats to oil-passage routes in the Persian Gulf".
Pakistan, to the south, spoke of "threats from a hostile and
expansionist Afghanistan." A former US ambassador to Afghanistan saw
it as part of a "gradually closing pincer movement aimed at Iran and
the oil regions of the Middle East." None of these alleged fears
turned out to have any substance or evidence to back them up, but to
the anti-communist mind this might prove only that the Russians and
their Afghan puppets had been stopped in time.
Two months after the April 1978 coup, an alliance formed by a number
of conservative Islamic factions was waging guerrilla war against the
government. By spring 1979, fighting was taking place on many fronts,
and the State Department was cautioning the Soviet Union that its
advisers in Afghanistan should not interfere militarily in the civil
strife. One such warning in the summer by State Department spokesman
Hodding Carter was another of those Washington monuments to chutzpah;
"We expect the principle of nonintervention to be respected by all
parties in the area, including the Soviet Union." This while the
Soviets were charging the CIA with arming Afghan exiles in Pakistan;
and the Afghanistan government was accusing Pakistan and Iran of also
aiding the guerrillas and even of crossing the border to take part in
the fighting. Pakistan had recently taken its own turn toward strict
Muslim orthodoxy, which the Afghan government deplored as a
"fanatic," while in January, Iran had established a Muslim state
after overthrowing the Shah. (As opposed to the Afghan fundamentalist
freedom fighters, the Iranian Islamic fundamentalists were regularly
described in the West as terrorists, ultra-conservatives, and
anti-democratic.)
A "favorite tactic" of the Afghan freedom fighters was "to torture
victims [often Russians] by first cutting off their noses, ears, and
genitals, then removing one slice of skin after another", producing
"a slow, very painful death". The Moujahedeen also killed a Canadian
tourist and six West Germans, including two children, and a U.S.
military attaché was dragged from his car and beaten; all due to the
rebels' apparent inability to distinguish Russians from other
Europeans.
In March 1979, Taraki went to Moscow to press the Soviets to send
ground troops to help the Afghan army put down the Moujahedeen. He
was promised military assistance, but ground troops could not be
committed. Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin told the Afghan leader:
"The entry of our troops into Afghanistan would outrage the
international community, triggering a string of extremely negative
consequences in many different areas. Our common enemies are just
waiting for the moment when Soviet troops appear in Afghanistan. This
will give them the excuse they need to send armed bands into the
country."
In September, the question became completely academic for Noor
Mohammed Taraki, for he was ousted (and his death soon announced) in
an intra -party struggle and replaced by his own deputy prime
minister, Hafizullah Amin. Although Taraki had sometimes been
heavy-handed in implementing the reform program, and had created
opposition even amongst the intended beneficiaries, he turned out to
be a moderate compared to Amin who tried to institute social change
by riding roughshod over tradition and tribal and ethnic autonomy.
The Kremlin was unhappy with Amin. The fact that he had been involved
in the overthrow and death of the much-favored Taraki was bad enough.
But the Soviets also regarded him as thoroughly unsuitable for the
task that was Moscow's sine qua non; preventing an anti-communist
Islamic state from arising in Afghanistan. Amin gave reform an
exceedingly bad name. The KGB station in Kabul, in pressing for
Amin's removal, stated that his usurpation of power would lead to
"harsh repressions and, as a reaction, the activation and
consolidation of the opposition". Moreover, as we shall see, the
Soviets were highly suspicious about Amin's ideological convictions.
Thus it was, that what in March had been unthinkable, in December
became a reality. Soviet troops began to arrive in Afghanistan around
the 8th of the month - to what extent at Amin's request or with his
approval, and, consequently, whether to call the action an "invasion"
or not, has been the subject of much discussion and controversy.
On the 23rd the Washington Post commented "There was no charge [by
the State Department] that the Soviets have invaded Afghanistan,
since the troops apparently were invited."
However, at a meeting with Soviet-bloc ambassadors in October, Amin's
foreign minister had openly criticized the Soviet Union for
interfering in Afghan affairs. Amin himself insisted that Moscow
replace its ambassador. Yet, on 26 December, while the main body of
Soviet troops was arriving in Afghanistan, Amin gave "a relaxed
interview" to an Arab journalist. "The Soviets," he said, "supply my
country with economic and military aid, but at the same time they
respect our independence and our sovereignty. They do not interfere
in our domestic affairs." He also spoke approvingly of the USSR's
willingness to accept his veto on military bases.
The very next day, a Soviet military force stormed the presidential
palace and shot Amin dead.
He was replaced by Babrak Karmal, who had been vice president and
deputy prime minister in the 1978 revolutionary government.
Moscow denied any part in Amin's death, though they didn't pretend to
be sorry about it, as Brezhnev made clear:
"The actions of the aggressors against Afghanistan were facilitated
by Amin who, on seizing power, started cruelly repressing broad
sections of Afghan society, party and military cadres, members of the
intelligentsia and of the Moslem clergy, that is, the very sections
on which the April revolution relied. And the people under the
leadership of the People's Democratic Party,' headed by Babrak
Karmal, rose against Amin's tyranny and put an end to it. Now in
Washington and some other capitals they are mourning Amin. This
exposes their hypocrisy with particular clarity. Where were these
mourners when Amin was conducting mass repressions, when he forcibly
removed and unlawfully killed Taraki, the founder of the new Afghan
state?"
After Amin's ouster and execution, the public thronged the streets in
"a holiday spirit". "If Karmal could have overthrown Amin without the
Russians," observed a Western diplomat, "he would have been seen as a
hero of the people."
The Soviet government and press repeatedly referred to Amin as a "CIA
agent", a charge which was greeted with great skepticism in the
United States and elsewhere. However, enough circumstantial evidence
supporting the charge exists so that it perhaps should not be
dismissed entirely out of hand.
During the late 1950s and early '60s, Amin had attended Columbia
University Teachers College and the University of Wisconsin. This was
a heyday period for the CIA-using impressive bribes and threats-to
regularly try to recruit foreign students in the United States to act
as agents for them when they returned home. During this period, at
least one president of the Afghanistan Students Association (ASA),
Zia H. Noorzay, was working with the CIA in the United States and
later became president of the Afghanistan state treasury. One of the
Afghan students whom Noorzay and the CIA tried in vain to recruit,
Abdul Latif Hotaki, declared in 1967 that a good number of the key
officials in the Afghanistan government who studied in the United
States "are either CIA trained or indoctrinated. Some are cabinet
level people." It has been reported that in 1963 Amin became head of
the ASA, but this has not been corroborated. However, it is known
that the ASA received part of its funding from the Asia Foundation,
the CIA's principal front in Asia for many years, and that at one
time Amin was associated with this organization.
In September 1979, the month that Amin took power, the American
charge d'affaires in Kabul, Bruce Amstutz, began to hold friendly
meetings with him to reassure him that he need not worry about his
unhappy Soviet allies as long as the US maintained a strong presence
in Afghanistan. The strategy may have worked, for later in the month,
Amin made a special appeal to Amstutz for improved relations with the
United States. Two days later in New York, the Afghan Foreign
Minister quietly expressed the same sentiments to State Department
officials. And at the end of October, the US Embassy in Kabul
reported that Amin was "painfully aware of the exiled leadership the
Soviets [were] keeping on the shelf" (a reference to Karmal who was
living in Czechoslovakia). Under normal circumstances, the Amin-US
meetings might be regarded as routine and innocent diplomatic
contact, but these were hardly normal circumstances-the Afghan
government was engaged in a civil war, and the United States was
supporting the other side.
Moreover, it can be said that Amin, by his ruthlessness, was doing
just what an American agent would be expected to do: discrediting the
People's Democratic Party, the Party's reforms, the idea of socialism
or communism, and the Soviet Union, all associated in one package.
Amin also conducted purges in the army officer corps which seriously
underlined the army's combat capabilities.
But why would Amin, if he were actually plotting with the Americans,
request Soviet military forces on several occasions? The main reason
appears to be that he was being pressed to do so by high levels of
the PDP and he had to comply for the sake of appearances. Babrak
Karmal has suggested other, more Machiavellian, scenarios.
"The Carter administration jumped on the issue of the Soviet
"invasion" and soon launched a campaign of righteous indignation,
imposing what President Carter called "Penalties"-from halting the
delivery of grain to the Soviet Union to keeping the US team out of
the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
The Russians countered that the US was enraged by the intervention
because Washington had been plotting to turn the country into an
American base to replace the loss of lran.
Unsurprisingly, on this seemingly clear-cut anti-communist issue, the
American public and media easily fell in line with the president. The
Wall Street Journal called for a "military" reaction, the
establishment of US bases in the Middle East, "reinstatement of draft
registration", development of a new missile, and giving the CIA more
leeway, adding "Clearly we ought to keep open the chance of covert
aid to Afghan rebels." The last, whether the newspaper knew it or
not, had actually been going on for some time. In February 1980, the
Washington Post disclosed that while the United States was now
supplying weapons to the guerrillas,
"U.S. covert aid prior to the December invasion, according to
sources, was limited to funneling small amounts of medical supplies
and communications equipment to scattered rebel tribes, plus what is
described as "technical advice" to the rebels about where they could
acquire arms on their own ."
US foreign service officers had been meeting with rebel leaders to
determine their need at least as early as April 1979, and the CIA had
been training guerrillas in Pakistan and beaming radio propaganda
into Afghanistan since the year before.
Intervention in the Afghan civil war by the United States, Iran,
Pakistan, China and others gave the Russians grave concern about who
was going to wield power next door. They consistently cited these
"aggressive imperialist forces" to rationalize their own intervention
into Afghanistan, which was the first time Soviet ground troops had
engaged in military action anywhere in the world outside its post-
World War II Eastern European borders. The potential establishment of
an anti-communist Islamic state on the borders of the Soviet Union's
own republics in Soviet Central Asia that were home to some 40
million Muslims could not be regarded with equanimity by the Kremlin
any more than Washington could be unruffled about a communist
takeover in Mexico.
As we have seen repeatedly, the United States did not limit its
defense perimeter to its immediate neighbors, or even to Western
Europe, but to the entire globe. President Carter declared that the
Persian Gulf area was "now threatened by Soviet troops in
Afghanistan," that this area was synonymous with US interests, and
that the United States would "defend" it against any threat by all
means necessary. He called the Soviet action "the greatest threat to
peace since the Second World War", a statement that required
overlooking a great deal of post-war history. But 1980 was an
election year.
Brezhnev, on the other hand, declared that "the national interests or
security of the United States of America and other states are in no
way affected by the events Afghanistan. All attempts to portray
matters otherwise are sheer nonsense."
The Carter administration was equally dismissive of Soviet concerns.
National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski later stated that "the
issue was not what might have Brezhnev's subjective motives in going
into Afghanistan but the objective consequences of a Soviet military
presence so much closer to the Persian Gulf."
The stage was now set for 12 long years of the most horrific kind of
warfare, a daily atrocity for the vast majority of the Afghan people
who never asked for or wanted this war.
But the Soviet Union was determined that its borders must be
unthreatening. The Afghan government was committed to its goal of a
secular, reformed Afghanistan. The United States was determined that,
at a minimum, this should be the Soviets' Vietnam that they should
slowly bleed as the Americans had at a minimum; at a maximum ... that
was perhaps not as well thought out but American policymakers could
not fail to understand - though they dared not say it publicly and
explicitly - that support of the Moujahedeen (many of whom carried
pictures of the Ayatollah Khomeini with them) could lead to a
fundamentalist Islamic state established in Afghanistan every bit as
repressive as in next-door Iran, which in the 1980s; was Public Enemy
Number One in America. Neither could the word "terrorist" cross the
lips of Washington officials in speaking of their new allies/clients,
though these same people shot down civilian airliners and planted
bombs at the airport. In 1986, British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher, whose emotional invectives against "terrorists" were second
to none, welcomed Abdul Haq, an Afghan rebel leader who admitted that
he had ordered the planting of a bomb at Kabul airport in 1984 which
killed at least 28 people. Such, then, were the scruples of cold-war
anti-communists in late 20th century. As Anastasio Somoza had been
"our son of a bitch", the Moujahedeen were now "our fanatic
terrorists". At the beginning there had been some thought given to
the morality of the policy. "The question here," a senior official in
the Carter administration said, "was whether it was morally
acceptable that, in order to keep the Soviets off balance, which was
the reason for the operation, it was permissible to use other lives
for our geopolitical interests."
But such sentiments could not survive. Afghanistan was a
cold-warrior's dream: The CIA and the Pentagon, finally, had one of
their proxy armies in direct confrontation with the forces of the
Evil Empire. There was no price too high to pay for this Super
Nintendo game, neither the hundreds of thousands of Afghan lives, nor
the destruction of Afghan society, nor three billion (sic) dollars of
American taxpayer money poured into a bottomless hole, much of it
going only to make a few Afghans and Pakistanis rich. Congress was
equally enthused-without even the moral uncertainty that made them
cautious about arming the Nicaraguan contras-and became a veritable
bipartisan horn of plenty as it allocated more and more money for the
effort each year. Rep. Charles Wilson of Texas expressed a
not-atypical sentiment of official Washington when he declared:
"There were 58,000 dead in Vietnam and we owe the Russians one ... I
have a slight obsession with it, because of Vietnam. I thought the
Soviets ought to get a dose of it ... I've been of the opinion that
this money was better spent to hurt our adversaries than other money
in the Defense Department budget."
--
Louis Proyect, lnp3@... on 09/16/2001
Marxism list: http://www.marxmail.org
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...
Subject: [COMMUNISM LIST]Fw: historical questions
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:13:01 +0100
From: "Karl Carlile" <dagda@...>
Reply-To: communism@...
Organization: Communism List
To: <communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
The Guardian (London), November 23, 1995
PAKISTAN IS SECRET OF TALIBAN'S SUCCESS;
By John-Thor Dahlburg
IT HAS been one of the most breathtaking advances in the annals of
modern warfare: master of little more than a single city in
Afghanistan a year ago, the Taliban now controls more than half the
country.
And standing at the gates of Kabul, the Muslim fundamentalists
announced at the weekend that they had launched their final assault
to overrun the capital and chase President Burhanuddin Rabbani from
office.
Many observers believe it is only a matter of time before the
political map of a country mauled by more than 15 years of warfare
will be changed decisively.
The Taliban, a motley band of fighters chiefly composed of
inexperienced but courageous Islamic students, credits its lightning
success to its creed and to Allah. "The only real superpower is
Allah," said a commander, Mulvi Abdul Samad. But in the rugged
countryside of Baluchistan, the sparsely populated Pakistani province
of mountain and desert that runs parallel to Afghanistan for 670
miles, more worldly reasons come to light.
Attracted by the sacred Islamic ideal of jihad, or holy war, young
Pakistanis have flooded across the border to embrace Kalashnikov
rifles and the Taliban's cause.
And, despite repeated official denials, the Islamic republic of
Pakistan has given enormous support to the Muslim Afghan fighters in
the past year, the Los Angeles Times has learnt.
"Pakistan has decided not to give financial or military support to
any faction of the Afghans," the prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, told
an Iranian audience earlier this month.
But from Pakistan have come petrol for the Taliban's tanks, aircraft
and armoured vehicles, lorry convoys filled with munitions and other
supplies, and telecommunications equipment, experts and advice.
"This is the work of the Lawrence of Arabias of the ISI
(Inter-Services Intelligence)," said an opposition senator, Abdur
Rahim Khan Mandokhel of Baluchistan, who accuses the government of
trying to play puppet-master in Afghanistan.
===
The Guardian (London)
April 8, 1995
MUFTI IQBAL'S SCHOOL FOR MARTYRS;
'Rent-a-jihad' groups are sending out Muslims, including foreigners,
to fight abroad. Benazir Bhutto must crack down on fundamentalism to
prove her pro-Western credentials, but dare not go too far. Kathy
Evans in Peshawar reports on her dilemma
By Kathy Evans
THE bearded mullah sat cross-legged on the floor, fingering his beard
thoughtfully. "No, money is not a problem. We have many supporters
and they help us keep the jihad going," Mufti Iqbal smiled.
Mufti Iqbal is the Karachi front man for Harakat al Ansar, one of
Pakistan's numerous "rent-a-jihad" services. It is his job to recruit
local volunteers, receive foreign Muslims, and send them on to jihads
of their choosing. It is one of Pakistan's growing businesses.
The focus of Harakat's attention is Kashmir, the slither of territory
claimed by both India and Pakistan. Liberating the Kashmiri Muslims
from the Indian yoke is a national cause in Pakistan shared by
government and the man in the street. Mufti Iqbal, himself an Afghan
jihad veteran, offers contacts to other causes and conflicts,
however.
"Our main objective is to help Muslims all over the world secure
their freedom. We have received thousands of volunteers to fight in
Kashmir, Bosnia, Tajikistan and Chechenia. Jihad is, after all, an
obligation on all Muslims."
It was through Harakat al Ansar's conduit for would-be martyrs that
the young east London Pakistani, Ahmed Sheikh, was reported to have
passed. The former London School of Economics student now faces
charges of kidnapping two British tourists in India. Mufti Iqbal, the
Karachi recruiter, denies any knowledge of him.
Harakat al Ansar says it has several hundred foreign Muslims who have
come to "learn". Among the volunteers are Pakistanis, black American
Muslims, Arabs, Indians, Afghans, and even one Canadian.
The movement's officials deny they offer military training, saying
such skills are acquired at the front line. But Western diplomats in
Karachi say they have a well-established camp in Miranshahr, a remote
area bordering neighbouring Afghanistan.
The rent-a-jihad service is just one of the avenues available in
Pakistan to young Muslims from all over the world who seek to grow in
their religion and get an insight into the growing list of conflicts
in which Muslims find themselves in, against oppressive
Western-backed governments and the Christian world.
For such Muslims, Pakistan offers a number of attractions. It is a
cheap, police are bribeable, arms all too easily available, and in
whole chunks of the country government officials rarely venture.
The tribal areas function as playgrounds for the heroin and weapons
mafia. Here you can buy vital necessities for a terrorist movement.
Moreover, some of the causes espoused by religious groups enjoy
government support.
Throughout the interview with Mufti Iqbal, a man sat beside him on
the floor, prompting his answers. He claimed he was from a Pakistani
news agency.
"It's the ISI man" laughed my local newspaper colleague as we left.
"He is his minder".
ISI is the acronym for the Inter-Services Intelligence, one of
Pakistan's main intelligence agencies. It has many rivals, but none
enjoys the covert power of the ISI. That power is the product of the
multi-billion-dollar war effort launched by the West at the beginning
of the eighties to fight communism in Afghanistan. Today, its main
focus is Kashmir.
Afghanistan was the West's last war against the Soviet Union. More
than $ 10 billion was ploughed into this "heroic" cause by the US,
Britain and Saudi Arabia.
An early agreement in the conflict between America's CIA and the ISI
made the Pakistani agency the sole channel for the billions of
dollars worth of arms to the jihad. This gave the agency an
unprecedented influence in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, which
lingers to this day. Headed by General Hamid Gul, working under
General Zia ul-Haq, ISI established the seven guerrilla groups known
as the mojahedin.
Today, the mojahedin groups have become little more than heroin
warlords.
In Pakistani internal politics, ISI functions as an instrument of the
government in power, drumming up evidence against opponents and
making and un-making political parties.
Embarrassingly, some of its creations are thought to be behind the
recent killing sprees in Karachi, including possibly the shooting
last month of two US embassy officials.
ISI's Afghan jihad operation was also a siren call to militant
Muslims in the Middle and Far East. The agency turned a blind eye to
the thousands who flocked to Afghanistan for military training.
Afghanistan became a playground for any disgruntled Muslim who felt
oppressed.
Today, veterans of the Afghan war dominate terrorist groups in
Algeria and Egypt, and they remain a latent and feared force in the
Gulf states.
A number of Arab veterans of the Afghan war are facing trial in New
York for suspected involvement in the bombing of the World Trade
Centre in 1993. The latest suspect to join them in the New York
courtroom is Ramzi Youssef, said to be the master bomber.
If Western intelligence sources are to be believed, Ramzi Youssef was
one of the world's most dangerous terrorists. However, it is still
unclear whether he is a Pakistani Baluch, a Kuwaiti or an Iraqi.
Since his arrest, many stories have grown up around him. He was known
to have travelled to Manila, allegedly to kill the Pope on his tour
there.
It is not just abroad that Youssef was allegedly active. Benazir
Bhutto, Pakistan's prime minister, told journalists last month that
he was also behind an attempt to assassinate her in 1993. Pakistani
press reports have linked him with the Sunni extremist group Sepah
Sehaba, believed to be behind dozens of killings of Shias in Karachi,
and also a bombing in Iran.
Today the Arab route to training grounds in Afghanistan has virtually
ceased to exist. Dozens of Arab mojahedin have been arrested and
hundreds more have fled.
It has become virtual grounds for arrest to be an Arab and an Afghan
veteran and still live in Pakistan.
It is not just Arabs who have been subjected to the police's tactic
of rounding up the usual suspects. Last week, offices of the region's
oldest and largest Islamic group, the Jamaat Islami, were raided in
the police effort to root out militants.
The crackdown on militants preceded the vital trip to the United
States this week by Ms Bhutto. For her, it is the most important trip
of her administration, one in which she will attempt to portray
herself as the only reliable partner Washington and the West has to
fight fundamentalism in the region.
Only last year, Pakistan narrowly avoided being put on the American
list of states sponsoring terrorism. But in the effort to clean
militants out of Pakistan and brush up the country's image, Ms Bhutto
risks all.
Gen Hamid Gul, the former head of ISI, warns that if these arrests
continue, a typhoon will hit Pakistan.
"What is a fundamentalist anyway? A man with a beard? If the state
machinery goes after what it calls extremists, then the reaction
could be very very nasty. Inflation, the effects of IMF policies - if
mixed with a danger to the faith - could be very dangerous for the
country," he says.
Naturally, the first beneficiary of such a backlash would be groups
Gen Gul is associated with. The former intelligence chief is said to
be a key figure behind the increasingly political campaign by the
former playboy-cricketer Imran Khan.
Another beneficiary of any reaction from Muslim groups is Ms Bhutto's
long-standing rival, the Lahore businessman Nawaz Sharif. Mr Sharif
has already been able to accuse her of attacking Islam to appease the
Americans. Unwittingly or not, Ms Bhutto has provided her opponents
with potent slogans.
It is not just on the parliamentary front that dangers lurk for Ms
Bhutto. Kashmir is a cause supported by both the ISI and the army,
two institutions which Ms Bhutto has to live with. India accuses both
of training and arming the Kashmiri militants. Western diplomats
believe that help is being organised by renegade elements in the ISI
and the army.
Figures such as Gen Gul continue to be admired in military circles
for their devotion to Islamic causes. In the past year, Ms Bhutto has
been trying to clean out Jamaat Islami sympathisers in the
intelligence service through her new ISI chief and loyalist, Javed
Ashraf.
Jamaat officials shrug off such changes, saying that in the end Ms
Bhutto has to do "her duty" towards Kashmir.
Publicly, Pakistani officials have consistently denied that they are
arming and training the militants. However, few Pakistanis would
bother to deny that the militants are able to buy weapons freely or
that they are helped to cross over to the Indian-controlled part of
Kashmir.
Any attack on these delicate covert mechanisms by Ms Bhutto would
lead to charges that the prime minister is not only against Islam but
against Pakistan's national cause, Kashmir. During the last 15 months
she has made her support for the cause a central platform from which
to reaffirm all her Islamic credentials. Rarely does she make a
speech without mentioning Kashmir and Islam in the same breath.
In private, her diplomats wonder why Pakistan cannot consider the
unthinkable third option - supporting total independence for
Kashmiris from both India and Pakistan. That way, they argue, the
fundamentalist groups and the role of the intelligence agencies, can
be wiped away in one go.
Gen Gul argues that if the West is really interested in curbing the
terrorism carried out in the name of Kashmir, it should try to
resolve the conflict, rather than fighting its symptoms.
Meanwhile, the prime minister's crackdown on militants is getting
closer to the groups and rent-a-jihad services that the Kashmir cause
has created. Ms Bhutto may find she can go only so far. It is a
dilemma which even her friends in Washington cannot help her with.
--
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...
Subject:
[COMMUNISM LIST]Fw: Very interesting article from 1999 about
Bin Laden
Date:
Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:10:23 +0100
From:
"Jeff Seaman" <scratcher11@...>
Reply-To:
communism@...
To:
<communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 3:31 PM
Subject: Very interesting article from 1999 about Bin Laden
I remember being struck by the tone of this article when it appeared.
It
suggests that Bin Laden is more the inspiration for terrorists than
their
mastermind, and that his grievances are focused on the US presence in
Saudi
Arabia. I had seen nothing like it in the mainstream media before, and
nothing since. Did anyone see the Frontline documentary related to this
article?
Steven Sherman
April 13, 1999, Tuesday
U.S. Hard Put to Find Proof Bin Laden Directed Attacks
By TIM WEINER
American commandos are poised near the Afghan border, hoping to capture
Osama
bin Laden, the man charged with blowing up two American embassies in
Africa
eight months ago, senior American officials say.
But they still do not know how to find him. They are depending on his
protectors in Afghanistan to betray him -- a slim reed of hope for one
of the
biggest and most complicated international criminal investigations in
American history.
Capturing Mr. bin Laden alive could deepen the complications. American
officials say that so far, firsthand evidence that could be used in
court to
prove that he commanded the bombings has proven difficult to obtain.
According to the public record, none of the informants involved in the
case
have direct knowledge of Mr. bin Laden's involvement.
For now, officials say, Federal prosecutors appear to be building a case
that
his violent words and ideas, broadcast from an Afghan cave, incited
terrorist
acts thousands of miles away.
In their war against Mr. bin Laden, American officials portray him as
the
world's most dangerous terrorist. But reporters for The New York Times
and
the PBS program ''Frontline,'' working in cooperation, have found him to
be
less a commander of terrorists than an inspiration for them.
Enemies and supporters, from members of the Saudi opposition to present
and
former American intelligence officials, say he may not be as globally
powerful as some American officials have asserted. But his message and
aims
have more resonance among Muslims around the world than has been
understood
here.
''You can kill Osama bin Laden today or tomorrow; you can arrest him and
put
him on trial in New York or in Washington,'' said Ahmed Sattar, an aide
to
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric convicted of
inspiring the
bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. ''If this will end the
problem --
no. Tomorrow you will get somebody else.''
Interviews with senior American officials and knowledgeable observers of
Mr.
bin Laden in Pakistan, Sudan and elsewhere suggest that there is
widespread
support among ordinary people in the Muslim world for his central
political
argument: that American troops should get out of Saudi Arabia. The
embassy
bombings, they note, took place eight years to the day after the G.I.'s
were
ordered onto Saudi soil.
The interviews also raise questions about key assertions that have been
made
by the Government about Mr. bin Laden. Senior intelligence officials
concede
that their knowledge of him is sketchy.
''We can't say for sure what was going on'' with him from 1991 to 1996
--
most of the years covered in the indictment -- one senior official said.
His Affluence Seems Overstated
Present and former American officials and former business associates of
Mr.
bin Laden say he appears to control only a fraction of the $250 million
fortune that the American Government says he possesses.
''Clearly, his money's running out,'' said Frank Anderson, a former
senior
Central Intelligence Agency official who maintains close Middle Eastern
contacts.
Larry Johnson, the State Department deputy counterterrorism director
from
1988 to 1993, said Administration officials had ''tended to make Osama
bin
Laden sort of a Superman in Muslim garb -- he's 10 feet tall, he's
everywhere, he knows everything, he's got lots of money and he can't be
challenged.''
Milton Bearden, a retired senior C.I.A. official who ran the agency's
war in
Afghanistan and retired in 1995, said the Government had ''created a
North
Star'' in Mr. bin Laden.
''He is public enemy No. 1,'' Mr. Bearden said. ''We've got a $5 million
reward out for his head. And now we have, with I'm not sure what
evidence,
linked him to all of the terrorist acts of this year -- of this decade,
perhaps.''
Political leaders in Sudan and Pakistan who have met Mr. bin Laden
describe
him as intelligent, soft-spoken, polite. They also say he is deadly
serious
about his violent brand of radical politics and capable of killing in
God's
name.
Mr. bin Laden was born into the ruling class of Saudi Arabia. His father
was
the favorite construction magnate of the Saudi royal family, who gave
Mr. bin
Laden's family huge contracts to renovate the holy cities of Mecca and
Medina
and build palaces for Saudi princes.
American officials calculated Mr. bin Laden's fortune by estimating the
family fortune at $5 billion and dividing by 20, the number of male
heirs.
But business associates of Mr. bin Laden said his family cut him off
years
ago and are managing his share of his inheritance for him as long as he
is
disowned. Business associates say that Mr. bin Laden has been living on
a
generous allowance from his eldest brother and that his assets in Saudi
Arabia are now frozen.
In 1980, at 22, Mr. bin Laden left Saudi Arabia and moved to the Afghan
frontier. In Peshawar, Pakistan -- working alongside, but never directly
allied with, the C.I.A. -- he used his money and his machines to help
the
Afghan rebels fight the Soviet Army invaders.
The Afghan war shaped Mr. bin Laden, those who know him say. ''He is an
ordinary person who is very religious,'' said President Omar Hassan
al-Bashir
of Sudan, who met Mr. bin Laden often from 1992 to 1996. ''He believes
in the
rule of Islam and where possible the establishment of an Islamic state.
The
time that he spent in Afghanistan led him to believe that this might be
achieved through military means.''
Legend has it that Mr. bin Laden fought bravely against Soviet troops.
But
former C.I.A. officers say he was a financier, not a warrior -- ''a
philanthropist supporting a number of health care, widows-and-orphans
charity
operations in Peshawar for Afghan refugees,'' as Mr. Anderson put it.
He also helped create a headquarters called Al Qaeda, the Base. It was a
way
station in Peshawar where Egyptian and Saudi volunteers rested before
setting
off for battle in Afghanistan. Its name became a kind of flag uniting
Mr. bin
Laden's followers. American officials call it a global terrorist
network.
When the Soviet forces left Afghanistan in 1989, Mr. bin Laden went home
to
Saudi Arabia. He soon set his sights on the last remaining superpower.
''He himself was very much wary about America,'' said Saad al-Faqih, a
Saudi
exile living in London, who worked as a surgeon for wounded Afghan
fighters,
''very skeptical about America and the Saudi regime.''
He found a new enemy on Aug. 7, 1990, when the United States began
sending
half a million soldiers to Saudi Arabia, preparing for war against Iraq.
''One of the stories put out by bin Laden is that he went to King Fahd
and
promised that he would raise holy warriors who would protect Saudi
Arabia,''
said Mr. Anderson, who was the chief of the C.I.A.'s Near East
operations in
the mid-1990's. ''His violent opposition to the Saudi royal family began
when
King Fahd denied or rejected that offer.''
Americans Painted As New Crusaders
To Mr. bin Laden the deployment of Americans in the land of Mecca and
Medina
smacked of the Crusades, the Christian religious wars against Islam that
began nine centuries ago. His rage transformed him into a stateless
outlaw.
In November 1991, Saudi intelligence officers caught Mr. bin Laden
smuggling
weapons from Yemen, his father's homeland. They withdrew his passport.
Soon
afterward he made his way to Sudan, which had decreed its borders open
to all
Muslims, with or without passports or visas.
Veterans of the Afghan jihad, or holy war, against Moscow followed Mr.
bin
Laden, under Al Qaeda's banner. But ''when Al Qaeda was moved to Sudan,
it
lost around 70 percent of its members,'' Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, accused
of
being an associate of Mr. bin Laden, said during an interrogation by the
German police after his arrest in September.
''This group didn't have a purpose except to carry out the jihad,'' Mr.
Salim
said, ''and since nobody carried out the jihad, it lost a lot of its
members.''
He Lived As an Investor
There were three kinds of men in Al Qaeda, he said. First, ''people who
had
no success in life, had nothing in their heads and wanted to join just
to
keep from falling on their noses.'' Second, ''people who loved their
religion
but had no idea what their religion really meant.'' And third, ''people
who
have nothing in their heads but to fight and solve all the problems in
the
world with battles.''
Mr. bin Laden lived in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, ''as an
investor,''
said President Bashir. ''With his money, he was adventurous, and
probably he
gained this mentality by his experiences as a fighter.''
The indictment against Mr. bin Laden says he provided training camps in
Sudan
where Afghan war veterans prepared for terrorist missions. But a senior
American intelligence official contradicted that, saying, ''There was
never a
bin Laden-financed training camp in Sudan.''
The official added: ''In 1993, '94, '95, he's managing and building up
his
legitimate business presence there in Sudan. I won't pretend we've got a
good
intelligence base on this period, but we think he was laying the
groundwork
for Al Qaeda.''
In 1995 two C.I.A. officers were stalked by teen-age followers of Mr.
bin
Laden in the streets of Khartoum. ''Bin Laden was approached by us and
was
told that this would not be tolerated,'' said Ghazi Salaheldin, the
Sudanese
Information Minister. Sudan expelled the teen-agers.
In the face of such perceived threats -- though some were mirages, based
on a
slew of false C.I.A. reports -- the United States withdrew from Sudan in
late
1995. The absence of American diplomats and spies in the country
diminished
Washington's ability to know what Mr. bin Laden was doing at the very
moment
he stepped up his political war.
In 1995, after the Saudi Government rescinded his citizenship, he began
sending scathing attacks on the royal family from Khartoum.
''Bin Laden took a chance and started doing some political activities,''
President Bashir said, ''not terrorist activities, but he started
issuing
political bulletins and communiques and faxes'' denouncing the Saudi
Government as corrupt and repressive.
The United States took notice. ''There had been confusion'' after the
World
Trade Center bombing about the nature of radical Islamic threats to the
United States, said Mr. Johnson, the former senior counterterrorism
official.
No Evidence To Implicate Him
''There were lots of theories, not very good intelligence, and so the
intelligence community actually started generating a picture that Osama
bin
Laden was, if you will, the new face of terrorism,'' he said.
On May 31, 1996, four Saudis were beheaded after confessing to bombing a
Saudi National Guard post in Riyadh and killing five Americans. All told
their interrogators that they had received Mr. bin Laden's communiques.
Only
25 days later, a truck bomb tore through a military post in Dhahran,
killing
19 American soldiers.
Mr. bin Laden was blamed by American officials for instigating the
attacks.
But no known evidence implicates him, and the Saudi Interior Minister,
Prince
Nayef ibn Abdel Aziz, has absolved him. ''Maybe there are people who
adopt
his ideas,'' Prince Nayef said. ''He does not constitute any security
problem
to us.''
Shortly before the Dhahran attack, Mr. bin Laden and members of his
entourage
left Sudan in a C-130 military transport plane. The Sudanese had asked
him to
leave -- at the request of the United States. Mr. bin Laden landed at an
American-built airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Three months later, on
Aug.
23, 1996, he declared war on the United States.
''The situation in Saudi Arabia is like a great volcano about to
erupt,'' his
declaration stated. ''Everyone talks openly about economic recession,
high
prices, debt'' and ''the filling up of the prisons.''
How Did He Control the Bombers?
Mr. bin Laden's criticisms of Saudi repression and corruption closely
corresponded with State Department reports and C.I.A. analyses. But Mr.
bin
Laden blamed the United States. ''The root of the problem is the
occupying
American enemy,'' he proclaimed, ''and all efforts should focus on
killing,
fighting and destroying it.''
A second, more ominous warning from him came on Feb. 23, 1998: ''To kill
Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual
duty of
every Muslim who is able, in any country where this is possible,'' until
American armies, ''shattered and broken-winged, depart from all the
lands of
Islam.''
Then came the embassy bombings last August. American authorities say the
men
who attacked the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were controlled by Mr.
bin
Laden. But they still have no clear idea how.
Despite efforts at the highest levels of the United States Government,
Mr.
bin Laden and his closest associates remain isolated in Afghanistan.
It is difficult to say precisely where the criminal case against Mr. bin
Laden stands. Prosecutors have obtained unusually restrictive court
orders
that bar the defendants and their lawyers from communicating with
virtually
anyone.
The Case Runs Out of Steam
Publicly, at least, the case has lost momentum. While two men suspected
of
being bombers were quickly apprehended, many other suspects are still at
large. The last arrest was more than six months ago. A spokesman for the
United States Attorney in Manhattan declined comment.
Now the hunt for Mr. bin Laden depends on whether the Taliban, his
radical
hosts in Afghanistan, will betray him. The United States has little
leverage
with the Taliban, and little fresh intelligence on how to capture Mr.
bin
Laden. It has no spies in Afghanistan and little new information on
precisely
how he might have instigated the deadly bombings.
''I do not have a clear picture yet of what happened when,'' said
Prudence
Bushnell, the United States Ambassador to Kenya, who was wounded in the
bomb
blast, which killed 12 of her colleagues. ''I may not ever have a clear
picture of what happened when. None of us may.''
A COLLABORATION
This article resulted from a collaboration between The New York Times
and the
PBS program ''Frontline,'' which will broadcast a documentary tonight
about
Osama bin Laden that will run on most PBS stations at 9 o'clock. The
''Frontline'' program was based on the work of Lowell Bergman,
correspondent,
Martin Smith, producer, and Orianna Zill and Ivana Damjanov, associate
producers.
ON THE WEB
Past coverage of Mr. bin Laden, the 1998 bombings of the American
embassies
in East Africa and the American response to terrorism is available from
The
New York Times on the Web:
www.nytimes.com/ international
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:13:01 +0100
From: "Karl Carlile" <dagda@...>
Reply-To: communism@...
Organization: Communism List
To: <communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
The Guardian (London), November 23, 1995
PAKISTAN IS SECRET OF TALIBAN'S SUCCESS;
By John-Thor Dahlburg
IT HAS been one of the most breathtaking advances in the annals of
modern warfare: master of little more than a single city in
Afghanistan a year ago, the Taliban now controls more than half the
country.
And standing at the gates of Kabul, the Muslim fundamentalists
announced at the weekend that they had launched their final assault
to overrun the capital and chase President Burhanuddin Rabbani from
office.
Many observers believe it is only a matter of time before the
political map of a country mauled by more than 15 years of warfare
will be changed decisively.
The Taliban, a motley band of fighters chiefly composed of
inexperienced but courageous Islamic students, credits its lightning
success to its creed and to Allah. "The only real superpower is
Allah," said a commander, Mulvi Abdul Samad. But in the rugged
countryside of Baluchistan, the sparsely populated Pakistani province
of mountain and desert that runs parallel to Afghanistan for 670
miles, more worldly reasons come to light.
Attracted by the sacred Islamic ideal of jihad, or holy war, young
Pakistanis have flooded across the border to embrace Kalashnikov
rifles and the Taliban's cause.
And, despite repeated official denials, the Islamic republic of
Pakistan has given enormous support to the Muslim Afghan fighters in
the past year, the Los Angeles Times has learnt.
"Pakistan has decided not to give financial or military support to
any faction of the Afghans," the prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, told
an Iranian audience earlier this month.
But from Pakistan have come petrol for the Taliban's tanks, aircraft
and armoured vehicles, lorry convoys filled with munitions and other
supplies, and telecommunications equipment, experts and advice.
"This is the work of the Lawrence of Arabias of the ISI
(Inter-Services Intelligence)," said an opposition senator, Abdur
Rahim Khan Mandokhel of Baluchistan, who accuses the government of
trying to play puppet-master in Afghanistan.
===
The Guardian (London)
April 8, 1995
MUFTI IQBAL'S SCHOOL FOR MARTYRS;
'Rent-a-jihad' groups are sending out Muslims, including foreigners,
to fight abroad. Benazir Bhutto must crack down on fundamentalism to
prove her pro-Western credentials, but dare not go too far. Kathy
Evans in Peshawar reports on her dilemma
By Kathy Evans
THE bearded mullah sat cross-legged on the floor, fingering his beard
thoughtfully. "No, money is not a problem. We have many supporters
and they help us keep the jihad going," Mufti Iqbal smiled.
Mufti Iqbal is the Karachi front man for Harakat al Ansar, one of
Pakistan's numerous "rent-a-jihad" services. It is his job to recruit
local volunteers, receive foreign Muslims, and send them on to jihads
of their choosing. It is one of Pakistan's growing businesses.
The focus of Harakat's attention is Kashmir, the slither of territory
claimed by both India and Pakistan. Liberating the Kashmiri Muslims
from the Indian yoke is a national cause in Pakistan shared by
government and the man in the street. Mufti Iqbal, himself an Afghan
jihad veteran, offers contacts to other causes and conflicts,
however.
"Our main objective is to help Muslims all over the world secure
their freedom. We have received thousands of volunteers to fight in
Kashmir, Bosnia, Tajikistan and Chechenia. Jihad is, after all, an
obligation on all Muslims."
It was through Harakat al Ansar's conduit for would-be martyrs that
the young east London Pakistani, Ahmed Sheikh, was reported to have
passed. The former London School of Economics student now faces
charges of kidnapping two British tourists in India. Mufti Iqbal, the
Karachi recruiter, denies any knowledge of him.
Harakat al Ansar says it has several hundred foreign Muslims who have
come to "learn". Among the volunteers are Pakistanis, black American
Muslims, Arabs, Indians, Afghans, and even one Canadian.
The movement's officials deny they offer military training, saying
such skills are acquired at the front line. But Western diplomats in
Karachi say they have a well-established camp in Miranshahr, a remote
area bordering neighbouring Afghanistan.
The rent-a-jihad service is just one of the avenues available in
Pakistan to young Muslims from all over the world who seek to grow in
their religion and get an insight into the growing list of conflicts
in which Muslims find themselves in, against oppressive
Western-backed governments and the Christian world.
For such Muslims, Pakistan offers a number of attractions. It is a
cheap, police are bribeable, arms all too easily available, and in
whole chunks of the country government officials rarely venture.
The tribal areas function as playgrounds for the heroin and weapons
mafia. Here you can buy vital necessities for a terrorist movement.
Moreover, some of the causes espoused by religious groups enjoy
government support.
Throughout the interview with Mufti Iqbal, a man sat beside him on
the floor, prompting his answers. He claimed he was from a Pakistani
news agency.
"It's the ISI man" laughed my local newspaper colleague as we left.
"He is his minder".
ISI is the acronym for the Inter-Services Intelligence, one of
Pakistan's main intelligence agencies. It has many rivals, but none
enjoys the covert power of the ISI. That power is the product of the
multi-billion-dollar war effort launched by the West at the beginning
of the eighties to fight communism in Afghanistan. Today, its main
focus is Kashmir.
Afghanistan was the West's last war against the Soviet Union. More
than $ 10 billion was ploughed into this "heroic" cause by the US,
Britain and Saudi Arabia.
An early agreement in the conflict between America's CIA and the ISI
made the Pakistani agency the sole channel for the billions of
dollars worth of arms to the jihad. This gave the agency an
unprecedented influence in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, which
lingers to this day. Headed by General Hamid Gul, working under
General Zia ul-Haq, ISI established the seven guerrilla groups known
as the mojahedin.
Today, the mojahedin groups have become little more than heroin
warlords.
In Pakistani internal politics, ISI functions as an instrument of the
government in power, drumming up evidence against opponents and
making and un-making political parties.
Embarrassingly, some of its creations are thought to be behind the
recent killing sprees in Karachi, including possibly the shooting
last month of two US embassy officials.
ISI's Afghan jihad operation was also a siren call to militant
Muslims in the Middle and Far East. The agency turned a blind eye to
the thousands who flocked to Afghanistan for military training.
Afghanistan became a playground for any disgruntled Muslim who felt
oppressed.
Today, veterans of the Afghan war dominate terrorist groups in
Algeria and Egypt, and they remain a latent and feared force in the
Gulf states.
A number of Arab veterans of the Afghan war are facing trial in New
York for suspected involvement in the bombing of the World Trade
Centre in 1993. The latest suspect to join them in the New York
courtroom is Ramzi Youssef, said to be the master bomber.
If Western intelligence sources are to be believed, Ramzi Youssef was
one of the world's most dangerous terrorists. However, it is still
unclear whether he is a Pakistani Baluch, a Kuwaiti or an Iraqi.
Since his arrest, many stories have grown up around him. He was known
to have travelled to Manila, allegedly to kill the Pope on his tour
there.
It is not just abroad that Youssef was allegedly active. Benazir
Bhutto, Pakistan's prime minister, told journalists last month that
he was also behind an attempt to assassinate her in 1993. Pakistani
press reports have linked him with the Sunni extremist group Sepah
Sehaba, believed to be behind dozens of killings of Shias in Karachi,
and also a bombing in Iran.
Today the Arab route to training grounds in Afghanistan has virtually
ceased to exist. Dozens of Arab mojahedin have been arrested and
hundreds more have fled.
It has become virtual grounds for arrest to be an Arab and an Afghan
veteran and still live in Pakistan.
It is not just Arabs who have been subjected to the police's tactic
of rounding up the usual suspects. Last week, offices of the region's
oldest and largest Islamic group, the Jamaat Islami, were raided in
the police effort to root out militants.
The crackdown on militants preceded the vital trip to the United
States this week by Ms Bhutto. For her, it is the most important trip
of her administration, one in which she will attempt to portray
herself as the only reliable partner Washington and the West has to
fight fundamentalism in the region.
Only last year, Pakistan narrowly avoided being put on the American
list of states sponsoring terrorism. But in the effort to clean
militants out of Pakistan and brush up the country's image, Ms Bhutto
risks all.
Gen Hamid Gul, the former head of ISI, warns that if these arrests
continue, a typhoon will hit Pakistan.
"What is a fundamentalist anyway? A man with a beard? If the state
machinery goes after what it calls extremists, then the reaction
could be very very nasty. Inflation, the effects of IMF policies - if
mixed with a danger to the faith - could be very dangerous for the
country," he says.
Naturally, the first beneficiary of such a backlash would be groups
Gen Gul is associated with. The former intelligence chief is said to
be a key figure behind the increasingly political campaign by the
former playboy-cricketer Imran Khan.
Another beneficiary of any reaction from Muslim groups is Ms Bhutto's
long-standing rival, the Lahore businessman Nawaz Sharif. Mr Sharif
has already been able to accuse her of attacking Islam to appease the
Americans. Unwittingly or not, Ms Bhutto has provided her opponents
with potent slogans.
It is not just on the parliamentary front that dangers lurk for Ms
Bhutto. Kashmir is a cause supported by both the ISI and the army,
two institutions which Ms Bhutto has to live with. India accuses both
of training and arming the Kashmiri militants. Western diplomats
believe that help is being organised by renegade elements in the ISI
and the army.
Figures such as Gen Gul continue to be admired in military circles
for their devotion to Islamic causes. In the past year, Ms Bhutto has
been trying to clean out Jamaat Islami sympathisers in the
intelligence service through her new ISI chief and loyalist, Javed
Ashraf.
Jamaat officials shrug off such changes, saying that in the end Ms
Bhutto has to do "her duty" towards Kashmir.
Publicly, Pakistani officials have consistently denied that they are
arming and training the militants. However, few Pakistanis would
bother to deny that the militants are able to buy weapons freely or
that they are helped to cross over to the Indian-controlled part of
Kashmir.
Any attack on these delicate covert mechanisms by Ms Bhutto would
lead to charges that the prime minister is not only against Islam but
against Pakistan's national cause, Kashmir. During the last 15 months
she has made her support for the cause a central platform from which
to reaffirm all her Islamic credentials. Rarely does she make a
speech without mentioning Kashmir and Islam in the same breath.
In private, her diplomats wonder why Pakistan cannot consider the
unthinkable third option - supporting total independence for
Kashmiris from both India and Pakistan. That way, they argue, the
fundamentalist groups and the role of the intelligence agencies, can
be wiped away in one go.
Gen Gul argues that if the West is really interested in curbing the
terrorism carried out in the name of Kashmir, it should try to
resolve the conflict, rather than fighting its symptoms.
Meanwhile, the prime minister's crackdown on militants is getting
closer to the groups and rent-a-jihad services that the Kashmir cause
has created. Ms Bhutto may find she can go only so far. It is a
dilemma which even her friends in Washington cannot help her with.
--
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...
Subject:
[COMMUNISM LIST]Fw: Very interesting article from 1999 about
Bin Laden
Date:
Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:10:23 +0100
From:
"Jeff Seaman" <scratcher11@...>
Reply-To:
communism@...
To:
<communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 3:31 PM
Subject: Very interesting article from 1999 about Bin Laden
I remember being struck by the tone of this article when it appeared.
It
suggests that Bin Laden is more the inspiration for terrorists than
their
mastermind, and that his grievances are focused on the US presence in
Saudi
Arabia. I had seen nothing like it in the mainstream media before, and
nothing since. Did anyone see the Frontline documentary related to this
article?
Steven Sherman
April 13, 1999, Tuesday
U.S. Hard Put to Find Proof Bin Laden Directed Attacks
By TIM WEINER
American commandos are poised near the Afghan border, hoping to capture
Osama
bin Laden, the man charged with blowing up two American embassies in
Africa
eight months ago, senior American officials say.
But they still do not know how to find him. They are depending on his
protectors in Afghanistan to betray him -- a slim reed of hope for one
of the
biggest and most complicated international criminal investigations in
American history.
Capturing Mr. bin Laden alive could deepen the complications. American
officials say that so far, firsthand evidence that could be used in
court to
prove that he commanded the bombings has proven difficult to obtain.
According to the public record, none of the informants involved in the
case
have direct knowledge of Mr. bin Laden's involvement.
For now, officials say, Federal prosecutors appear to be building a case
that
his violent words and ideas, broadcast from an Afghan cave, incited
terrorist
acts thousands of miles away.
In their war against Mr. bin Laden, American officials portray him as
the
world's most dangerous terrorist. But reporters for The New York Times
and
the PBS program ''Frontline,'' working in cooperation, have found him to
be
less a commander of terrorists than an inspiration for them.
Enemies and supporters, from members of the Saudi opposition to present
and
former American intelligence officials, say he may not be as globally
powerful as some American officials have asserted. But his message and
aims
have more resonance among Muslims around the world than has been
understood
here.
''You can kill Osama bin Laden today or tomorrow; you can arrest him and
put
him on trial in New York or in Washington,'' said Ahmed Sattar, an aide
to
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric convicted of
inspiring the
bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. ''If this will end the
problem --
no. Tomorrow you will get somebody else.''
Interviews with senior American officials and knowledgeable observers of
Mr.
bin Laden in Pakistan, Sudan and elsewhere suggest that there is
widespread
support among ordinary people in the Muslim world for his central
political
argument: that American troops should get out of Saudi Arabia. The
embassy
bombings, they note, took place eight years to the day after the G.I.'s
were
ordered onto Saudi soil.
The interviews also raise questions about key assertions that have been
made
by the Government about Mr. bin Laden. Senior intelligence officials
concede
that their knowledge of him is sketchy.
''We can't say for sure what was going on'' with him from 1991 to 1996
--
most of the years covered in the indictment -- one senior official said.
His Affluence Seems Overstated
Present and former American officials and former business associates of
Mr.
bin Laden say he appears to control only a fraction of the $250 million
fortune that the American Government says he possesses.
''Clearly, his money's running out,'' said Frank Anderson, a former
senior
Central Intelligence Agency official who maintains close Middle Eastern
contacts.
Larry Johnson, the State Department deputy counterterrorism director
from
1988 to 1993, said Administration officials had ''tended to make Osama
bin
Laden sort of a Superman in Muslim garb -- he's 10 feet tall, he's
everywhere, he knows everything, he's got lots of money and he can't be
challenged.''
Milton Bearden, a retired senior C.I.A. official who ran the agency's
war in
Afghanistan and retired in 1995, said the Government had ''created a
North
Star'' in Mr. bin Laden.
''He is public enemy No. 1,'' Mr. Bearden said. ''We've got a $5 million
reward out for his head. And now we have, with I'm not sure what
evidence,
linked him to all of the terrorist acts of this year -- of this decade,
perhaps.''
Political leaders in Sudan and Pakistan who have met Mr. bin Laden
describe
him as intelligent, soft-spoken, polite. They also say he is deadly
serious
about his violent brand of radical politics and capable of killing in
God's
name.
Mr. bin Laden was born into the ruling class of Saudi Arabia. His father
was
the favorite construction magnate of the Saudi royal family, who gave
Mr. bin
Laden's family huge contracts to renovate the holy cities of Mecca and
Medina
and build palaces for Saudi princes.
American officials calculated Mr. bin Laden's fortune by estimating the
family fortune at $5 billion and dividing by 20, the number of male
heirs.
But business associates of Mr. bin Laden said his family cut him off
years
ago and are managing his share of his inheritance for him as long as he
is
disowned. Business associates say that Mr. bin Laden has been living on
a
generous allowance from his eldest brother and that his assets in Saudi
Arabia are now frozen.
In 1980, at 22, Mr. bin Laden left Saudi Arabia and moved to the Afghan
frontier. In Peshawar, Pakistan -- working alongside, but never directly
allied with, the C.I.A. -- he used his money and his machines to help
the
Afghan rebels fight the Soviet Army invaders.
The Afghan war shaped Mr. bin Laden, those who know him say. ''He is an
ordinary person who is very religious,'' said President Omar Hassan
al-Bashir
of Sudan, who met Mr. bin Laden often from 1992 to 1996. ''He believes
in the
rule of Islam and where possible the establishment of an Islamic state.
The
time that he spent in Afghanistan led him to believe that this might be
achieved through military means.''
Legend has it that Mr. bin Laden fought bravely against Soviet troops.
But
former C.I.A. officers say he was a financier, not a warrior -- ''a
philanthropist supporting a number of health care, widows-and-orphans
charity
operations in Peshawar for Afghan refugees,'' as Mr. Anderson put it.
He also helped create a headquarters called Al Qaeda, the Base. It was a
way
station in Peshawar where Egyptian and Saudi volunteers rested before
setting
off for battle in Afghanistan. Its name became a kind of flag uniting
Mr. bin
Laden's followers. American officials call it a global terrorist
network.
When the Soviet forces left Afghanistan in 1989, Mr. bin Laden went home
to
Saudi Arabia. He soon set his sights on the last remaining superpower.
''He himself was very much wary about America,'' said Saad al-Faqih, a
Saudi
exile living in London, who worked as a surgeon for wounded Afghan
fighters,
''very skeptical about America and the Saudi regime.''
He found a new enemy on Aug. 7, 1990, when the United States began
sending
half a million soldiers to Saudi Arabia, preparing for war against Iraq.
''One of the stories put out by bin Laden is that he went to King Fahd
and
promised that he would raise holy warriors who would protect Saudi
Arabia,''
said Mr. Anderson, who was the chief of the C.I.A.'s Near East
operations in
the mid-1990's. ''His violent opposition to the Saudi royal family began
when
King Fahd denied or rejected that offer.''
Americans Painted As New Crusaders
To Mr. bin Laden the deployment of Americans in the land of Mecca and
Medina
smacked of the Crusades, the Christian religious wars against Islam that
began nine centuries ago. His rage transformed him into a stateless
outlaw.
In November 1991, Saudi intelligence officers caught Mr. bin Laden
smuggling
weapons from Yemen, his father's homeland. They withdrew his passport.
Soon
afterward he made his way to Sudan, which had decreed its borders open
to all
Muslims, with or without passports or visas.
Veterans of the Afghan jihad, or holy war, against Moscow followed Mr.
bin
Laden, under Al Qaeda's banner. But ''when Al Qaeda was moved to Sudan,
it
lost around 70 percent of its members,'' Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, accused
of
being an associate of Mr. bin Laden, said during an interrogation by the
German police after his arrest in September.
''This group didn't have a purpose except to carry out the jihad,'' Mr.
Salim
said, ''and since nobody carried out the jihad, it lost a lot of its
members.''
He Lived As an Investor
There were three kinds of men in Al Qaeda, he said. First, ''people who
had
no success in life, had nothing in their heads and wanted to join just
to
keep from falling on their noses.'' Second, ''people who loved their
religion
but had no idea what their religion really meant.'' And third, ''people
who
have nothing in their heads but to fight and solve all the problems in
the
world with battles.''
Mr. bin Laden lived in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, ''as an
investor,''
said President Bashir. ''With his money, he was adventurous, and
probably he
gained this mentality by his experiences as a fighter.''
The indictment against Mr. bin Laden says he provided training camps in
Sudan
where Afghan war veterans prepared for terrorist missions. But a senior
American intelligence official contradicted that, saying, ''There was
never a
bin Laden-financed training camp in Sudan.''
The official added: ''In 1993, '94, '95, he's managing and building up
his
legitimate business presence there in Sudan. I won't pretend we've got a
good
intelligence base on this period, but we think he was laying the
groundwork
for Al Qaeda.''
In 1995 two C.I.A. officers were stalked by teen-age followers of Mr.
bin
Laden in the streets of Khartoum. ''Bin Laden was approached by us and
was
told that this would not be tolerated,'' said Ghazi Salaheldin, the
Sudanese
Information Minister. Sudan expelled the teen-agers.
In the face of such perceived threats -- though some were mirages, based
on a
slew of false C.I.A. reports -- the United States withdrew from Sudan in
late
1995. The absence of American diplomats and spies in the country
diminished
Washington's ability to know what Mr. bin Laden was doing at the very
moment
he stepped up his political war.
In 1995, after the Saudi Government rescinded his citizenship, he began
sending scathing attacks on the royal family from Khartoum.
''Bin Laden took a chance and started doing some political activities,''
President Bashir said, ''not terrorist activities, but he started
issuing
political bulletins and communiques and faxes'' denouncing the Saudi
Government as corrupt and repressive.
The United States took notice. ''There had been confusion'' after the
World
Trade Center bombing about the nature of radical Islamic threats to the
United States, said Mr. Johnson, the former senior counterterrorism
official.
No Evidence To Implicate Him
''There were lots of theories, not very good intelligence, and so the
intelligence community actually started generating a picture that Osama
bin
Laden was, if you will, the new face of terrorism,'' he said.
On May 31, 1996, four Saudis were beheaded after confessing to bombing a
Saudi National Guard post in Riyadh and killing five Americans. All told
their interrogators that they had received Mr. bin Laden's communiques.
Only
25 days later, a truck bomb tore through a military post in Dhahran,
killing
19 American soldiers.
Mr. bin Laden was blamed by American officials for instigating the
attacks.
But no known evidence implicates him, and the Saudi Interior Minister,
Prince
Nayef ibn Abdel Aziz, has absolved him. ''Maybe there are people who
adopt
his ideas,'' Prince Nayef said. ''He does not constitute any security
problem
to us.''
Shortly before the Dhahran attack, Mr. bin Laden and members of his
entourage
left Sudan in a C-130 military transport plane. The Sudanese had asked
him to
leave -- at the request of the United States. Mr. bin Laden landed at an
American-built airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Three months later, on
Aug.
23, 1996, he declared war on the United States.
''The situation in Saudi Arabia is like a great volcano about to
erupt,'' his
declaration stated. ''Everyone talks openly about economic recession,
high
prices, debt'' and ''the filling up of the prisons.''
How Did He Control the Bombers?
Mr. bin Laden's criticisms of Saudi repression and corruption closely
corresponded with State Department reports and C.I.A. analyses. But Mr.
bin
Laden blamed the United States. ''The root of the problem is the
occupying
American enemy,'' he proclaimed, ''and all efforts should focus on
killing,
fighting and destroying it.''
A second, more ominous warning from him came on Feb. 23, 1998: ''To kill
Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual
duty of
every Muslim who is able, in any country where this is possible,'' until
American armies, ''shattered and broken-winged, depart from all the
lands of
Islam.''
Then came the embassy bombings last August. American authorities say the
men
who attacked the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were controlled by Mr.
bin
Laden. But they still have no clear idea how.
Despite efforts at the highest levels of the United States Government,
Mr.
bin Laden and his closest associates remain isolated in Afghanistan.
It is difficult to say precisely where the criminal case against Mr. bin
Laden stands. Prosecutors have obtained unusually restrictive court
orders
that bar the defendants and their lawyers from communicating with
virtually
anyone.
The Case Runs Out of Steam
Publicly, at least, the case has lost momentum. While two men suspected
of
being bombers were quickly apprehended, many other suspects are still at
large. The last arrest was more than six months ago. A spokesman for the
United States Attorney in Manhattan declined comment.
Now the hunt for Mr. bin Laden depends on whether the Taliban, his
radical
hosts in Afghanistan, will betray him. The United States has little
leverage
with the Taliban, and little fresh intelligence on how to capture Mr.
bin
Laden. It has no spies in Afghanistan and little new information on
precisely
how he might have instigated the deadly bombings.
''I do not have a clear picture yet of what happened when,'' said
Prudence
Bushnell, the United States Ambassador to Kenya, who was wounded in the
bomb
blast, which killed 12 of her colleagues. ''I may not ever have a clear
picture of what happened when. None of us may.''
A COLLABORATION
This article resulted from a collaboration between The New York Times
and the
PBS program ''Frontline,'' which will broadcast a documentary tonight
about
Osama bin Laden that will run on most PBS stations at 9 o'clock. The
''Frontline'' program was based on the work of Lowell Bergman,
correspondent,
Martin Smith, producer, and Orianna Zill and Ivana Damjanov, associate
producers.
ON THE WEB
Past coverage of Mr. bin Laden, the 1998 bombings of the American
embassies
in East Africa and the American response to terrorism is available from
The
New York Times on the Web:
www.nytimes.com/ international
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...
