Informazione
AUDIZIONI ALLA COMMISSIONE ESTERI DEL PARLAMENTO CANADESE -
SECONDA PARTE
In un precedente messaggio
( http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/79.html? )
abbiamo riportato alcune delle audizioni tenute ad Ottawa, alla Camera
dei Comuni, dinanzi allo Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and
International Trade da parte di varie personalita' ritenute a vario
titolo "informate sui fatti" riguardo alla aggressione della NATO contro
la Repubblica Federale di Jugoslavia.
Continuiamo ora con la seconda parte del contributo di SERGE TRIFKOVIC,
professore di storia, responsabile per gli esteri di "Chronicles -
Magazine of American Culture", e con il contributo di MICHAEL MANDEL,
professore di diritto alla Osgoode Hall Law School, York University,
Toronto, che insieme ad altri avvocati ha presentato denuncia contro la
NATO al Tribunale dell'Aia per i crimini commessi sul territorio della
ex-RFSJ. La denuncia giace, tuttora "insabbiata", in qualche cassetto di
Carla dal Ponte.
Tutti i documenti sono stati diffusi dalla lista stopnat-@...
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Subject: Srdja Trifkovic in Ottawa House of Commons - Pt.
2
Trifkovic in Ottawa House of Commons - Pt. 2
HOUSE OF COMMONS - CHAMBRE DES COMMUNES
STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL
TRADE -
COMITE PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES ETRANGERES ET DU
COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL
UNEDITED COPY - COPIE NON EDITEE
• 0927 EVIDENCE
[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Ottawa, Thursday, February 17, 2000
[English]
The Chairman (Mr. Bill Graham (Toronto Centre-Rosedale, Lib.)):
Colleagues, I'm going to call this meeting to order. So I'll ask the
people at the back of the room if they're going to have conversations to
go outside. I'm going to ask Ms. Swann from the Ottawa Serbian Heritage
Society if She could go first. Then we'll put Mr. Trifkovic. Mr. Dyer
hasn't arrived yet. I just want to warn everybody it may be a bit
chaotic
this morning. I'm not saying it isn't always chaotic but it may be more
chaotic than usual because we may be called for votes and this happened
the last time. So I apologize to the witnesses first if we're called out
of the room for votes. It just seems to be a bit- The House seems dans
un
peu de perturbation comme on dirait peut-être dans la langue française,
n'est-ce pas, and so we'll just have to deal with that if it occurs.
Otherwise we'll go on. But I'd ask the witnesses if you keep yourself To
10 minutes each and then we'll move to questions. [...] Mr. Trifkovic...
Mr. Serge Trifkovic (Individual Presentation): [... Text of presentation
as previously distributed... Transcript of ensuing Q&A follows herewith]
The Chairman: Thank you, sir. [... A member asked if it was preferable
to
have a world court to deal with human rights violations, or ad-hoc
tribunals for individual crisis areas...]
Ms. Serge Trifkovic: I was somewhat puzzled by the clear-cut choice
between the WCC [World Criminal Court] and ad hoc tribunals as the only
alternatives we are facing. To me it sounds a bit like the choice
between
cancer and leukemia. I do not believe that bureaucratically structured
and
politically motivated international quasi-judicial bodies are either
desirable or feasible. In any proper sense a "tribunal" is an impartial
forum for administration of justice. If the kangaroo court that goes by
the name of The Hague Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia is any indicator, I
think the lesson of that particular body is that its model of justice is
Moscow 1938, and not Nuremberg in 1946. It was formed on a purely
political agenda by the Security Council, on the basis of Chapter 7. The
way it has acted, in terms of its procedures, its rule of evidence and
finally the selection of people to be indicted and prosecuted - and also
its refusal to indict and prosecute people who at prima facie should be,
such as the leaders of the 19 NATO countries -only indicates that it is
a
political body par excellence. There is no reason at all why a WCC would
be any different because, obviously, if you have the likes of Clinton
and
Blair deciding what is "necessary" and "feasible" in terms of
intervention, ultimately they would be deciding what is "necessary" and
"feasible" in terms of prosecution. The kind of political discipline in
the world that this would impose is eerily reminiscent of the Brave New
World of Huxley or "1984." I suspect that bodies such as the ones that
you
are mentioning will only take us a step further in the direction of
global totalitarianism in which the local and national traditions of law
and justice and jurisprudence- which are meaningful because they have
evolved within the context of a genuine, authentic national culture-
will
be replaced by something that is global, something that is allegedly
universal and, therefore, of necessity, ideological.
The Chair: Okay. I'm sorry, we're going to have to move on. It's a very
fascinating discussion. • 1025 [English] I've got to leave with with the
thought that you've always got to answer alternatives so I'll come to
you
and ask "What's your alternative". My alternative is that there's going
to
be United States imperial courts applying their jurisdiction around the
world to enforce it, so that may be worse for you. Anyway, that's just-
Mr. Serge Trifkovic: My alternative is to rediscover the beauty of a
society of nations in which enlightened national interests, based upon
the
Golden Rule of "I will not deny to anyone what I am asking for myself",
will be the basis of law and the basis of international relations. I am
not claiming that it was a long-lost golden age in Europe between
1815-1914, that we ought to yearn for in terms of reactionary nostalgia.
I'm simply saying that what we are offered as a replacement in the
Blairites' and Clintonistas' brave new world is infinitely worse and
infinitely more frightening.
Mr. Chuck Strahl: Well, you asked.
The Chair: I asked, and that may be.We're going to go to Ms. Augustine
and
then we're going back to Mr. Strahl and Mr. Robinson.
Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[...]
I am grappling with what is the future of Kosovo, is it going to be an
international protectorate? Is it going to be an entity no longer linked
[to Serbia-Yugoslavia]? [...]
Mr. Serge Trifkovic: I would like to make a few comments about the
future because we keep forgetting the broad picture, what will happen in
the long term. The Kosovo crisis is primarily the result of the U.S.
involvement In the Kosovo situation. Until the moment Dick Holbrooke
decided that this was something they would tackle in a big way, it was -
I
insist - a low-level, unremarkable conflict, the likes of which we see
all
over the world, all of the time. At the moment there is a whole series
of
geopolitical reasons why the Washington administration wants to be
involved in the Balkans. I'm afraid we have no time to go into those in
any detail. But the important thing for the members of this Committee to
remember is that you shouldn't take the "humanitarian" and other alibis
as
face value. You should always assume that there is an agenda behind it.
One of them is to have a U.S. foothold in the European mainland that
will
not be subject to the ups-and-downs of the trans-Atlantic relationship,
so
that if and when the Germans, the French and others decide to create a
European Defence structure that will gradually detach West Europeans
from
NATO, which will ultimately lead to the closure of U.S. bases in Naples
and in Frankfurt and in Munich, there will be the assets in Skopje, and
in
Pristina, and in Tuzla, that will provide both the physical and the
political and military U.S. presence that will not be affected by such a
change in the relationship. When I say there are geopolitical reasons
which have a logic of their own, I am not claiming that in this
particular
case we can establish a definite sequence of events. • 1105 [English]
I'm
simply saying that humanitarian and moralistic claims by themselves are
neither a sufficient nor necessary explanation. In order to look at
Kosovo
in the longer term we have to ask the question: what will happen if and
when the United States administration after Clinton, or even after
whoever
comes after Clinton, loses interest in the Balkans? At the moment
they're
creating the demand for their involvement by creating a whole series of
small, fragmented and unviable units that, by themselves, have neither
the
political, nor cultural, nor historic meaning - such as Dayton-Bosnia,
such as Kosovo, such as, tomorrow maybe, Sanjak or Montenegro, Vojvodina
or whatever. If and when the presence of the underwriters in the Balkans
are removed, we will have another bout of Hobbesian free-for-all. And
that
is the tragedy of it all, because what is being done right now is not
the
foundation for a solid, just and durable peace, but just an
improvization
on an ad-hoc basis. It bears no relation to history, no relation to the
continuity of the political and cultural development in that part of
the
world, but satisfies the needs of the moment. I'm saying this not as
someone born in Serbia, but someone who is trying to look at the
political
essence of the problem - that so far the U.S. administration has
followed
the principle that all of the ethnic groups in the area can be satisfied
at the expense of the Serbs. The result is a sort of Carthaginian peace
imposed upon the Serbian nation that will create a constant source of
revanchist resentment among the Serbs, and determination to turn the
tables once Uncle Sam loses interest. I feel that there will be a war
again: the Serbs will fight to return Kosovo to their own rule, because
they feel Kosovo to have been unjustly detached. And so, whatever
scenario
the people in Brussels, London, Washington, Ottawa, or Bonn decide for
Kosovo today, it will not be worth the paper it's written on if it
doesn't
bear any relation to the geopolitical realities in the long term, and
those realities are fairly simple. You will not be able to impose
something called "multicultural" Kosovo, "multi-ethnic" Kosovo if people
on the ground - and I have primarily the Albanians in mind - are
determined to have a mono-ethnic Kosovo. By including 25% Serbian
members
in any quasi-representative bodies you introduce, you will not re-invent
a
"multi-ethnic Kosovo" in which grannies are able to return to their
apartments. At the moment the only way people in Kosovo will feel safe
and
secure living in their communities is if you have a de facto petition.
Whether it is accompanied by a constitutional and political model that
will sanctify that partition is neither here nor there. But in the long
term you have to realize that an imposed "peace" on the Serb nation that
does not take into account the legitimate interests of the Serbs, that
does not take into account the sort of give and take in which each party
will feel that it has lost something as well as gained something, will
be
unviable, will be unjust, and will be - in the long term - the source of
another conflict.
The Chairman: Okay. [...]
Mr. Chuck Strahl: I'm going to pass to Mr. Robinson, but before I do, I
understand, Prof Trifkovic, you must leave shortly to catch a plane to
Europe- Mr. Serge Trifkovic: Actually, to Chicago- Mr. Chuck Strahl: To
Chicago. Mr. Serge Trifkovic: -and change to the plane for Amsterdam.
Mr.
Chuck Strahl: Right. Mr. Serge Trifkovic: I can stay for another 10
minutes. Mr. Chuck Strahl: Okay. When you're comfortable to leave just
leave. I want to say, then if you just do get up and go- Mr. Serge
Trifkovic: There will be no tears shed. Mr. Chuck Strahl: No. There will
be tears. They may be crocodile. They may be joy, who knows? But
certainly
I just want to say we appreciate very much you taking the time to come.
There's no doubt about it being a very interesting intervention. Please,
when you have to go, just feel free to get up and go and don't think us
rude if we don't properly acknowledge your very important contribution.
Thank you, sir. Mr. Robinson. Mr. Svend Robinson: I'm afraid I'll have
to
leave around the same time. I'm not sure if the tears will be quite as
intense, but- The Chair: If the tears are shed- Some hon. members: Ha,
ha.
The Chair: Mr. Robinson, the tears are shed when you arrive, not when
you
leave.
Mr. Svend Robinson: I just had two questions, I guess for Mr. Trifkovic
and Ms. Swann, in particular. First, I wonder if you could just perhaps
elaborate a bit on some of the concerns around the current situation in
Pancevo and what your knowledge is of the situation in Pancevo. I had
the
opportunity to visit there and
The situation had the potential of being an environmental disaster. I'm
just wondering what the current analysis is of the outcome of the
bombing
in that area and what sort of testing has been done, for example, of the
environment, the water, the air and so on. Because there were serious
concerns about that. My second question, again to both of you. I wonder
if
you could talk a little bit about • 1120 [English] about the
responsibility of Serbs in Kosovo for wrongdoing. The United Nations
High
Commission on Refugees documented quite powerfully a major exodus of
Kosovar Albanians before March 24. I'm sure you're familiar with those
reports. You've seen those reports. Figures as many as 90,000 who had
left
their homes, left their villages. After the bombing started, did the
bombing exacerbate the flow of people. I have no doubt that it did.
Certainly a number of people who I spoke with pointed out how in some
cases Serbs on the ground were pointing up into the sky and saying you
were responsible for NATO. They felt that they were under siege from the
KLA, the NATO bombs and obviously when people are defenceless on the
ground they're totally vulnerable. It was a coward's war in many
respects,
but nevertheless people were driven out in huge numbers. Hundreds of
thousands of people left and were driven out. I was on a road from
Pristina down to the border with Macedonia, went through village after
village which were like ghost towns, houses had been burned to the
ground
in many cases and there's culpability for that and I want to hear from
you, both of you, some acknowledgement that yes we have to deal with
this
as well as part of the reckoning that must come out of this tragic
series
of events.
Mr. Serge Trifkovic: I'll deal with the second one and then I'll have to
go. I think the important thing to bear in mind in the Balkans is there
are no white hats and black hats and that's the fundamental problem that
we have faced with the coverage of the war in the media, and with
quasi-academic analysis, and with political decision-making. Very early
on
in this conflict an overall perception of the culpability of the Serbs
for
the Krajina, Bosnia and Kosovo was created even though very often the
reasons the Serbs reacted in the Krajina are very similar to the reasons
the Albanians reacted in Kosovo and vice versa. In some cases, the Serbs
were de facto separatists, wanting to secede from the separating entity.
In other times, they were the unitarists. In both cases they were deemed
wrong. But if you try to quantify the evil on all sides, it's impossible
to say that the Serbs proved qualitatively, fundamentally worse than
other
groups. Right now the Serbs constitute the largest refugee population
outside sub-Saharan Africa. To say that the Serbs have done evil things
is
almost a truism because in the Balkan imbroglio all sides have done very
evil things. If you want the Serbs to beat their chests and shout mea
culpa, well indeed, maybe they should because the Patriarch warned them
against
adopting some of the techniques and some of the feelings of their
enemies as they experienced them in 1941 to 1945 in the so-called
independent state of Croatia. [...] If this was the war to return the
Albanians, or in the memorable words of the then-British defence
minister
"Serbs out, Albanians back, NATO in", nobody is talking about "Serbs
back"
in Kosovo these days... a quarter of a million displaced Serbs and other
non-Albanians under NATO, in the aftermath of NATO's victory. So I will
be
the first to admit that the Serbs have done bad things just as everybody
else has done bad things; but it doesn't mean we are now going to ask
the
question how deserving are the Croats of being bombed • 1125 [English]
because they contributed "collectively" to the exodus of a quarter of a
million Serbs from the Krajina? How deserving are the Muslims of
castigation and bombing because right now, the whole of Sarajevo-until
1991, the second largest Serbian town after Belgrade - is Serbenfrei?.
If
we are to re-establish a modicum of reality in this debate, we have to
bear in mind that human fallibility and human culpability is not the
exclusive prerogative of anyone single ethnic group. Thank you.
Mr. Svend J. Robinson: Mr. Dyer, were you wanting to comment?
Mr. Gwynn Dyer: I was particularly struck by the use of the word
"Serbenfrei" to describe the Serbian authorities' removal of the Serbian
population of Sarajevo after the Dayton Accords. There were Serbians in
that city who were driven from their homes by the Serbian police. I was
there; I saw it. The idea that the Albanian Muslims and the Bosnian
Muslims and the Croats bear equal responsibility-all of them have done
bad
things. Of course bad things happen in war but neither the total of
refugees nor the total of dead nor the evidence of massacre suggests in
any way that there is shared responsibility equally indistinguishably
among the ethnic groups of the Balkans. Now this may be to some extent
because the Serbs inherited the heavy weapons of the Yugoslav army and
had
the ability to do more damage; I recognize that. The Bosnian Muslims
didn't have heavy artillery to shell Serbian villages as the Serbs did
to
shell Sarajevo. But I do find the line of argument which suggests that
there can be no distinguished distinction between Vukovar and Srebrenica
on the one hand, and the Krajina on the other hand. The Krajina Mark Two
-
when it was the Serbs who lost their homes - rather Mark One, when it
was
the Croatian inhabitants who were driven. I think is a travesty.
Mr. Serge Trifkovic: To claim that the Krajina is less of a crime than
"Srebrenica," even though the Krajina resulted in between 9 thousand and
12 thousand Serbian deaths, is a very curious argument, both morally and
intellectually. But in particular, I find it reprehensible that Kosovo
is
still referred to as a "massacre" because "the Kosovo massacre" is one
of
the biggest lies, media-mediated political lies of the decade, if not
the
century. In perspective, when a few decades pass, it will belong to the
same category as the bayonetted Belgian babies by the Kaiser's army in
1914. [...]
----
House of Commons-Canada
Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Tuesday February 22, 2000
Testimony of Professor Michael Mandel
Personal Note
Allow me to tell you a little bit about myself and how I became involved
in this. I am a professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School where I have
taught for 25 years. I specialize in criminal law and comparative
constitutional law with an emphasis on domestic and foreign tribunals,
including United Nations tribunals such as the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. I have no personal interest in the
conflict in Yugoslavia – I have no Serbs or Albanians in my family and I
am not being paid by anyone. I became involved in this as a Canadian
lawyer who witnessed a flagrant violation of the law by my government
with unspeakably tragic results for innocent people of all the Yugoslav
ethnicities. I became involved as a Jew appalled by the grotesque and
deliberate misuse of the Holocaust to justify the killing and maiming of
innocent people for what I am convinced were purely self-interested
motives, the farthest thing from humanitarianism, in a cynical attempt
to manipulate the desire of Canadians to help their fellows on the other
side of the world.
Illegality of the War
The first thing to note about NATO's war against Yugoslavia is that it
was flatly illegal both in the fact that it was ever undertaken and in
the way it was carried out. It was a gross and deliberate violation of
international law and the Charter of the United Nations. The Charter
authorizes the use of force in only two situations: self-defence or when
authorized by the Security Council.
The United Nations Charter provides in so far as is relevant:
Article 2
3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful
means in such a manner that international peace and security, and
justice, are not endangered.
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the
threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political
independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the
Purposes of the United Nations.
Article 33
The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to
endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall,
first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation,
conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional
agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.
Article 37
1. Should the parties to a dispute of the nature referred to in Article
33 fail to settle it by the means indicated in that Article, they shall
refer it to the Security Council.
2. If the Security Council deems that the continuance of the dispute is
in fact likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and
security, it shall decide whether to take action under Article 36 or to
recommend such terms of settlement as it may consider appropriate.
Article 39
The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the
peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make
recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance
with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and
security.
Article 41
The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of
armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it
may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures.
These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations
and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of
communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.
Article 42
Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in
Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may
take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to
maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may
include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or
land forces of Members of the United Nations.
Article51
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of
individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against
a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken
measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.
Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence
shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in
any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council
under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems
necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and
security;
The jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice is also clear.
For instance, it stated in its ruling against United States intervention
in Nicaragua:
In any event, while the United States might form its own appraisal of
the situation as to respect for human rights in Nicaragua, the use of
force could not be the appropriate method to monitor or ensure such
respect. With regard to the steps actually taken, the protection of
human rights, a strictly humanitarian objective, cannot be compatible
with the mining of ports, the destruction of oil installations, or again
with the training, arming and equipping of the contras.
[CASE CONCERNING THE MILITARY AND PARAMILITARY ACTIVITIES IN AND AGAINST
NICARAGUA (NICARAGUA v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA) (MERITS) Judgment of
27 June 1986, I.C.J. Reports, 1986, p.134-135, paragraphs 267 and 268]
It should also be noted that the preliminary decision of the World Court
last year in Yugoslavia's case against 10 NATO countries, including
Canada, does not in the slightest contradict this. As Mr. Matas has
pointed out to you in his statement, this decision was taken on purely
jurisdictional grounds, first the United States' shameful refusal to
recognize the World Court's jurisdiction in general, and second Canada's
objection to jurisdiction in this specific case. But it is worth quoting
some paragraphs from the decision of the Court:
15. Whereas the Court is deeply concerned with the human tragedy, the
loss of life, and the enormous suffering in Kosovo which form the
background of the present dispute, and with the continuing loss of life
and human suffering in all parts of Yugoslavia;
16. Whereas the Court is profoundly concerned with the use of force in
Yugoslavia; whereas under the present circumstances such use raises very
serious issues of international law;
17. Whereas the Court is mindful of the purposes and principles of the
United Nations Charter and of its own responsibilities in the
maintenance of peace and security under the Charter and the Statue of
the court;
18. Whereas the Court deems it necessary to emphasize that all parties
appearing before it must act in conformity with their obligations under
the United Nations Charter and other rules of international law,
including humanitarian law.
[CASE CONCERNING LEGALITY OF USE OF FORCE (YUGOSLAVIA V. CANADA)
International Court of Justice, 2 June 1999]
To sum up, in the case of NATO's war on Yugoslavia, neither of the two
exclusive bases for the use of force (Security Council authorization or
self-defence) was even claimed by NATO.
As a violation of the United Nations Charter, the attack on Yugoslavia
was also a violation of the NATO Treaty itself and Canada's own domestic
law.
The NATO Treaty (1949), so far as is relevant, reads as follows:
[Preamble]: The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the
purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their
desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments.
Article 1: The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the
United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be
involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and
security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their
international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner
inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.
Article 7: This treaty does not affect, and shall not be interpreted as
affecting in any way the rights and obligations under the Charter of the
Parties which are members of the United Nations, or the primary
responsibility of the Security Council for the maintenance of
international peace and security.
The Canada Defence Act, in so far as relevant reads as follows:
31. (1) The Governor in Council may place the Canadian forces or any
component, unit or other element thereof or any officer or
non-commissioned member thereof on active service anywhere in or beyond
Canada at any time when it appears advisable to do so
(a) by reason of an emergency, for the defence of Canada; or
(b) in consequence of any action undertaken by Canada under the United
Nations Charter, the North Atlantic treaty or any other similar
instrument for collective defence that may be entered into by Canada.
The war's illegality is not disputed by any legal scholar of repute,
even those who had some sympathy for the war, for instance Mr. Mendes in
his presentation to this Committee. Of course, Mr. Mendes calls this a
"fatal flaw" in the UN Charter. I don't believe it is a flaw at all, for
reasons I'll elaborate. But I don't think the seriousness of this can be
glossed over one bit: the flagrant violation of the law by our
government is no small thing. Democracy is quite simply meaningless if
governments feel they can violate the law with impunity.
Humanitarian Justification
We all know that the leaders of the NATO countries sought to justify
this war as a humanitarian intervention in defence of a vulnerable
population, the Kosovar Albanians, threatened with mass atrocities.
A lot turns on this claim, but not the illegality of the war. In fact,
the reason why there is such unanimity among scholars on the illegality
of this war is that there is no "humanitarian exception" under
international law or the United Nations Charter. That does not mean that
there are no means for the international community to intervene to
prevent or stop humanitarian disasters, even to use force where
necessary. It just means that the use of force for humanitarian purposes
has been totally absorbed in the UN Charter. A state must be able to
demonstrate the humanity of its proposed intervention to the Security
Council, including, of course, the five permanent members possessing a
veto. Nor has the Security Council shown itself to be incapable of
acting in these situations. It issued numerous resolutions authorizing
action in this conflict (Resolutions 1160, 1199, and 1203 of 1998 and
Resolutions 1239 and 1244 of 1999, the last of which brought an end to
the bombing). The Security Council has also shown itself capable of
authorizing the use of force, for example its authorization of "all
necessary means" to restore the sovereignty of Kuwait in Resolution 678
of November 29, 1990, which gave Iraq until January 15, 1991 to
withdraw. Bombing by the Americans commenced on January 16.
But NATO did not even move a Resolution before the Security Council over
Kosovo. Nor did it use the alternative means of demonstrating to the
international community the necessity for its use of force in the
General Assembly's Uniting for Peace Resolution (1950), which allows the
General Assembly recommend action to the Security Council if 2/3 of
those present and voting agree:
[The General Assembly] Resolves that if the Security Council, because of
lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its
primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and
security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace,
breach of the peace or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall
consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate
recommendations to Members for collective measures, including in the
case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed
force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and
security."
There are two basic reasons why these procedures were not utilized by
NATO in this case. In the first place, the most plausible explanation of
this whole war was that it was, at its foundation, nothing less than an
attempt by the United States, through NATO, to overthrow the authority
of the United Nations. In the second place, NATO could never have
demonstrated a humanitarian justification for what it was doing, because
it had none.
In law, as in morals, it is not enough for a humanitarian justification
to be claimed, it must also be demonstrated. To use an odious example,
but one which makes the point clearly enough, Hitler himself used a
humanitarian justification for invading Poland and unleashing World War
II: he claimed he was doing it to protect the German minority from
oppression by the Poles.
In the case of NATO, what had to be justified as a humanitarian
intervention was a bombing campaign that, in dropping 25,000 bombs on
Yugoslavia, directly killed between 500 and 1800 civilian children,
women and men of all ethnicities and permanently injured as many others;
a bombing campaign that caused 60 to100 billion dollars worth of damage
to an already impoverished country; a bombing campaign that directly and
indirectly caused a refugee crisis of enormous proportions, with about 1
million fleeing Kosovo during the bombing; a bombing campaign that
indirectly caused the death of thousands more, by provoking the brutal
retaliatory and defensive measures that are inevitable when a war of
this kind and intensity is undertaken, and by giving a free hand to
extremists on both sides to vent their hatred. What also has to be
justified is the ethnic cleansing that has occurred in Kosovo since the
entry of the triumphant KLA, fully backed by NATO's might, which has
seen hundreds of thousands of Serb (and Roma and Jewish) Kosovars driven
out and hundreds murdered, a murder rate that is about 10 times the
Canadian rate per capita.
These results were to be expected and they were predicted by NATO's
military and political advisers in their very careful planning of the
war which went back more than a year before the bombing commenced.
A humanitarian justification would have to show that this disaster was
outweighed by a greater disaster that was about to happen and would have
happened but for this intervention. The evidence for this, which must be
carefully scrutinized by this Committee, is meagre to say the least.
Nobody could seriously maintain that the conditions for a repeat of the
Bosnian bloodbath were there: this was not an all out civil war with
well-armed parties of roughly equal strength on each side and huge
ethnic enclaves fighting for their existence. These conditions simply
did not exist in Kosovo.
Nor did the facts indicate a humanitarian disaster would have occurred
but for NATO's bombing. A total of 2,000 people had been killed on both
sides in the prior two years of fighting between the KLA and the Serbs,
and violence was declining with the presence of UN observers. The
alleged massacre of 45 ethnic Albanians at Racak must be regarded with
the greatest suspicion, not only because of the circumstances, but also
because of involvement of the American emissary Mr. William Walker, with
his history of covert and illegal activities on behalf of the Americans
in Latin America.
Nor is the Report recently released by the OSCE of much value in
assessing the situation, since it was written and paid for by the NATO
countries themselves.
Even more importantly, the evidence is overwhelming that NATO did not
make serious efforts at averting a disaster and was not at all serious
about peace.
If we look at the Rambouillet negotiations, a number of perplexing
questions are raised: Why was the irredentist and insurrectionary KLA
preferred as the NATO interlocutor to the only popularly elected leader,
the moderate Ibrahim Rugova? Why, for that matter was Rugova ignored
during the war? Why did the US insist on a secret annex to the
Rambouillet Accord (Annex B) that would have allowed it to occupy all of
Serbia? Why did the final peace agreement look so much like what the
Serbs had agreed to before the bombing? Do we really think that NATO
could not have put the 10 billion dollars of bombs it dropped to working
out and under-writing a peace agreement that would have accommodated and
protected all sides if it were interested in humanity and not war? Why
are NATO countries so unwilling to spend money on reconstruction of
Kosovo, claiming that they have run out of money with less than one
billion dollars spent?
And where, to resolve these enormous doubts about whether NATO acted out
of humanitarian motives this time, is the evidence that these people
have ever acted from humanitarian motives before? With such huge holes
in its argument, we are entitled to cross-examine the leopard on his
spots. What about the failure to intervene with force in Rwanda? What
about the United States' own bankrolling of the repressive Suharto
regime in Indonesia? What about Turkey's violent repression of the
Kurds, a humanitarian disaster that has claimed 30,000 lives, not 2,000?
What about the United States itself? The richest country in the world
which creates social conditions so violent and racist that its normal
murder rate is in the realm of 20,000 per year, almost as high, per
capita as Kosovo right now - a country that puts 2 or 3 of its own
people to death by lethal injection every week. NATO has no humanitarian
lessons to teach the world.
Finally and very importantly, we must ask some serious questions about
the way in which this supposed humanitarian intervention was handled.
With the Kosovars supposedly in the hands of genocidal maniacs, NATO
gave 5 days warning between the withdrawal of the observers and the
launch of the attack. This was followed by seven days of bombing that
mostly ignored Kosovo itself. In other words, an invitation to genocide
that was not accepted, but one that was guaranteed to produce a refugee
flow to legitimate a massive bombing campaign.
As Ambassador Bissett told this committee last week, that NATO leaders
have no respect for the truth should startle no one. What of the claim
by Jamie Shea that it was the Serbs who bombed the Albanian refugee
convoy (until the independent journalists found bomb fragments "made in
U.S.A.")? What of the claim by a NATO general, with video up on the
screen, that the passenger train on the Grdelica bridge was going too
fast to avoid being hit (until somebody pointed out that the video had
been speeded up to three times its real speed)? What of the claim that
the Chinese Embassy was bombed because NATO's maps were out of date? Let
alone the claims by Mr. Clinton (and Mrs. Clinton) and Mr. Cohen that a
"Holocaust" was occurring in which perhaps 100,000 Kosovar men had been
murdered (until the bombing was over and the numbers dwindled to 2,108 -
and we have yet to be told who they were or how they died).
In fact most people in the world simply did not believe NATO's claim of
humanitarianism. A poll taken in mid-April and published by The
Economist shows that this was a very unpopular war, opposed by perhaps
most of the world's population both outside and inside the NATO
alliance.( "Oh what a lovely war!", The Economist, April 24, 1999
showing more than a third opposed in Canada, Poland, Germany, France and
Finland, almost an even split in Hungary, an even split in Italy and a
majority opposed in the Czech Republic, Russia and Taiwan) A poll taken
in Greece between April 29th and May 5th showed 99.5% against the war,
85% believing NATO's motives to be strategic and not humanitarian, and,
most importantly, 69% in favour of charging Bill Clinton with war
crimes, 35.2% for charging Tony Blair and only 14% for charging Slobodan
Milosevic, not far from the 13% in favour of charging NATO General
Wesley Clark and the 9.6% for charging NATO Secretary General Javier
Solana.( "Majority in Greece wants Clinton tried for war crimes", The
Irish Times, May 27, 1999).
Much more plausible than the humanitarian thesis is the one that the
United States deliberately provoked this war, that it deliberately
exploited and exacerbated another country's tragedy - a tragedy partly
of its own creation (we should not forget that the West's aggressive and
purely selfish economic policies that have beggared Yugoslavia over the
last ten years). NATO exists to make war, not peace. The arms industry
exists to make profits from dropping bombs. And the United States, by
virtue of its military might dominates NATO the way it does not dominate
the United Nations. The most plausible explanation then is that this
attack was not about the Balkans at all. It was an attempt to overthrow
the authority of the United Nations and make NATO, and therefore the
United States, the world's supreme authority, to establish the
"precedent" that NATO politicians have been talking about since the
bombing stopped. To give the United States the free hand that the United
Nations does not, in its conflicts with the Third World and its
rivalries with Russia, China and even Europe.
In other words, this was not a case of the United Nations being an
obstacle to humanitarianism. It was a case of using a flimsy pretext of
humanitarianism to overthrow the United Nations.
Not only was this an illegal war that had no humanitarian justification.
It was a war pursued by illegal means. According to admissions made in
public throughout the war (for instance during NATO briefings),
according to eye-witness reports and according to powerful
circumstantial evidence displayed on the world's television screens
throughout the bombing campaign -- evidence good enough to convict in
any criminal court in the world - these NATO leaders deliberately and
illegally made targets of places and things with only tenuous or slight
military value or no military value at all. Places such as city bridges,
factories, hospitals, marketplaces, downtown and residential
neighbourhoods, and television studios. The same evidence shows that, in
doing this, the NATO leaders aimed to demoralize and break the will of
the people, not to defeat its army.
The American group Human Rights Watch has just issued a lengthy report
documenting a systematic and massive violation of international
humanitarian law by NATO in Yugoslavia. They estimate the civilian
victims to be about 500. This figure should be taken as a minimum
because it is a number Human Rights watch says it can independently
confirm and that can be attributed directly to the bombing. It excludes
persons known to be killed as an indirect result of the bombing. Every
benefit of the doubt is given to NATO, a fact exemplified by the
Report's puzzling and actually undefended distinction between these
grave "violations of humanitarian law" and "war crimes". Human rights
Watch has also documented the use of anti-personnel cluster bombs in
attacks on civilian targets.
The reason these civilian targets are illegal is that civilians are very
likely to be killed or injured when such targets are hit. And all of the
NATO leaders knew that. They were carefully told that by their military
planners. And they still went ahead and did it.
And they did it without any risk to themselves or to their soldiers and
pilots. That's why this war was called a "coward's war". The cowardice
lay in fighting the civilian population and not the military, in bombing
from altitudes so high that the civilians, Serbians, Albanians, Roma,
and anybody else on the ground, bore all the risks of the "inevitable
collateral damage".
War Crimes Charges before the International Tribunal
But the fact that this war was illegal and unjustified has further very
serious implications. Mr. Chretien, Mr. Axworthy and Mr. Eggleton, along
with all the other NATO leaders, planned and executed a bombing campaign
that they knew was illegal and that they knew would cause the death and
permanent injury of thousands of civilian children women and men. Hard
as it is for us to accept, or even to say, killing hundreds or thousands
of civilians knowingly and without lawful excuse is nothing less than
mass murder. Milosevic was indicted in The Hague for 385 victims. The
total victims of the 98 people executed for murder in the United States
in 1999 was 129. Our leaders killed between 500 and 1800.
That is why, starting in April of last year and continuing to the
present day, dozens of lawyers and law professors, a pan-American
association representing hundreds of jurists, some elected legislators,
and thousands of private citizens from around the world, have lodged
formal complaints with the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague
charging NATO leaders with war crimes.
The particular complaint I am involved in was filed in May, 1999 and
names 68 individuals, including all the heads of government, foreign
ministers and defense ministers of the 19 NATO countries (including US
President Clinton, Secretaries Cohen and Albright, Canadian Prime
Minister Chretien, Ministers Axworthy and Eggleton and so on down the
list), and the highest ranking NATO officials, from then Secretary
General Javier Solana, through Generals Wesley Clark, Michael Short, and
official spokesman Jamie Shea.
The charges against them include the following:
Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, contrary to
article 2 of the Statue of the Tribunal, namely the following acts
against persons or property protected under the provisions of the
relevant Geneva Convention: (a) wilful killing; (c) wilfully causing
great suffering or serious injury to body or health; (d) extensive
destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military
necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
Violations of the laws or customs of war, contrary to Article 3 namely:
(a) employment of poisonous weapons or other weapons to cause
unnecessary suffering; (b) wanton destruction of cities, towns or
villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity; (c)
attack, or bombardment, by whatever means, of undefended towns,
villages, dwellings, or buildings;(d) seizure of, destruction or willful
damage done to institutions dedicated to religion, charity and
education, the arts and sciences, historic monuments and works of art
and science.
Crimes against humanity contrary to Article 5, namely: (a) murder; (i)
other inhumane acts.
Article 7 of the Statute provides for "individual criminal
responsibility" thus:
1. A person who planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise
aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of a crime
referred to in articles 2 to 5 of the present Statute, shall be
individually responsible for the crime.
2. The official position of any accused person, whether as Head of State
or Government or as a responsible Government official, shall not relieve
such person of criminal responsibility or mitigate punishment.
3. The fact that any of the acts referred to in articles 2 to 5 of the
present Statute was committed by a subordinate does not relieve his
superior of criminal responsibility if he knew or had reason to know
that the subordinate was about to commit such acts or had done so and
the superior failed to take the necessary and reasonable measures to
prevent such acts or to punish the perpetrators thereof.
We have been in frequent contact with the Tribunal, travelling to the
Hague twice to argue our case with Chief Prosecutors Louise Arbour and
Carla Del Ponte and their legal advisers, filing evidence, legal briefs
and arguments in support of the case. I am filing with this Committee a
book of the evidence we have filed with the tribunal. I understand that
you already have the two volumes prepared by the government of
Yugoslavia. I would point out that these volumes have been confirmed as
"largely credible" by the Human Rights Watch Report.
Recently, Justice Del Ponte disclosed that she was studying an internal
document analyzing the many claims that have been made against NATO. My
latest word from her (February 8) is that she is still studying the
case.
Justice Del Ponte has said that if she is not prepared to prosecute NATO
she should pack up and go home, and I have to agree with her, because,
in that case, the Tribunal would be doing far more harm than good, only
legitimating NATO's violent lawlessness against people unlucky enough to
be ruled by "indicted war criminals", as opposed to the un-indicted kind
that govern the NATO countries.
This was the very purpose for which the United States sponsored this
tribunal in the first place, at least according to Michael Scharf,
Attorney-Advisor with the U.S. State Department, who, under Madeleine
Albright's instructions, actually drafted the Security Council
resolution establishing the Tribunal.
"the tribunal was widely perceived within the government as little more
than a public relations device and as a potentially useful policy
tool...Indictments also would serve to isolate offending leaders
diplomatically, strengthen the hand of their domestic rivals and fortify
the international political will to employ economic sanctions or use
force" (The Washington Post, October 3, 1999)
I must confess to you that my colleagues and I and the thousands of
others who have complained to the Tribunal have grave doubts about its
impartiality. We have given it the benefit of every doubt even in the
face of mounting evidence that it didn't deserve it: when, in January,
1999, then prosecutor Judge Louise Arbour made a rather dramatic
appearance at the border of Kosovo, lending credibility to contested
American accounts of atrocities at Racak, a precipitating justification
of the war itself; when, only days after the bombing had commenced, she
made an announcement of the Arkan indictment that had been secret from
1997; when she made television appearances with NATO leader Robin Cook,
already the subject of numerous complaints during the war to receive war
crimes dossiers; when she met with Madeleine Albright, herself by then
the subject of well-grounded complaints before the tribunal, and
Albright took the opportunity to announce that the United States was the
major provider of funds to the Tribunal; when, two weeks later, in the
midst of bombing, Judge Arbour announced the indictment of Milosevic, on
the basis of undisclosed evidence, for Racak and events which had
occurred only six weeks earlier in the middle of a war zone – on what,
in other words, must have been very flimsy and suspicious evidence; and
when, at the conclusion of the bombing Judge Arbour handed over the
investigation of war crimes in Kosovo to NATO countries' police forces
themselves - notwithstanding that they had every motive to falsify the
evidence.
I am sad to say, because the former prosecutor is now a judge of the
Supreme Court of Canada and an old colleague and friend of mine, of whom
we all want to be proud, that these could not be regarded as the acts of
an impartial prosecutor. Not when NATO was in the midst of a disastrous
war in flagrant violation of international law.
We sincerely hoped for better things from Judge Del Ponte coming as she
did from a country outside of the NATO alliance. But our expectations
have been progressively lowered. First, when she declared, immediately
upon taking the job, that her priorities were the prosecution of
Milosevic, something which clearly suited the NATO countries but which,
as we told her in November, could in no way be compatible with her sworn
duties. A prosecutor cannot declare that she is going to concentrate
only on some crimes and grant effective immunity to other criminals.
Then, when she made the observation that she was indeed investigating
complaints against NATO, and NATO reacted in its typically outrageous
fashion by attacking the Tribunal, Judge Del Ponte quickly issued
unseemly appeasing statements and went on a conciliatory mission to
Brussels.
I am saying all this to put the Committee on guard against delegating
its own judgment to this Tribunal which was set up as an instrument of
United States foreign policy and has given us so many grounds to suspect
that it sees itself the same way. Whatever this Tribunal decides to do
or not to do, it is incumbent on this Committee to scrutinize its
reasons and the evidence with the utmost care.
Let me end by citing to you the words of Justice Robert Jackson from his
opening statement to the Nurnberg Tribunal on November 21, 1945:
"But the ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable
in
a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible
to law. And let me make clear that while this law is first applied
against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a
useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations,
including those which sit here now in judgment. We are able to do away
with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power
against the rights of their own people only when we make all men
answerable to the law." (The Nurnberg Case As Presented by Robert H.
Jackson, Chief Counsel for the United States (New York: Cooper Square
Publishers Inc, 1971) at page 93)
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
SECONDA PARTE
In un precedente messaggio
( http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/79.html? )
abbiamo riportato alcune delle audizioni tenute ad Ottawa, alla Camera
dei Comuni, dinanzi allo Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and
International Trade da parte di varie personalita' ritenute a vario
titolo "informate sui fatti" riguardo alla aggressione della NATO contro
la Repubblica Federale di Jugoslavia.
Continuiamo ora con la seconda parte del contributo di SERGE TRIFKOVIC,
professore di storia, responsabile per gli esteri di "Chronicles -
Magazine of American Culture", e con il contributo di MICHAEL MANDEL,
professore di diritto alla Osgoode Hall Law School, York University,
Toronto, che insieme ad altri avvocati ha presentato denuncia contro la
NATO al Tribunale dell'Aia per i crimini commessi sul territorio della
ex-RFSJ. La denuncia giace, tuttora "insabbiata", in qualche cassetto di
Carla dal Ponte.
Tutti i documenti sono stati diffusi dalla lista stopnat-@...
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date sent: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 16:00:58 -0500
From: "minja m." <minja@...>
Send reply to: minja@...
To: KPAJ 3A HATO <kpaj-3a-hato@...>
Subject: Srdja Trifkovic in Ottawa House of Commons - Pt.
2
Trifkovic in Ottawa House of Commons - Pt. 2
HOUSE OF COMMONS - CHAMBRE DES COMMUNES
STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL
TRADE -
COMITE PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES ETRANGERES ET DU
COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL
UNEDITED COPY - COPIE NON EDITEE
• 0927 EVIDENCE
[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Ottawa, Thursday, February 17, 2000
[English]
The Chairman (Mr. Bill Graham (Toronto Centre-Rosedale, Lib.)):
Colleagues, I'm going to call this meeting to order. So I'll ask the
people at the back of the room if they're going to have conversations to
go outside. I'm going to ask Ms. Swann from the Ottawa Serbian Heritage
Society if She could go first. Then we'll put Mr. Trifkovic. Mr. Dyer
hasn't arrived yet. I just want to warn everybody it may be a bit
chaotic
this morning. I'm not saying it isn't always chaotic but it may be more
chaotic than usual because we may be called for votes and this happened
the last time. So I apologize to the witnesses first if we're called out
of the room for votes. It just seems to be a bit- The House seems dans
un
peu de perturbation comme on dirait peut-être dans la langue française,
n'est-ce pas, and so we'll just have to deal with that if it occurs.
Otherwise we'll go on. But I'd ask the witnesses if you keep yourself To
10 minutes each and then we'll move to questions. [...] Mr. Trifkovic...
Mr. Serge Trifkovic (Individual Presentation): [... Text of presentation
as previously distributed... Transcript of ensuing Q&A follows herewith]
The Chairman: Thank you, sir. [... A member asked if it was preferable
to
have a world court to deal with human rights violations, or ad-hoc
tribunals for individual crisis areas...]
Ms. Serge Trifkovic: I was somewhat puzzled by the clear-cut choice
between the WCC [World Criminal Court] and ad hoc tribunals as the only
alternatives we are facing. To me it sounds a bit like the choice
between
cancer and leukemia. I do not believe that bureaucratically structured
and
politically motivated international quasi-judicial bodies are either
desirable or feasible. In any proper sense a "tribunal" is an impartial
forum for administration of justice. If the kangaroo court that goes by
the name of The Hague Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia is any indicator, I
think the lesson of that particular body is that its model of justice is
Moscow 1938, and not Nuremberg in 1946. It was formed on a purely
political agenda by the Security Council, on the basis of Chapter 7. The
way it has acted, in terms of its procedures, its rule of evidence and
finally the selection of people to be indicted and prosecuted - and also
its refusal to indict and prosecute people who at prima facie should be,
such as the leaders of the 19 NATO countries -only indicates that it is
a
political body par excellence. There is no reason at all why a WCC would
be any different because, obviously, if you have the likes of Clinton
and
Blair deciding what is "necessary" and "feasible" in terms of
intervention, ultimately they would be deciding what is "necessary" and
"feasible" in terms of prosecution. The kind of political discipline in
the world that this would impose is eerily reminiscent of the Brave New
World of Huxley or "1984." I suspect that bodies such as the ones that
you
are mentioning will only take us a step further in the direction of
global totalitarianism in which the local and national traditions of law
and justice and jurisprudence- which are meaningful because they have
evolved within the context of a genuine, authentic national culture-
will
be replaced by something that is global, something that is allegedly
universal and, therefore, of necessity, ideological.
The Chair: Okay. I'm sorry, we're going to have to move on. It's a very
fascinating discussion. • 1025 [English] I've got to leave with with the
thought that you've always got to answer alternatives so I'll come to
you
and ask "What's your alternative". My alternative is that there's going
to
be United States imperial courts applying their jurisdiction around the
world to enforce it, so that may be worse for you. Anyway, that's just-
Mr. Serge Trifkovic: My alternative is to rediscover the beauty of a
society of nations in which enlightened national interests, based upon
the
Golden Rule of "I will not deny to anyone what I am asking for myself",
will be the basis of law and the basis of international relations. I am
not claiming that it was a long-lost golden age in Europe between
1815-1914, that we ought to yearn for in terms of reactionary nostalgia.
I'm simply saying that what we are offered as a replacement in the
Blairites' and Clintonistas' brave new world is infinitely worse and
infinitely more frightening.
Mr. Chuck Strahl: Well, you asked.
The Chair: I asked, and that may be.We're going to go to Ms. Augustine
and
then we're going back to Mr. Strahl and Mr. Robinson.
Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[...]
I am grappling with what is the future of Kosovo, is it going to be an
international protectorate? Is it going to be an entity no longer linked
[to Serbia-Yugoslavia]? [...]
Mr. Serge Trifkovic: I would like to make a few comments about the
future because we keep forgetting the broad picture, what will happen in
the long term. The Kosovo crisis is primarily the result of the U.S.
involvement In the Kosovo situation. Until the moment Dick Holbrooke
decided that this was something they would tackle in a big way, it was -
I
insist - a low-level, unremarkable conflict, the likes of which we see
all
over the world, all of the time. At the moment there is a whole series
of
geopolitical reasons why the Washington administration wants to be
involved in the Balkans. I'm afraid we have no time to go into those in
any detail. But the important thing for the members of this Committee to
remember is that you shouldn't take the "humanitarian" and other alibis
as
face value. You should always assume that there is an agenda behind it.
One of them is to have a U.S. foothold in the European mainland that
will
not be subject to the ups-and-downs of the trans-Atlantic relationship,
so
that if and when the Germans, the French and others decide to create a
European Defence structure that will gradually detach West Europeans
from
NATO, which will ultimately lead to the closure of U.S. bases in Naples
and in Frankfurt and in Munich, there will be the assets in Skopje, and
in
Pristina, and in Tuzla, that will provide both the physical and the
political and military U.S. presence that will not be affected by such a
change in the relationship. When I say there are geopolitical reasons
which have a logic of their own, I am not claiming that in this
particular
case we can establish a definite sequence of events. • 1105 [English]
I'm
simply saying that humanitarian and moralistic claims by themselves are
neither a sufficient nor necessary explanation. In order to look at
Kosovo
in the longer term we have to ask the question: what will happen if and
when the United States administration after Clinton, or even after
whoever
comes after Clinton, loses interest in the Balkans? At the moment
they're
creating the demand for their involvement by creating a whole series of
small, fragmented and unviable units that, by themselves, have neither
the
political, nor cultural, nor historic meaning - such as Dayton-Bosnia,
such as Kosovo, such as, tomorrow maybe, Sanjak or Montenegro, Vojvodina
or whatever. If and when the presence of the underwriters in the Balkans
are removed, we will have another bout of Hobbesian free-for-all. And
that
is the tragedy of it all, because what is being done right now is not
the
foundation for a solid, just and durable peace, but just an
improvization
on an ad-hoc basis. It bears no relation to history, no relation to the
continuity of the political and cultural development in that part of
the
world, but satisfies the needs of the moment. I'm saying this not as
someone born in Serbia, but someone who is trying to look at the
political
essence of the problem - that so far the U.S. administration has
followed
the principle that all of the ethnic groups in the area can be satisfied
at the expense of the Serbs. The result is a sort of Carthaginian peace
imposed upon the Serbian nation that will create a constant source of
revanchist resentment among the Serbs, and determination to turn the
tables once Uncle Sam loses interest. I feel that there will be a war
again: the Serbs will fight to return Kosovo to their own rule, because
they feel Kosovo to have been unjustly detached. And so, whatever
scenario
the people in Brussels, London, Washington, Ottawa, or Bonn decide for
Kosovo today, it will not be worth the paper it's written on if it
doesn't
bear any relation to the geopolitical realities in the long term, and
those realities are fairly simple. You will not be able to impose
something called "multicultural" Kosovo, "multi-ethnic" Kosovo if people
on the ground - and I have primarily the Albanians in mind - are
determined to have a mono-ethnic Kosovo. By including 25% Serbian
members
in any quasi-representative bodies you introduce, you will not re-invent
a
"multi-ethnic Kosovo" in which grannies are able to return to their
apartments. At the moment the only way people in Kosovo will feel safe
and
secure living in their communities is if you have a de facto petition.
Whether it is accompanied by a constitutional and political model that
will sanctify that partition is neither here nor there. But in the long
term you have to realize that an imposed "peace" on the Serb nation that
does not take into account the legitimate interests of the Serbs, that
does not take into account the sort of give and take in which each party
will feel that it has lost something as well as gained something, will
be
unviable, will be unjust, and will be - in the long term - the source of
another conflict.
The Chairman: Okay. [...]
Mr. Chuck Strahl: I'm going to pass to Mr. Robinson, but before I do, I
understand, Prof Trifkovic, you must leave shortly to catch a plane to
Europe- Mr. Serge Trifkovic: Actually, to Chicago- Mr. Chuck Strahl: To
Chicago. Mr. Serge Trifkovic: -and change to the plane for Amsterdam.
Mr.
Chuck Strahl: Right. Mr. Serge Trifkovic: I can stay for another 10
minutes. Mr. Chuck Strahl: Okay. When you're comfortable to leave just
leave. I want to say, then if you just do get up and go- Mr. Serge
Trifkovic: There will be no tears shed. Mr. Chuck Strahl: No. There will
be tears. They may be crocodile. They may be joy, who knows? But
certainly
I just want to say we appreciate very much you taking the time to come.
There's no doubt about it being a very interesting intervention. Please,
when you have to go, just feel free to get up and go and don't think us
rude if we don't properly acknowledge your very important contribution.
Thank you, sir. Mr. Robinson. Mr. Svend Robinson: I'm afraid I'll have
to
leave around the same time. I'm not sure if the tears will be quite as
intense, but- The Chair: If the tears are shed- Some hon. members: Ha,
ha.
The Chair: Mr. Robinson, the tears are shed when you arrive, not when
you
leave.
Mr. Svend Robinson: I just had two questions, I guess for Mr. Trifkovic
and Ms. Swann, in particular. First, I wonder if you could just perhaps
elaborate a bit on some of the concerns around the current situation in
Pancevo and what your knowledge is of the situation in Pancevo. I had
the
opportunity to visit there and
The situation had the potential of being an environmental disaster. I'm
just wondering what the current analysis is of the outcome of the
bombing
in that area and what sort of testing has been done, for example, of the
environment, the water, the air and so on. Because there were serious
concerns about that. My second question, again to both of you. I wonder
if
you could talk a little bit about • 1120 [English] about the
responsibility of Serbs in Kosovo for wrongdoing. The United Nations
High
Commission on Refugees documented quite powerfully a major exodus of
Kosovar Albanians before March 24. I'm sure you're familiar with those
reports. You've seen those reports. Figures as many as 90,000 who had
left
their homes, left their villages. After the bombing started, did the
bombing exacerbate the flow of people. I have no doubt that it did.
Certainly a number of people who I spoke with pointed out how in some
cases Serbs on the ground were pointing up into the sky and saying you
were responsible for NATO. They felt that they were under siege from the
KLA, the NATO bombs and obviously when people are defenceless on the
ground they're totally vulnerable. It was a coward's war in many
respects,
but nevertheless people were driven out in huge numbers. Hundreds of
thousands of people left and were driven out. I was on a road from
Pristina down to the border with Macedonia, went through village after
village which were like ghost towns, houses had been burned to the
ground
in many cases and there's culpability for that and I want to hear from
you, both of you, some acknowledgement that yes we have to deal with
this
as well as part of the reckoning that must come out of this tragic
series
of events.
Mr. Serge Trifkovic: I'll deal with the second one and then I'll have to
go. I think the important thing to bear in mind in the Balkans is there
are no white hats and black hats and that's the fundamental problem that
we have faced with the coverage of the war in the media, and with
quasi-academic analysis, and with political decision-making. Very early
on
in this conflict an overall perception of the culpability of the Serbs
for
the Krajina, Bosnia and Kosovo was created even though very often the
reasons the Serbs reacted in the Krajina are very similar to the reasons
the Albanians reacted in Kosovo and vice versa. In some cases, the Serbs
were de facto separatists, wanting to secede from the separating entity.
In other times, they were the unitarists. In both cases they were deemed
wrong. But if you try to quantify the evil on all sides, it's impossible
to say that the Serbs proved qualitatively, fundamentally worse than
other
groups. Right now the Serbs constitute the largest refugee population
outside sub-Saharan Africa. To say that the Serbs have done evil things
is
almost a truism because in the Balkan imbroglio all sides have done very
evil things. If you want the Serbs to beat their chests and shout mea
culpa, well indeed, maybe they should because the Patriarch warned them
against
adopting some of the techniques and some of the feelings of their
enemies as they experienced them in 1941 to 1945 in the so-called
independent state of Croatia. [...] If this was the war to return the
Albanians, or in the memorable words of the then-British defence
minister
"Serbs out, Albanians back, NATO in", nobody is talking about "Serbs
back"
in Kosovo these days... a quarter of a million displaced Serbs and other
non-Albanians under NATO, in the aftermath of NATO's victory. So I will
be
the first to admit that the Serbs have done bad things just as everybody
else has done bad things; but it doesn't mean we are now going to ask
the
question how deserving are the Croats of being bombed • 1125 [English]
because they contributed "collectively" to the exodus of a quarter of a
million Serbs from the Krajina? How deserving are the Muslims of
castigation and bombing because right now, the whole of Sarajevo-until
1991, the second largest Serbian town after Belgrade - is Serbenfrei?.
If
we are to re-establish a modicum of reality in this debate, we have to
bear in mind that human fallibility and human culpability is not the
exclusive prerogative of anyone single ethnic group. Thank you.
Mr. Svend J. Robinson: Mr. Dyer, were you wanting to comment?
Mr. Gwynn Dyer: I was particularly struck by the use of the word
"Serbenfrei" to describe the Serbian authorities' removal of the Serbian
population of Sarajevo after the Dayton Accords. There were Serbians in
that city who were driven from their homes by the Serbian police. I was
there; I saw it. The idea that the Albanian Muslims and the Bosnian
Muslims and the Croats bear equal responsibility-all of them have done
bad
things. Of course bad things happen in war but neither the total of
refugees nor the total of dead nor the evidence of massacre suggests in
any way that there is shared responsibility equally indistinguishably
among the ethnic groups of the Balkans. Now this may be to some extent
because the Serbs inherited the heavy weapons of the Yugoslav army and
had
the ability to do more damage; I recognize that. The Bosnian Muslims
didn't have heavy artillery to shell Serbian villages as the Serbs did
to
shell Sarajevo. But I do find the line of argument which suggests that
there can be no distinguished distinction between Vukovar and Srebrenica
on the one hand, and the Krajina on the other hand. The Krajina Mark Two
-
when it was the Serbs who lost their homes - rather Mark One, when it
was
the Croatian inhabitants who were driven. I think is a travesty.
Mr. Serge Trifkovic: To claim that the Krajina is less of a crime than
"Srebrenica," even though the Krajina resulted in between 9 thousand and
12 thousand Serbian deaths, is a very curious argument, both morally and
intellectually. But in particular, I find it reprehensible that Kosovo
is
still referred to as a "massacre" because "the Kosovo massacre" is one
of
the biggest lies, media-mediated political lies of the decade, if not
the
century. In perspective, when a few decades pass, it will belong to the
same category as the bayonetted Belgian babies by the Kaiser's army in
1914. [...]
----
House of Commons-Canada
Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Tuesday February 22, 2000
Testimony of Professor Michael Mandel
Personal Note
Allow me to tell you a little bit about myself and how I became involved
in this. I am a professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School where I have
taught for 25 years. I specialize in criminal law and comparative
constitutional law with an emphasis on domestic and foreign tribunals,
including United Nations tribunals such as the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. I have no personal interest in the
conflict in Yugoslavia – I have no Serbs or Albanians in my family and I
am not being paid by anyone. I became involved in this as a Canadian
lawyer who witnessed a flagrant violation of the law by my government
with unspeakably tragic results for innocent people of all the Yugoslav
ethnicities. I became involved as a Jew appalled by the grotesque and
deliberate misuse of the Holocaust to justify the killing and maiming of
innocent people for what I am convinced were purely self-interested
motives, the farthest thing from humanitarianism, in a cynical attempt
to manipulate the desire of Canadians to help their fellows on the other
side of the world.
Illegality of the War
The first thing to note about NATO's war against Yugoslavia is that it
was flatly illegal both in the fact that it was ever undertaken and in
the way it was carried out. It was a gross and deliberate violation of
international law and the Charter of the United Nations. The Charter
authorizes the use of force in only two situations: self-defence or when
authorized by the Security Council.
The United Nations Charter provides in so far as is relevant:
Article 2
3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful
means in such a manner that international peace and security, and
justice, are not endangered.
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the
threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political
independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the
Purposes of the United Nations.
Article 33
The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to
endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall,
first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation,
conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional
agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.
Article 37
1. Should the parties to a dispute of the nature referred to in Article
33 fail to settle it by the means indicated in that Article, they shall
refer it to the Security Council.
2. If the Security Council deems that the continuance of the dispute is
in fact likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and
security, it shall decide whether to take action under Article 36 or to
recommend such terms of settlement as it may consider appropriate.
Article 39
The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the
peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make
recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance
with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and
security.
Article 41
The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of
armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it
may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures.
These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations
and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of
communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.
Article 42
Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in
Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may
take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to
maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may
include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or
land forces of Members of the United Nations.
Article51
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of
individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against
a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken
measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.
Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence
shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in
any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council
under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems
necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and
security;
The jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice is also clear.
For instance, it stated in its ruling against United States intervention
in Nicaragua:
In any event, while the United States might form its own appraisal of
the situation as to respect for human rights in Nicaragua, the use of
force could not be the appropriate method to monitor or ensure such
respect. With regard to the steps actually taken, the protection of
human rights, a strictly humanitarian objective, cannot be compatible
with the mining of ports, the destruction of oil installations, or again
with the training, arming and equipping of the contras.
[CASE CONCERNING THE MILITARY AND PARAMILITARY ACTIVITIES IN AND AGAINST
NICARAGUA (NICARAGUA v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA) (MERITS) Judgment of
27 June 1986, I.C.J. Reports, 1986, p.134-135, paragraphs 267 and 268]
It should also be noted that the preliminary decision of the World Court
last year in Yugoslavia's case against 10 NATO countries, including
Canada, does not in the slightest contradict this. As Mr. Matas has
pointed out to you in his statement, this decision was taken on purely
jurisdictional grounds, first the United States' shameful refusal to
recognize the World Court's jurisdiction in general, and second Canada's
objection to jurisdiction in this specific case. But it is worth quoting
some paragraphs from the decision of the Court:
15. Whereas the Court is deeply concerned with the human tragedy, the
loss of life, and the enormous suffering in Kosovo which form the
background of the present dispute, and with the continuing loss of life
and human suffering in all parts of Yugoslavia;
16. Whereas the Court is profoundly concerned with the use of force in
Yugoslavia; whereas under the present circumstances such use raises very
serious issues of international law;
17. Whereas the Court is mindful of the purposes and principles of the
United Nations Charter and of its own responsibilities in the
maintenance of peace and security under the Charter and the Statue of
the court;
18. Whereas the Court deems it necessary to emphasize that all parties
appearing before it must act in conformity with their obligations under
the United Nations Charter and other rules of international law,
including humanitarian law.
[CASE CONCERNING LEGALITY OF USE OF FORCE (YUGOSLAVIA V. CANADA)
International Court of Justice, 2 June 1999]
To sum up, in the case of NATO's war on Yugoslavia, neither of the two
exclusive bases for the use of force (Security Council authorization or
self-defence) was even claimed by NATO.
As a violation of the United Nations Charter, the attack on Yugoslavia
was also a violation of the NATO Treaty itself and Canada's own domestic
law.
The NATO Treaty (1949), so far as is relevant, reads as follows:
[Preamble]: The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the
purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their
desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments.
Article 1: The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the
United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be
involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and
security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their
international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner
inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.
Article 7: This treaty does not affect, and shall not be interpreted as
affecting in any way the rights and obligations under the Charter of the
Parties which are members of the United Nations, or the primary
responsibility of the Security Council for the maintenance of
international peace and security.
The Canada Defence Act, in so far as relevant reads as follows:
31. (1) The Governor in Council may place the Canadian forces or any
component, unit or other element thereof or any officer or
non-commissioned member thereof on active service anywhere in or beyond
Canada at any time when it appears advisable to do so
(a) by reason of an emergency, for the defence of Canada; or
(b) in consequence of any action undertaken by Canada under the United
Nations Charter, the North Atlantic treaty or any other similar
instrument for collective defence that may be entered into by Canada.
The war's illegality is not disputed by any legal scholar of repute,
even those who had some sympathy for the war, for instance Mr. Mendes in
his presentation to this Committee. Of course, Mr. Mendes calls this a
"fatal flaw" in the UN Charter. I don't believe it is a flaw at all, for
reasons I'll elaborate. But I don't think the seriousness of this can be
glossed over one bit: the flagrant violation of the law by our
government is no small thing. Democracy is quite simply meaningless if
governments feel they can violate the law with impunity.
Humanitarian Justification
We all know that the leaders of the NATO countries sought to justify
this war as a humanitarian intervention in defence of a vulnerable
population, the Kosovar Albanians, threatened with mass atrocities.
A lot turns on this claim, but not the illegality of the war. In fact,
the reason why there is such unanimity among scholars on the illegality
of this war is that there is no "humanitarian exception" under
international law or the United Nations Charter. That does not mean that
there are no means for the international community to intervene to
prevent or stop humanitarian disasters, even to use force where
necessary. It just means that the use of force for humanitarian purposes
has been totally absorbed in the UN Charter. A state must be able to
demonstrate the humanity of its proposed intervention to the Security
Council, including, of course, the five permanent members possessing a
veto. Nor has the Security Council shown itself to be incapable of
acting in these situations. It issued numerous resolutions authorizing
action in this conflict (Resolutions 1160, 1199, and 1203 of 1998 and
Resolutions 1239 and 1244 of 1999, the last of which brought an end to
the bombing). The Security Council has also shown itself capable of
authorizing the use of force, for example its authorization of "all
necessary means" to restore the sovereignty of Kuwait in Resolution 678
of November 29, 1990, which gave Iraq until January 15, 1991 to
withdraw. Bombing by the Americans commenced on January 16.
But NATO did not even move a Resolution before the Security Council over
Kosovo. Nor did it use the alternative means of demonstrating to the
international community the necessity for its use of force in the
General Assembly's Uniting for Peace Resolution (1950), which allows the
General Assembly recommend action to the Security Council if 2/3 of
those present and voting agree:
[The General Assembly] Resolves that if the Security Council, because of
lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its
primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and
security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace,
breach of the peace or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall
consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate
recommendations to Members for collective measures, including in the
case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed
force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and
security."
There are two basic reasons why these procedures were not utilized by
NATO in this case. In the first place, the most plausible explanation of
this whole war was that it was, at its foundation, nothing less than an
attempt by the United States, through NATO, to overthrow the authority
of the United Nations. In the second place, NATO could never have
demonstrated a humanitarian justification for what it was doing, because
it had none.
In law, as in morals, it is not enough for a humanitarian justification
to be claimed, it must also be demonstrated. To use an odious example,
but one which makes the point clearly enough, Hitler himself used a
humanitarian justification for invading Poland and unleashing World War
II: he claimed he was doing it to protect the German minority from
oppression by the Poles.
In the case of NATO, what had to be justified as a humanitarian
intervention was a bombing campaign that, in dropping 25,000 bombs on
Yugoslavia, directly killed between 500 and 1800 civilian children,
women and men of all ethnicities and permanently injured as many others;
a bombing campaign that caused 60 to100 billion dollars worth of damage
to an already impoverished country; a bombing campaign that directly and
indirectly caused a refugee crisis of enormous proportions, with about 1
million fleeing Kosovo during the bombing; a bombing campaign that
indirectly caused the death of thousands more, by provoking the brutal
retaliatory and defensive measures that are inevitable when a war of
this kind and intensity is undertaken, and by giving a free hand to
extremists on both sides to vent their hatred. What also has to be
justified is the ethnic cleansing that has occurred in Kosovo since the
entry of the triumphant KLA, fully backed by NATO's might, which has
seen hundreds of thousands of Serb (and Roma and Jewish) Kosovars driven
out and hundreds murdered, a murder rate that is about 10 times the
Canadian rate per capita.
These results were to be expected and they were predicted by NATO's
military and political advisers in their very careful planning of the
war which went back more than a year before the bombing commenced.
A humanitarian justification would have to show that this disaster was
outweighed by a greater disaster that was about to happen and would have
happened but for this intervention. The evidence for this, which must be
carefully scrutinized by this Committee, is meagre to say the least.
Nobody could seriously maintain that the conditions for a repeat of the
Bosnian bloodbath were there: this was not an all out civil war with
well-armed parties of roughly equal strength on each side and huge
ethnic enclaves fighting for their existence. These conditions simply
did not exist in Kosovo.
Nor did the facts indicate a humanitarian disaster would have occurred
but for NATO's bombing. A total of 2,000 people had been killed on both
sides in the prior two years of fighting between the KLA and the Serbs,
and violence was declining with the presence of UN observers. The
alleged massacre of 45 ethnic Albanians at Racak must be regarded with
the greatest suspicion, not only because of the circumstances, but also
because of involvement of the American emissary Mr. William Walker, with
his history of covert and illegal activities on behalf of the Americans
in Latin America.
Nor is the Report recently released by the OSCE of much value in
assessing the situation, since it was written and paid for by the NATO
countries themselves.
Even more importantly, the evidence is overwhelming that NATO did not
make serious efforts at averting a disaster and was not at all serious
about peace.
If we look at the Rambouillet negotiations, a number of perplexing
questions are raised: Why was the irredentist and insurrectionary KLA
preferred as the NATO interlocutor to the only popularly elected leader,
the moderate Ibrahim Rugova? Why, for that matter was Rugova ignored
during the war? Why did the US insist on a secret annex to the
Rambouillet Accord (Annex B) that would have allowed it to occupy all of
Serbia? Why did the final peace agreement look so much like what the
Serbs had agreed to before the bombing? Do we really think that NATO
could not have put the 10 billion dollars of bombs it dropped to working
out and under-writing a peace agreement that would have accommodated and
protected all sides if it were interested in humanity and not war? Why
are NATO countries so unwilling to spend money on reconstruction of
Kosovo, claiming that they have run out of money with less than one
billion dollars spent?
And where, to resolve these enormous doubts about whether NATO acted out
of humanitarian motives this time, is the evidence that these people
have ever acted from humanitarian motives before? With such huge holes
in its argument, we are entitled to cross-examine the leopard on his
spots. What about the failure to intervene with force in Rwanda? What
about the United States' own bankrolling of the repressive Suharto
regime in Indonesia? What about Turkey's violent repression of the
Kurds, a humanitarian disaster that has claimed 30,000 lives, not 2,000?
What about the United States itself? The richest country in the world
which creates social conditions so violent and racist that its normal
murder rate is in the realm of 20,000 per year, almost as high, per
capita as Kosovo right now - a country that puts 2 or 3 of its own
people to death by lethal injection every week. NATO has no humanitarian
lessons to teach the world.
Finally and very importantly, we must ask some serious questions about
the way in which this supposed humanitarian intervention was handled.
With the Kosovars supposedly in the hands of genocidal maniacs, NATO
gave 5 days warning between the withdrawal of the observers and the
launch of the attack. This was followed by seven days of bombing that
mostly ignored Kosovo itself. In other words, an invitation to genocide
that was not accepted, but one that was guaranteed to produce a refugee
flow to legitimate a massive bombing campaign.
As Ambassador Bissett told this committee last week, that NATO leaders
have no respect for the truth should startle no one. What of the claim
by Jamie Shea that it was the Serbs who bombed the Albanian refugee
convoy (until the independent journalists found bomb fragments "made in
U.S.A.")? What of the claim by a NATO general, with video up on the
screen, that the passenger train on the Grdelica bridge was going too
fast to avoid being hit (until somebody pointed out that the video had
been speeded up to three times its real speed)? What of the claim that
the Chinese Embassy was bombed because NATO's maps were out of date? Let
alone the claims by Mr. Clinton (and Mrs. Clinton) and Mr. Cohen that a
"Holocaust" was occurring in which perhaps 100,000 Kosovar men had been
murdered (until the bombing was over and the numbers dwindled to 2,108 -
and we have yet to be told who they were or how they died).
In fact most people in the world simply did not believe NATO's claim of
humanitarianism. A poll taken in mid-April and published by The
Economist shows that this was a very unpopular war, opposed by perhaps
most of the world's population both outside and inside the NATO
alliance.( "Oh what a lovely war!", The Economist, April 24, 1999
showing more than a third opposed in Canada, Poland, Germany, France and
Finland, almost an even split in Hungary, an even split in Italy and a
majority opposed in the Czech Republic, Russia and Taiwan) A poll taken
in Greece between April 29th and May 5th showed 99.5% against the war,
85% believing NATO's motives to be strategic and not humanitarian, and,
most importantly, 69% in favour of charging Bill Clinton with war
crimes, 35.2% for charging Tony Blair and only 14% for charging Slobodan
Milosevic, not far from the 13% in favour of charging NATO General
Wesley Clark and the 9.6% for charging NATO Secretary General Javier
Solana.( "Majority in Greece wants Clinton tried for war crimes", The
Irish Times, May 27, 1999).
Much more plausible than the humanitarian thesis is the one that the
United States deliberately provoked this war, that it deliberately
exploited and exacerbated another country's tragedy - a tragedy partly
of its own creation (we should not forget that the West's aggressive and
purely selfish economic policies that have beggared Yugoslavia over the
last ten years). NATO exists to make war, not peace. The arms industry
exists to make profits from dropping bombs. And the United States, by
virtue of its military might dominates NATO the way it does not dominate
the United Nations. The most plausible explanation then is that this
attack was not about the Balkans at all. It was an attempt to overthrow
the authority of the United Nations and make NATO, and therefore the
United States, the world's supreme authority, to establish the
"precedent" that NATO politicians have been talking about since the
bombing stopped. To give the United States the free hand that the United
Nations does not, in its conflicts with the Third World and its
rivalries with Russia, China and even Europe.
In other words, this was not a case of the United Nations being an
obstacle to humanitarianism. It was a case of using a flimsy pretext of
humanitarianism to overthrow the United Nations.
Not only was this an illegal war that had no humanitarian justification.
It was a war pursued by illegal means. According to admissions made in
public throughout the war (for instance during NATO briefings),
according to eye-witness reports and according to powerful
circumstantial evidence displayed on the world's television screens
throughout the bombing campaign -- evidence good enough to convict in
any criminal court in the world - these NATO leaders deliberately and
illegally made targets of places and things with only tenuous or slight
military value or no military value at all. Places such as city bridges,
factories, hospitals, marketplaces, downtown and residential
neighbourhoods, and television studios. The same evidence shows that, in
doing this, the NATO leaders aimed to demoralize and break the will of
the people, not to defeat its army.
The American group Human Rights Watch has just issued a lengthy report
documenting a systematic and massive violation of international
humanitarian law by NATO in Yugoslavia. They estimate the civilian
victims to be about 500. This figure should be taken as a minimum
because it is a number Human Rights watch says it can independently
confirm and that can be attributed directly to the bombing. It excludes
persons known to be killed as an indirect result of the bombing. Every
benefit of the doubt is given to NATO, a fact exemplified by the
Report's puzzling and actually undefended distinction between these
grave "violations of humanitarian law" and "war crimes". Human rights
Watch has also documented the use of anti-personnel cluster bombs in
attacks on civilian targets.
The reason these civilian targets are illegal is that civilians are very
likely to be killed or injured when such targets are hit. And all of the
NATO leaders knew that. They were carefully told that by their military
planners. And they still went ahead and did it.
And they did it without any risk to themselves or to their soldiers and
pilots. That's why this war was called a "coward's war". The cowardice
lay in fighting the civilian population and not the military, in bombing
from altitudes so high that the civilians, Serbians, Albanians, Roma,
and anybody else on the ground, bore all the risks of the "inevitable
collateral damage".
War Crimes Charges before the International Tribunal
But the fact that this war was illegal and unjustified has further very
serious implications. Mr. Chretien, Mr. Axworthy and Mr. Eggleton, along
with all the other NATO leaders, planned and executed a bombing campaign
that they knew was illegal and that they knew would cause the death and
permanent injury of thousands of civilian children women and men. Hard
as it is for us to accept, or even to say, killing hundreds or thousands
of civilians knowingly and without lawful excuse is nothing less than
mass murder. Milosevic was indicted in The Hague for 385 victims. The
total victims of the 98 people executed for murder in the United States
in 1999 was 129. Our leaders killed between 500 and 1800.
That is why, starting in April of last year and continuing to the
present day, dozens of lawyers and law professors, a pan-American
association representing hundreds of jurists, some elected legislators,
and thousands of private citizens from around the world, have lodged
formal complaints with the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague
charging NATO leaders with war crimes.
The particular complaint I am involved in was filed in May, 1999 and
names 68 individuals, including all the heads of government, foreign
ministers and defense ministers of the 19 NATO countries (including US
President Clinton, Secretaries Cohen and Albright, Canadian Prime
Minister Chretien, Ministers Axworthy and Eggleton and so on down the
list), and the highest ranking NATO officials, from then Secretary
General Javier Solana, through Generals Wesley Clark, Michael Short, and
official spokesman Jamie Shea.
The charges against them include the following:
Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, contrary to
article 2 of the Statue of the Tribunal, namely the following acts
against persons or property protected under the provisions of the
relevant Geneva Convention: (a) wilful killing; (c) wilfully causing
great suffering or serious injury to body or health; (d) extensive
destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military
necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
Violations of the laws or customs of war, contrary to Article 3 namely:
(a) employment of poisonous weapons or other weapons to cause
unnecessary suffering; (b) wanton destruction of cities, towns or
villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity; (c)
attack, or bombardment, by whatever means, of undefended towns,
villages, dwellings, or buildings;(d) seizure of, destruction or willful
damage done to institutions dedicated to religion, charity and
education, the arts and sciences, historic monuments and works of art
and science.
Crimes against humanity contrary to Article 5, namely: (a) murder; (i)
other inhumane acts.
Article 7 of the Statute provides for "individual criminal
responsibility" thus:
1. A person who planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise
aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of a crime
referred to in articles 2 to 5 of the present Statute, shall be
individually responsible for the crime.
2. The official position of any accused person, whether as Head of State
or Government or as a responsible Government official, shall not relieve
such person of criminal responsibility or mitigate punishment.
3. The fact that any of the acts referred to in articles 2 to 5 of the
present Statute was committed by a subordinate does not relieve his
superior of criminal responsibility if he knew or had reason to know
that the subordinate was about to commit such acts or had done so and
the superior failed to take the necessary and reasonable measures to
prevent such acts or to punish the perpetrators thereof.
We have been in frequent contact with the Tribunal, travelling to the
Hague twice to argue our case with Chief Prosecutors Louise Arbour and
Carla Del Ponte and their legal advisers, filing evidence, legal briefs
and arguments in support of the case. I am filing with this Committee a
book of the evidence we have filed with the tribunal. I understand that
you already have the two volumes prepared by the government of
Yugoslavia. I would point out that these volumes have been confirmed as
"largely credible" by the Human Rights Watch Report.
Recently, Justice Del Ponte disclosed that she was studying an internal
document analyzing the many claims that have been made against NATO. My
latest word from her (February 8) is that she is still studying the
case.
Justice Del Ponte has said that if she is not prepared to prosecute NATO
she should pack up and go home, and I have to agree with her, because,
in that case, the Tribunal would be doing far more harm than good, only
legitimating NATO's violent lawlessness against people unlucky enough to
be ruled by "indicted war criminals", as opposed to the un-indicted kind
that govern the NATO countries.
This was the very purpose for which the United States sponsored this
tribunal in the first place, at least according to Michael Scharf,
Attorney-Advisor with the U.S. State Department, who, under Madeleine
Albright's instructions, actually drafted the Security Council
resolution establishing the Tribunal.
"the tribunal was widely perceived within the government as little more
than a public relations device and as a potentially useful policy
tool...Indictments also would serve to isolate offending leaders
diplomatically, strengthen the hand of their domestic rivals and fortify
the international political will to employ economic sanctions or use
force" (The Washington Post, October 3, 1999)
I must confess to you that my colleagues and I and the thousands of
others who have complained to the Tribunal have grave doubts about its
impartiality. We have given it the benefit of every doubt even in the
face of mounting evidence that it didn't deserve it: when, in January,
1999, then prosecutor Judge Louise Arbour made a rather dramatic
appearance at the border of Kosovo, lending credibility to contested
American accounts of atrocities at Racak, a precipitating justification
of the war itself; when, only days after the bombing had commenced, she
made an announcement of the Arkan indictment that had been secret from
1997; when she made television appearances with NATO leader Robin Cook,
already the subject of numerous complaints during the war to receive war
crimes dossiers; when she met with Madeleine Albright, herself by then
the subject of well-grounded complaints before the tribunal, and
Albright took the opportunity to announce that the United States was the
major provider of funds to the Tribunal; when, two weeks later, in the
midst of bombing, Judge Arbour announced the indictment of Milosevic, on
the basis of undisclosed evidence, for Racak and events which had
occurred only six weeks earlier in the middle of a war zone – on what,
in other words, must have been very flimsy and suspicious evidence; and
when, at the conclusion of the bombing Judge Arbour handed over the
investigation of war crimes in Kosovo to NATO countries' police forces
themselves - notwithstanding that they had every motive to falsify the
evidence.
I am sad to say, because the former prosecutor is now a judge of the
Supreme Court of Canada and an old colleague and friend of mine, of whom
we all want to be proud, that these could not be regarded as the acts of
an impartial prosecutor. Not when NATO was in the midst of a disastrous
war in flagrant violation of international law.
We sincerely hoped for better things from Judge Del Ponte coming as she
did from a country outside of the NATO alliance. But our expectations
have been progressively lowered. First, when she declared, immediately
upon taking the job, that her priorities were the prosecution of
Milosevic, something which clearly suited the NATO countries but which,
as we told her in November, could in no way be compatible with her sworn
duties. A prosecutor cannot declare that she is going to concentrate
only on some crimes and grant effective immunity to other criminals.
Then, when she made the observation that she was indeed investigating
complaints against NATO, and NATO reacted in its typically outrageous
fashion by attacking the Tribunal, Judge Del Ponte quickly issued
unseemly appeasing statements and went on a conciliatory mission to
Brussels.
I am saying all this to put the Committee on guard against delegating
its own judgment to this Tribunal which was set up as an instrument of
United States foreign policy and has given us so many grounds to suspect
that it sees itself the same way. Whatever this Tribunal decides to do
or not to do, it is incumbent on this Committee to scrutinize its
reasons and the evidence with the utmost care.
Let me end by citing to you the words of Justice Robert Jackson from his
opening statement to the Nurnberg Tribunal on November 21, 1945:
"But the ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable
in
a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible
to law. And let me make clear that while this law is first applied
against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a
useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations,
including those which sit here now in judgment. We are able to do away
with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power
against the rights of their own people only when we make all men
answerable to the law." (The Nurnberg Case As Presented by Robert H.
Jackson, Chief Counsel for the United States (New York: Cooper Square
Publishers Inc, 1971) at page 93)
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
Da "Il manifesto" del 18 Febbraio 2000:
VATICANO
A SAN PIETRO L'ORO DI PAVELIC
Duemila sopravvissuti al genocidio del regime ustascia fanno causa allo
Ior: rivendicano il tesoro depositato, o donato per grazia ricevuta, da
Pavelic al Vaticano
- MARCO AURELIO RIVELLI -
U na bomba che esplode scuotendo il Vaticano: George Zivkovich, classe
1937, serbo di religione ortodossa, residente in California, si è
recentemente rivolto ai tribunali americani citando in giudizio la Santa
Sede, e più precisamente l'Istituto per le opere di religione, lo Ior, cioè
la banca vaticana già protagonista di numerosi scandali negli ultimi
decenni. Zivkovich, che, ragazzo, era scampato al genocidio serbo
perpetrato dagli ustascia croati negli anni 1941-1945, rivendica il tesoro
che l'ex dittatore Ante Pavelic aveva lasciato in custodia, o donato per
grazia ricevuta, al Vaticano nel '45. Lo affiancano nell'azione giudiziaria
circa 2.000 compatrioti.
Il regime ustascia, portato al governo in Croazia in quegli anni, grazie
all'invasione delle forze dell'Asse, fu il più feroce espresso dai
nazifascisti. Più feroce ancora di quello hitleriano, ed è tutto dire: in
quello stato che contava poco più di sei milioni di abitanti, un terzo dei
quali serbi di religione ortodossa, gli ustascia massacrarono un milione di
questi unitamente a 50 mila ebrei e 30 mila zingari, cioè il 20 per cento
della popolazione. All'eccidio parteciparono numerosi sacerdoti e frati
cattolici con la complicità di vescovi, con la connivenza del Primate,
arcivescovo Stepinac, recentemente beatificato, il tutto con l'implicito
beneplacito di Pio XII.
Crollato il suo regno, Pavelic scappò insieme ai suoi gerarchi e a 500
religiosi cattolici fra i più compromessi nell'eccidio, trovando rifugio a
Roma dove visse per tre anni nascosto nel Collegio di San Girolamo degli
Illirici, in Via Tomacelli, edificio protetto dalla extraterritorialità
vaticana. Non giunse a mani vuote, ma, come tutti gli ospiti che si
rispettino, portò un dono: l'oro, i gioielli e i titoli rapinati alle
vittime. Anche a Stepinac aveva lasciato un presente, trentasei casse
d'oro, che l'arcivescovo si fece incautamente scoprire un anno dopo dal
governo di Tito. Il Vaticano ricambiò il munifico omaggio facendo fuggire
questo criminale in Argentina nel 1949, vestito in abiti talari e munito di
adeguato passaporto. Con le stesse modalità la Santa Sede aiutò a fuggire
duecento ustascia e cinquemila delinquenti nazisti, l'aristocrazia del
crimine, fra i quali il Dottor Mengele, Walter Rauff, Adolf Eichmann, Erick
Priebke, Franz Stangl. A capo dell'Organizzazione di soccorso vaticana, che
attivò quella che gli alleati denominarono rat line, la via dei topi, vi
erano Draganovic, monsignore ed ex colonnello ustascia, e il vescovo Alois
Hudal, titolare in Roma della chiesa di Santa Maria dell'Anima, uomo di
fiducia di papa Pacelli. Le memorie di Hudal pubblicate in tedesco dopo la
sua morte, rappresentano la più dettagliata documentazione della via dei
topi: "compito svolto per incarico del Vaticano", come egli afferma.
Dell'oro croato nascosto in Vaticano correvano voci fin dall'immediato
dopoguerra nell'ambiente dei servizi segreti. Gli ustascia emigrati in
Argentina si confidarono con le autorità di quel paese, attivando la stessa
Evita Peron, subito partita per l'Italia allo scopo di convincere Pio XII a
rispettare gli impegni presi con Pavelic di restituirgli una parte del
bottino. Evita tornò a Buenos Aires a mani vuote perché l'oro non era stato
restituito, ma affidato in gestione al vescovo Alberto di Jorio, presidente
dello Ior, e al suo alter ego Bernardino Nogara.
La regia vaticana nella via dei topi viene documentata per la prima volta
da un rapporto - top secret - inviato il 15 maggio 1947 dall'addetto
militare Usa a Roma Vincent LaVista, al Segretario di Stato americano
George Marshall, che dettaglia le responsabilità vaticane e la
partecipazione di numerosi sacerdoti all'attività illegale e clandestina.
LaVista informa che grossi quantitativi di oro, trafugato alle vittime,
sarebbero stati occultati nei Palazzi Apostolici. Questo documento segue di
poco quello dell'agente speciale del Tesoro Usa Emerson Bigelow, che
documenta come nelle casse vaticane sia finito un quantitativo d'oro per un
valore di 200 milioni di franchi svizzeri, depredato dagli ustascia.
Analoga affermazione viene dalle memorie di James V. Milano, comandante del
430 distaccamento del controspionaggio dell'Us Army's Counter Intelligence
Corps, il quale aggiunge altri particolari a quelli già noti.
Il 22 luglio 1997 il quotidiano francese Nice Matin, pubblica un articolo
intitolato "Oro croato al Vaticano?" L'amministrazione americana indaga su
un trasferimento di ottocento milioni di franchi francesi", nel quale è
scritto: "Bill Clinton ha annunciato ieri che il Dipartimento del Tesoro
sta studiando il documento d'archivio che rivela che la Santa Sede ha
conservato dell'oro dell'antico regime fascista di Croazia. Secondo il
documento, diffuso da una rete televisiva americana, una parte rilevante
delle riserve d'oro del regime fascista croato, del valore di circa
ottocento milioni di franchi, sotto forma di lingotti d'oro, sarebbe stato
immagazzinato presso il Vaticano, verso la fine della Seconda guerra
mondiale, per evitare che venisse sequestrato dagli alleati... Secondo voci
insistenti queste riserve, essenzialmente costituite da lingotti d'oro, in
seguito sarebbero state dirottate, a cura del Vaticano, verso la Spagna e
l'Argentina. L'estensore del documento afferma comunque di ritenere che
queste voci siano state diffuse dal Vaticano per nascondere la verità:
secondo lui quese riserve non hanno mai lasciato la cttà pontificia". La
Santa Sede, attraverso il portavoce del ppa, Joaquin Navarro Valls,
smentisce tutto, definendo le notizie riportate dal quotidiano francese
"informazioni senza alcun fondamento".
La certezza che il tesoro ustascia si trovi ancora in Vaticano riceve il
crisma dell'ufficialità il 2 giugno 1998 dal Rapporto Usa stilato dal
sttosegretario di Stato Usa Stuart Eizenstat, che afferma, fra l'altro, che
gli archivi ustascia furono portati in Vaticano, così come oro e gioielli.
Aggiunge che "anche se non ci sono prove dell'implicazione diretta del papa
e dei suoi consiglieri, sembra inverosimile che essi abbiano del tutto
ignorato ciò che stava accadendo. Le autorità vaticane hanno affermato di
non avere trovato alcun documento suscettibile di fare luce sulla questione
dell'oro ustascia". La reazione ufficiale di parte vaticana, espressa dal
portavoce pontificio Joaquin Navarro Valls è: "il segretario dell'Istituto
San Girolamo, che era all'epoca Krunoslav Draganovic, ha forse utilizzato
quest'oro unicamente a proprio titolo, senza l'autorizzazione dell'Istituto
e senza che il Vaticano lo sapesse".
L'avvocata americana Keelyn Friesen, che coordina l'azione giudiziaria
contro lo Ior e gli altri accusati di complicità nell'imboscamento del
tesoro ustascia promossa da Zivkovic e dai suoi compagni, promette
battaglia dura ed esige giustizia. Una giustizia, che se deve suonare
condanna per l'indegno agire di uomini della Chiesa, chiama anche in causa
tutti i successori di Pio XII.
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
VATICANO
A SAN PIETRO L'ORO DI PAVELIC
Duemila sopravvissuti al genocidio del regime ustascia fanno causa allo
Ior: rivendicano il tesoro depositato, o donato per grazia ricevuta, da
Pavelic al Vaticano
- MARCO AURELIO RIVELLI -
U na bomba che esplode scuotendo il Vaticano: George Zivkovich, classe
1937, serbo di religione ortodossa, residente in California, si è
recentemente rivolto ai tribunali americani citando in giudizio la Santa
Sede, e più precisamente l'Istituto per le opere di religione, lo Ior, cioè
la banca vaticana già protagonista di numerosi scandali negli ultimi
decenni. Zivkovich, che, ragazzo, era scampato al genocidio serbo
perpetrato dagli ustascia croati negli anni 1941-1945, rivendica il tesoro
che l'ex dittatore Ante Pavelic aveva lasciato in custodia, o donato per
grazia ricevuta, al Vaticano nel '45. Lo affiancano nell'azione giudiziaria
circa 2.000 compatrioti.
Il regime ustascia, portato al governo in Croazia in quegli anni, grazie
all'invasione delle forze dell'Asse, fu il più feroce espresso dai
nazifascisti. Più feroce ancora di quello hitleriano, ed è tutto dire: in
quello stato che contava poco più di sei milioni di abitanti, un terzo dei
quali serbi di religione ortodossa, gli ustascia massacrarono un milione di
questi unitamente a 50 mila ebrei e 30 mila zingari, cioè il 20 per cento
della popolazione. All'eccidio parteciparono numerosi sacerdoti e frati
cattolici con la complicità di vescovi, con la connivenza del Primate,
arcivescovo Stepinac, recentemente beatificato, il tutto con l'implicito
beneplacito di Pio XII.
Crollato il suo regno, Pavelic scappò insieme ai suoi gerarchi e a 500
religiosi cattolici fra i più compromessi nell'eccidio, trovando rifugio a
Roma dove visse per tre anni nascosto nel Collegio di San Girolamo degli
Illirici, in Via Tomacelli, edificio protetto dalla extraterritorialità
vaticana. Non giunse a mani vuote, ma, come tutti gli ospiti che si
rispettino, portò un dono: l'oro, i gioielli e i titoli rapinati alle
vittime. Anche a Stepinac aveva lasciato un presente, trentasei casse
d'oro, che l'arcivescovo si fece incautamente scoprire un anno dopo dal
governo di Tito. Il Vaticano ricambiò il munifico omaggio facendo fuggire
questo criminale in Argentina nel 1949, vestito in abiti talari e munito di
adeguato passaporto. Con le stesse modalità la Santa Sede aiutò a fuggire
duecento ustascia e cinquemila delinquenti nazisti, l'aristocrazia del
crimine, fra i quali il Dottor Mengele, Walter Rauff, Adolf Eichmann, Erick
Priebke, Franz Stangl. A capo dell'Organizzazione di soccorso vaticana, che
attivò quella che gli alleati denominarono rat line, la via dei topi, vi
erano Draganovic, monsignore ed ex colonnello ustascia, e il vescovo Alois
Hudal, titolare in Roma della chiesa di Santa Maria dell'Anima, uomo di
fiducia di papa Pacelli. Le memorie di Hudal pubblicate in tedesco dopo la
sua morte, rappresentano la più dettagliata documentazione della via dei
topi: "compito svolto per incarico del Vaticano", come egli afferma.
Dell'oro croato nascosto in Vaticano correvano voci fin dall'immediato
dopoguerra nell'ambiente dei servizi segreti. Gli ustascia emigrati in
Argentina si confidarono con le autorità di quel paese, attivando la stessa
Evita Peron, subito partita per l'Italia allo scopo di convincere Pio XII a
rispettare gli impegni presi con Pavelic di restituirgli una parte del
bottino. Evita tornò a Buenos Aires a mani vuote perché l'oro non era stato
restituito, ma affidato in gestione al vescovo Alberto di Jorio, presidente
dello Ior, e al suo alter ego Bernardino Nogara.
La regia vaticana nella via dei topi viene documentata per la prima volta
da un rapporto - top secret - inviato il 15 maggio 1947 dall'addetto
militare Usa a Roma Vincent LaVista, al Segretario di Stato americano
George Marshall, che dettaglia le responsabilità vaticane e la
partecipazione di numerosi sacerdoti all'attività illegale e clandestina.
LaVista informa che grossi quantitativi di oro, trafugato alle vittime,
sarebbero stati occultati nei Palazzi Apostolici. Questo documento segue di
poco quello dell'agente speciale del Tesoro Usa Emerson Bigelow, che
documenta come nelle casse vaticane sia finito un quantitativo d'oro per un
valore di 200 milioni di franchi svizzeri, depredato dagli ustascia.
Analoga affermazione viene dalle memorie di James V. Milano, comandante del
430 distaccamento del controspionaggio dell'Us Army's Counter Intelligence
Corps, il quale aggiunge altri particolari a quelli già noti.
Il 22 luglio 1997 il quotidiano francese Nice Matin, pubblica un articolo
intitolato "Oro croato al Vaticano?" L'amministrazione americana indaga su
un trasferimento di ottocento milioni di franchi francesi", nel quale è
scritto: "Bill Clinton ha annunciato ieri che il Dipartimento del Tesoro
sta studiando il documento d'archivio che rivela che la Santa Sede ha
conservato dell'oro dell'antico regime fascista di Croazia. Secondo il
documento, diffuso da una rete televisiva americana, una parte rilevante
delle riserve d'oro del regime fascista croato, del valore di circa
ottocento milioni di franchi, sotto forma di lingotti d'oro, sarebbe stato
immagazzinato presso il Vaticano, verso la fine della Seconda guerra
mondiale, per evitare che venisse sequestrato dagli alleati... Secondo voci
insistenti queste riserve, essenzialmente costituite da lingotti d'oro, in
seguito sarebbero state dirottate, a cura del Vaticano, verso la Spagna e
l'Argentina. L'estensore del documento afferma comunque di ritenere che
queste voci siano state diffuse dal Vaticano per nascondere la verità:
secondo lui quese riserve non hanno mai lasciato la cttà pontificia". La
Santa Sede, attraverso il portavoce del ppa, Joaquin Navarro Valls,
smentisce tutto, definendo le notizie riportate dal quotidiano francese
"informazioni senza alcun fondamento".
La certezza che il tesoro ustascia si trovi ancora in Vaticano riceve il
crisma dell'ufficialità il 2 giugno 1998 dal Rapporto Usa stilato dal
sttosegretario di Stato Usa Stuart Eizenstat, che afferma, fra l'altro, che
gli archivi ustascia furono portati in Vaticano, così come oro e gioielli.
Aggiunge che "anche se non ci sono prove dell'implicazione diretta del papa
e dei suoi consiglieri, sembra inverosimile che essi abbiano del tutto
ignorato ciò che stava accadendo. Le autorità vaticane hanno affermato di
non avere trovato alcun documento suscettibile di fare luce sulla questione
dell'oro ustascia". La reazione ufficiale di parte vaticana, espressa dal
portavoce pontificio Joaquin Navarro Valls è: "il segretario dell'Istituto
San Girolamo, che era all'epoca Krunoslav Draganovic, ha forse utilizzato
quest'oro unicamente a proprio titolo, senza l'autorizzazione dell'Istituto
e senza che il Vaticano lo sapesse".
L'avvocata americana Keelyn Friesen, che coordina l'azione giudiziaria
contro lo Ior e gli altri accusati di complicità nell'imboscamento del
tesoro ustascia promossa da Zivkovic e dai suoi compagni, promette
battaglia dura ed esige giustizia. Una giustizia, che se deve suonare
condanna per l'indegno agire di uomini della Chiesa, chiama anche in causa
tutti i successori di Pio XII.
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
The Economist January 29, 2000
Sins of the secular missionaries
Aid and campaign groups, or NGOs, matter more and more in world
affairs. But they are often far from being "non-governmental",
as they claim. And they are not always a force for good
A YOUNG man thrusts his crudely printed calling card at the
visitor. After his name are printed three letters: NGO. "What do you
do?" the visitor asks."I have formed an NGO.""Yes, but what does it
do?""Whatever they want. I am waiting for some funds and then I will
make a project."
Once little more than ragged charities, non-governmental
organisations
(NGOs) are now big business. Somalia, where that exchange took place,
is heaven for them. In large parts of the country, western
governments,
the United Nations and foreign aid agencies cannot work directly; it
is
too dangerous. So outsiders must work through local groups, which
become a powerful source of patronage. "Anybody who's anybody is an
NGO
these days," sighs one UN official.
And not just in Somalia. NGOs now head for crisis zones as fast as
journalists do: a war, a flood, refugees, a dodgy election, even a
world trade conference, will draw them like a honey pot. Last spring,
Tirana, the capital of Albania, was swamped by some 200 groups
intending to help the refugees from Kosovo. In Kosovo itself, the
ground is now thick with foreign groups competing to foster
democracy,
build homes and proffer goods and services. Environmental activists
in
Norway board whaling ships; do-gooders gather for the Chiapas rebels
in
Mexico.
In recent years, such groups have mushroomed. A 1995 UN report on
global governance suggested that nearly 29,000 international NGOs
existed. Domestic ones have grown even faster. By one estimate, there
are now 2m in America alone, most formed in the past 30 years. In
Russia, where almost none existed before the fall of communism, there
are at least 65,000. Dozens are created daily; in Kenya alone, some
240
NGOs are now created every year.
Most of these are minnows; some are whales, with annual incomes of
millions of dollars and a worldwide operation. Some are primarily
helpers, distributing relief where it is needed; some are mainly
campaigners, existing to promote issues deemed important by their
members. The general public tends to see them as uniformly
altruistic,
idealistic and independent. But the term "NGO", like the activities
of
the NGOs themselves, deserves much sharper scrutiny.
Governments' puppets?
The tag "Non-Governmental Organisation" was used first at the
founding
of the UN. It implies that NGOs keep their distance from officialdom;
they do things that governments will not, or cannot, do. In fact,
NGOs
have a great deal to do with governments. Not all of it is healthy.
Take the aid NGOs. A growing share of development spending, emergency
relief and aid transfers passes through them. According to Carol
Lancaster, a former deputy director of USAID, America's development
body, NGOs have become "the most important constituency for the
activities of development aid agencies". Much of the food delivered
by
the World Food Programme, a UN body, in Albania last year was
actually
handed out by NGOs working in the refugee camps. Between 1990 and
1994,
the proportion of the EU's relief aid channelled through NGOs rose
from
47% to 67%. The Red Cross reckons that NGOs now disburse more money
than the World Bank.
And governments are happy to provide that money. Of Oxfam's #98m
($162m) income in 1998, a quarter, #24.1m, was given by the British
government and the EU. World Vision US, which boasts of being the
world's "largest privately funded Christian relief and development
organisation", collected $55m-worth of goods that year from the
American government. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the winner of
last
year's Nobel peace prize, gets 46% of its income from government
sources. Of 120 NGOs which sprang up in Kenya between 1993 and the
end
of 1996, all but nine received all their income from foreign
governments and international bodies. Such official contributions
will
go on, especially if the public gets more stingy. Today's young,
educated and rich give a smaller share of their incomes away than did
-- and do -- their parents.
In Africa, where international help has the greatest influence,
western governments have long been shifting their aid towards NGOs.
America's help, some $711m last year, increasingly goes to approved
organisations, often via USAID. Europe's donors also say that
bilateral
aid should go to NGOs, which are generally more open and efficient
than
governments. For the UN, too, they are now seen as indispensable. The
new head of the UN's Development Programme says the body "will put a
lot more emphasis on relations with NGOs". Most such agencies now
have
hundreds of NGO partners.
So the principal reason for the recent boom in NGOs is that western
governments finance them. This is not a matter of charity, but of
privatisation: many "non-governmental" groups are becoming
contractors
for governments. Governments prefer to pass aid through NGOs because
it
is cheaper, more efficient -- and more at arm's length -- than direct
official aid.
Governments also find NGOs useful in ways that go beyond the
distribution of food and blankets. Some bring back useful
information,
and make it part of their brief to do so. Outfits such as the
International Crisis Group and Global Witness publish detailed and
opinionated reports from places beset by war or other disasters. The
work of Global Witness in Angola is actually paid for by the British
Foreign Office.
Diplomats and governments, as well as other NGOs, journalists and the
public, can make good use of these reports. As the staff of foreign
embassies shrink, and the need to keep abreast of events abroad
increases, governments inevitably turn to private sources of
information. In some benighted parts of the world, sometimes only
NGOs
can nowadays reveal what is going on.
Take, for example, human rights, the business of one of the biggest
of
the campaigning NGOs, Amnesty International. Amnesty has around 1m
members in over 162 countries, and its campaigns against political
repression, in particular against unfair imprisonment, are known
around
the world. The information it gathers is often unavailable from other
sources.
Where western governments' interests match those of campaigning NGOs,
they can form effective alliances. In 1997, a coalition of over 350
NGOs pushed for, and obtained, a treaty against the use of landmines.
The campaign was backed by the usual array of concerned governments
(Canada, the Scandinavians) and won the Nobel peace prize.
NGOs are also interesting and useful to governments because they work
in the midst of conflict. Many were created by wars: the Red Cross
after the Battle of Solferino in 1859, the Save the Children Fund
after
the first world war, MSF after the Biafran war. By being "close to
the
action" some NGOs, perhaps unwittingly, provide good cover for spies
--
a more traditional means by which governments gather information.
In some cases, NGOs are taking over directly from diplomats: not
attempting to help the victims of war, but to end the wars
themselves.
Some try to restrict arms flows, such as Saferworld, which is against
small arms. Others attempt to negotiate ceasefires. The Italian
Catholic lay community of Sant' Egidio helped to end 13 years of
civil
war in Mozambique in 1992. International Alert, a London-based peace
research group, tried the same for Sierra Leone in the mid-1990s.
Last
year, Unicef (a part of the UN) and the Carter Centre, founded by
ex-President Jimmy Carter, brought about a peace deal of sorts
between
Uganda and Sudan. There are now roughly 500 groups registered by the
European Platform for Conflict Prevention and Transformation. "Civil
war demands civil action," say the organisers.
Larger NGOs have pledged not to act as "instruments of government
foreign policy". But at times they are seen as just that. Governments
are more willing to pay groups to deliver humanitarian aid to a war
zone than to deliver it themselves. Last autumn, America's Congress
passed a resolution to deliver food aid to rebels in southern Sudan
via
USAID and sympathetic Christian groups (religious NGOs earn the label
RINGOs, and are found everywhere).
Perhaps the most potent sign of the closeness between NGOs and
governments, aside from their financial links, is the exchange of
personnel. In developing countries, where the civil service is poor,
some governments ask NGOs to help with the paperwork requested by the
World Bank and other international institutions. Politicians, or
their
wives, often have their own local NGOs. In the developed world,
meanwhile, increasing numbers of civil servants take time off to work
for NGOs, and vice versa: Oxfam has former staff members not only in
the British government, but also in the Finance Ministry of Uganda.
This symbiotic relationship with government (earning some groups the
tag GRINGO) may make the governments of developing countries work
better. It may also help aid groups to do their job effectively. But
it
hardly reflects their independence.
NGOS can also stray too close to the corporate world. Some, known to
critics as "business NGOs", deliberately model themselves on, or
depend
greatly on, particular corporations. Bigger ones have commercial
arms,
media departments, aggressive head-hunting methods and a wide array
of
private fund-raising and investment strategies. Smaller ones can be
overwhelmed by philanthropic businesses or their owners: Bill Gates,
the head of Microsoft, gave $25m last year to an NGO that is looking
for a vaccine for AIDS, transforming it overnight from a small group
with a good idea to a powerful one with a lot of money to spend.
The business of helping
In 1997, according to the OECD, NGOs raised $5.5 billion from private
donors. The real figure may well be higher: as leisure, travel and
other industries have grown, so too have charities. In 1995
non-profit
groups (including, but not only, NGOs) provided over 12% of all jobs
in
the Netherlands, 8% in America and 6% in Britain.
Many groups have come to depend on their media presence to help with
fund-raising. This is bringing NGOs their greatest problems. They are
adapting from shoebox outfits, stuffing envelopes and sending off
perhaps one container of medicines, to sophisticated
multi-million-dollar operations. In the now-crowded relief market,
campaigning groups must jostle for attention: increasingly, NGOs
compete and spend a lot of time and money marketing themselves.
Bigger
ones typically spend 10% of their funds on marketing and
fund-raising.
The focus of such NGOs can easily shift from finding solutions and
helping needy recipients to pleasing their donors and winning
television coverage. Events at Goma, in Congo, in 1994 brought this
problem home. Tens of thousands of refugees from Rwanda, who had
flooded into Goma, depended on food and shelter from the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees and from NGOs. Their dramatic plight drew
the
television cameras and, with them, the chance for publicity and huge
donations. A frantic scramble for funds led groups to lie about their
projects. Fearful that the media and then the public might lose
confidence in NGOs, the Red Cross drew up an approved list of NGOs
and
got them to put their names to a ten-point code of conduct,
reproduced
above.
Since then, NGOs have been working hard to improve. More than 70
groups and 142 governments backed the 1995 code of conduct, agreeing
that aid should be delivered "only on a basis of need". "We hold
ourselves accountable to both those we seek to assist and those from
whom we accept resources," they pledged. Yet in Kosovo last year
there
was a similar scramble, with groups pushing to be seen by camera
crews
as they worked. Personnel and resources were even shifted there from
worse wars and refugee crises in Africa.
As they get larger, NGOs are also looking more and more like
businesses themselves. In the past, such groups sought no profits,
paid
low wages -- or none at all -- and employed idealists. Now a whole
class of them, even if not directly backed by businesses, have taken
on
corporate trappings. Known collectively as BINGOs, these groups
manage
funds and employ staff which a medium-sized company would envy. Like
corporations, they attend conferences endlessly. Fund-raisers and
senior staff at such NGOs earn wages comparable to the private
sector.
Some bodies, once registered as charities, now choose to become
non-profit companies or charitable trusts for tax reasons and so that
they can control their spending and programmes more easily. Many big
charities have trading arms, registered as companies. One
manufacturing
company, Tetra Pak, has even considered sponsoring emergency food
delivery as a way to advertise itself. Any neat division between the
corporate and the NGO worlds is long gone. Many NGOs operate as
competitors seeking contracts in the aid market, raising funds with
polished media campaigns and lobbying governments as hard as any
other
business. Governments and UN bodies could now, in theory, ask for
tenders from businesses and NGOs to carry out their programmes. It
seems only a matter of time before this happens. If NGOs are cheap
and
good at delivering food or health care in tough areas, they should
win
the contracts easily.
Good intentions not enough
It could be argued that it does not matter even if NGOs are losing
their independence, becoming just another arm of government or
another
business. GRINGOs and BINGOs, after all, may be more efficient than
the
old sort of charity.
Many do achieve great things: they may represent the last hope for
civilians caught in civil wars, for those imprisoned unfairly and for
millions of desperate refugees. There are many examples of small,
efficient and inspirational groups with great achievements: the best
will employ local people, keep foreign expertise to a minimum,
attempt
precise goals (such as providing clean water) and think deeply about
the long-term impact of their work. Some of these grow into large,
well-run groups.
But there are also problems. NGOs may be assumed to be less
bureaucratic, wasteful or corrupt than governments, but
under-scrutinised groups can suffer from the same chief failing: they
can get into bad ways because they are not accountable to anyone.
Critics also suspect that some aid groups are used to propagate
western
values, as Christian missionaries did in the 19th century. Many NGOs,
lacking any base in the local population and with their money coming
from outside, simply try to impose their ideas without debate. For
example, they often work to promote women's or children's interests
as
defined by western societies, winning funds easily but causing social
disruption on the ground.
Groups that carry out population or birth-control projects are
particularly controversial; some are paid to carry out sterilisation
programmes in the poor parts of the world, because donors in the rich
world consider there are too many people there. Anti-"slavery"
campaigns in Africa, in which western NGOs buy children's freedom for
a
few hundred dollars each, are notorious. Unicef has condemned such
groups, but American NGOs continue to buy slaves -- or people they
consider slaves -- in southern Sudan. Clearly, buying slaves, if that
is what they are, will do little to discourage the practice of
trading
them.
NGOs also get involved in situations where their presence may prolong
or complicate wars, where they end up feeding armies, sheltering
hostages or serving as cover for warring parties. These may be the
unintended consequences of aid delivery, but they also complicate
foreign policy.
Even under calmer conditions, in non-emergency development work, not
all single-interest groups may be the best guarantors of long-term
success. They are rarely obliged to think about trade-offs in policy
or
to consider broad, cross-sector approaches to development. NGOs are
"often organised to promote particular goals...rather than the
broader
goal of development," argues Ms Lancaster. In Kosovo last spring,
"many
governments made bilateral funding agreements with NGOs, greatly
undermining UNHCR's ability to prioritise programmes or monitor
efficiency," says Peter Morris of MSF. This spring in Kosovo, "there
were instances of several NGOs competing to work in the same camps,
duplication of essential services," complains an Oxfam worker. And
whatever big international NGOs do in the developing world, they
bring
in western living standards, personnel and purchasing power which can
transform local markets and generate great local resentment. In
troubled zones where foreign NGOs flourish, weekends bring a line of
smart four-by-fours parked at the best beaches, restaurants or
nightclubs. The local beggars do well, but discrepancies between
expatriate staff and, say, impoverished local officials trying to do
the same work can cause deep antipathy. Not only have NGOs diverted
funds away from local governments, but they are often seen as
directly
challenging their sovereignty.
NGOs can also become self-perpetuating. When the problem for which
they
were founded is solved, they seek new campaigns and new funds. The
old
anti-apartheid movement, its job completed, did not disband, but
instead became another lobby group for southern Africa. As NGOs
become
steadily more powerful on the world scene, the best antidote to
hubris,
and to institutionalisation, would be this: disband when the job is
done. The chief aim of NGOs should be their own abolition.
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
Sins of the secular missionaries
Aid and campaign groups, or NGOs, matter more and more in world
affairs. But they are often far from being "non-governmental",
as they claim. And they are not always a force for good
A YOUNG man thrusts his crudely printed calling card at the
visitor. After his name are printed three letters: NGO. "What do you
do?" the visitor asks."I have formed an NGO.""Yes, but what does it
do?""Whatever they want. I am waiting for some funds and then I will
make a project."
Once little more than ragged charities, non-governmental
organisations
(NGOs) are now big business. Somalia, where that exchange took place,
is heaven for them. In large parts of the country, western
governments,
the United Nations and foreign aid agencies cannot work directly; it
is
too dangerous. So outsiders must work through local groups, which
become a powerful source of patronage. "Anybody who's anybody is an
NGO
these days," sighs one UN official.
And not just in Somalia. NGOs now head for crisis zones as fast as
journalists do: a war, a flood, refugees, a dodgy election, even a
world trade conference, will draw them like a honey pot. Last spring,
Tirana, the capital of Albania, was swamped by some 200 groups
intending to help the refugees from Kosovo. In Kosovo itself, the
ground is now thick with foreign groups competing to foster
democracy,
build homes and proffer goods and services. Environmental activists
in
Norway board whaling ships; do-gooders gather for the Chiapas rebels
in
Mexico.
In recent years, such groups have mushroomed. A 1995 UN report on
global governance suggested that nearly 29,000 international NGOs
existed. Domestic ones have grown even faster. By one estimate, there
are now 2m in America alone, most formed in the past 30 years. In
Russia, where almost none existed before the fall of communism, there
are at least 65,000. Dozens are created daily; in Kenya alone, some
240
NGOs are now created every year.
Most of these are minnows; some are whales, with annual incomes of
millions of dollars and a worldwide operation. Some are primarily
helpers, distributing relief where it is needed; some are mainly
campaigners, existing to promote issues deemed important by their
members. The general public tends to see them as uniformly
altruistic,
idealistic and independent. But the term "NGO", like the activities
of
the NGOs themselves, deserves much sharper scrutiny.
Governments' puppets?
The tag "Non-Governmental Organisation" was used first at the
founding
of the UN. It implies that NGOs keep their distance from officialdom;
they do things that governments will not, or cannot, do. In fact,
NGOs
have a great deal to do with governments. Not all of it is healthy.
Take the aid NGOs. A growing share of development spending, emergency
relief and aid transfers passes through them. According to Carol
Lancaster, a former deputy director of USAID, America's development
body, NGOs have become "the most important constituency for the
activities of development aid agencies". Much of the food delivered
by
the World Food Programme, a UN body, in Albania last year was
actually
handed out by NGOs working in the refugee camps. Between 1990 and
1994,
the proportion of the EU's relief aid channelled through NGOs rose
from
47% to 67%. The Red Cross reckons that NGOs now disburse more money
than the World Bank.
And governments are happy to provide that money. Of Oxfam's #98m
($162m) income in 1998, a quarter, #24.1m, was given by the British
government and the EU. World Vision US, which boasts of being the
world's "largest privately funded Christian relief and development
organisation", collected $55m-worth of goods that year from the
American government. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the winner of
last
year's Nobel peace prize, gets 46% of its income from government
sources. Of 120 NGOs which sprang up in Kenya between 1993 and the
end
of 1996, all but nine received all their income from foreign
governments and international bodies. Such official contributions
will
go on, especially if the public gets more stingy. Today's young,
educated and rich give a smaller share of their incomes away than did
-- and do -- their parents.
In Africa, where international help has the greatest influence,
western governments have long been shifting their aid towards NGOs.
America's help, some $711m last year, increasingly goes to approved
organisations, often via USAID. Europe's donors also say that
bilateral
aid should go to NGOs, which are generally more open and efficient
than
governments. For the UN, too, they are now seen as indispensable. The
new head of the UN's Development Programme says the body "will put a
lot more emphasis on relations with NGOs". Most such agencies now
have
hundreds of NGO partners.
So the principal reason for the recent boom in NGOs is that western
governments finance them. This is not a matter of charity, but of
privatisation: many "non-governmental" groups are becoming
contractors
for governments. Governments prefer to pass aid through NGOs because
it
is cheaper, more efficient -- and more at arm's length -- than direct
official aid.
Governments also find NGOs useful in ways that go beyond the
distribution of food and blankets. Some bring back useful
information,
and make it part of their brief to do so. Outfits such as the
International Crisis Group and Global Witness publish detailed and
opinionated reports from places beset by war or other disasters. The
work of Global Witness in Angola is actually paid for by the British
Foreign Office.
Diplomats and governments, as well as other NGOs, journalists and the
public, can make good use of these reports. As the staff of foreign
embassies shrink, and the need to keep abreast of events abroad
increases, governments inevitably turn to private sources of
information. In some benighted parts of the world, sometimes only
NGOs
can nowadays reveal what is going on.
Take, for example, human rights, the business of one of the biggest
of
the campaigning NGOs, Amnesty International. Amnesty has around 1m
members in over 162 countries, and its campaigns against political
repression, in particular against unfair imprisonment, are known
around
the world. The information it gathers is often unavailable from other
sources.
Where western governments' interests match those of campaigning NGOs,
they can form effective alliances. In 1997, a coalition of over 350
NGOs pushed for, and obtained, a treaty against the use of landmines.
The campaign was backed by the usual array of concerned governments
(Canada, the Scandinavians) and won the Nobel peace prize.
NGOs are also interesting and useful to governments because they work
in the midst of conflict. Many were created by wars: the Red Cross
after the Battle of Solferino in 1859, the Save the Children Fund
after
the first world war, MSF after the Biafran war. By being "close to
the
action" some NGOs, perhaps unwittingly, provide good cover for spies
--
a more traditional means by which governments gather information.
In some cases, NGOs are taking over directly from diplomats: not
attempting to help the victims of war, but to end the wars
themselves.
Some try to restrict arms flows, such as Saferworld, which is against
small arms. Others attempt to negotiate ceasefires. The Italian
Catholic lay community of Sant' Egidio helped to end 13 years of
civil
war in Mozambique in 1992. International Alert, a London-based peace
research group, tried the same for Sierra Leone in the mid-1990s.
Last
year, Unicef (a part of the UN) and the Carter Centre, founded by
ex-President Jimmy Carter, brought about a peace deal of sorts
between
Uganda and Sudan. There are now roughly 500 groups registered by the
European Platform for Conflict Prevention and Transformation. "Civil
war demands civil action," say the organisers.
Larger NGOs have pledged not to act as "instruments of government
foreign policy". But at times they are seen as just that. Governments
are more willing to pay groups to deliver humanitarian aid to a war
zone than to deliver it themselves. Last autumn, America's Congress
passed a resolution to deliver food aid to rebels in southern Sudan
via
USAID and sympathetic Christian groups (religious NGOs earn the label
RINGOs, and are found everywhere).
Perhaps the most potent sign of the closeness between NGOs and
governments, aside from their financial links, is the exchange of
personnel. In developing countries, where the civil service is poor,
some governments ask NGOs to help with the paperwork requested by the
World Bank and other international institutions. Politicians, or
their
wives, often have their own local NGOs. In the developed world,
meanwhile, increasing numbers of civil servants take time off to work
for NGOs, and vice versa: Oxfam has former staff members not only in
the British government, but also in the Finance Ministry of Uganda.
This symbiotic relationship with government (earning some groups the
tag GRINGO) may make the governments of developing countries work
better. It may also help aid groups to do their job effectively. But
it
hardly reflects their independence.
NGOS can also stray too close to the corporate world. Some, known to
critics as "business NGOs", deliberately model themselves on, or
depend
greatly on, particular corporations. Bigger ones have commercial
arms,
media departments, aggressive head-hunting methods and a wide array
of
private fund-raising and investment strategies. Smaller ones can be
overwhelmed by philanthropic businesses or their owners: Bill Gates,
the head of Microsoft, gave $25m last year to an NGO that is looking
for a vaccine for AIDS, transforming it overnight from a small group
with a good idea to a powerful one with a lot of money to spend.
The business of helping
In 1997, according to the OECD, NGOs raised $5.5 billion from private
donors. The real figure may well be higher: as leisure, travel and
other industries have grown, so too have charities. In 1995
non-profit
groups (including, but not only, NGOs) provided over 12% of all jobs
in
the Netherlands, 8% in America and 6% in Britain.
Many groups have come to depend on their media presence to help with
fund-raising. This is bringing NGOs their greatest problems. They are
adapting from shoebox outfits, stuffing envelopes and sending off
perhaps one container of medicines, to sophisticated
multi-million-dollar operations. In the now-crowded relief market,
campaigning groups must jostle for attention: increasingly, NGOs
compete and spend a lot of time and money marketing themselves.
Bigger
ones typically spend 10% of their funds on marketing and
fund-raising.
The focus of such NGOs can easily shift from finding solutions and
helping needy recipients to pleasing their donors and winning
television coverage. Events at Goma, in Congo, in 1994 brought this
problem home. Tens of thousands of refugees from Rwanda, who had
flooded into Goma, depended on food and shelter from the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees and from NGOs. Their dramatic plight drew
the
television cameras and, with them, the chance for publicity and huge
donations. A frantic scramble for funds led groups to lie about their
projects. Fearful that the media and then the public might lose
confidence in NGOs, the Red Cross drew up an approved list of NGOs
and
got them to put their names to a ten-point code of conduct,
reproduced
above.
Since then, NGOs have been working hard to improve. More than 70
groups and 142 governments backed the 1995 code of conduct, agreeing
that aid should be delivered "only on a basis of need". "We hold
ourselves accountable to both those we seek to assist and those from
whom we accept resources," they pledged. Yet in Kosovo last year
there
was a similar scramble, with groups pushing to be seen by camera
crews
as they worked. Personnel and resources were even shifted there from
worse wars and refugee crises in Africa.
As they get larger, NGOs are also looking more and more like
businesses themselves. In the past, such groups sought no profits,
paid
low wages -- or none at all -- and employed idealists. Now a whole
class of them, even if not directly backed by businesses, have taken
on
corporate trappings. Known collectively as BINGOs, these groups
manage
funds and employ staff which a medium-sized company would envy. Like
corporations, they attend conferences endlessly. Fund-raisers and
senior staff at such NGOs earn wages comparable to the private
sector.
Some bodies, once registered as charities, now choose to become
non-profit companies or charitable trusts for tax reasons and so that
they can control their spending and programmes more easily. Many big
charities have trading arms, registered as companies. One
manufacturing
company, Tetra Pak, has even considered sponsoring emergency food
delivery as a way to advertise itself. Any neat division between the
corporate and the NGO worlds is long gone. Many NGOs operate as
competitors seeking contracts in the aid market, raising funds with
polished media campaigns and lobbying governments as hard as any
other
business. Governments and UN bodies could now, in theory, ask for
tenders from businesses and NGOs to carry out their programmes. It
seems only a matter of time before this happens. If NGOs are cheap
and
good at delivering food or health care in tough areas, they should
win
the contracts easily.
Good intentions not enough
It could be argued that it does not matter even if NGOs are losing
their independence, becoming just another arm of government or
another
business. GRINGOs and BINGOs, after all, may be more efficient than
the
old sort of charity.
Many do achieve great things: they may represent the last hope for
civilians caught in civil wars, for those imprisoned unfairly and for
millions of desperate refugees. There are many examples of small,
efficient and inspirational groups with great achievements: the best
will employ local people, keep foreign expertise to a minimum,
attempt
precise goals (such as providing clean water) and think deeply about
the long-term impact of their work. Some of these grow into large,
well-run groups.
But there are also problems. NGOs may be assumed to be less
bureaucratic, wasteful or corrupt than governments, but
under-scrutinised groups can suffer from the same chief failing: they
can get into bad ways because they are not accountable to anyone.
Critics also suspect that some aid groups are used to propagate
western
values, as Christian missionaries did in the 19th century. Many NGOs,
lacking any base in the local population and with their money coming
from outside, simply try to impose their ideas without debate. For
example, they often work to promote women's or children's interests
as
defined by western societies, winning funds easily but causing social
disruption on the ground.
Groups that carry out population or birth-control projects are
particularly controversial; some are paid to carry out sterilisation
programmes in the poor parts of the world, because donors in the rich
world consider there are too many people there. Anti-"slavery"
campaigns in Africa, in which western NGOs buy children's freedom for
a
few hundred dollars each, are notorious. Unicef has condemned such
groups, but American NGOs continue to buy slaves -- or people they
consider slaves -- in southern Sudan. Clearly, buying slaves, if that
is what they are, will do little to discourage the practice of
trading
them.
NGOs also get involved in situations where their presence may prolong
or complicate wars, where they end up feeding armies, sheltering
hostages or serving as cover for warring parties. These may be the
unintended consequences of aid delivery, but they also complicate
foreign policy.
Even under calmer conditions, in non-emergency development work, not
all single-interest groups may be the best guarantors of long-term
success. They are rarely obliged to think about trade-offs in policy
or
to consider broad, cross-sector approaches to development. NGOs are
"often organised to promote particular goals...rather than the
broader
goal of development," argues Ms Lancaster. In Kosovo last spring,
"many
governments made bilateral funding agreements with NGOs, greatly
undermining UNHCR's ability to prioritise programmes or monitor
efficiency," says Peter Morris of MSF. This spring in Kosovo, "there
were instances of several NGOs competing to work in the same camps,
duplication of essential services," complains an Oxfam worker. And
whatever big international NGOs do in the developing world, they
bring
in western living standards, personnel and purchasing power which can
transform local markets and generate great local resentment. In
troubled zones where foreign NGOs flourish, weekends bring a line of
smart four-by-fours parked at the best beaches, restaurants or
nightclubs. The local beggars do well, but discrepancies between
expatriate staff and, say, impoverished local officials trying to do
the same work can cause deep antipathy. Not only have NGOs diverted
funds away from local governments, but they are often seen as
directly
challenging their sovereignty.
NGOs can also become self-perpetuating. When the problem for which
they
were founded is solved, they seek new campaigns and new funds. The
old
anti-apartheid movement, its job completed, did not disband, but
instead became another lobby group for southern Africa. As NGOs
become
steadily more powerful on the world scene, the best antidote to
hubris,
and to institutionalisation, would be this: disband when the job is
done. The chief aim of NGOs should be their own abolition.
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
REPUBBLICA
FEDERATIVA
SOCIALISTA
JUGOSLAVIA
Zotohem para flamurit të pionirëvet dhe para shokëvet
pionierë, që do të mësoj e do të jetoj si bir besnik i
Atdheut tim Republikeës Socialiste Federative të
Jugosllavisë. Zotohem që do të ruaj vëllazërimin e bashkimin
e popujvet tanë dhe lirinë e Atdheut, të fituar me gjakun e
djemvet tanë më të mirë.
PËR ATDHE ME TITON PËRPARA!
RROFTË 29 NËNTOR!
RROFTË SHOKU TITO!
Agim, Prishtinë
( http://www.sfrj.com )
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
FEDERATIVA
SOCIALISTA
JUGOSLAVIA
Zotohem para flamurit të pionirëvet dhe para shokëvet
pionierë, që do të mësoj e do të jetoj si bir besnik i
Atdheut tim Republikeës Socialiste Federative të
Jugosllavisë. Zotohem që do të ruaj vëllazërimin e bashkimin
e popujvet tanë dhe lirinë e Atdheut, të fituar me gjakun e
djemvet tanë më të mirë.
PËR ATDHE ME TITON PËRPARA!
RROFTË 29 NËNTOR!
RROFTË SHOKU TITO!
Agim, Prishtinë
( http://www.sfrj.com )
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
I PARTIGIANI JUGOSLAVI NELLA RESISTENZA FRANCESE
-----Original Message-----
From: democrite <democrite@...>
Date: 16 May 1999 17:55
Subject: Yugoslavs in the French Resistance
>SMALL IN NUMBER, GREAT IN SACRIFICE
>
>YUGOSLAV IMMIGRATION
>
> Relatively speaking, Yugoslav immigrants died the most. Small in
>number, they were great in sacrifice. As early as 1939, at the time of
>mobilisation, more than 1,500 Yugoslavs had voluntarily joined the
>French army. Later, at the time of occupation, nearly 3,000 took part
>in the various Resistance movements. Everywhere, in Pas-de-Calais,
>Corrèze, Haute-Savoy, Moselle and Paris, Yugoslavs distinguished
>themselves by their bravery and courage. The attitude of the Yugoslav
>fighters and Resistance workers was always inspired by the strong
>friendship and sincere loyalty they felt towards the countries which
>welcomed them, and they gave ample proof of their attachment at the
>darkest times.
> At Nîmes, in the Maritime Alps, in the Ardennes and in Haute-Savoy,
>more than fifty Yugoslavs fell victim to Nazi barbarity. The first
>thing the Yugoslav Resistance fighters had done had been to direct their
>activity towards the Croatian troops dragooned into the ranks of the
>Wehrmacht. It was thanks to such action that near Grenoble, a Croatian
>unit blew up a depot where a large amount of ammunition and explosives
>were stored, killing many Germans.
> At Villefranche-de-Rouergue resided a regiment of engineers made up of
>about 1,300 Croats. They had ended up in this region - where the
>peasants reminded them of their far-off homeland by their sobriety and
>the homespun of their clothes - after having refused to leave for the
>Eastern front. These soldiers found it quite natural to consider France
>as a country of friends and the population was quick to recognise them
>as such. A mutual current of friendship soon formed. It was not long
>before the soldiers heard of the maquis and decided their duty was to
>act too. They thought up a plan of escape. But out of the 1,300, there
>was one traitor. Seeing they had been exposed, the others took action.
>After a judgement in the name of Tito, they shot their officers,
>occupied the town and proclaimed liberty. Immediately, Hitler's forces
>flooded in from the surrounding centres - Toulouse, Albi, Limoges and
>Rodez. The men hardly had time to split up into small groups and take
>to the maquis. They left the town together so that the population would
>not be trapped between two enemy fires, and took up position in the
>surrounding hills ready for an unequal battle.
> 200 Croats were killed in the fight. More than 400 were taken prisoner
>and shot in the barracks courtyard. The remaining 600 or so were able
>to escape and carried on fighting by the sides of the French Resistance
>fighters.
> In the Ardennes, there were groups of immigrant partisans. The
>"Marshal Tito" corp., of which two leaders died during combat, was made
>up of Yugoslavs. In the region of Nancy, on the road to Germany, it was
>groups of immigrants of Yugoslav origin and Soviet prisoners who had
>escaped, who prevented the Nazis from coming to the aid of Wehrmacht
>groups cut off from their bases. The names of these heroic brigades
>were "Paris Commune", "Stalingrad" and "Jelezniack".
> From the ranks of these fighters came Resistance leaders, like General
>Ljubomir ILITCH, who by their courage and their self-sacrifice in the
>struggle against the fascist occupying army, won the friendship of all
>the Resistance workers. In homage to the participation to the struggle
>of Yugoslavs against the common enemy, the French authorities gave the
>names of two of their heroes, MIRNIK and BOLTAR, who were shot by the
>Germans, to two streets in the towns of Avion (Pas-de-Calais) and
>Toulouse. In the South of France, near Toulouse, sixteen Yugoslav
>immigrant fighters were awarded either the War Cross or the Resistance
>Medal for their courage and dedication.
>
>GENERAL ILITCH
>
> General Ljubomir ILITCH, former commander in the International Brigades
>in Spain, commander of the F.F.I. of the resistance of immigrants in
>France during German occupation, and one of the most active organisers
>of the maquis guerrillas, tells in his memoirs how he managed to join
>the Resistance movement in France.
> "In 1940, the Germans and the Vichy leaders decided to shut up in the
>camps all the "troublesome" elements who had shown in the past true
>attachment to the cause of liberty, of democracy and, thus, to France.
>All the committed antifascists were thus imprisoned and their situation
>got worse as clandestine resistance became active and it transpired
>clearly what role all the foreigners living in France were to play! The
>Vichy and Gestapo jailers split the prisoners up into the "ringleaders",
>who were strong and thus a danger to them, and the majority who were
>less spirited, weakened as they were by hunger, deprivation and
>demoralisation. We "dangerous" ones were sent to the prison of Castres,
>which was used as a depot and as a station passed through by prisoners
>on their way to concentration camps in Germany. When we were undressed
>and stripped of our papers, baggage, family photos and even identity
>cards, we understood that our departure for the death camps was
>approaching. That was how the Germans arranged the papers of the
>political deportees and kept them carefully in their archives. Among us
>in prison there were also French officers and allies who had dropped by
>parachute, and Belgian and Polish officers, doing intelligence work for
>the allies. We were totally cut off from the outside world yet even then
>we were able to study all the obstacles in our way, the safety catches,
>the alarm bells and electronic alarm systems set up by the Germans in
>case of a possible escape. The escape took place in broad daylight,
>thanks to each one of us carrying out perfectly our tasks according to
>given instructions.
> There were 36 of us who escaped, plus two women from the English
>intelligence service. We made it to the mountains, and made those
>chasing us lose all trace of us. At last, after a week, we established
>contact with the clandestine maquis and partisans and got down to action
>at once. Four of us were Yugoslavs: we all wanted to join Tito without
>delay to fight in our own country. But the difficulties in leaving were
>great: we would have had to pass through Spain, and we had stayed there
>as volunteers in the International Brigades in '36 - '39. Our faces
>were known there... So while waiting to go, we all put ourselves at the
>disposal of the French Resistance and began to work together with the
>F.T.P."(1).
>
>Jean STANKOVITCH
>
> An article in the 4th September 1946 issue of "Le Havre Libre" recalled
>the memory of this young hero of Yugoslav origin.
> Born in Le Havre, Jean Stankovitch, after studying at Dicquemare
>school, was taken by the Obligatory Work Service in '43. Refusing
>immediately to go to Germany, he stayed for some time hidden in the town
>under the name of Jean Coquelin. However, the inaction to which his
>illegal situation constrained him was not suited to him. He suffered
>from it, and often opened up about his feelings to his friend Maurice
>Leboucher, who was to be much talked of later. Leboucher, understanding
>well that Jean Stankovitch was driven by a burning desire to make
>himself useful, did not hesitate to advise him to come and join him at
>the German submarine base, in Le Havre, where he was able to get him
>hired as electrician.
> Jean Stankovitch spent some time there, and enjoyed the good tricks his
>friend and himself played on the occupying forces, good tricks which
>could be called, in other words, sabotage. "They think I'm from an
>electricity school!" he would say to his close friends. And this trick
>alone was enough to thrill him.
> His mother, however, fearing bombings, soon decided to go and live in
>Belleville. Jean followed her, most unwillingly. But he could not
>remain inactive there either.
> And in the days following the arrival of the allies, he was glad to act
>as a courier for them, passing through the barricades that then isolated
>Le Havre. For, unknown to his mother, he was a member of the Resistance
>group "France before all". There he had met a young man, three years
>younger than him, and the two of them had fomented multiple projects to
>undermine German organisation wherever their modest means might be used,
>whenever the time came to get down to action.
> On Saturday 2nd September, when the tanks were officially announced,
>the two comrades could no longer keep still. Despite their families'
>advice to be cautious, they escaped and ran to meet the tanks. Bernard
>Lefebvre who was heading for Saint-Cyr was glad to be able to get a lift
>on a tank. He felt as if he was driving up the road of triumph.
> A few kilometres on, they heard that a volunteer was wanted to carry a
>letter from the allies' lines to a certain castle of Fontenay where
>there was still a German officer. Jean proposed himself, and set off at
>once in company of a young lady who spoke German. Once they got there,
>they were kept waiting for over an hour, after which they were chased
>away: the message was an order to surrender! Startled, the young lady
>and Jean Stankovitch found themselves in the road with bursts of fire
>beginning to rain down on them. They were amazed to still be alive, so
>much anger had they read in the eyes of the officer to whom they had
>unknowingly been assigned to propose capitulation. And even though they
>had failed in their mission, they were still glad to get away from their
>goal.
> That evening, after having served as liaison agents between the many
>Resistance groups, Jean and Bernard met up and, together with the other
>comrades, discussed besides the English tanks. It is not known how an
>Alsacian soldier managed to slip up to them and ask them to be kind
>enough to accept to serve as an intermediary between ten of his comrades
>and the Allies to whom they wanted to surrender. Promised that they
>would not be hurt, they decided to meet by a farm between 6.30 and
>7.00am. At the decided moment, Stankovitch and Lefevbre went to the
>place as arranged and waited. The firing from the barricades became
>heavier, and it was difficult for them to believe that the Alsacians
>would manage to get there under such an avalanche of bullets. And yet,
>since they had given their word, they were bent on keeping it, and tried
>to stay put. What happened in the moments which followed? Doubtless a
>shell exploding nearby or a low burst of gunfire took them by surprise.
>Both of them were touched. Bernard Lefebvre was killed outright and
>Jean Sankovitch, fatally wounded, died one hour later, after terrible
>suffering, at the first aid centre at Rolleville which he had been taken
>to.
>
>Sava KOVATCHEVITCH
>
> Sava Kovatchevitch, originally from the Lika district, had come to
>France in 1937 to earn a living and help his family a little. After
>occupying France, the Germans sent him to do labour in Düsseldorf,
>Germany. There, he began with the other workers to do sabotage, but the
>Gestapo was after him, especially as he was teaching the deported
>workers how to commit sabotage. He left at the moment he was about to
>be arrested. At the time, he was already in contact with Yugoslav and
>French prisoners and, alongside the patriots of Lorraine, was helping
>them.
> He was in Lorraine under the name "Pierre" and had a heavy, dangerous
>task. With the help of the patriots of Lorraine, he created a huge
>organization to get people through Germany and Lorraine towards France
>and its maquis. He made false identity papers with the help of the
>mayor of Baynville, Pierre Semmoni and Victor Florch, a post inspector
>in Nancy. Alongside the patriots from Lorraine - Emile Kodari, Louis
>Vagner, Albert Vaguer, Alphonse Vagner, Victor Picrona, Pierre Vagner,
>Jeannette Koisser, from Metz, and Louise Florch, also from Metz - Sava
>got men through into France and saved thier lives. French and Yugoslav
>prisoners in camps in Germany knew of this and those who escaped from
>the Stalag XII F. came to find him. He obtained them civilian clothes,
>false identity papers and food; he got them over the border and the
>rivers near Metz.
> Sava was discovered by Pavelitch's oustachis in charge of keeping tabs
>on the Croatian workers deported to Germany. The Gestapo arrested him
>and tortured him for 72 days , starving and beating him, so that he
>would denounce the organisation by which war prisoners, civilian
>deportees and saboteurs got away into France. This son of the Lika held
>out and never even thought of letting out anything at all.
> "If I must die, I may as well die as a man, and not tarnish my Lika, "
>Sava would say.
> In the end, the Gestapo sent him to join a labour company. He
>succeeded in escaping, and started his work once more, even more
>secretly than before. He was searched for intensely, and in August 1944
>the place became too hot beneath his feet and he was forced to leave.
>He made it to France and joined the maquis again.
>Among the Yugoslav fighters who died in action, let us mention:
>Dimitri KOTOUROVIC (1911 - 1944), former fighter in the International
>Brigades in Spain, initiator and organiser of the first F.T.P. (ndlt:
>Franc Tireur et Partisan) groups in Marseille. Was killed heroically at
>his post in April 1944.
>Victor FILIPIC, shot by the Gestapo after committing sabotage at
>Sallaumines.
>Sava PAVLICEK, killed while fighting on August 18th 1944 in Sauppe.
>Givorad BOGOSAVLJEVIC, killed by the Germans during battle in August
>1944 in Quincy-Voisins.
>Stanko NOVAKOVIC, killed in action at Verdun in August 1944.
>Michel ARIEFF, nicknamed "Tito", killed in action at Mausouées Farm in
>August 1944.
>Zika PETROVIC, 25 years old, escpaded war prisoner, killed in action in
>Meaux.
>Rudolf CUCEK and Victor ERJAVEC, two miners in Pas-de-Calais, together
>shot by the Germans.
>BRUNOVIC, from Bruay-en Artois, killed in action in August 1942.
>FAJS, from Bruay-en Artois, killed while he was opposing resistance to
>the police who had come to arrest him in May 1943.
>
>Notes:
>1. Quoted in "Unis" bulletin n° 52, 17.2.1946.
>(On les nommait des étrangers, Les immigrés dans la résistance, by
>Gaston Laroche, F.T.P.F. colonel, Boris Matline)
>
>Souvenir Franco-Soviétique,
>Jean LEVEQUE,
>Villa "Florelle",
>28410 BROUE
>
>Translated from the French by P.M.
>
>--
>Les "Editions Democrite" publient un mensuel en francais :
>> "Les dossiers du BIP" avec des traductions d'articles provenant de la
>> presse communiste(grecque, allemande, anglaise, turque, russe, espagnole,
>> portugaise...)sur des evenements qui interessent des lecteurs
>communistes.
>> Editions Democrite, 52, bld Roger Salengro, 93190 LIVRY-GARGAN, FRANCE
>> e-mail : democrite@...
>
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: democrite <democrite@...>
Date: 16 May 1999 17:55
Subject: Yugoslavs in the French Resistance
>SMALL IN NUMBER, GREAT IN SACRIFICE
>
>YUGOSLAV IMMIGRATION
>
> Relatively speaking, Yugoslav immigrants died the most. Small in
>number, they were great in sacrifice. As early as 1939, at the time of
>mobilisation, more than 1,500 Yugoslavs had voluntarily joined the
>French army. Later, at the time of occupation, nearly 3,000 took part
>in the various Resistance movements. Everywhere, in Pas-de-Calais,
>Corrèze, Haute-Savoy, Moselle and Paris, Yugoslavs distinguished
>themselves by their bravery and courage. The attitude of the Yugoslav
>fighters and Resistance workers was always inspired by the strong
>friendship and sincere loyalty they felt towards the countries which
>welcomed them, and they gave ample proof of their attachment at the
>darkest times.
> At Nîmes, in the Maritime Alps, in the Ardennes and in Haute-Savoy,
>more than fifty Yugoslavs fell victim to Nazi barbarity. The first
>thing the Yugoslav Resistance fighters had done had been to direct their
>activity towards the Croatian troops dragooned into the ranks of the
>Wehrmacht. It was thanks to such action that near Grenoble, a Croatian
>unit blew up a depot where a large amount of ammunition and explosives
>were stored, killing many Germans.
> At Villefranche-de-Rouergue resided a regiment of engineers made up of
>about 1,300 Croats. They had ended up in this region - where the
>peasants reminded them of their far-off homeland by their sobriety and
>the homespun of their clothes - after having refused to leave for the
>Eastern front. These soldiers found it quite natural to consider France
>as a country of friends and the population was quick to recognise them
>as such. A mutual current of friendship soon formed. It was not long
>before the soldiers heard of the maquis and decided their duty was to
>act too. They thought up a plan of escape. But out of the 1,300, there
>was one traitor. Seeing they had been exposed, the others took action.
>After a judgement in the name of Tito, they shot their officers,
>occupied the town and proclaimed liberty. Immediately, Hitler's forces
>flooded in from the surrounding centres - Toulouse, Albi, Limoges and
>Rodez. The men hardly had time to split up into small groups and take
>to the maquis. They left the town together so that the population would
>not be trapped between two enemy fires, and took up position in the
>surrounding hills ready for an unequal battle.
> 200 Croats were killed in the fight. More than 400 were taken prisoner
>and shot in the barracks courtyard. The remaining 600 or so were able
>to escape and carried on fighting by the sides of the French Resistance
>fighters.
> In the Ardennes, there were groups of immigrant partisans. The
>"Marshal Tito" corp., of which two leaders died during combat, was made
>up of Yugoslavs. In the region of Nancy, on the road to Germany, it was
>groups of immigrants of Yugoslav origin and Soviet prisoners who had
>escaped, who prevented the Nazis from coming to the aid of Wehrmacht
>groups cut off from their bases. The names of these heroic brigades
>were "Paris Commune", "Stalingrad" and "Jelezniack".
> From the ranks of these fighters came Resistance leaders, like General
>Ljubomir ILITCH, who by their courage and their self-sacrifice in the
>struggle against the fascist occupying army, won the friendship of all
>the Resistance workers. In homage to the participation to the struggle
>of Yugoslavs against the common enemy, the French authorities gave the
>names of two of their heroes, MIRNIK and BOLTAR, who were shot by the
>Germans, to two streets in the towns of Avion (Pas-de-Calais) and
>Toulouse. In the South of France, near Toulouse, sixteen Yugoslav
>immigrant fighters were awarded either the War Cross or the Resistance
>Medal for their courage and dedication.
>
>GENERAL ILITCH
>
> General Ljubomir ILITCH, former commander in the International Brigades
>in Spain, commander of the F.F.I. of the resistance of immigrants in
>France during German occupation, and one of the most active organisers
>of the maquis guerrillas, tells in his memoirs how he managed to join
>the Resistance movement in France.
> "In 1940, the Germans and the Vichy leaders decided to shut up in the
>camps all the "troublesome" elements who had shown in the past true
>attachment to the cause of liberty, of democracy and, thus, to France.
>All the committed antifascists were thus imprisoned and their situation
>got worse as clandestine resistance became active and it transpired
>clearly what role all the foreigners living in France were to play! The
>Vichy and Gestapo jailers split the prisoners up into the "ringleaders",
>who were strong and thus a danger to them, and the majority who were
>less spirited, weakened as they were by hunger, deprivation and
>demoralisation. We "dangerous" ones were sent to the prison of Castres,
>which was used as a depot and as a station passed through by prisoners
>on their way to concentration camps in Germany. When we were undressed
>and stripped of our papers, baggage, family photos and even identity
>cards, we understood that our departure for the death camps was
>approaching. That was how the Germans arranged the papers of the
>political deportees and kept them carefully in their archives. Among us
>in prison there were also French officers and allies who had dropped by
>parachute, and Belgian and Polish officers, doing intelligence work for
>the allies. We were totally cut off from the outside world yet even then
>we were able to study all the obstacles in our way, the safety catches,
>the alarm bells and electronic alarm systems set up by the Germans in
>case of a possible escape. The escape took place in broad daylight,
>thanks to each one of us carrying out perfectly our tasks according to
>given instructions.
> There were 36 of us who escaped, plus two women from the English
>intelligence service. We made it to the mountains, and made those
>chasing us lose all trace of us. At last, after a week, we established
>contact with the clandestine maquis and partisans and got down to action
>at once. Four of us were Yugoslavs: we all wanted to join Tito without
>delay to fight in our own country. But the difficulties in leaving were
>great: we would have had to pass through Spain, and we had stayed there
>as volunteers in the International Brigades in '36 - '39. Our faces
>were known there... So while waiting to go, we all put ourselves at the
>disposal of the French Resistance and began to work together with the
>F.T.P."(1).
>
>Jean STANKOVITCH
>
> An article in the 4th September 1946 issue of "Le Havre Libre" recalled
>the memory of this young hero of Yugoslav origin.
> Born in Le Havre, Jean Stankovitch, after studying at Dicquemare
>school, was taken by the Obligatory Work Service in '43. Refusing
>immediately to go to Germany, he stayed for some time hidden in the town
>under the name of Jean Coquelin. However, the inaction to which his
>illegal situation constrained him was not suited to him. He suffered
>from it, and often opened up about his feelings to his friend Maurice
>Leboucher, who was to be much talked of later. Leboucher, understanding
>well that Jean Stankovitch was driven by a burning desire to make
>himself useful, did not hesitate to advise him to come and join him at
>the German submarine base, in Le Havre, where he was able to get him
>hired as electrician.
> Jean Stankovitch spent some time there, and enjoyed the good tricks his
>friend and himself played on the occupying forces, good tricks which
>could be called, in other words, sabotage. "They think I'm from an
>electricity school!" he would say to his close friends. And this trick
>alone was enough to thrill him.
> His mother, however, fearing bombings, soon decided to go and live in
>Belleville. Jean followed her, most unwillingly. But he could not
>remain inactive there either.
> And in the days following the arrival of the allies, he was glad to act
>as a courier for them, passing through the barricades that then isolated
>Le Havre. For, unknown to his mother, he was a member of the Resistance
>group "France before all". There he had met a young man, three years
>younger than him, and the two of them had fomented multiple projects to
>undermine German organisation wherever their modest means might be used,
>whenever the time came to get down to action.
> On Saturday 2nd September, when the tanks were officially announced,
>the two comrades could no longer keep still. Despite their families'
>advice to be cautious, they escaped and ran to meet the tanks. Bernard
>Lefebvre who was heading for Saint-Cyr was glad to be able to get a lift
>on a tank. He felt as if he was driving up the road of triumph.
> A few kilometres on, they heard that a volunteer was wanted to carry a
>letter from the allies' lines to a certain castle of Fontenay where
>there was still a German officer. Jean proposed himself, and set off at
>once in company of a young lady who spoke German. Once they got there,
>they were kept waiting for over an hour, after which they were chased
>away: the message was an order to surrender! Startled, the young lady
>and Jean Stankovitch found themselves in the road with bursts of fire
>beginning to rain down on them. They were amazed to still be alive, so
>much anger had they read in the eyes of the officer to whom they had
>unknowingly been assigned to propose capitulation. And even though they
>had failed in their mission, they were still glad to get away from their
>goal.
> That evening, after having served as liaison agents between the many
>Resistance groups, Jean and Bernard met up and, together with the other
>comrades, discussed besides the English tanks. It is not known how an
>Alsacian soldier managed to slip up to them and ask them to be kind
>enough to accept to serve as an intermediary between ten of his comrades
>and the Allies to whom they wanted to surrender. Promised that they
>would not be hurt, they decided to meet by a farm between 6.30 and
>7.00am. At the decided moment, Stankovitch and Lefevbre went to the
>place as arranged and waited. The firing from the barricades became
>heavier, and it was difficult for them to believe that the Alsacians
>would manage to get there under such an avalanche of bullets. And yet,
>since they had given their word, they were bent on keeping it, and tried
>to stay put. What happened in the moments which followed? Doubtless a
>shell exploding nearby or a low burst of gunfire took them by surprise.
>Both of them were touched. Bernard Lefebvre was killed outright and
>Jean Sankovitch, fatally wounded, died one hour later, after terrible
>suffering, at the first aid centre at Rolleville which he had been taken
>to.
>
>Sava KOVATCHEVITCH
>
> Sava Kovatchevitch, originally from the Lika district, had come to
>France in 1937 to earn a living and help his family a little. After
>occupying France, the Germans sent him to do labour in Düsseldorf,
>Germany. There, he began with the other workers to do sabotage, but the
>Gestapo was after him, especially as he was teaching the deported
>workers how to commit sabotage. He left at the moment he was about to
>be arrested. At the time, he was already in contact with Yugoslav and
>French prisoners and, alongside the patriots of Lorraine, was helping
>them.
> He was in Lorraine under the name "Pierre" and had a heavy, dangerous
>task. With the help of the patriots of Lorraine, he created a huge
>organization to get people through Germany and Lorraine towards France
>and its maquis. He made false identity papers with the help of the
>mayor of Baynville, Pierre Semmoni and Victor Florch, a post inspector
>in Nancy. Alongside the patriots from Lorraine - Emile Kodari, Louis
>Vagner, Albert Vaguer, Alphonse Vagner, Victor Picrona, Pierre Vagner,
>Jeannette Koisser, from Metz, and Louise Florch, also from Metz - Sava
>got men through into France and saved thier lives. French and Yugoslav
>prisoners in camps in Germany knew of this and those who escaped from
>the Stalag XII F. came to find him. He obtained them civilian clothes,
>false identity papers and food; he got them over the border and the
>rivers near Metz.
> Sava was discovered by Pavelitch's oustachis in charge of keeping tabs
>on the Croatian workers deported to Germany. The Gestapo arrested him
>and tortured him for 72 days , starving and beating him, so that he
>would denounce the organisation by which war prisoners, civilian
>deportees and saboteurs got away into France. This son of the Lika held
>out and never even thought of letting out anything at all.
> "If I must die, I may as well die as a man, and not tarnish my Lika, "
>Sava would say.
> In the end, the Gestapo sent him to join a labour company. He
>succeeded in escaping, and started his work once more, even more
>secretly than before. He was searched for intensely, and in August 1944
>the place became too hot beneath his feet and he was forced to leave.
>He made it to France and joined the maquis again.
>Among the Yugoslav fighters who died in action, let us mention:
>Dimitri KOTOUROVIC (1911 - 1944), former fighter in the International
>Brigades in Spain, initiator and organiser of the first F.T.P. (ndlt:
>Franc Tireur et Partisan) groups in Marseille. Was killed heroically at
>his post in April 1944.
>Victor FILIPIC, shot by the Gestapo after committing sabotage at
>Sallaumines.
>Sava PAVLICEK, killed while fighting on August 18th 1944 in Sauppe.
>Givorad BOGOSAVLJEVIC, killed by the Germans during battle in August
>1944 in Quincy-Voisins.
>Stanko NOVAKOVIC, killed in action at Verdun in August 1944.
>Michel ARIEFF, nicknamed "Tito", killed in action at Mausouées Farm in
>August 1944.
>Zika PETROVIC, 25 years old, escpaded war prisoner, killed in action in
>Meaux.
>Rudolf CUCEK and Victor ERJAVEC, two miners in Pas-de-Calais, together
>shot by the Germans.
>BRUNOVIC, from Bruay-en Artois, killed in action in August 1942.
>FAJS, from Bruay-en Artois, killed while he was opposing resistance to
>the police who had come to arrest him in May 1943.
>
>Notes:
>1. Quoted in "Unis" bulletin n° 52, 17.2.1946.
>(On les nommait des étrangers, Les immigrés dans la résistance, by
>Gaston Laroche, F.T.P.F. colonel, Boris Matline)
>
>Souvenir Franco-Soviétique,
>Jean LEVEQUE,
>Villa "Florelle",
>28410 BROUE
>
>Translated from the French by P.M.
>
>--
>Les "Editions Democrite" publient un mensuel en francais :
>> "Les dossiers du BIP" avec des traductions d'articles provenant de la
>> presse communiste(grecque, allemande, anglaise, turque, russe, espagnole,
>> portugaise...)sur des evenements qui interessent des lecteurs
>communistes.
>> Editions Democrite, 52, bld Roger Salengro, 93190 LIVRY-GARGAN, FRANCE
>> e-mail : democrite@...
>
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
AUDIZIONI ALLA COMMISSIONE ESTERI DEL PARLAMENTO CANADESE
I contribuiti che diffondiamo in questo messaggio vengono dal Canada. Si
tratta di alcune audizioni tenute ad Ottawa, alla Camera dei Comuni,
dinanzi allo Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International
Trade da parte di varie personalita' ritenute a vario titolo "informate
sui fatti" riguardo alla aggressione della NATO contro la Repubblica
Federale di Jugoslavia. In particolare, i contributi seguenti sono le
testimonianze di JAMES BISSET, ex-ambasciatore canadese a Belgrado, ora
"indesiderato" nella stessa ambasciata canadese a Belgrado, e SERGE
TRIFKOVIC, professore di storia, responsabile per gli esteri di
"Chronicles - Magazine of American Culture".
Tutti i documenti sono stati diffusi dalla lista STOPNATO@...
===
Author: James Bisset
Publisher/Date: February 2000
Title: Notes for address to Standing Committee Foreign Affairs and
International Trade (Ca)
1: Introduction
I wish to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity of speaking
this morning.
It is some comfort to know that although I was not allowed to speak to
anyone in the Canadian embassy in Belgrade during a recent visit there
that I am free to speak to members of the Canadian parliament.
I have been an out spoken critic of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. I
believe it to have been a tragic mistake -- a historic miscalculation
that will have far reaching implications.
When NATO bombs fell on Yugoslavia in the spring and summer of last year
they caused more than just death and destruction in that country. The
bombs also struck at the heart of international law and delivered a
serious blow to the framework of global security that since the end of
the second world war has protected all of us from the horrors of a
nuclear war.
Kosovo broke the ground rules for NATO engagement and the aggressive
military intervention by NATO into the affairs of a sovereign state for
other than defensive purposes marked an ominous turning point in the
aims and objectives of that organization. It is important that we
understand this and seek clarification as to whether this was a
"one-off" aberration or a signal of fundamental change in the nature and
purposes of the organization. This is something the committee might well
examine in the course of its work.
2: An Illegal War
NATO's war in Kosovo was conducted without the approval of the United
Nations Security Council. It was a violation of international law, the
United Nations charter and its own article 1, which requires NATO to
settle any international disputes by peaceful means and not to threaten
or use force, "in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the
United Nations."
Apologists for NATO including our own foreign and defence ministers try
to avoid this issue by simply not mentioning it. There has been no
attempt to explain why the United Nations Security Council was ignored.
No effort to spell out under whose authority did NATO bomb Yugoslavia.
The ministers and their officials continue to justify the air strikes on
the grounds that the bombs were necessary to stop ethnic cleansing and
atrocities, despite all the evidence that by far the bulk of the ethnic
cleansing took place after the bombing not before it. It was the bombing
that triggered off the worst of the ethnic cleansing.
As for the atrocities it now seems that here again we were lied to about
the extent of the crimes commited. United States Secretary of Defence
Cohen told us that at least 100,000 Kosovars had perished. Tony Blair
spoke of genocide being carried out in Kosovo. The media relished in
these atrocity stories and printed every story told to them by Albanian,
"eye witnesses." The myth that the war was to stop ethnic cleansing and
atrocities contiues to be perpetrated by department spokesmen and large
parts of the media.
No one wants to defend atrocities and the numbers game in such
circumstances becomes sordid. Nevertheless numbers do become important
if they are used to justify military action against a sovereign state.
in the case of Kosovo it appears that about 2000 people were killed
there prior to the NATO bombing. considering that a civil war had been
underway since 1993 this is not a remarkable figure and compared with a
great many other hot spots hardly enough to warrant a 79-day bombing
campaign. It is also interesting to note that the UN tribunal
indictement of Milosovic of May 1999, cites only one incident of deaths
before the bombing -- the infamous Racak incident -- which itself is
challenged by French journalists who were on the ground there and
suspect a frame-up involving US General Walker who sounded the alarm.
The Kosovo "war" reveals disturbing evidence of how lies and duplicity
can mislead us into accepting things that we instinctively know to be
wrong. Jamie Shea and other NATO apologists have lied to us about the
bombing. The sad thing is that most of the Canadian media, and our
political representatives have accepted without question what has been
told to us by NATO and our own foreign affairs spokesmen.
3: An Unecessary War
perhaps the most serious charge against the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
is that it was unnecessary. NATO chose bombing over diplomacy. Violence
over negotiation. NATO's leaders tried to convince us that dropping tons
of bombs on Yugoslavia was serving humanitarian purposes.
A UN Security Council resolution of October 1998 accepted by Yugoslavia,
authorized over 1300 monitors from the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe [OSCE] to enter Kosovo and try to de-escalate the
fighting. from the accounts of a number of these monitors their task was
successful. While cease-fire violations continued on both sides the
intensity of the armed struggle was considerably abated.
The former Czech foreign minister, Jiri Dienstbier, and Canada's own
Rollie Keith of Vancouver -- both monitors for the OSCE on the ground in
Kosovo -- have publicly stated that there were no international refugees
over the last five months of the OSCE's presence in Kosovo and the
number of internally displaced only amounted to a few thousands in the
weeks leading up to the bombing.
The OSCE mission demonstrated that diplomacy and negotiation might well
have resolved the Kosovo problem without resorting to the use of force.
It was the failure of the United States to accept any flexibility in its
dealing with Belgrade in the weeks leading up to the war that spelled
diplomatic failure.
The adamant refusal of the USA to involve either the Russians or the
United Nations in the negotiations. The refusal to allow any other
intermediary to deal with Milosovic and finally the imposition of the
Rambouillet ultimatum which was clearly designed to ensure that
Yugoslavia had no choice but to refuse its insulting terms.
It is now generally accepted by those who have seen the Rambouillet
agreement that no sovereign state could have agreed to its conditions.
The insistence of allowing acess to all of Yugoslavia by NATO forces and
the demand that a referendum on autonomy be held within three years
guaranteed a Serbian rejection.
The Serbian parliament did, however, on March 23, state a willingness to
"examine the character and extent of an international presence in Kosovo
immediately after the signing of an autonomy accord acceptable to all
national communities in Kosovo, the local Serb minority included. " The
United States was not interested in pursuing this offer. NATO needed its
war. NATO's formal commitment to resolve international disputes by
peaceful means was thrown out the window.
The Rambouillet document itself was not easily obtained from NATO
sources. The chairman of the defence committee of the French National
Assembly asked for a copy shortly after the bombing commenced but was
not given a copy until a few days before the UN peace treaty was signed.
I hope that members of this committee have a copy to look at and will be
able to find out when and if Canada was informed of its conditions.
4: NATO's campaign a total failure
We have been asked to believe that the war in Kosovo was fought for
human rights. Indeed the president of the Czech republic received a
standing ovation in this House of Commons when he stated that Kosovo was
the first war fought for human values rather than territory. I suspect
even President Havel would have second thoughts about that statement now
that a large part of Yugoslav territory has in effect been handed over
to the Albanians.
The war allegedly to stop ethnic cleansing has not done so. Serbs
Gypsies, Jews, and Slav muslims are being forced out of Kosovo under the
eyes of 45,000 NATO troops. Murder and anarchy reigns supreme in Kosovo
as the KLA and criminal elements have taken charge. The United Nations
admits failure to control the situation and warns Serbs not to return.
The war allegedly to restore stability to the Balkans has done the
opposite.Yugoslavia's neighbors are in a state of turmoil. Montenegro is
on the edge of civil war. Macedonia is now worried that Kosovo has shown
the way for its own sizeable Albanian minority to demand
self-determination. Albania has been encouraged to strive harder to
fulfill its dream of greater Albania. Serbia itself has been ruined
economically. Embittered and disillusioned it feels betrayed and
alienated from the western democracies.
The illegal and unecessary war has alienated the other great nuclear
powers, Russia and China. These countries are now convinced that the
west cannot be trusted. NATO expansion eastward is seen as an aggressive
and hostile threat and will be answered by an increase in the nuclear
arsenal of both nations. After Kosovo who can with any conviction
convince them that NATO is purely a defensive alliance dedicated to
peace and to upholding the principles of the United Nations?
More seriously the NATO bombing has destroyed NATO's credibility. NATO
stood for more than just a powerful military organization. It stood for
peace; the rule of law, and democratic institutions. The bombing of
Yugoslavia threw all of that out the window.
No longer can NATO stand on the moral high ground. Its action in
Yugoslavia revealed it to be an aggressive military machine prepared to
ignore international law and intervene with deadly force in the internal
affairs of any state with whose actions or behaviour it does not agree.
5: Conclusions
There are those who believe that the long standing principle of state
sovereignty can be over ruled when human rights violations are taking
place in a country. Until Kosovo the ground rules for such intervention
called for Security Council authority before such action could be taken.
Apologists for NATO argue that it was unlikely Security Council
authority could have been obtained because of the veto power of China or
Russia. So it would appear rather than even try to get consent NATO took
upon itself the powers of the Security Council. I am not sure we should
all be comfortable with this development.
Undoubtedly there may be times when such intervention is justified and
immediately Rwanda comes to mind -- but intervention for humanitarian
reasons is a dangerous concept. Because who is to decide when to take
such action and under whose authority? Hitler intervened in
Czechoslovakia because he claimed the human rights of the Sudeten
Germans were being violated. Those who advocate a change in the current
rules for intervention are free to do so but until the rules change
should we not all obey the ones that still have legitimacy?
NATO made a serious mistake in Kosovo. Its bombing campaign was not only
an unmitigated disaster but it changed fundamentally the very nature and
purposes of the alliance. Does article 1 of the NATO treaty still stand?
Does NATO still undertake to settle any international disputes in which
it may become involved by peaceful means? Do the NATO countries still
undertake to refrain in their international relations from the threat or
use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the united
nations?
Kosovo should serve as a warning call that Canadian democracy needs a
shot in the arm to wake it up to the realities that foreign policy is
important--important because as happened one day last march Canadians
can wake up and find they are at war. Canadian pilots were bombing
Serbia. yet there was no declaration of war. The Canadian parliament was
not consulted. The majority of the Canadian people had no idea where
Kosovo was -- let alone understand why our aircraft were bombing cities
in a fellow nation state that had been a staunch ally during two world
wars.
It was not only Yugoslav soverignty that was violated by NATO's illegal
action. Canadian sovereignty was also abused. Canada had become involved
in a war without any member of the Canadian parliament or the Canadian
people being consulted.the ultimate expression of a nation's sovereignty
is the right to declare war. NATO abrogated this right.
If it essential that we give up some of our sovereignty as the price we
pay for membership in global institutons such as NATO then it is
mandatory that such institutions follow their own rules, respect thrule
of law, and operate within the generally accepted framework of the
United Nations charter. This NATO did not do. It is for this reason I
would suggest your committee must ask some tough questions about the
nature of Canada's involvement in the Kosovo war.
(James Bisset is the former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia, who was
recently physically barred by the Canadian government from entering the
embassy in Belgrade.)
===
Testimony by S. Trifkovic, House of Commons SCFAIT, Ottawa, 17/02/2000
GEO-POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF NATO INTERVENTION IN KOSOVO
Testimony by S. Trifkovic
Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade
House of Commons, Ottawa, February 17, 2000
The war waged by NATO against Yugoslavia in 1999 marks a significant
turning point, not only for America and NATO but also for “the West” as
a
whole. The principle of state sovereignty, and of the rule of law
itself, has
been subverted in the name of an allegedly humanitarian ideology. Facts
have been converted into fiction, and even the fictions invoked to
justify
the act are giving up all pretense to credibility. Old systems for the
protection of
national liberties, political, legal and economic, have now been
subverted into vehicles for their destruction. But so far from
demonstrating
the vigor of Western ruling elites in their ruthless pursuit of an
ideology of
multi-ethnic democracy and international human rights, the whole Balkan
entanglement may be as a disturbing revelation of those ruling elites’
moral and cultural decay. I shall therefore devote my remarks to the
consequences of the war for the emerging new international system, and –
ultimately – for the security and stability of the Western world itself.
Almost a decade separated ‘Desert Storm’ from ‘Humanitarian Bombing.’ In
1991 the Maastricht Treaty was signed, and the rest of the decade has
brought the gradual usurpation of traditional European sovereignty by a
corporate-controlled Brussels regime of unelected bureaucrats who now
feel
bold enough to tell Austria how to run its domestic affairs. On this
side
of the ocean we had the passage of NAFTA and in 1995 the Uruguay round
of GATT gave us the WTO. The nineties were thus a decade of gradual
foundation laying for the new international order. The denigration of
sovereign nationhood hypnotized the public into applauding the
dismantling
of the very institutions that offered the only hope of representative
empowerment. The process is sufficiently far advanced for President
Clinton to claim (“A Just and Necessary War,” NYT, May 23, 1999) that,
had
it not bombed Serbia, "NATO itself would have been discredited for
failing
to defend the very values that give it meaning."
The war was in fact both unjust and unnecessary, but the significance of
Mr. Clinton’s statement is in that he has openly declared null and void
the international system in existence ever since the Peace of Westphalia
(1648). It was an imperfect and often violated system, but nevertheless
it
provided the basis for international discourse from which only the
assorted red and black totalitarians have openly deviated. Since 24
March
1999 this is being replaced by the emerging Clinton Doctrine, a carbon
copy of the Brezhnev doctrine of limited sovereignty that supposedly
justified the Soviet-led occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Like his
Soviet predecessor, Mr. Clinton used an abstract and ideologically
loaded
notion - that of universal “human rights” - as the pretext to violate
the law and
tradition. The Clinton Doctrine is rooted in the bipartisan hubris of
Washington’s foreign policy “elite,” tipsy on its own heady brew of the
“world’s last and only superpower.” Legal formalities are passé, and
moral
imperatives - never sacrosanct in international affairs - are replaced
by
a cynical exercise in situational morality, dependent on an actor’s
position within the superpower ’s value system.
And so imperial high-mindedness is back, but in a new form. Old
religion, national flags and nationalist rivalry play no part. But the
yearning
for excitement and importance, that took the British to Peking, Kabul
and
Khartoum, the French to Fashoda and Saigon, and the Americans to Manila,
has now re-emerged. As a result a war was waged on an independent nation
because it refused foreign troops on its soil. All other justifications
are post facto rationalizations. The powers that waged that war have
aided
and abetted secession by an ethnic minority, secession that – once
formally
effected - will render many European borders tentative. In the context
of
any other European nation the story would sound surreal. The Serbs,
however, have been demonized to the point where they must not presume to
be treated like others.
But the fact that the West could do anything it chose to the Serbs does
not explain why it should. It is hardly worth refuting, yet again, the
feeble excuses for intervention. “Humanitarian” argument has been
invoked.
But what about Kashmir, Sudan, Uganda, Angola, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka,
Algeria? Properly videotaped and Amanpourized, each would be good for a
dozen “Kosovos”. There was no “genocide,” of course. Compared to the
killing fields of the Third World Kosovo was an unremarkable,
low-intensity conflict, uglier perhaps than Northern Ireland a decade
ago,
but much less so than Kurdistan. A total of 2,108 fatalities on all
sides
in Kosovo until June 1999, in a province of over two million, favorably
compares to the annual homicide tally of 450 in Washington D.C.
(population 600,000). Counting corpses is poor form, but bearing in mind
the brutalities and “ethnic cleansings” ignored by NATO - or even
condoned, notably in Croatia in 1995, or in eastern Turkey - it is clear
that “Kosovo” is not about universal principles. In Washington Abdullah
Ocalan is a terrorist, but KLA are freedom fighters.
What was it about, then? “Regional stability”, we were told next: if we
didn ’t stop the conflict it would engulf Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, the
whole of the Balkans in fact, with much of Europe to follow. But the
cure
- bombing Serbia into detaching an ethnically pure-Albanian Kosovo to
the
KLA narco-mafia, under NATO’s benevolent eye – will unleash a chain
reaction throughout the ex-Communist half of Europe. Its first victim
will be
the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, where the restive Albanian
minority comprises a third of the total population. And will the
Pristina
model not be demanded by the Hungarians in Rumania (more numerous
than Kosovo’s Albanians), and in southern Slovakia? What will stop the
Russians in the Ukraine, in Moldova, in Estonia, and in northern
Kazakhstan from following suit? Or the Serbs and Croats in the
chronically
unstable and unviable Dayton-Bosnia? And finally, when the Albanians get
their secession on the grounds of their numbers, will the same apply
when
the Latinos in southern California or Texas eventually outnumber their
Anglo
neighbors and start demanding bilingual statehood, leading to
reunification
with Mexico? Are Russia and China to threaten the United States with
bombing if Washington does not comply?
The outcome in Kosovo, for now, is in line with a deeply flawed model of
the new Balkan order that seeks to satisfy the aspirations of all ethnic
groups in former Yugoslavia - except the Serbs. This is a disastrous
strategy for all concerned. Even if forced into submission now, the
Serbs
shall have no stake in the ensuing order of things. Sooner or later they
will fight to recover Kosovo. The Carthaginian peace imposed on the
Serbs
today will cause chronic imbalance and strife for decades to come. It
will
entangle the West in a Balkan quagmire, and guarantee a new war as soon
as Mr. Clinton’s successors lose interest in underwriting the ill-gotten
gains
of America’s Balkan clients.
NATO has won, for now, but “the West” has lost. The war has undermined
the very principles that constitute the West, namely the rule of law.
The
notion of “human rights” can never provide a basis for either the rule
of
law or morality. “Universal human rights,” detached from any rootedness
in
time or place, will be open to the latest whim of outrage or the latest
fad for victimhood. The misguided effort to transform NATO from a
defensive alliance into a mini-U.N. with “out-of-area” self-appointed
responsibilities, is a certain road to more Bosnias and more Kosovos
down
the line. Now that the Clintonistas and NATO were “successful” in
Kosovo,
we can expect new and even more dangerous adventures elsewhere. But
next time around the Russians, Chinese, Indians and others will know
better than to buy the slogans about free markets and democratic human
rights, and the future of “the West” in the eventually inevitable
conflict may
be uncertain. Canada should ponder the implications of this course, and
gather the courage to say “no” to global interventionism – for its own
sake,
and for the sake of peace and stability in the world. Is it really
obliged to
watch in undissenting submission as a long, dangerous military
experiment
is mounted which will lead us to a real war for Central Asia? Will it
soon be
'defending' new KLAs against 'genocide' along Russia’s Islamic rim,
among
ethnic groups as yet unknown to the Western press that can provide a
series of excuses for intervention, all as good, that is as bad, as the
Kosovo
Albanian excuse?
Was Canada’s imperial history so sweet that it must seek another
imperial command-center, in Washington, to compensate for the loss of
London? Does Canada today feel comfortable with the emerging truth: that
it has less freedom of choice about war and peace than it did as a free
Dominion under the old Statute of Westminster? For there can be no doubt
that the war NATO was fighting in April and May 1999 was not intended,
or
willed, by anything which can be called the Alliance, when the use of
force
was plotted inside the Beltway in 1998.
It is worth asking how far this re-acquisition of minor imperial status
-
by Canada and other NATO members - is creating a media-led political
process that leaves national decision-making meaningless, beyond a
formal
cheer-leading function. It is also worth asking how it came to be that
the
chief war aim of NATO was 'keeping the Alliance together', what
disciplines it implies, and how easily, and bloodily, it can be
repeated.
The moral absolutism that was invoked by the proponents of intervention
as
a substitute for rational argument can no longer be sustained. Genuine
dilemmas about our human responsibility for one another must not be used
to reactivate the viral imperialism of the re-extended West. The more
arrogant the new doctrine, the greater the willingness to lie for the
truth. To be capable of “doing something” sustains moral self-respect,
if
we can suppress the thought that we are not so much moral actors as
consumers of predigested choices. At the onset of the Millenium we are
living in a virtual Coliseum where exotic and nasty troublemakers can be
killed not by lions but by the magical flying machines of the Imperium.
As
the candidates for punishment - or martyrdom - are pushed into the
arena,
many denizens of “the West” react to the show as imperial consumers, not
as citizens with a parliamentary right and a democratic duty to question
the proceedings.
May the results of your present inquiry prove me wrong. Thank you.
>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>From: Peter Bein [mailto:pbein@...]
>>>>Sent: February 10, 2000 4:16 PM
>>>>To: 'HilchJ@...'
>>>>Subject:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I am urging you that the following individuals be called to testify
before
>>>>the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade
(SCFAIT)
>>>>as expert witnesses re Canada's role in the conflict and
post-conflict
>>>>developments in Kosovo and Metohija. It is imperative that MPs in
SCAFIT
>>>>hear from and question experts who reflect all sides in this
conflict. The
>>>>MPs are already well acquainted with the perspectives of Canada's
military
>>>>and the Dept of Foreign Affairs, as their views were publicized for
many
>>>>months.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Mr. James Bissett, Canada's former ambassador to Yugoslavia,
Bulgaria and
>>>>Albania.
>>>>
>>>>Dr. Michael Chossudovsky, professor of economics at the University
of
>>>>Ottawa.
>>>>
>>>>Mr. Roland Keith from Vancouver, B.C.,who was stationed in Kosovo
as a
>>>>monitor with the
>>>>Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
>>>>
>>>>Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Director of Research at the International
Institute
>>of
>>>>Concern for Public Health in Toronto.
>>>>
>>>>Prof. Dr. Hari Sharma, professor emeritus of chemistry at the
University
>>of
>>>>Waterloo, Ontario.
>>>>
>>>>Prof. Dr. Michael Mandel, professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law
School ,
>>>>York
>>>>University, Toronto.
>>>>
>>>>Dr. Serge Trifkovic, an author, former university professor,
historian,
>>>>foreign affairs editor of the "Chronicles - Magazine of American
>>>>Culture".
>>>>
>>>>Mrs. Radmila Swann, a retired federal public servant and a founding
member
>>>>of
>>>>the Ottawa Heritage Society.
>>>>
>>>>Mr. Nikola Rajkovic, a law student and a founding member of the
Centre for
>>>>Peace in the Balkans in Toronto.
>>>>
>>>>I trust that testimonies of these people will add a great value to
the
>>>>hearings.
>>>>
>>>>Dr. Peter Bein, P.Eng.
>>>>Vancouver B.C.
>>>>tel. +604 822 1685
>>>>fax +604 822 3033
>>>>e-mail: pbein@...
>>>>
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
I contribuiti che diffondiamo in questo messaggio vengono dal Canada. Si
tratta di alcune audizioni tenute ad Ottawa, alla Camera dei Comuni,
dinanzi allo Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International
Trade da parte di varie personalita' ritenute a vario titolo "informate
sui fatti" riguardo alla aggressione della NATO contro la Repubblica
Federale di Jugoslavia. In particolare, i contributi seguenti sono le
testimonianze di JAMES BISSET, ex-ambasciatore canadese a Belgrado, ora
"indesiderato" nella stessa ambasciata canadese a Belgrado, e SERGE
TRIFKOVIC, professore di storia, responsabile per gli esteri di
"Chronicles - Magazine of American Culture".
Tutti i documenti sono stati diffusi dalla lista STOPNATO@...
===
Author: James Bisset
Publisher/Date: February 2000
Title: Notes for address to Standing Committee Foreign Affairs and
International Trade (Ca)
1: Introduction
I wish to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity of speaking
this morning.
It is some comfort to know that although I was not allowed to speak to
anyone in the Canadian embassy in Belgrade during a recent visit there
that I am free to speak to members of the Canadian parliament.
I have been an out spoken critic of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. I
believe it to have been a tragic mistake -- a historic miscalculation
that will have far reaching implications.
When NATO bombs fell on Yugoslavia in the spring and summer of last year
they caused more than just death and destruction in that country. The
bombs also struck at the heart of international law and delivered a
serious blow to the framework of global security that since the end of
the second world war has protected all of us from the horrors of a
nuclear war.
Kosovo broke the ground rules for NATO engagement and the aggressive
military intervention by NATO into the affairs of a sovereign state for
other than defensive purposes marked an ominous turning point in the
aims and objectives of that organization. It is important that we
understand this and seek clarification as to whether this was a
"one-off" aberration or a signal of fundamental change in the nature and
purposes of the organization. This is something the committee might well
examine in the course of its work.
2: An Illegal War
NATO's war in Kosovo was conducted without the approval of the United
Nations Security Council. It was a violation of international law, the
United Nations charter and its own article 1, which requires NATO to
settle any international disputes by peaceful means and not to threaten
or use force, "in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the
United Nations."
Apologists for NATO including our own foreign and defence ministers try
to avoid this issue by simply not mentioning it. There has been no
attempt to explain why the United Nations Security Council was ignored.
No effort to spell out under whose authority did NATO bomb Yugoslavia.
The ministers and their officials continue to justify the air strikes on
the grounds that the bombs were necessary to stop ethnic cleansing and
atrocities, despite all the evidence that by far the bulk of the ethnic
cleansing took place after the bombing not before it. It was the bombing
that triggered off the worst of the ethnic cleansing.
As for the atrocities it now seems that here again we were lied to about
the extent of the crimes commited. United States Secretary of Defence
Cohen told us that at least 100,000 Kosovars had perished. Tony Blair
spoke of genocide being carried out in Kosovo. The media relished in
these atrocity stories and printed every story told to them by Albanian,
"eye witnesses." The myth that the war was to stop ethnic cleansing and
atrocities contiues to be perpetrated by department spokesmen and large
parts of the media.
No one wants to defend atrocities and the numbers game in such
circumstances becomes sordid. Nevertheless numbers do become important
if they are used to justify military action against a sovereign state.
in the case of Kosovo it appears that about 2000 people were killed
there prior to the NATO bombing. considering that a civil war had been
underway since 1993 this is not a remarkable figure and compared with a
great many other hot spots hardly enough to warrant a 79-day bombing
campaign. It is also interesting to note that the UN tribunal
indictement of Milosovic of May 1999, cites only one incident of deaths
before the bombing -- the infamous Racak incident -- which itself is
challenged by French journalists who were on the ground there and
suspect a frame-up involving US General Walker who sounded the alarm.
The Kosovo "war" reveals disturbing evidence of how lies and duplicity
can mislead us into accepting things that we instinctively know to be
wrong. Jamie Shea and other NATO apologists have lied to us about the
bombing. The sad thing is that most of the Canadian media, and our
political representatives have accepted without question what has been
told to us by NATO and our own foreign affairs spokesmen.
3: An Unecessary War
perhaps the most serious charge against the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
is that it was unnecessary. NATO chose bombing over diplomacy. Violence
over negotiation. NATO's leaders tried to convince us that dropping tons
of bombs on Yugoslavia was serving humanitarian purposes.
A UN Security Council resolution of October 1998 accepted by Yugoslavia,
authorized over 1300 monitors from the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe [OSCE] to enter Kosovo and try to de-escalate the
fighting. from the accounts of a number of these monitors their task was
successful. While cease-fire violations continued on both sides the
intensity of the armed struggle was considerably abated.
The former Czech foreign minister, Jiri Dienstbier, and Canada's own
Rollie Keith of Vancouver -- both monitors for the OSCE on the ground in
Kosovo -- have publicly stated that there were no international refugees
over the last five months of the OSCE's presence in Kosovo and the
number of internally displaced only amounted to a few thousands in the
weeks leading up to the bombing.
The OSCE mission demonstrated that diplomacy and negotiation might well
have resolved the Kosovo problem without resorting to the use of force.
It was the failure of the United States to accept any flexibility in its
dealing with Belgrade in the weeks leading up to the war that spelled
diplomatic failure.
The adamant refusal of the USA to involve either the Russians or the
United Nations in the negotiations. The refusal to allow any other
intermediary to deal with Milosovic and finally the imposition of the
Rambouillet ultimatum which was clearly designed to ensure that
Yugoslavia had no choice but to refuse its insulting terms.
It is now generally accepted by those who have seen the Rambouillet
agreement that no sovereign state could have agreed to its conditions.
The insistence of allowing acess to all of Yugoslavia by NATO forces and
the demand that a referendum on autonomy be held within three years
guaranteed a Serbian rejection.
The Serbian parliament did, however, on March 23, state a willingness to
"examine the character and extent of an international presence in Kosovo
immediately after the signing of an autonomy accord acceptable to all
national communities in Kosovo, the local Serb minority included. " The
United States was not interested in pursuing this offer. NATO needed its
war. NATO's formal commitment to resolve international disputes by
peaceful means was thrown out the window.
The Rambouillet document itself was not easily obtained from NATO
sources. The chairman of the defence committee of the French National
Assembly asked for a copy shortly after the bombing commenced but was
not given a copy until a few days before the UN peace treaty was signed.
I hope that members of this committee have a copy to look at and will be
able to find out when and if Canada was informed of its conditions.
4: NATO's campaign a total failure
We have been asked to believe that the war in Kosovo was fought for
human rights. Indeed the president of the Czech republic received a
standing ovation in this House of Commons when he stated that Kosovo was
the first war fought for human values rather than territory. I suspect
even President Havel would have second thoughts about that statement now
that a large part of Yugoslav territory has in effect been handed over
to the Albanians.
The war allegedly to stop ethnic cleansing has not done so. Serbs
Gypsies, Jews, and Slav muslims are being forced out of Kosovo under the
eyes of 45,000 NATO troops. Murder and anarchy reigns supreme in Kosovo
as the KLA and criminal elements have taken charge. The United Nations
admits failure to control the situation and warns Serbs not to return.
The war allegedly to restore stability to the Balkans has done the
opposite.Yugoslavia's neighbors are in a state of turmoil. Montenegro is
on the edge of civil war. Macedonia is now worried that Kosovo has shown
the way for its own sizeable Albanian minority to demand
self-determination. Albania has been encouraged to strive harder to
fulfill its dream of greater Albania. Serbia itself has been ruined
economically. Embittered and disillusioned it feels betrayed and
alienated from the western democracies.
The illegal and unecessary war has alienated the other great nuclear
powers, Russia and China. These countries are now convinced that the
west cannot be trusted. NATO expansion eastward is seen as an aggressive
and hostile threat and will be answered by an increase in the nuclear
arsenal of both nations. After Kosovo who can with any conviction
convince them that NATO is purely a defensive alliance dedicated to
peace and to upholding the principles of the United Nations?
More seriously the NATO bombing has destroyed NATO's credibility. NATO
stood for more than just a powerful military organization. It stood for
peace; the rule of law, and democratic institutions. The bombing of
Yugoslavia threw all of that out the window.
No longer can NATO stand on the moral high ground. Its action in
Yugoslavia revealed it to be an aggressive military machine prepared to
ignore international law and intervene with deadly force in the internal
affairs of any state with whose actions or behaviour it does not agree.
5: Conclusions
There are those who believe that the long standing principle of state
sovereignty can be over ruled when human rights violations are taking
place in a country. Until Kosovo the ground rules for such intervention
called for Security Council authority before such action could be taken.
Apologists for NATO argue that it was unlikely Security Council
authority could have been obtained because of the veto power of China or
Russia. So it would appear rather than even try to get consent NATO took
upon itself the powers of the Security Council. I am not sure we should
all be comfortable with this development.
Undoubtedly there may be times when such intervention is justified and
immediately Rwanda comes to mind -- but intervention for humanitarian
reasons is a dangerous concept. Because who is to decide when to take
such action and under whose authority? Hitler intervened in
Czechoslovakia because he claimed the human rights of the Sudeten
Germans were being violated. Those who advocate a change in the current
rules for intervention are free to do so but until the rules change
should we not all obey the ones that still have legitimacy?
NATO made a serious mistake in Kosovo. Its bombing campaign was not only
an unmitigated disaster but it changed fundamentally the very nature and
purposes of the alliance. Does article 1 of the NATO treaty still stand?
Does NATO still undertake to settle any international disputes in which
it may become involved by peaceful means? Do the NATO countries still
undertake to refrain in their international relations from the threat or
use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the united
nations?
Kosovo should serve as a warning call that Canadian democracy needs a
shot in the arm to wake it up to the realities that foreign policy is
important--important because as happened one day last march Canadians
can wake up and find they are at war. Canadian pilots were bombing
Serbia. yet there was no declaration of war. The Canadian parliament was
not consulted. The majority of the Canadian people had no idea where
Kosovo was -- let alone understand why our aircraft were bombing cities
in a fellow nation state that had been a staunch ally during two world
wars.
It was not only Yugoslav soverignty that was violated by NATO's illegal
action. Canadian sovereignty was also abused. Canada had become involved
in a war without any member of the Canadian parliament or the Canadian
people being consulted.the ultimate expression of a nation's sovereignty
is the right to declare war. NATO abrogated this right.
If it essential that we give up some of our sovereignty as the price we
pay for membership in global institutons such as NATO then it is
mandatory that such institutions follow their own rules, respect thrule
of law, and operate within the generally accepted framework of the
United Nations charter. This NATO did not do. It is for this reason I
would suggest your committee must ask some tough questions about the
nature of Canada's involvement in the Kosovo war.
(James Bisset is the former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia, who was
recently physically barred by the Canadian government from entering the
embassy in Belgrade.)
===
Testimony by S. Trifkovic, House of Commons SCFAIT, Ottawa, 17/02/2000
GEO-POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF NATO INTERVENTION IN KOSOVO
Testimony by S. Trifkovic
Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade
House of Commons, Ottawa, February 17, 2000
The war waged by NATO against Yugoslavia in 1999 marks a significant
turning point, not only for America and NATO but also for “the West” as
a
whole. The principle of state sovereignty, and of the rule of law
itself, has
been subverted in the name of an allegedly humanitarian ideology. Facts
have been converted into fiction, and even the fictions invoked to
justify
the act are giving up all pretense to credibility. Old systems for the
protection of
national liberties, political, legal and economic, have now been
subverted into vehicles for their destruction. But so far from
demonstrating
the vigor of Western ruling elites in their ruthless pursuit of an
ideology of
multi-ethnic democracy and international human rights, the whole Balkan
entanglement may be as a disturbing revelation of those ruling elites’
moral and cultural decay. I shall therefore devote my remarks to the
consequences of the war for the emerging new international system, and –
ultimately – for the security and stability of the Western world itself.
Almost a decade separated ‘Desert Storm’ from ‘Humanitarian Bombing.’ In
1991 the Maastricht Treaty was signed, and the rest of the decade has
brought the gradual usurpation of traditional European sovereignty by a
corporate-controlled Brussels regime of unelected bureaucrats who now
feel
bold enough to tell Austria how to run its domestic affairs. On this
side
of the ocean we had the passage of NAFTA and in 1995 the Uruguay round
of GATT gave us the WTO. The nineties were thus a decade of gradual
foundation laying for the new international order. The denigration of
sovereign nationhood hypnotized the public into applauding the
dismantling
of the very institutions that offered the only hope of representative
empowerment. The process is sufficiently far advanced for President
Clinton to claim (“A Just and Necessary War,” NYT, May 23, 1999) that,
had
it not bombed Serbia, "NATO itself would have been discredited for
failing
to defend the very values that give it meaning."
The war was in fact both unjust and unnecessary, but the significance of
Mr. Clinton’s statement is in that he has openly declared null and void
the international system in existence ever since the Peace of Westphalia
(1648). It was an imperfect and often violated system, but nevertheless
it
provided the basis for international discourse from which only the
assorted red and black totalitarians have openly deviated. Since 24
March
1999 this is being replaced by the emerging Clinton Doctrine, a carbon
copy of the Brezhnev doctrine of limited sovereignty that supposedly
justified the Soviet-led occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Like his
Soviet predecessor, Mr. Clinton used an abstract and ideologically
loaded
notion - that of universal “human rights” - as the pretext to violate
the law and
tradition. The Clinton Doctrine is rooted in the bipartisan hubris of
Washington’s foreign policy “elite,” tipsy on its own heady brew of the
“world’s last and only superpower.” Legal formalities are passé, and
moral
imperatives - never sacrosanct in international affairs - are replaced
by
a cynical exercise in situational morality, dependent on an actor’s
position within the superpower ’s value system.
And so imperial high-mindedness is back, but in a new form. Old
religion, national flags and nationalist rivalry play no part. But the
yearning
for excitement and importance, that took the British to Peking, Kabul
and
Khartoum, the French to Fashoda and Saigon, and the Americans to Manila,
has now re-emerged. As a result a war was waged on an independent nation
because it refused foreign troops on its soil. All other justifications
are post facto rationalizations. The powers that waged that war have
aided
and abetted secession by an ethnic minority, secession that – once
formally
effected - will render many European borders tentative. In the context
of
any other European nation the story would sound surreal. The Serbs,
however, have been demonized to the point where they must not presume to
be treated like others.
But the fact that the West could do anything it chose to the Serbs does
not explain why it should. It is hardly worth refuting, yet again, the
feeble excuses for intervention. “Humanitarian” argument has been
invoked.
But what about Kashmir, Sudan, Uganda, Angola, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka,
Algeria? Properly videotaped and Amanpourized, each would be good for a
dozen “Kosovos”. There was no “genocide,” of course. Compared to the
killing fields of the Third World Kosovo was an unremarkable,
low-intensity conflict, uglier perhaps than Northern Ireland a decade
ago,
but much less so than Kurdistan. A total of 2,108 fatalities on all
sides
in Kosovo until June 1999, in a province of over two million, favorably
compares to the annual homicide tally of 450 in Washington D.C.
(population 600,000). Counting corpses is poor form, but bearing in mind
the brutalities and “ethnic cleansings” ignored by NATO - or even
condoned, notably in Croatia in 1995, or in eastern Turkey - it is clear
that “Kosovo” is not about universal principles. In Washington Abdullah
Ocalan is a terrorist, but KLA are freedom fighters.
What was it about, then? “Regional stability”, we were told next: if we
didn ’t stop the conflict it would engulf Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, the
whole of the Balkans in fact, with much of Europe to follow. But the
cure
- bombing Serbia into detaching an ethnically pure-Albanian Kosovo to
the
KLA narco-mafia, under NATO’s benevolent eye – will unleash a chain
reaction throughout the ex-Communist half of Europe. Its first victim
will be
the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, where the restive Albanian
minority comprises a third of the total population. And will the
Pristina
model not be demanded by the Hungarians in Rumania (more numerous
than Kosovo’s Albanians), and in southern Slovakia? What will stop the
Russians in the Ukraine, in Moldova, in Estonia, and in northern
Kazakhstan from following suit? Or the Serbs and Croats in the
chronically
unstable and unviable Dayton-Bosnia? And finally, when the Albanians get
their secession on the grounds of their numbers, will the same apply
when
the Latinos in southern California or Texas eventually outnumber their
Anglo
neighbors and start demanding bilingual statehood, leading to
reunification
with Mexico? Are Russia and China to threaten the United States with
bombing if Washington does not comply?
The outcome in Kosovo, for now, is in line with a deeply flawed model of
the new Balkan order that seeks to satisfy the aspirations of all ethnic
groups in former Yugoslavia - except the Serbs. This is a disastrous
strategy for all concerned. Even if forced into submission now, the
Serbs
shall have no stake in the ensuing order of things. Sooner or later they
will fight to recover Kosovo. The Carthaginian peace imposed on the
Serbs
today will cause chronic imbalance and strife for decades to come. It
will
entangle the West in a Balkan quagmire, and guarantee a new war as soon
as Mr. Clinton’s successors lose interest in underwriting the ill-gotten
gains
of America’s Balkan clients.
NATO has won, for now, but “the West” has lost. The war has undermined
the very principles that constitute the West, namely the rule of law.
The
notion of “human rights” can never provide a basis for either the rule
of
law or morality. “Universal human rights,” detached from any rootedness
in
time or place, will be open to the latest whim of outrage or the latest
fad for victimhood. The misguided effort to transform NATO from a
defensive alliance into a mini-U.N. with “out-of-area” self-appointed
responsibilities, is a certain road to more Bosnias and more Kosovos
down
the line. Now that the Clintonistas and NATO were “successful” in
Kosovo,
we can expect new and even more dangerous adventures elsewhere. But
next time around the Russians, Chinese, Indians and others will know
better than to buy the slogans about free markets and democratic human
rights, and the future of “the West” in the eventually inevitable
conflict may
be uncertain. Canada should ponder the implications of this course, and
gather the courage to say “no” to global interventionism – for its own
sake,
and for the sake of peace and stability in the world. Is it really
obliged to
watch in undissenting submission as a long, dangerous military
experiment
is mounted which will lead us to a real war for Central Asia? Will it
soon be
'defending' new KLAs against 'genocide' along Russia’s Islamic rim,
among
ethnic groups as yet unknown to the Western press that can provide a
series of excuses for intervention, all as good, that is as bad, as the
Kosovo
Albanian excuse?
Was Canada’s imperial history so sweet that it must seek another
imperial command-center, in Washington, to compensate for the loss of
London? Does Canada today feel comfortable with the emerging truth: that
it has less freedom of choice about war and peace than it did as a free
Dominion under the old Statute of Westminster? For there can be no doubt
that the war NATO was fighting in April and May 1999 was not intended,
or
willed, by anything which can be called the Alliance, when the use of
force
was plotted inside the Beltway in 1998.
It is worth asking how far this re-acquisition of minor imperial status
-
by Canada and other NATO members - is creating a media-led political
process that leaves national decision-making meaningless, beyond a
formal
cheer-leading function. It is also worth asking how it came to be that
the
chief war aim of NATO was 'keeping the Alliance together', what
disciplines it implies, and how easily, and bloodily, it can be
repeated.
The moral absolutism that was invoked by the proponents of intervention
as
a substitute for rational argument can no longer be sustained. Genuine
dilemmas about our human responsibility for one another must not be used
to reactivate the viral imperialism of the re-extended West. The more
arrogant the new doctrine, the greater the willingness to lie for the
truth. To be capable of “doing something” sustains moral self-respect,
if
we can suppress the thought that we are not so much moral actors as
consumers of predigested choices. At the onset of the Millenium we are
living in a virtual Coliseum where exotic and nasty troublemakers can be
killed not by lions but by the magical flying machines of the Imperium.
As
the candidates for punishment - or martyrdom - are pushed into the
arena,
many denizens of “the West” react to the show as imperial consumers, not
as citizens with a parliamentary right and a democratic duty to question
the proceedings.
May the results of your present inquiry prove me wrong. Thank you.
>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>From: Peter Bein [mailto:pbein@...]
>>>>Sent: February 10, 2000 4:16 PM
>>>>To: 'HilchJ@...'
>>>>Subject:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I am urging you that the following individuals be called to testify
before
>>>>the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade
(SCFAIT)
>>>>as expert witnesses re Canada's role in the conflict and
post-conflict
>>>>developments in Kosovo and Metohija. It is imperative that MPs in
SCAFIT
>>>>hear from and question experts who reflect all sides in this
conflict. The
>>>>MPs are already well acquainted with the perspectives of Canada's
military
>>>>and the Dept of Foreign Affairs, as their views were publicized for
many
>>>>months.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Mr. James Bissett, Canada's former ambassador to Yugoslavia,
Bulgaria and
>>>>Albania.
>>>>
>>>>Dr. Michael Chossudovsky, professor of economics at the University
of
>>>>Ottawa.
>>>>
>>>>Mr. Roland Keith from Vancouver, B.C.,who was stationed in Kosovo
as a
>>>>monitor with the
>>>>Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
>>>>
>>>>Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Director of Research at the International
Institute
>>of
>>>>Concern for Public Health in Toronto.
>>>>
>>>>Prof. Dr. Hari Sharma, professor emeritus of chemistry at the
University
>>of
>>>>Waterloo, Ontario.
>>>>
>>>>Prof. Dr. Michael Mandel, professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law
School ,
>>>>York
>>>>University, Toronto.
>>>>
>>>>Dr. Serge Trifkovic, an author, former university professor,
historian,
>>>>foreign affairs editor of the "Chronicles - Magazine of American
>>>>Culture".
>>>>
>>>>Mrs. Radmila Swann, a retired federal public servant and a founding
member
>>>>of
>>>>the Ottawa Heritage Society.
>>>>
>>>>Mr. Nikola Rajkovic, a law student and a founding member of the
Centre for
>>>>Peace in the Balkans in Toronto.
>>>>
>>>>I trust that testimonies of these people will add a great value to
the
>>>>hearings.
>>>>
>>>>Dr. Peter Bein, P.Eng.
>>>>Vancouver B.C.
>>>>tel. +604 822 1685
>>>>fax +604 822 3033
>>>>e-mail: pbein@...
>>>>
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
VIVA IL RE D'ITALIA E D'ALBANIA
S.A.R. il Principe Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia, partito da Ginevra con
un volo privato, in qualita' di rappresentante dell'Ordine dei Santi
Maurizio e Lazzaro, antico ordine dinastico dei Savoia, si e' recato in
Albania per adottare 600 kosovari:
http://www.marx2001.org/crj/IM/kosovo.gif
Scortato dai Carabinieri del Regno, ha visitato i campi profughi:
http://www.marx2001.org/crj/IM/campo.jpg
dove ha contribuito alle operazioni di soccorso umanitario organizzate
nell'ambito della Missione Arcobaleno:
http://www.marx2001.org/crj/IM/campo2.jpg
http://www.marx2001.org/crj/IM/campo3.jpg
Peccato pero' che il giovine abbia una nonna serba... Cosi' tanto un bel
ragazzo...
(Fonte: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/8261/ )
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
S.A.R. il Principe Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia, partito da Ginevra con
un volo privato, in qualita' di rappresentante dell'Ordine dei Santi
Maurizio e Lazzaro, antico ordine dinastico dei Savoia, si e' recato in
Albania per adottare 600 kosovari:
http://www.marx2001.org/crj/IM/kosovo.gif
Scortato dai Carabinieri del Regno, ha visitato i campi profughi:
http://www.marx2001.org/crj/IM/campo.jpg
dove ha contribuito alle operazioni di soccorso umanitario organizzate
nell'ambito della Missione Arcobaleno:
http://www.marx2001.org/crj/IM/campo2.jpg
http://www.marx2001.org/crj/IM/campo3.jpg
Peccato pero' che il giovine abbia una nonna serba... Cosi' tanto un bel
ragazzo...
(Fonte: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/8261/ )
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
* Protesta formale della RF di Jugoslavia per il comportamento dei
soldati KFOR durante le perquisizioni a Mitrovica
* Scambio di accuse tra RF di Jugoslavia e NATO ("The Times of
India"/Reuters)
* Pesanti critiche dalla Cina all'atteggiamento di KFOR/UNMIK in Kosmet
* Comunicato del Partito Democratico della Serbia sull'appoggio
statunitense all'irredentismo panalbanese
* Italia: Comunicato di Voce Operaia sulla situazione a Mitrovica
* C'ERANO UNA VOLTA... "Circassians in Kosovo Polje in the Yugoslav
Federation" - storia sconosciuta di una delle comunita' nazionali
spazzate via dal Kosmet per mano dell'UCKFOR
---
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.HOME-PAGE.ORG
YUGOSLAVIA LODGES SHARP PROTEST WITH UN SECURITY COUNCIL
Yugoslavia lodged a sharp protest with the United Nations Security
Council late Monday on the occasion of the latest dramatic developments
in Kosovska Mitrovica which have been caused by ethnic Albanian
terrorists, but also members of the international force KFOR with their
arrogant behavour and brutal action of house-searching Serb districts of
this town in Serbia's Kosovo province.
The letter, sent to Security Council President Arnoldo Listre, the
Argentinian Ambassador, by the head of the Yugoslav mission to the
United Nations, Ambassador Vladislav Jovanovic, most strongly protested
and demanded that the council take immediate measures toward a
normalization of the situation in this town, immediately to curb the
terrorism of ethnic Albanians, vandalism, and lynching and liquidation
of Serbs and other non-Albanians.
The very course of events and building up of tensions confirm that this
is a pre-conceived action in which ethnic Albanians of Kosovska
Mitrovica, led by terrorists of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army,
were joined by thousands of ethnic Albanians who arrived from Pristina,
the letter said.
It is perfectly clear that the concentrated attack was planned with the
objective of banishing Serbs, Montenegrins, Goranians, Muslims of Slav
extraction, and ethnic Turks from Kosovska Mitrovica, the only remaining
multi-national and multi-confessional town in Kosovo, in order to
complete the process of ethnic cleansing of non-Albanians who live in
isolation in enclaves in this Serbian province, said the letter.
Yugoslavia has already warned the Security Council on previous occasions
against the fiasco and inability of KFOR and UNMIK to realize their
obligations stemming from Resolution 1244, as well as the
Military-Technical Agreement.
In spite of Yugoslavia's warning and the fact that most of the Serb and
non-Albanian population have already been banished from Kosovo,
witnessed by these very same security forces and the civilian mission,
the KFOR and UNMIK have not only failed to do anything to prevent the
terrorism of ethnic Albanians and acts of vandalism, but have very often
been accomplices in these heinous acts.
The latest aggravation of the situation in Kosovska Mitrovica is due to
the totally unprovoked arrogant behaviour of KFOR towards Serbs in that
town, said the letter, proceeding to describe the destructive and brutal
behaviour of KFOR U.S. and German troops who broke down doors and
windows on schools and private houses in their house-search.
The action had evidently been planned in advance. U.S. troops arrived
from Gnjilane, and among them were ethnic Albanians in KFOR U.S.
uniforms, who were recognized by the local population.
Press representatives also appeared to be on the spot, reporting in
Albanian, as well as several crew of foreign TV stations. Leaflets were
dropped from a helicopter, urging Serbs to surrender their allegedly
concealed weapons.
The latest abuse of the about 4,500 Serbs in Kosovska Mitrovica is yet
more proof of the political double standards of the KFOR mission, warned
the letter sent by Yugoslavia to the Security Council.
---
Times of India
Wednesday 23 February 2000
Belgrade dismisses West's allegations on Kosovo
By Julijana Mojsilovic
BELGRADE: Yugoslavia dismissed Western officials' allegations that it
was stoking tensions in and around Kosovo and accused them on Tuesday of
supporting Albanian "terrorists" in the province.
"These people are behind the terrorism and separatism of Kosovo
Albanians. They have created the Kosovo Liberation Army and a crisis in
the Balkans to expand NATO to the region," Yugoslav Information Minister
Goran Matic said.
He was speaking a day after battles broke out between Western
peacekeepers and rioters when thousands of ethnic Albanians tried to
storm across a bridge in the centre of the flashpoint Kosovo city of
Mitrovica to reach the province's largest remaining Serb enclave.
On Sunday, NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping troops clashed with Mitrovica's
Serbs, angered by the troops' search of homes for weapons following
shootings and grenade attacks which killed nine people, both Serbs and
Albanians.
Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to the UN, said in New York on Monday
that trouble was being fomented by the Yugoslav government, which was
forced by last year's NATO air war to surrender control of Kosovo.
NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said on Monday the military
alliance was also monitoring a Yugoslav troop build-up in other ethnic
Albanian areas of southern Serbia and would not tolerate a new conflict
there.
NATO Supreme Commander General Wesley Clark, visiting Albania, also
expressed concern about the area.
Matic counterattacked by accusing Holbrooke, Robertson and Clark of
wanting to expel remaining Serbs from Mitrovica in order to gain control
of a mine near the city, saying they were "in a gold rush".
"The three are demanding from ethnic Albanians to expel the remaining
non-Albanians from Mitrovica in order to get hold of the richest gold
mine in the Balkans," Matic said.
But it would not succeed, he said, adding that "Serbia is not
California".
He was referring to the Trepca lead and zinc mining complex, which
exploits ore also containing gold and silver. The complex is situated
north of Mitrovica in a Serb-dominated area. Serbia still controls four
of some 17 Trepca mines in Kosovo.
"These people are now doing everything to cover up their crimes," Matic
said of the leaders of NATO countries which took part in the
March-to-June air campaign against Belgrade.
The state news agency Tanjug reported that Yugoslavia lodged a sharp
protest with the UN Security Council late on Monday. "Yugoslavia has
already warned the Security Council on previous occasions against the
fiasco and inability of KFOR and the UN mission in Kosovo to realise
their obligations stemming from resolution 1244 as well as the
Military-Technical Agreement," it quoted the Yugoslav letter as saying.
(Reuters)
---
www.serbia-info.com/news
"Jiefan Jun Bao": West stirs ethnic Albanians up against Serbs
February 23, 2000
Concern for escalation of violation in Kosovo and
Metohija
Beijing, February 22nd - Chinese military daily
"Jiefan Jun Ban" condemned today "incapability of KFOR
and UNMIK in Kosovo" and appealed to the world
community to "prevent ethnic Albanian terrorism under
the auspices of the UN".
Reacting to "the latest separatist actions of ethnic
Albanian separatists in Kosovo, the military daily
warned that "West deliberately stirs up anger of
ethnic Albanians towards the Serbs in
Kosovo-Metohija".
"It is necessary to create the conditions for
political solution of Kosovo issue with full respect
of sovereignty and territorial integrity of FRY and
consistent implementation of the UN Security Council's
Resolution 1244", stressed today Chinese
representative for press Ju Ban Tzao, referring to the
latest wave of crime in Kosovo.
"It is obvious that the situation in Kosovo has
deteriorated since the arrival of the UN military and
civil mission last June", stated Ju, stressing this
was preceded by the NATO aggression against
Yugoslavia, headed by the US.
"The use of force against sovereign Yugoslavia not
only violated the UN Charter and the principles of the
international standards, but also turned out to be
utterly dangerous example of interference with the
interior business of a sovereign country" stated Ju,
expressing "China's deep concern regarding the
escalation of violence in Kosovo".
The military daily points out that "the inclined
policy of KFOR and UNMIK exerted pressure on Serbs and
supported ethnic Albanian extremists which created
additional tension in Kosovo".
"Tolerant attitude of KFOR and UNMIK towards extreme
ethnic Albanians now returns as a boomerang to the UN
military and civil mission in Kosovo" says Jiefan Jun
Bao, reminding that terrorist organization KLA is not
disarmed, but only transformed into so-called "Kosovo
Protective Corps".
"The world community insists on the fact that Kosovo
is an inseparable part of Yugoslavia, which
additionally enraged ethnic Albanian extremists due to
their separatist idea on independent Kosovo",
emphasizes the military paper.
Jiefan Jun Bao reminds that Yugoslavia has warned the
UN that the attacks of ethnic Albanian terrorists to
date have already caused tragic consequences and
victims in Kosovo.
Yugoslavia demands that the Security Council urgently
takes most energetic measures in order to immediately
stop the attacks on unprotected Serb population, says
Jiefan Jun Bao.
Bias of West and incapability of KFOR and UNMIK must
change fundamentally their transparent attitude and
consistently implement the Security Council's
Resolution 1244, otherwise they will face a dead-end
situation in inflamed Kosovo, warns the military
paper.
---
>
>Right-and Albright was just in Tirana on February 19 to meet with
>Hashim Thaci.
>http://news.excite.com/photo/img/r/albania/usa/20000219/tir09
>
>
>inf-@... wrote:
>original article:http://www.egroups.com/group/sorabia/?start=3307
>> Albright, Holbrooke and Clark Lead Albanians
>>
>> NATO and Washington have been warning for days that a solution to the
>> problem in Kosovska Mitrovica must be found. Since the exodus of more
>than
>> 200,000 Serbs and the harassment of those who remained in the
>province
>> resolved the Kosovo issue, Washington believes that the only thing to
>be
>> done is to cleanse the last significant Serb enclave by expelling the
>Serbs
>> from Mitrovica. It is important to note that the Mitrovica enclave is
>the
>> one linking Kosovo with the rest of Serbia. Washington is apparently
>> determined to carry out a U.S. plan in which only an ethnically
>"pure,"
>> Albanian Kosovo can be considered truly multi-ethnic.
>>
>> For that purpose, an Albanian march on Mitrovica was organised. Just
>like it
>> promoted several Albanian terrorists and criminals to high-ranking
>military
>> officers and diplomats in Rambouillet only to demilitarise them later
>and
>> turn them into commanders, political leaders and state dignitaries,
>> Washington has now decided to head the Albanian march on Mitrovica.
>Its true
>> goal is to ethnically cleanse the town of the Serbs rather than
>liberate it.
>>
>> The Albanian masses involved in the campaign on Mitrovica were not
>led by
>> Albanian criminal politicians like Hashim Thaqi, but rather the very
>top of
>> the U.S. diplomatic and military elite. After all that happened in
>Kosovo
>> before the eyes of the whole wide word, Madeleine Albright termed as
>> "tragedy" the events in Mitrovica only. Richard Holbrooke said that
>> Mitrovica was the hottest spot in Europe, and Wesley Clark guaranteed
>that
>> NATO would take "appropriate measures" to avoid the final division of
>> Mitrovica. Thereby, the trio making Washington's iron fist confirmed
>that it
>> was behind the Albanian march and barbarism of U.S. soldiers of KFOR
>in the
>> north of Mitrovica. Tomorrow, it can easily support another "Flash"
>or
>> "Storm" thanks to which Mitrovica would no longer be a divided town.
>To say
>> the truth, it would be a Serbless town, just like the whole of Kosovo
>after
>> all. Those on the Serb side failing to see this are both politically
>blind
>> and irresponsible.
>>
>> Belgrade, February 22, 2000
>>
>> Information Service of the Democratic Party of Serbia
>>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Group Moderator: Ova adresa el. pošte je zaštićena od spambotova. Omogućite JavaScript da biste je videli.
>page at http://www.egroups.com/list/sorabia
>for more informations about current situation in Serbia
http://www.sorabia.home.dhs.org
>
>
---
Comunicato di VOCE OPERAIA
22 febbraio
Uno spettacolo raccapricciante si è consumato a Kosovska Mitrovica sotto
gli occhi di chi li aveva aperti. Issando bandiere albanesi, Nato, UE, e
USA, i seguaci dell¹UCK (frazione Taci) hanno inscenato una marcia per
sradicare dal Kosovo non soli i serbi, ma tutte quelle minoranze,
nazionali e politiche, che rifiutano l¹albanizzazione forzata. Non si
tratta soltanto di ³pulizia etnica², abbiamo a che fare con una pulizia
sociale e politica, di una rappresaglia fanatica dal chiaro segno
reazionario e filo-occidentale. Ci vengono in mente tutti quei pagliacci
di sinistra che durante i bombardamenti NATO, con la scusa di difendere
i diritti albanesi, hanno sostenuto l¹UCK come legittima forza di
liberazione nazionale considerando, proprio come i regimi imperialisti,
il governo di Belgrado come il nemico numero uno. Allora dicevamo a
questo signori che la maggioranza degli albanesi del Kosovo, volenti o
no, erano un popolo di Crumiri (Crumiri, per chi non lo sapesse, erano
qui tunisini schierati coi colonialisti francesi durante la lotta per
l¹indipendenza) i quali, se avessero avuto la meglio, non avrebbero
affatto costruito un Nazione, ma un casino coloniale sotto diretto
protettorato NATO. Questi signori hanno avuto il ben servito.
Lo diciamo così, tanto per la cronaca, non perché speriamo in un loro
ripensamento. L¹autocritica non presuppone solo l¹intelligenza, ma
l¹onestà intellettuale, qualità che hanno lasciato sfracellare al suolo,
assieme alle bombe all¹uranio impoverito sganciate sulla Iugoslavia dai
bombardieri occidentali.
Dichiarazione di Voce Operaia
Sin dal giugno scorso, subito dopo gli Accordi di pace di Kumanovo, le
milizie dell¹UCK, sotto l¹ombrello e l¹indifferenza delle truppe
NATO-Kfor, hanno dato una sistematica caccia ai cittadini serbi, rom,
gorani (e albanesi anti-UCK), provocando la loro espulsione in massa dal
Kosovo. Questa vendetta, che ha gia¹ provocato centinaia di morti
e migliaia di feriti, contrariamente a quanto affermano i reticenti e
pudici mass media, non e¹ soltanto una ³pulizia etnica², èla seconda
fase della guerra civile che contrappone il nazionalismo kosovaro
filo-NATO e filo-USA a TUTTI coloro che si rifiutano di sottomettersi
alla supremazia dei nazionalisti più fanatici e di trasformare il
Kosovo e la Iugoslavia in protettorati della NATO.
Costretti a vivere in piccole enclaves, i serbi sono stati costretti,
anche a causa della complicita¹ delle truppe occidentali con i miliziani
dell¹UCK, ad autodifendersi per non soccombere. Nelle ultime settimane
la pressione dei nazionalisti albanesi oltranzisti si è concentrata su
Kosovska Mitrovica dove vivono, nel settore nord, assieme alla comunità
serba, rom, albanesi e altre minoranze. Queste comunita¹ dopo essere
state sottoposte ad ogni tipo di vessazione e umiliazione, sono state
fatte bersaglio di attacchi armati sanguinosi che hanno causato, nelle
ultime settimane, decine di morti. Le truppe Kfor hanno lasciato correre
e sono intervenute in forze solo quando gruppi armati serbi hanno
inflitto colpi pesantissimi alle forze UCK decidendo la chiusura del
ponte che collega le due parti della citta¹. La comunita¹ serba non
puo¹ essere lasciata sola: piaccia o no essa e¹ ora un avamposto non
solo cotro l¹UCK, ma pure contro l¹occupante NATO!
E¹ una trincea nella lotta contro l¹imperialismo!
Intenzionati a spazzare via ogni serbo dal Kosovo, i centri dirigenti
dell¹UCK dell¹ala di Taci, da Pristina, hanno cosi¹ ordinato una marcia
su Kosovska Mitrovica con l¹obbiettivo di occupare la parte nord della
citta¹. I manifestanti, tanto per far capire con chi stanno e in chi
sperano, innalzavano numerose bandiere degli USA, della NATO e della
Gran Bretagna e gridavano slogan invocando un piu¹ deciso impegno
nord-americano in Kosovo per fare piazza pulita dei serbi.
Nel momento in cui la marcia si avvicinava a Kosovska Mitrovica, le
truppe NATO sono state poste nella massima allerta, anche perche¹ quelle
iugoslave avevano fatto altrettanto ammassandosi ai bordi del Kosovo. Le
notizie dell¹ultima ora segnalano che la marcia degli albanesi,
attestatasi sul ponte oltre il quale centinaia di serbi formavano un
presidio, ha fatto dietrofront anche grazie all¹interposizione delle
truppe NATO-Kfor. Il peggio e¹ stato dunque per ora evitato. Ma solo
per ora.
E¹ infatti evidente che in Kosovo la NATO non ha mantenuto alcuna sua
promessa: non c¹è pace, non c¹è alcuna convivenza,
non c¹è alcuna tolleranza multietnica. Cio¹ a causa anzitutto del
tentativo degli albanesi UCK di cacciare tutti gli oppositori, tra cui i
serbi. E non ci sara¹ mai fino a quando la NATO continuera¹ a
sostenerli. E¹ infatti nell¹interesse della NATO che il Kosovo sia
ingovernabile, cosi¹ si potra¹ giusitificare un¹occupazione militare
permanente.
E questo e¹ l¹altro fattore devastante: la NATO non vuole rispettare gli
Accordi di pace (che prevedono che il Kosovo sia riconsegnato alle
autorita¹ iugoslave). Cio¹ portera¹ ad una nuova esplosione del
conflitto, poiche¹ il governo di Belgrado, almeno fino a quando non
cadra¹ in mano alle opposizioni filo-occidentali, e¹ deciso a far
rispettare gli accordi del giugno 1999.
Non ci sara¹ pace nei Balcani fino a quando la NATO vorra¹ imporre il
suo dominio!
PRIMO COMPITO:
RISPETTARE GLI ACCORDI DI KUMANOVO! FUORI LA NATO DALLA IUGOSLAVIA E
DAI BALCANI!
Non ci sara¹ pace fino a quando ogni nazione non avrà dignità e il
diritto di autodeterminarsi su basi
democratiche!
SECONDO COMPITO:
AUTODETERMINAZIONE IN UNA FEDERAZIONE ANTIMPERIALISTA!
Ci sara¹ pace solo quando saliranno al potere governi operai e popolari
e tutte le cricche capitaliste
saranno spazzate via!
TERZO COMPITO:
LOTTARE PER IL SOCIALISMO!
(per contatti: voceoperaia@...)
=============================================================
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.HOME-PAGE.ORG
Predrag Tosic <p-tosic@...> wrote
> Meaning, basically, of the same origin as the Basques?
You're right, Predrag. Also, the Iberian, pre-Roman, component is still
present in Spanish and
Portuguese (correct me, João, if I am wrong) languages: sounds as the
typical double /RR/, so
unpronounceable for english speaking people, for example.
>
> Frankly, I did tend to believe that most of the NORTH Caucasus
> indigenous peoples were Turkophonic.
You can have a look to this map, about Ethnography in the North
Caucasus.
http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Marina/6150/ethno.jpg
>
> What other modern nations/ethnos belong to this group?
You can find Circassians (Cherkess) in Jordan (they are becoming a
powerful lobby group) and
Syria, but no longer in places as Kosovo Polje because they were forced
to leave to the Republic of
Adigeya (their ancestral homeland), inside Russian Federation, "thanks"
Albanian terrorism.
>
I enclose a pretty good article from a good Jordan friend.
------------------------
Circassians in Kosovo Polje in the Yugoslav Federation
The following article was extracted from "Les Tcherkesses du Kosovo
Polje en Yougoslavie" by
Niko Zupanic in The Journal of The International Institute of
Anthropology, the Paris session, first
section. It was translated and edited by Amjad Jaimoukhaf, a Circassian
intellectual from Jordan.
The ethnographers and historians are aware that the homeland of the
Circassians is along the
basin of the Kuban river in Ciscaucasia. They inhabited the
north-western part of the Caucasus.
The Circassians were divided into many tribes that spoke mutually
intelligible dialects:
Natuqwazh, Shapsugh, Abzakh, Bzhadugh, Hatuqwai, Beslanay, Mokhosh,
Temirgoy, Zhanay,
Egherukoy, Ubykh and Kabarday.
Their collective name was probably corrupted by the Turks from the
ancient Greek name
'kerxetai'. In the middle ages, the Russians used to refer to them by
the name Kossogh, which is
related to Kasag, the name by which the Ossetians call the Kabardians,
but also the Circassians
in general. The self designation of the Circassians is Adygha, which is
believed by linguists to be
related to the old name Zyghoy (strabon). It is believed that the
'Iazyghi', who were installed in
the territory between the rivers Tisa (Theiss) and the Danube not long
after the birth of Christ,
were a group of Zyghoy from the Caucasus, which name was transformed in
European Sarmatia by
adding first the prefix a- and then ia-.
The Circassians were until the 13th century a.d. pagan and free. They
were then subjugated by the
Georgians and christianised. In the first half of the 15th century they
overthrew the Georgian yoke,
but they were in continuous battle with the Tatars and they lost their
territory in the north.
Towards the middle of the 16th century the Kuban became their northern
frontier, because in 1570,
Ghirai, the khan of the Tatars, defeated them in a battle on the banks
of middle Kuban and forced
them to embrace Islam. Until that time, the Circassians settlements
stretched northwards to the
river Kama and some scattered groups were even found as far as the mouth
of the don.
The Circassians switched their religious allegiance very easily
according to the circumstances.
They had a superficial knowledge of Christianity and they were a mixture
of semi-pagans,
demi-muslims and some Christians.
The Circassians have always been distinguished by their intrepidity and
equine skills. They strictly
observed a code of hospitality and blood vengeance. The songs and tales
of the east celebrate the
beauty of Circassians maidens.
The Circassians put up a fierce resistance in their war with the
Russians, but they were eventually
defeated in 1864. Many of them were forced to leave their country and
resettle in the ottoman
empire: in Syria, Asia minor and the Balkan peninsula. Only a few
remained in their homeland,
about 110,000 people.
The majority of the Circassians who were established in the Balkan
peninsula were sent by the
ottoman authorities to the frontiers of the ancient duchy of Serbia to
reinforce its position there
and to terrorise the Serbs. During that time the Circassians were
established in Kosovo Polje
where the author visited them in 1924 and 1929. He counted about fifty
families, or about 250
people, for the majority had left for Asia minor and Syria.
The Circassians are very interesting for the Serbs, because the first
bearers of the name Serb
were aboriginal in the Caucasus, probably Circassians who crossed the
don at the time of the great
Sarmatian migration, together with the Ants, the Zichi (Kissi), the
Chorvats, the Vals, etc. They
co-mingled with the Slavs and established the first tribal
organisations. Undoubtedly these
Caucaso-sarmatian horsemen were assimilated in the mass of the Slav
population, but the names
of the tribes and the primitive structure of the state still exist to
this day.
>From their original Slav homeland at the confluence of the upper and middle Dniepr and of the
Pripet and the Boug, the Serbs immigrated to the confluence of the
middle Elbe and the Saale,
whence a group, which had a military organisation, resettled in Illyria
[NOTE from Javier: it's
pathetic the way Kosovo Albanian are trying to fake History, claiming
themselves to be
"descendants of the ancient Illyrian tribe of the Dardanians". See
http://www.unpo.org/member/kosova/kosova.html ] It was probably in 626
a.d., when
Constantinopla was besieged by the Avars and the Persians, that
Hercules, the Byzantine emperor
implored Samo, the Grand Duke of the Slavs, for help. The Croats and the
Serbs moved to the
Balkan peninsula, attacked the Avars from behind, delivered the Slavs
(Yugoslavs) who were
living there and saved Constantinopla, the Byzantine empire and eastern
Christendom.
After defeating the Avars, the Serbs established themselves in the
interior of Illyria at the lower
end of the indigenous Slavs. At their arrival in Illyria, the Serbs
spoke the same language as the
Serbs of Lusace, but being fewer in number than the native population,
they were linguistically
assimilated and they lost their north-west Slavic language.
The Circassians, who used to be one of the three principal nations in
the Caucasus, speak a
Japhetic language, which is not related to any other language group.
This means that they are not
Aryan, since these speak Indo-European languages. They may be allied to
the Basques in the
Pyrenees, who, before the advent of the Indo-Europeans, formed one
section of an organic chain
of related nations that stretched from Spain to the Caucasus. Those
nations were the Iberians, the
Legurs, the Etruscans, the Rets, the Pelasgians (an ancient pre-Aryan
race, which used to be
widely spread over the coasts and islands of the eastern Mediterranean
and Aegean, and believed
to have occupied Greece before the Hellenes), the Kars, the
Cappadochians, the Amazons (a race
of female warriors alleged to have existed in Scythia) , the Khalybs,
the Colchians, etc. These
peoples were violently replaced by the Indo-Europeans.
The circassians in Kosovo Polje are to be found in the following
villages: Gornje Stanovce, Donje
Stanovce, Velika Reka and Milosevo. Before the Turko-Serbian war of
1877-1878, there were
about 12,000 Circassians in the region. After the war the overwhelming
majority immigrated to
Syria and Asia minor. In 1912 and 1918 more people moved out, and the
author estimated that there
were only 250 circassians in the province by 1929. The present
population is estimated at 1,000.
References:
1. Niko Zupanic, 'Les Origines des Serbes', the origins of the Serbs.
Second session of the
International Institute of anthropology, pp. 227-229. Paris, 1926.
2. Niko Zupanic, 'Bela Srbija'. Zagreb, 1922; Les Serbes a Srbciste
(Macedoine), au vii siecle.
Extrait du Byzantion, t. Iv, p. 277-280. Liege, 1929.
3. T. R. Djordjevic, 'Cerkezi u Nasoj Zemlji', the circassians on our
territory. Glasnik Skopskog
Naucnog Drustva, t. Iii, p. 143. Skoplje, 1928.
------------
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
soldati KFOR durante le perquisizioni a Mitrovica
* Scambio di accuse tra RF di Jugoslavia e NATO ("The Times of
India"/Reuters)
* Pesanti critiche dalla Cina all'atteggiamento di KFOR/UNMIK in Kosmet
* Comunicato del Partito Democratico della Serbia sull'appoggio
statunitense all'irredentismo panalbanese
* Italia: Comunicato di Voce Operaia sulla situazione a Mitrovica
* C'ERANO UNA VOLTA... "Circassians in Kosovo Polje in the Yugoslav
Federation" - storia sconosciuta di una delle comunita' nazionali
spazzate via dal Kosmet per mano dell'UCKFOR
---
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.HOME-PAGE.ORG
YUGOSLAVIA LODGES SHARP PROTEST WITH UN SECURITY COUNCIL
Yugoslavia lodged a sharp protest with the United Nations Security
Council late Monday on the occasion of the latest dramatic developments
in Kosovska Mitrovica which have been caused by ethnic Albanian
terrorists, but also members of the international force KFOR with their
arrogant behavour and brutal action of house-searching Serb districts of
this town in Serbia's Kosovo province.
The letter, sent to Security Council President Arnoldo Listre, the
Argentinian Ambassador, by the head of the Yugoslav mission to the
United Nations, Ambassador Vladislav Jovanovic, most strongly protested
and demanded that the council take immediate measures toward a
normalization of the situation in this town, immediately to curb the
terrorism of ethnic Albanians, vandalism, and lynching and liquidation
of Serbs and other non-Albanians.
The very course of events and building up of tensions confirm that this
is a pre-conceived action in which ethnic Albanians of Kosovska
Mitrovica, led by terrorists of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army,
were joined by thousands of ethnic Albanians who arrived from Pristina,
the letter said.
It is perfectly clear that the concentrated attack was planned with the
objective of banishing Serbs, Montenegrins, Goranians, Muslims of Slav
extraction, and ethnic Turks from Kosovska Mitrovica, the only remaining
multi-national and multi-confessional town in Kosovo, in order to
complete the process of ethnic cleansing of non-Albanians who live in
isolation in enclaves in this Serbian province, said the letter.
Yugoslavia has already warned the Security Council on previous occasions
against the fiasco and inability of KFOR and UNMIK to realize their
obligations stemming from Resolution 1244, as well as the
Military-Technical Agreement.
In spite of Yugoslavia's warning and the fact that most of the Serb and
non-Albanian population have already been banished from Kosovo,
witnessed by these very same security forces and the civilian mission,
the KFOR and UNMIK have not only failed to do anything to prevent the
terrorism of ethnic Albanians and acts of vandalism, but have very often
been accomplices in these heinous acts.
The latest aggravation of the situation in Kosovska Mitrovica is due to
the totally unprovoked arrogant behaviour of KFOR towards Serbs in that
town, said the letter, proceeding to describe the destructive and brutal
behaviour of KFOR U.S. and German troops who broke down doors and
windows on schools and private houses in their house-search.
The action had evidently been planned in advance. U.S. troops arrived
from Gnjilane, and among them were ethnic Albanians in KFOR U.S.
uniforms, who were recognized by the local population.
Press representatives also appeared to be on the spot, reporting in
Albanian, as well as several crew of foreign TV stations. Leaflets were
dropped from a helicopter, urging Serbs to surrender their allegedly
concealed weapons.
The latest abuse of the about 4,500 Serbs in Kosovska Mitrovica is yet
more proof of the political double standards of the KFOR mission, warned
the letter sent by Yugoslavia to the Security Council.
---
Times of India
Wednesday 23 February 2000
Belgrade dismisses West's allegations on Kosovo
By Julijana Mojsilovic
BELGRADE: Yugoslavia dismissed Western officials' allegations that it
was stoking tensions in and around Kosovo and accused them on Tuesday of
supporting Albanian "terrorists" in the province.
"These people are behind the terrorism and separatism of Kosovo
Albanians. They have created the Kosovo Liberation Army and a crisis in
the Balkans to expand NATO to the region," Yugoslav Information Minister
Goran Matic said.
He was speaking a day after battles broke out between Western
peacekeepers and rioters when thousands of ethnic Albanians tried to
storm across a bridge in the centre of the flashpoint Kosovo city of
Mitrovica to reach the province's largest remaining Serb enclave.
On Sunday, NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping troops clashed with Mitrovica's
Serbs, angered by the troops' search of homes for weapons following
shootings and grenade attacks which killed nine people, both Serbs and
Albanians.
Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to the UN, said in New York on Monday
that trouble was being fomented by the Yugoslav government, which was
forced by last year's NATO air war to surrender control of Kosovo.
NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said on Monday the military
alliance was also monitoring a Yugoslav troop build-up in other ethnic
Albanian areas of southern Serbia and would not tolerate a new conflict
there.
NATO Supreme Commander General Wesley Clark, visiting Albania, also
expressed concern about the area.
Matic counterattacked by accusing Holbrooke, Robertson and Clark of
wanting to expel remaining Serbs from Mitrovica in order to gain control
of a mine near the city, saying they were "in a gold rush".
"The three are demanding from ethnic Albanians to expel the remaining
non-Albanians from Mitrovica in order to get hold of the richest gold
mine in the Balkans," Matic said.
But it would not succeed, he said, adding that "Serbia is not
California".
He was referring to the Trepca lead and zinc mining complex, which
exploits ore also containing gold and silver. The complex is situated
north of Mitrovica in a Serb-dominated area. Serbia still controls four
of some 17 Trepca mines in Kosovo.
"These people are now doing everything to cover up their crimes," Matic
said of the leaders of NATO countries which took part in the
March-to-June air campaign against Belgrade.
The state news agency Tanjug reported that Yugoslavia lodged a sharp
protest with the UN Security Council late on Monday. "Yugoslavia has
already warned the Security Council on previous occasions against the
fiasco and inability of KFOR and the UN mission in Kosovo to realise
their obligations stemming from resolution 1244 as well as the
Military-Technical Agreement," it quoted the Yugoslav letter as saying.
(Reuters)
---
www.serbia-info.com/news
"Jiefan Jun Bao": West stirs ethnic Albanians up against Serbs
February 23, 2000
Concern for escalation of violation in Kosovo and
Metohija
Beijing, February 22nd - Chinese military daily
"Jiefan Jun Ban" condemned today "incapability of KFOR
and UNMIK in Kosovo" and appealed to the world
community to "prevent ethnic Albanian terrorism under
the auspices of the UN".
Reacting to "the latest separatist actions of ethnic
Albanian separatists in Kosovo, the military daily
warned that "West deliberately stirs up anger of
ethnic Albanians towards the Serbs in
Kosovo-Metohija".
"It is necessary to create the conditions for
political solution of Kosovo issue with full respect
of sovereignty and territorial integrity of FRY and
consistent implementation of the UN Security Council's
Resolution 1244", stressed today Chinese
representative for press Ju Ban Tzao, referring to the
latest wave of crime in Kosovo.
"It is obvious that the situation in Kosovo has
deteriorated since the arrival of the UN military and
civil mission last June", stated Ju, stressing this
was preceded by the NATO aggression against
Yugoslavia, headed by the US.
"The use of force against sovereign Yugoslavia not
only violated the UN Charter and the principles of the
international standards, but also turned out to be
utterly dangerous example of interference with the
interior business of a sovereign country" stated Ju,
expressing "China's deep concern regarding the
escalation of violence in Kosovo".
The military daily points out that "the inclined
policy of KFOR and UNMIK exerted pressure on Serbs and
supported ethnic Albanian extremists which created
additional tension in Kosovo".
"Tolerant attitude of KFOR and UNMIK towards extreme
ethnic Albanians now returns as a boomerang to the UN
military and civil mission in Kosovo" says Jiefan Jun
Bao, reminding that terrorist organization KLA is not
disarmed, but only transformed into so-called "Kosovo
Protective Corps".
"The world community insists on the fact that Kosovo
is an inseparable part of Yugoslavia, which
additionally enraged ethnic Albanian extremists due to
their separatist idea on independent Kosovo",
emphasizes the military paper.
Jiefan Jun Bao reminds that Yugoslavia has warned the
UN that the attacks of ethnic Albanian terrorists to
date have already caused tragic consequences and
victims in Kosovo.
Yugoslavia demands that the Security Council urgently
takes most energetic measures in order to immediately
stop the attacks on unprotected Serb population, says
Jiefan Jun Bao.
Bias of West and incapability of KFOR and UNMIK must
change fundamentally their transparent attitude and
consistently implement the Security Council's
Resolution 1244, otherwise they will face a dead-end
situation in inflamed Kosovo, warns the military
paper.
---
>
>Right-and Albright was just in Tirana on February 19 to meet with
>Hashim Thaci.
>http://news.excite.com/photo/img/r/albania/usa/20000219/tir09
>
>
>inf-@... wrote:
>original article:http://www.egroups.com/group/sorabia/?start=3307
>> Albright, Holbrooke and Clark Lead Albanians
>>
>> NATO and Washington have been warning for days that a solution to the
>> problem in Kosovska Mitrovica must be found. Since the exodus of more
>than
>> 200,000 Serbs and the harassment of those who remained in the
>province
>> resolved the Kosovo issue, Washington believes that the only thing to
>be
>> done is to cleanse the last significant Serb enclave by expelling the
>Serbs
>> from Mitrovica. It is important to note that the Mitrovica enclave is
>the
>> one linking Kosovo with the rest of Serbia. Washington is apparently
>> determined to carry out a U.S. plan in which only an ethnically
>"pure,"
>> Albanian Kosovo can be considered truly multi-ethnic.
>>
>> For that purpose, an Albanian march on Mitrovica was organised. Just
>like it
>> promoted several Albanian terrorists and criminals to high-ranking
>military
>> officers and diplomats in Rambouillet only to demilitarise them later
>and
>> turn them into commanders, political leaders and state dignitaries,
>> Washington has now decided to head the Albanian march on Mitrovica.
>Its true
>> goal is to ethnically cleanse the town of the Serbs rather than
>liberate it.
>>
>> The Albanian masses involved in the campaign on Mitrovica were not
>led by
>> Albanian criminal politicians like Hashim Thaqi, but rather the very
>top of
>> the U.S. diplomatic and military elite. After all that happened in
>Kosovo
>> before the eyes of the whole wide word, Madeleine Albright termed as
>> "tragedy" the events in Mitrovica only. Richard Holbrooke said that
>> Mitrovica was the hottest spot in Europe, and Wesley Clark guaranteed
>that
>> NATO would take "appropriate measures" to avoid the final division of
>> Mitrovica. Thereby, the trio making Washington's iron fist confirmed
>that it
>> was behind the Albanian march and barbarism of U.S. soldiers of KFOR
>in the
>> north of Mitrovica. Tomorrow, it can easily support another "Flash"
>or
>> "Storm" thanks to which Mitrovica would no longer be a divided town.
>To say
>> the truth, it would be a Serbless town, just like the whole of Kosovo
>after
>> all. Those on the Serb side failing to see this are both politically
>blind
>> and irresponsible.
>>
>> Belgrade, February 22, 2000
>>
>> Information Service of the Democratic Party of Serbia
>>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Group Moderator: Ova adresa el. pošte je zaštićena od spambotova. Omogućite JavaScript da biste je videli.
>page at http://www.egroups.com/list/sorabia
>for more informations about current situation in Serbia
http://www.sorabia.home.dhs.org
>
>
---
Comunicato di VOCE OPERAIA
22 febbraio
Uno spettacolo raccapricciante si è consumato a Kosovska Mitrovica sotto
gli occhi di chi li aveva aperti. Issando bandiere albanesi, Nato, UE, e
USA, i seguaci dell¹UCK (frazione Taci) hanno inscenato una marcia per
sradicare dal Kosovo non soli i serbi, ma tutte quelle minoranze,
nazionali e politiche, che rifiutano l¹albanizzazione forzata. Non si
tratta soltanto di ³pulizia etnica², abbiamo a che fare con una pulizia
sociale e politica, di una rappresaglia fanatica dal chiaro segno
reazionario e filo-occidentale. Ci vengono in mente tutti quei pagliacci
di sinistra che durante i bombardamenti NATO, con la scusa di difendere
i diritti albanesi, hanno sostenuto l¹UCK come legittima forza di
liberazione nazionale considerando, proprio come i regimi imperialisti,
il governo di Belgrado come il nemico numero uno. Allora dicevamo a
questo signori che la maggioranza degli albanesi del Kosovo, volenti o
no, erano un popolo di Crumiri (Crumiri, per chi non lo sapesse, erano
qui tunisini schierati coi colonialisti francesi durante la lotta per
l¹indipendenza) i quali, se avessero avuto la meglio, non avrebbero
affatto costruito un Nazione, ma un casino coloniale sotto diretto
protettorato NATO. Questi signori hanno avuto il ben servito.
Lo diciamo così, tanto per la cronaca, non perché speriamo in un loro
ripensamento. L¹autocritica non presuppone solo l¹intelligenza, ma
l¹onestà intellettuale, qualità che hanno lasciato sfracellare al suolo,
assieme alle bombe all¹uranio impoverito sganciate sulla Iugoslavia dai
bombardieri occidentali.
Dichiarazione di Voce Operaia
Sin dal giugno scorso, subito dopo gli Accordi di pace di Kumanovo, le
milizie dell¹UCK, sotto l¹ombrello e l¹indifferenza delle truppe
NATO-Kfor, hanno dato una sistematica caccia ai cittadini serbi, rom,
gorani (e albanesi anti-UCK), provocando la loro espulsione in massa dal
Kosovo. Questa vendetta, che ha gia¹ provocato centinaia di morti
e migliaia di feriti, contrariamente a quanto affermano i reticenti e
pudici mass media, non e¹ soltanto una ³pulizia etnica², èla seconda
fase della guerra civile che contrappone il nazionalismo kosovaro
filo-NATO e filo-USA a TUTTI coloro che si rifiutano di sottomettersi
alla supremazia dei nazionalisti più fanatici e di trasformare il
Kosovo e la Iugoslavia in protettorati della NATO.
Costretti a vivere in piccole enclaves, i serbi sono stati costretti,
anche a causa della complicita¹ delle truppe occidentali con i miliziani
dell¹UCK, ad autodifendersi per non soccombere. Nelle ultime settimane
la pressione dei nazionalisti albanesi oltranzisti si è concentrata su
Kosovska Mitrovica dove vivono, nel settore nord, assieme alla comunità
serba, rom, albanesi e altre minoranze. Queste comunita¹ dopo essere
state sottoposte ad ogni tipo di vessazione e umiliazione, sono state
fatte bersaglio di attacchi armati sanguinosi che hanno causato, nelle
ultime settimane, decine di morti. Le truppe Kfor hanno lasciato correre
e sono intervenute in forze solo quando gruppi armati serbi hanno
inflitto colpi pesantissimi alle forze UCK decidendo la chiusura del
ponte che collega le due parti della citta¹. La comunita¹ serba non
puo¹ essere lasciata sola: piaccia o no essa e¹ ora un avamposto non
solo cotro l¹UCK, ma pure contro l¹occupante NATO!
E¹ una trincea nella lotta contro l¹imperialismo!
Intenzionati a spazzare via ogni serbo dal Kosovo, i centri dirigenti
dell¹UCK dell¹ala di Taci, da Pristina, hanno cosi¹ ordinato una marcia
su Kosovska Mitrovica con l¹obbiettivo di occupare la parte nord della
citta¹. I manifestanti, tanto per far capire con chi stanno e in chi
sperano, innalzavano numerose bandiere degli USA, della NATO e della
Gran Bretagna e gridavano slogan invocando un piu¹ deciso impegno
nord-americano in Kosovo per fare piazza pulita dei serbi.
Nel momento in cui la marcia si avvicinava a Kosovska Mitrovica, le
truppe NATO sono state poste nella massima allerta, anche perche¹ quelle
iugoslave avevano fatto altrettanto ammassandosi ai bordi del Kosovo. Le
notizie dell¹ultima ora segnalano che la marcia degli albanesi,
attestatasi sul ponte oltre il quale centinaia di serbi formavano un
presidio, ha fatto dietrofront anche grazie all¹interposizione delle
truppe NATO-Kfor. Il peggio e¹ stato dunque per ora evitato. Ma solo
per ora.
E¹ infatti evidente che in Kosovo la NATO non ha mantenuto alcuna sua
promessa: non c¹è pace, non c¹è alcuna convivenza,
non c¹è alcuna tolleranza multietnica. Cio¹ a causa anzitutto del
tentativo degli albanesi UCK di cacciare tutti gli oppositori, tra cui i
serbi. E non ci sara¹ mai fino a quando la NATO continuera¹ a
sostenerli. E¹ infatti nell¹interesse della NATO che il Kosovo sia
ingovernabile, cosi¹ si potra¹ giusitificare un¹occupazione militare
permanente.
E questo e¹ l¹altro fattore devastante: la NATO non vuole rispettare gli
Accordi di pace (che prevedono che il Kosovo sia riconsegnato alle
autorita¹ iugoslave). Cio¹ portera¹ ad una nuova esplosione del
conflitto, poiche¹ il governo di Belgrado, almeno fino a quando non
cadra¹ in mano alle opposizioni filo-occidentali, e¹ deciso a far
rispettare gli accordi del giugno 1999.
Non ci sara¹ pace nei Balcani fino a quando la NATO vorra¹ imporre il
suo dominio!
PRIMO COMPITO:
RISPETTARE GLI ACCORDI DI KUMANOVO! FUORI LA NATO DALLA IUGOSLAVIA E
DAI BALCANI!
Non ci sara¹ pace fino a quando ogni nazione non avrà dignità e il
diritto di autodeterminarsi su basi
democratiche!
SECONDO COMPITO:
AUTODETERMINAZIONE IN UNA FEDERAZIONE ANTIMPERIALISTA!
Ci sara¹ pace solo quando saliranno al potere governi operai e popolari
e tutte le cricche capitaliste
saranno spazzate via!
TERZO COMPITO:
LOTTARE PER IL SOCIALISMO!
(per contatti: voceoperaia@...)
=============================================================
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.HOME-PAGE.ORG
Predrag Tosic <p-tosic@...> wrote
> Meaning, basically, of the same origin as the Basques?
You're right, Predrag. Also, the Iberian, pre-Roman, component is still
present in Spanish and
Portuguese (correct me, João, if I am wrong) languages: sounds as the
typical double /RR/, so
unpronounceable for english speaking people, for example.
>
> Frankly, I did tend to believe that most of the NORTH Caucasus
> indigenous peoples were Turkophonic.
You can have a look to this map, about Ethnography in the North
Caucasus.
http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Marina/6150/ethno.jpg
>
> What other modern nations/ethnos belong to this group?
You can find Circassians (Cherkess) in Jordan (they are becoming a
powerful lobby group) and
Syria, but no longer in places as Kosovo Polje because they were forced
to leave to the Republic of
Adigeya (their ancestral homeland), inside Russian Federation, "thanks"
Albanian terrorism.
>
I enclose a pretty good article from a good Jordan friend.
------------------------
Circassians in Kosovo Polje in the Yugoslav Federation
The following article was extracted from "Les Tcherkesses du Kosovo
Polje en Yougoslavie" by
Niko Zupanic in The Journal of The International Institute of
Anthropology, the Paris session, first
section. It was translated and edited by Amjad Jaimoukhaf, a Circassian
intellectual from Jordan.
The ethnographers and historians are aware that the homeland of the
Circassians is along the
basin of the Kuban river in Ciscaucasia. They inhabited the
north-western part of the Caucasus.
The Circassians were divided into many tribes that spoke mutually
intelligible dialects:
Natuqwazh, Shapsugh, Abzakh, Bzhadugh, Hatuqwai, Beslanay, Mokhosh,
Temirgoy, Zhanay,
Egherukoy, Ubykh and Kabarday.
Their collective name was probably corrupted by the Turks from the
ancient Greek name
'kerxetai'. In the middle ages, the Russians used to refer to them by
the name Kossogh, which is
related to Kasag, the name by which the Ossetians call the Kabardians,
but also the Circassians
in general. The self designation of the Circassians is Adygha, which is
believed by linguists to be
related to the old name Zyghoy (strabon). It is believed that the
'Iazyghi', who were installed in
the territory between the rivers Tisa (Theiss) and the Danube not long
after the birth of Christ,
were a group of Zyghoy from the Caucasus, which name was transformed in
European Sarmatia by
adding first the prefix a- and then ia-.
The Circassians were until the 13th century a.d. pagan and free. They
were then subjugated by the
Georgians and christianised. In the first half of the 15th century they
overthrew the Georgian yoke,
but they were in continuous battle with the Tatars and they lost their
territory in the north.
Towards the middle of the 16th century the Kuban became their northern
frontier, because in 1570,
Ghirai, the khan of the Tatars, defeated them in a battle on the banks
of middle Kuban and forced
them to embrace Islam. Until that time, the Circassians settlements
stretched northwards to the
river Kama and some scattered groups were even found as far as the mouth
of the don.
The Circassians switched their religious allegiance very easily
according to the circumstances.
They had a superficial knowledge of Christianity and they were a mixture
of semi-pagans,
demi-muslims and some Christians.
The Circassians have always been distinguished by their intrepidity and
equine skills. They strictly
observed a code of hospitality and blood vengeance. The songs and tales
of the east celebrate the
beauty of Circassians maidens.
The Circassians put up a fierce resistance in their war with the
Russians, but they were eventually
defeated in 1864. Many of them were forced to leave their country and
resettle in the ottoman
empire: in Syria, Asia minor and the Balkan peninsula. Only a few
remained in their homeland,
about 110,000 people.
The majority of the Circassians who were established in the Balkan
peninsula were sent by the
ottoman authorities to the frontiers of the ancient duchy of Serbia to
reinforce its position there
and to terrorise the Serbs. During that time the Circassians were
established in Kosovo Polje
where the author visited them in 1924 and 1929. He counted about fifty
families, or about 250
people, for the majority had left for Asia minor and Syria.
The Circassians are very interesting for the Serbs, because the first
bearers of the name Serb
were aboriginal in the Caucasus, probably Circassians who crossed the
don at the time of the great
Sarmatian migration, together with the Ants, the Zichi (Kissi), the
Chorvats, the Vals, etc. They
co-mingled with the Slavs and established the first tribal
organisations. Undoubtedly these
Caucaso-sarmatian horsemen were assimilated in the mass of the Slav
population, but the names
of the tribes and the primitive structure of the state still exist to
this day.
>From their original Slav homeland at the confluence of the upper and middle Dniepr and of the
Pripet and the Boug, the Serbs immigrated to the confluence of the
middle Elbe and the Saale,
whence a group, which had a military organisation, resettled in Illyria
[NOTE from Javier: it's
pathetic the way Kosovo Albanian are trying to fake History, claiming
themselves to be
"descendants of the ancient Illyrian tribe of the Dardanians". See
http://www.unpo.org/member/kosova/kosova.html ] It was probably in 626
a.d., when
Constantinopla was besieged by the Avars and the Persians, that
Hercules, the Byzantine emperor
implored Samo, the Grand Duke of the Slavs, for help. The Croats and the
Serbs moved to the
Balkan peninsula, attacked the Avars from behind, delivered the Slavs
(Yugoslavs) who were
living there and saved Constantinopla, the Byzantine empire and eastern
Christendom.
After defeating the Avars, the Serbs established themselves in the
interior of Illyria at the lower
end of the indigenous Slavs. At their arrival in Illyria, the Serbs
spoke the same language as the
Serbs of Lusace, but being fewer in number than the native population,
they were linguistically
assimilated and they lost their north-west Slavic language.
The Circassians, who used to be one of the three principal nations in
the Caucasus, speak a
Japhetic language, which is not related to any other language group.
This means that they are not
Aryan, since these speak Indo-European languages. They may be allied to
the Basques in the
Pyrenees, who, before the advent of the Indo-Europeans, formed one
section of an organic chain
of related nations that stretched from Spain to the Caucasus. Those
nations were the Iberians, the
Legurs, the Etruscans, the Rets, the Pelasgians (an ancient pre-Aryan
race, which used to be
widely spread over the coasts and islands of the eastern Mediterranean
and Aegean, and believed
to have occupied Greece before the Hellenes), the Kars, the
Cappadochians, the Amazons (a race
of female warriors alleged to have existed in Scythia) , the Khalybs,
the Colchians, etc. These
peoples were violently replaced by the Indo-Europeans.
The circassians in Kosovo Polje are to be found in the following
villages: Gornje Stanovce, Donje
Stanovce, Velika Reka and Milosevo. Before the Turko-Serbian war of
1877-1878, there were
about 12,000 Circassians in the region. After the war the overwhelming
majority immigrated to
Syria and Asia minor. In 1912 and 1918 more people moved out, and the
author estimated that there
were only 250 circassians in the province by 1929. The present
population is estimated at 1,000.
References:
1. Niko Zupanic, 'Les Origines des Serbes', the origins of the Serbs.
Second session of the
International Institute of anthropology, pp. 227-229. Paris, 1926.
2. Niko Zupanic, 'Bela Srbija'. Zagreb, 1922; Les Serbes a Srbciste
(Macedoine), au vii siecle.
Extrait du Byzantion, t. Iv, p. 277-280. Liege, 1929.
3. T. R. Djordjevic, 'Cerkezi u Nasoj Zemlji', the circassians on our
territory. Glasnik Skopskog
Naucnog Drustva, t. Iii, p. 143. Skoplje, 1928.
------------
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
MANOVRE MILITARI
Secondo il segretario generale della NATO George Robertson l'esercito
della Repubblica Federale di Jugoslavia non deve effettuare movimenti di
truppe sul proprio territorio. Robertson si riferisce in particolare
alle truppe jugoslave che sarebbero concentrate in Serbia centrale, nei
pressi del confine interno con la provincia del Kosmet.
Robertson pero' ritiene che il suo paese (la Gran Bretagna) possa ed
anzi debba impiegare truppe e mezzi non solo in Irlanda del Nord, ma
persino nei Balcani, a migliaia di chilometri di distanza - magari
proprio sul territorio della Repubblica Federale di Jugoslavia!
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
Secondo il segretario generale della NATO George Robertson l'esercito
della Repubblica Federale di Jugoslavia non deve effettuare movimenti di
truppe sul proprio territorio. Robertson si riferisce in particolare
alle truppe jugoslave che sarebbero concentrate in Serbia centrale, nei
pressi del confine interno con la provincia del Kosmet.
Robertson pero' ritiene che il suo paese (la Gran Bretagna) possa ed
anzi debba impiegare truppe e mezzi non solo in Irlanda del Nord, ma
persino nei Balcani, a migliaia di chilometri di distanza - magari
proprio sul territorio della Repubblica Federale di Jugoslavia!
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
GIORNALI DA BUTTARE: 1. "LA REPUBBLICA"
Leggiamo su "Repubblica on line" del 22/2/2000 che i carabinieri
italiani avrebbero individuato qualcuna delle famose "fosse comuni" di
Srebrenica. La notizia sarebbe clamorosa, visto che dopo ben cinque
anni, del "massacro serbo di ottomila musulmani" al quale si allude
continuamente (ma per "Repubblica" adesso sono diventati diecimila!)
ancora nessuna fossa comune era stata ritrovata - a parte le "foto da
satellite" di fonte CIA nelle quali ci hanno fatto vedere "terra mossa
di fresco".
Purtroppo (o per fortuna), pero', la notizia non e' credibile, ed anzi
sembra un "cappello" fatto apposta per "coprire" giornalisticamente la
vera notizia contenuta nell'articolo, riguardante le indagini
sull'omicidio di tre volontari italiani. Questi ultimi sarebbero stati
uccisi dai "Berretti Verdi", che gia' dal nome sembrano piuttosto essere
una formazione paramilitare bosniaco-musulmana (ma nell'articolo non si
dice). E' questa una maniera doppiamente infame - ma non certo nuova -
di contribuire, come giornalisti, al conflitto nei Balcani attizzando
odio gratuito nei confronti di una delle parti in causa (sempre quella).
> I militari sulle tracce del massacro di Sebrenica
> Individuati gli assassini dei volontari bresciani
>
> I carabinieri scoprono
> nuove fosse in Bosnia
>
>
> SARAJEVO - Per anni hanno investigato in silenzio, cercato prove, scovato
> riscontri, portato testimoni: tutte cose difficili nella Sarajevo sconvolta
> dalla guerra. Ora i carabinieri della Multinational Specialized Unit sono
> riusciti a scoprire gli assassini dei tre volontari bresciani uccisi nel
> 1993 in Bosnia. I militari non si sono fermati e hanno individuato altre
> fosse comuni, due sicure e altre cinque su cui stanno ancora perfezionando
> le ultime verifiche. Montagne di cadaveri che portano le indagini sulle
> tracce del massacro di Sebrenica, dove durante il conflitto nell'ex
> Yugoslavia vennero fatte scomparire diecimila persone.
>
> Per raccontare questa ultima, tragica, scoperta bisogna partire da lontano:
SI NOTI CHE ADESSO IL GIORNALISTA CAMBIA TEMA DI NUOVO, NEL TENTATIVO DI
CONFONDERE LA PROBLEMATICA DI SREBRENICA (scritto "Sebrenica", poiche'
l'ignoranza non mente) CON QUELLA DELL'ATTENTATO AI VOLONTARI
> da quando Guido Puletti, Sergio Lana e Fabio Moreni furono falciati a colpi
> di mitra, nel 1993 nei pressi di Gornji Vakuf, da una banda paramilitare
> durante l'attacco ad un convoglio umanitario. I carabinieri, in stretto
> contatto con Carla Del Ponte, il magistrato che coordina le indagini sui
> crimini di guerra nella ex Jugoslavia, sono riusciti a dare un nome e un
> volto ai colpevoli. L'inchiesta porta ai "berretti verdi" di Hanefjia
> Prjijc, il comandante Paraga, che vive tranquillo nella sua città, Voljice.
> Per lui e i suoi uomini, molti fuggti all'estero, sono però pronti i
> mandati di cattura e per l'arresto non dovrebbe mancare molto tempo.
>
> La stessa tecnica di lavoro, fatta di tenacia e professionalità, i
> carabinieri l'hanno usata nella caccia alle fosse comuni. Gli inquirenti su
> questo punto mantengono il più stretto riserbo ma sembrano essere arrivati
> appunto ad un passo da uno degli episodi più sanguinosi della guerra
> nell'ex Jugoslavia: la probabile eliminazione fisica di diecimila persone
> dalla città di Sebrenica.
SI NOTI: "IL PIU' STRETTO RISERBO", "SEMBRANO ESSERE ARRIVATI",
"PROBABILE ELIMINAZIONE FISICA"
> Finora sono stati individuati tremila cadaveri, all'appello mancano dunque
SI NOTI: "SONO STATI INDIVIDUATI" (A NOI NON RISULTA)
> gli altri settemila, che si teme possano essere seppelliti in diverse fosse
SI NOTI: "ALTRI SETTEMILA" (IN BASE A QUALI FONTI?), "SI TEME CHE"
> comuni. Nei mesi scorsi gli uomini del colonnello Renato Scuzzarello ne
> avevano individuate tre, negli ultimi giorni ne sono venute alla luce altre
> due.
...MA ALL'INIZIO DELL'ARTICOLO SI DICE CHE SONO DUE SICURE E CINQUE
FORSE!
SE QUALCUNO AVESSE INFORMAZIONI PIU' PRECISE SU QUESTE FOSSE GIA'
INDIVIDUATE (OLTRE AL NOME DEL COLONNELLO) E' PREGATO DI INVIARCELE E
LE DIFFONDEREMO IMMEDIATAMENTE.
> L'attenzione adesso, con esami balistici sulle armi usate dai serbi, è
SOLO QUI SI CITA ESPLICITAMENTE UNA PARTE IN CONFLITTO (I SERBI)
> puntata sulle ultime cinque fosse scovate. Le indagini dureranno sino a
> primavera, se andranno nella direzione immaginata dai carabinieri, sarà un
> altro contributo alla verità, un piccolo-grande omaggio alle vittime di
> quella guerra.
A PRIMAVERA AVREMO TUTTI DIMENTICATO LA NOTIZIOLA E NESSUNO ANDRA' A
VERIFICARE.
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
Leggiamo su "Repubblica on line" del 22/2/2000 che i carabinieri
italiani avrebbero individuato qualcuna delle famose "fosse comuni" di
Srebrenica. La notizia sarebbe clamorosa, visto che dopo ben cinque
anni, del "massacro serbo di ottomila musulmani" al quale si allude
continuamente (ma per "Repubblica" adesso sono diventati diecimila!)
ancora nessuna fossa comune era stata ritrovata - a parte le "foto da
satellite" di fonte CIA nelle quali ci hanno fatto vedere "terra mossa
di fresco".
Purtroppo (o per fortuna), pero', la notizia non e' credibile, ed anzi
sembra un "cappello" fatto apposta per "coprire" giornalisticamente la
vera notizia contenuta nell'articolo, riguardante le indagini
sull'omicidio di tre volontari italiani. Questi ultimi sarebbero stati
uccisi dai "Berretti Verdi", che gia' dal nome sembrano piuttosto essere
una formazione paramilitare bosniaco-musulmana (ma nell'articolo non si
dice). E' questa una maniera doppiamente infame - ma non certo nuova -
di contribuire, come giornalisti, al conflitto nei Balcani attizzando
odio gratuito nei confronti di una delle parti in causa (sempre quella).
> I militari sulle tracce del massacro di Sebrenica
> Individuati gli assassini dei volontari bresciani
>
> I carabinieri scoprono
> nuove fosse in Bosnia
>
>
> SARAJEVO - Per anni hanno investigato in silenzio, cercato prove, scovato
> riscontri, portato testimoni: tutte cose difficili nella Sarajevo sconvolta
> dalla guerra. Ora i carabinieri della Multinational Specialized Unit sono
> riusciti a scoprire gli assassini dei tre volontari bresciani uccisi nel
> 1993 in Bosnia. I militari non si sono fermati e hanno individuato altre
> fosse comuni, due sicure e altre cinque su cui stanno ancora perfezionando
> le ultime verifiche. Montagne di cadaveri che portano le indagini sulle
> tracce del massacro di Sebrenica, dove durante il conflitto nell'ex
> Yugoslavia vennero fatte scomparire diecimila persone.
>
> Per raccontare questa ultima, tragica, scoperta bisogna partire da lontano:
SI NOTI CHE ADESSO IL GIORNALISTA CAMBIA TEMA DI NUOVO, NEL TENTATIVO DI
CONFONDERE LA PROBLEMATICA DI SREBRENICA (scritto "Sebrenica", poiche'
l'ignoranza non mente) CON QUELLA DELL'ATTENTATO AI VOLONTARI
> da quando Guido Puletti, Sergio Lana e Fabio Moreni furono falciati a colpi
> di mitra, nel 1993 nei pressi di Gornji Vakuf, da una banda paramilitare
> durante l'attacco ad un convoglio umanitario. I carabinieri, in stretto
> contatto con Carla Del Ponte, il magistrato che coordina le indagini sui
> crimini di guerra nella ex Jugoslavia, sono riusciti a dare un nome e un
> volto ai colpevoli. L'inchiesta porta ai "berretti verdi" di Hanefjia
> Prjijc, il comandante Paraga, che vive tranquillo nella sua città, Voljice.
> Per lui e i suoi uomini, molti fuggti all'estero, sono però pronti i
> mandati di cattura e per l'arresto non dovrebbe mancare molto tempo.
>
> La stessa tecnica di lavoro, fatta di tenacia e professionalità, i
> carabinieri l'hanno usata nella caccia alle fosse comuni. Gli inquirenti su
> questo punto mantengono il più stretto riserbo ma sembrano essere arrivati
> appunto ad un passo da uno degli episodi più sanguinosi della guerra
> nell'ex Jugoslavia: la probabile eliminazione fisica di diecimila persone
> dalla città di Sebrenica.
SI NOTI: "IL PIU' STRETTO RISERBO", "SEMBRANO ESSERE ARRIVATI",
"PROBABILE ELIMINAZIONE FISICA"
> Finora sono stati individuati tremila cadaveri, all'appello mancano dunque
SI NOTI: "SONO STATI INDIVIDUATI" (A NOI NON RISULTA)
> gli altri settemila, che si teme possano essere seppelliti in diverse fosse
SI NOTI: "ALTRI SETTEMILA" (IN BASE A QUALI FONTI?), "SI TEME CHE"
> comuni. Nei mesi scorsi gli uomini del colonnello Renato Scuzzarello ne
> avevano individuate tre, negli ultimi giorni ne sono venute alla luce altre
> due.
...MA ALL'INIZIO DELL'ARTICOLO SI DICE CHE SONO DUE SICURE E CINQUE
FORSE!
SE QUALCUNO AVESSE INFORMAZIONI PIU' PRECISE SU QUESTE FOSSE GIA'
INDIVIDUATE (OLTRE AL NOME DEL COLONNELLO) E' PREGATO DI INVIARCELE E
LE DIFFONDEREMO IMMEDIATAMENTE.
> L'attenzione adesso, con esami balistici sulle armi usate dai serbi, è
SOLO QUI SI CITA ESPLICITAMENTE UNA PARTE IN CONFLITTO (I SERBI)
> puntata sulle ultime cinque fosse scovate. Le indagini dureranno sino a
> primavera, se andranno nella direzione immaginata dai carabinieri, sarà un
> altro contributo alla verità, un piccolo-grande omaggio alle vittime di
> quella guerra.
A PRIMAVERA AVREMO TUTTI DIMENTICATO LA NOTIZIOLA E NESSUNO ANDRA' A
VERIFICARE.
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
TEST DI INTELLIGENZA
1. Di che nazionalita' erano i dimostranti scesi in piazza il 21/2/2000
presso Mitrovica, in Kosovo?
2. Che bandiere portavano?
3. Chi controllava la zona?
4. Chi controllava la marcia?
5. Ed in che modo l'hanno controllata?
6. Cosa facevano i serbi di Mitrovica in quelle ore?
7. Cosa era successo il giorno precedente?
8. Chi e' che cerca di fomentare la tensione?
RISPOSTE: 1. albanesi-kosovari e albanesi d'Albania 2. albanesi e
americane 3. le truppe di alcuni paesi NATO 4. vedi risposta precedente
5. ne hanno lasciati passare molti fin dentro la citta', poi il
comandante Reinhardt ha arringato la folla esprimendo solidarieta' per
gli obiettivi della marcia 6. donne, bambini ed anziani scappavano nei
boschi, poche migliaia di uomini formavano un presidio 7. soldati
statunitensi e tedeschi avevano passato al setaccio in malo modo tutto
il settore serbo per privare le popolazione degli strumenti di
autodifesa 8. Slobodan Milosevic, ovvio! Che domanda idiota...
"Lord George Robertson said Monday there was 'no doubt that (Yugoslav
President Slobodan) Milosevic will have a hand in some of the
provocations being organized on the Serb side'... In New York, Richard
Holbrooke, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, accused the
Yugoslav government in Belgrade of fomenting the latest unrest. His view
was shared by Gen. Wesley Clark, the NATO commander in Europe. 'There is
an influence by Belgrade in the area,' Clark said" (AP 22/2)
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
1. Di che nazionalita' erano i dimostranti scesi in piazza il 21/2/2000
presso Mitrovica, in Kosovo?
2. Che bandiere portavano?
3. Chi controllava la zona?
4. Chi controllava la marcia?
5. Ed in che modo l'hanno controllata?
6. Cosa facevano i serbi di Mitrovica in quelle ore?
7. Cosa era successo il giorno precedente?
8. Chi e' che cerca di fomentare la tensione?
RISPOSTE: 1. albanesi-kosovari e albanesi d'Albania 2. albanesi e
americane 3. le truppe di alcuni paesi NATO 4. vedi risposta precedente
5. ne hanno lasciati passare molti fin dentro la citta', poi il
comandante Reinhardt ha arringato la folla esprimendo solidarieta' per
gli obiettivi della marcia 6. donne, bambini ed anziani scappavano nei
boschi, poche migliaia di uomini formavano un presidio 7. soldati
statunitensi e tedeschi avevano passato al setaccio in malo modo tutto
il settore serbo per privare le popolazione degli strumenti di
autodifesa 8. Slobodan Milosevic, ovvio! Che domanda idiota...
"Lord George Robertson said Monday there was 'no doubt that (Yugoslav
President Slobodan) Milosevic will have a hand in some of the
provocations being organized on the Serb side'... In New York, Richard
Holbrooke, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, accused the
Yugoslav government in Belgrade of fomenting the latest unrest. His view
was shared by Gen. Wesley Clark, the NATO commander in Europe. 'There is
an influence by Belgrade in the area,' Clark said" (AP 22/2)
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
TARANTO - incontro con gli operai della Zastava
TORINO - si e' costituito il COORDINAMENTO TORINESE PER LA JUGOSLAVIA
>
> Riceviamo e diffondiamo questo messaggio di Ferdinando Dubla
> <dubla@...>
>
> TARANTO INCONTRA GLI OPERAI JUGOSLAVI DELLA ZASTAVA BOMBARDATA DALLA NATO
>
> Il 24 marzo del 1999, l'alleanza dei 19 paesi aderenti al Patto Atlantico
> (NATO), attaccarono la Federazione Jugoslava con la scusa di voler
> difendere la minoranza albanese. Ma nei 78 giorni che seguirono
> bombardarono di tutto, compresi gli stessi albanesi, con distruzioni di
> infrastrutture civili e morte di innocenti. La guerra fu un pauroso
> arretramento di diritti e di democrazia per tutti noi e l'Italia, con il
> governo D'Alema, fu complice dell'imperialismo USA-NATO. Imponendo il
> consenso alla cosiddetta 'missione umanitaria', oltre che con la forza,
> anche con la mistificazione attraverso l'uso propagandistico dei media. Da
> una parte si bombardava, dall'altra si chiedeva al nostro popolo di
> partecipare alla farsa della "missione Arcobaleno", terreno di scambio e di
> corruzione con le mafie albanesi, come hanno dimostrato le ultime vicende
> giudiziarie.
> E ancora oggi, il popolo jugoslavo, nonostante già stremato dai danni che
> la guerra ha prodotto (come ad esempio l'inquinamento delle acque e della
> terra che impedisce un approvvigionamento alimentare sufficiente, la
> carenza di medicinali di base, ecc..) soffre di un odioso embargo che
> impedisce non solo la ricostruzione, ma anche la semplice sopravvivenza.
> E' necessario che tutti i cittadini di Taranto si sentano solidali e
> partecipi all'iniziativa con i delegati sindacali della Zastava di
> Kragujevac, fabbrica di automobili che ora la Fiat ha abbandonato e che
> solo i suoi 35.000 operai possono salvare con la solidarietà di classe e
> internazionalista.
>
> Durante l'incontro sarà proiettato il video di Fulvio Grimaldi "Serbi da
> morire" e sarà presentato il libro di poeti dilettanti contro la guerra
> "Gli assassini della tenerezza" con disegni dei bambini di Kragujevac, il
> ricavato delle cui vendite sarà devoluto in solidarietà ai lavoratori
> jugoslavi. Sarà inoltre proposto il programma di adozioni a distanza.
>
> SABATO 26 FEBBRAIO 2000
> h.16,30
> Aula Magna ITIS "A.Righi"
> Via Dante
> Taranto
>
> CONFERENZA-STAMPA DEI PROMOTORI DI TARANTO
> VENERDI 25 FEBBRAIO 2000
> h.11
> Salone circolo "E.Che Guevara" PRC
> c.so Piemonte (100 metri dall'Ufficio-pacchi PT)
> TARANTO
>
> Organizzazione:
> Coordinamento cittadino Partito della Rifondazione Comunista-Taranto
> Un ponte per Belgrado in terra di Bari
> Cobas (Confederazione sindacati di base)
> Slai-Cobas
> Cooperativa sociale "Owen"
> Comitato jonico contro le guerre
> Collettivo per l'autorganizzazione sociale
> Primaveraradio
---
COSTITUITO IL COORDINAMENTO TORINESE PER LA JUGOSLAVIA
Lo schieramento di forze e soggetti che, all'interno del movimento
contro la
guerra, ha ritenuto primario e fondamentale, lo schierarsi dalla parte
degli
aggrediti contro gli aggressori, ha costituito il Coordinamento torinese
per
la Jugoslavia, con lo scopo di rafforzare e consolidare le attività di
sostegno e solidarietà per il popolo jugoslavo.
Ciascuno di noi in questi mesi si è impegnato in attività di denuncia,
sostegno, controinformazione e solidarietà sotto varie forme; oggi
abbiamo
ritenuto giusto e soprattutto doveroso costruire un percorso unitario,
che
metta insieme esperienze, intelligenze, risorse e forze.
UNIRSI per UNIRE e rendere più forti ed efficaci gli sforzi per questa
battaglia di solidarietà e sostegno a questo popolo aggredito,
bombardato,
avvelenato ed ora strangolato ed affamato dalle moderne armi di
sterminio di
massa, quali sono l'embargo e le sanzioni (l'Iraq è sotto i nostri
occhi);
armi usate dagli imperialisti contro i popoli non asserviti al Nuovo
Ordine
Mondiale.
Riteniamo questo impegno un dovere e non un'opzione. Chi sceglie
percorsi
individuali o autoreferenziali, favorisce logiche più dannose che
proficue.
Nel Coordinamento ciascuno manterrà la sua specificità e autonomia, ma
ciascuno è parte di un processo unitario e collettivo che ha nella
solidarietà concreta e consapevole alla Jugoslavia e
nell’antiimperialismo,
la sua ragione di essere.
Siamo coscienti di essere una piccola forza di fronte agli scenari
mass-mediatici e imperiali della realtà intorno, ma questo non ci
spaventa o
fa desistere, e la nascita di questo Coordinamento è un piccolo passo
avanti, un segnale di speranza e anche di forza, perché dove ci sono
idee,
intelligenze, determinazione, coscienze schierate che si uniscono, tutti
siamo un po' forti, di conseguenza più forte risulterà il nostro lavoro.
Le caratteristiche, la composizione, le tematiche su cui si svilupperà
il
lavoro, con varie iniziative sono:
· Solidarietà concreta come obiettivo primario e urgente (raccolta
fondi,
alimentari, medicine con le strutture contattate)
· Denuncia delle devastazioni ambientali nella Jugoslavia bombardata
· Documentazione e controinformazione, dando voce e rendendo pubblici i
punti di vista degli aggrediti.
· Lavori del Tribunale Indipendente Internazionale contro i crimini
NATO in
Jugoslavia.
Facciamo Appello ad aderire ed essere partecipi a questo lavoro a
chiunque
concordi con queste basi minime di affinità e che ritenga di non voler
essere complice con un governo che, violando la Costituzione,
calpestando il
Diritto Internazionale e infangando il patrimonio ideale di pace e
solidale,
lasciatoci in eredità dalla lotta di liberazione dal Nazifascismo, ha
oggi
portato il nostro paese ad essere aggressore e affamatore di un altro
popolo. Per noi questo è inaccettabile politicamente ed eticamente.
Facciamo moralmente nostro quel motto che per decenni ha unito i popoli
e le
genti jugoslave, impedendo guerre, tragedie e miserie:
"UNITA' E FRATELLANZA" - per il futuro dei popoli e nostro.
Comitato Promotore :
Un ponte per (Torino)- Comitato contro la guerra dei Lavoratori
dell'Università e del Politecnico -Comitato Yugoslavia - Fondazione
Pasti
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
TORINO - si e' costituito il COORDINAMENTO TORINESE PER LA JUGOSLAVIA
>
> Riceviamo e diffondiamo questo messaggio di Ferdinando Dubla
> <dubla@...>
>
> TARANTO INCONTRA GLI OPERAI JUGOSLAVI DELLA ZASTAVA BOMBARDATA DALLA NATO
>
> Il 24 marzo del 1999, l'alleanza dei 19 paesi aderenti al Patto Atlantico
> (NATO), attaccarono la Federazione Jugoslava con la scusa di voler
> difendere la minoranza albanese. Ma nei 78 giorni che seguirono
> bombardarono di tutto, compresi gli stessi albanesi, con distruzioni di
> infrastrutture civili e morte di innocenti. La guerra fu un pauroso
> arretramento di diritti e di democrazia per tutti noi e l'Italia, con il
> governo D'Alema, fu complice dell'imperialismo USA-NATO. Imponendo il
> consenso alla cosiddetta 'missione umanitaria', oltre che con la forza,
> anche con la mistificazione attraverso l'uso propagandistico dei media. Da
> una parte si bombardava, dall'altra si chiedeva al nostro popolo di
> partecipare alla farsa della "missione Arcobaleno", terreno di scambio e di
> corruzione con le mafie albanesi, come hanno dimostrato le ultime vicende
> giudiziarie.
> E ancora oggi, il popolo jugoslavo, nonostante già stremato dai danni che
> la guerra ha prodotto (come ad esempio l'inquinamento delle acque e della
> terra che impedisce un approvvigionamento alimentare sufficiente, la
> carenza di medicinali di base, ecc..) soffre di un odioso embargo che
> impedisce non solo la ricostruzione, ma anche la semplice sopravvivenza.
> E' necessario che tutti i cittadini di Taranto si sentano solidali e
> partecipi all'iniziativa con i delegati sindacali della Zastava di
> Kragujevac, fabbrica di automobili che ora la Fiat ha abbandonato e che
> solo i suoi 35.000 operai possono salvare con la solidarietà di classe e
> internazionalista.
>
> Durante l'incontro sarà proiettato il video di Fulvio Grimaldi "Serbi da
> morire" e sarà presentato il libro di poeti dilettanti contro la guerra
> "Gli assassini della tenerezza" con disegni dei bambini di Kragujevac, il
> ricavato delle cui vendite sarà devoluto in solidarietà ai lavoratori
> jugoslavi. Sarà inoltre proposto il programma di adozioni a distanza.
>
> SABATO 26 FEBBRAIO 2000
> h.16,30
> Aula Magna ITIS "A.Righi"
> Via Dante
> Taranto
>
> CONFERENZA-STAMPA DEI PROMOTORI DI TARANTO
> VENERDI 25 FEBBRAIO 2000
> h.11
> Salone circolo "E.Che Guevara" PRC
> c.so Piemonte (100 metri dall'Ufficio-pacchi PT)
> TARANTO
>
> Organizzazione:
> Coordinamento cittadino Partito della Rifondazione Comunista-Taranto
> Un ponte per Belgrado in terra di Bari
> Cobas (Confederazione sindacati di base)
> Slai-Cobas
> Cooperativa sociale "Owen"
> Comitato jonico contro le guerre
> Collettivo per l'autorganizzazione sociale
> Primaveraradio
---
COSTITUITO IL COORDINAMENTO TORINESE PER LA JUGOSLAVIA
Lo schieramento di forze e soggetti che, all'interno del movimento
contro la
guerra, ha ritenuto primario e fondamentale, lo schierarsi dalla parte
degli
aggrediti contro gli aggressori, ha costituito il Coordinamento torinese
per
la Jugoslavia, con lo scopo di rafforzare e consolidare le attività di
sostegno e solidarietà per il popolo jugoslavo.
Ciascuno di noi in questi mesi si è impegnato in attività di denuncia,
sostegno, controinformazione e solidarietà sotto varie forme; oggi
abbiamo
ritenuto giusto e soprattutto doveroso costruire un percorso unitario,
che
metta insieme esperienze, intelligenze, risorse e forze.
UNIRSI per UNIRE e rendere più forti ed efficaci gli sforzi per questa
battaglia di solidarietà e sostegno a questo popolo aggredito,
bombardato,
avvelenato ed ora strangolato ed affamato dalle moderne armi di
sterminio di
massa, quali sono l'embargo e le sanzioni (l'Iraq è sotto i nostri
occhi);
armi usate dagli imperialisti contro i popoli non asserviti al Nuovo
Ordine
Mondiale.
Riteniamo questo impegno un dovere e non un'opzione. Chi sceglie
percorsi
individuali o autoreferenziali, favorisce logiche più dannose che
proficue.
Nel Coordinamento ciascuno manterrà la sua specificità e autonomia, ma
ciascuno è parte di un processo unitario e collettivo che ha nella
solidarietà concreta e consapevole alla Jugoslavia e
nell’antiimperialismo,
la sua ragione di essere.
Siamo coscienti di essere una piccola forza di fronte agli scenari
mass-mediatici e imperiali della realtà intorno, ma questo non ci
spaventa o
fa desistere, e la nascita di questo Coordinamento è un piccolo passo
avanti, un segnale di speranza e anche di forza, perché dove ci sono
idee,
intelligenze, determinazione, coscienze schierate che si uniscono, tutti
siamo un po' forti, di conseguenza più forte risulterà il nostro lavoro.
Le caratteristiche, la composizione, le tematiche su cui si svilupperà
il
lavoro, con varie iniziative sono:
· Solidarietà concreta come obiettivo primario e urgente (raccolta
fondi,
alimentari, medicine con le strutture contattate)
· Denuncia delle devastazioni ambientali nella Jugoslavia bombardata
· Documentazione e controinformazione, dando voce e rendendo pubblici i
punti di vista degli aggrediti.
· Lavori del Tribunale Indipendente Internazionale contro i crimini
NATO in
Jugoslavia.
Facciamo Appello ad aderire ed essere partecipi a questo lavoro a
chiunque
concordi con queste basi minime di affinità e che ritenga di non voler
essere complice con un governo che, violando la Costituzione,
calpestando il
Diritto Internazionale e infangando il patrimonio ideale di pace e
solidale,
lasciatoci in eredità dalla lotta di liberazione dal Nazifascismo, ha
oggi
portato il nostro paese ad essere aggressore e affamatore di un altro
popolo. Per noi questo è inaccettabile politicamente ed eticamente.
Facciamo moralmente nostro quel motto che per decenni ha unito i popoli
e le
genti jugoslave, impedendo guerre, tragedie e miserie:
"UNITA' E FRATELLANZA" - per il futuro dei popoli e nostro.
Comitato Promotore :
Un ponte per (Torino)- Comitato contro la guerra dei Lavoratori
dell'Università e del Politecnico -Comitato Yugoslavia - Fondazione
Pasti
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
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