West haunted by Balkans blunder

As the war in Afghanistan goes on, the ghost of interventions past sits in a courtroom in The Hague.

America can drop tons of explosives and send in the Marines to fight Taliban terrorism. But when the Serbs confronted a similar menace, they were demonized and bombed for 78 days, and had a province wrested from them and presented to Osama bin Laden's Balkan brigade.

Slobodan Milosevic has been charged with complicity to commit genocide and crimes against humanity. Before the travesty is over, he will doubtless be convicted of running the rail line to Auschwitz.

The former Yugoslav president is a thug whose brutality played into the terrorists' hands. Even so, the trial of Milosevic before a U.N. tribunal is intended to justify our Balkans blunder and discourage serious consideration of its consequences.

If what happened to Kosovo Albanians and Bosnian Moslems was genocide, what of the treatment of Orthodox Serbs? After NATO's air war, 200,000 were driven from Kosovo. Most who remain cower behind barbed-wire barricades in Mitrovica.

Altogether, 2 million Serbs were expelled from Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, and 240 of their churches were destroyed. When this happens to anyone else, it's called ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide.

The tragedy has its roots in the early 1990s, when the West decided Bosnians and Croatians were entitled to their own states. Fine, said Belgrade, but why should 2 million Serbs living there be forcibly expatriated? Who would protect their rights – the Bosnian Muslims who committed genocide against Serbs in World War II?

When local Serbs tried to secede from the secessionist states, they were reviled as racists who hated all non-Serbs and lived to rape and plunder.

After Bosnia and Croatia came Kosovo. Albanian Muslims became a majority in Serbia's ancient heartland through illegal immigration. They started when the Kosovo Liberation Army (on the State Department's terrorist list as late as 1998) began murdering Serb policemen.

Milosevic overreacted. At Rambouillet, then-President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave him an ultimatum (surrender of sovereignty over all of Yugoslavia) no self-respecting nation could accept. After the Gulf War, Washington was determined to prove its human-rights commitment by coming to the aid of persecuted Muslims. The result was the creation of a second de facto Islamic republic in Europe.

In October, NATO's secretary general, Lord Robertson, warned that the Balkans must not become another "black hole" of terrorism, like Afghanistan. He was referring to the operations of our erstwhile allies.

On Oct. 3, the Los Angeles Times reported, "Hundreds of foreign Islamic extremists who became Bosnian citizens after battling Serbian and Croatian forces present a potential security threat to Europe and the United States."

Bin Laden, who's been heavily involved in the region since 1992, was reportedly presented with a Bosnian passport for services rendered. The same international legion that's fighting with the Taliban earlier served the Islamic cause in Bosnia and Kosovo.

In his Islamic Declaration, former Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic (celebrated in the West as a multiculturalist) proclaimed, "There can be no peace or coexistence between the Islamic faith and non-Islamic societies and political institutions."

The Kosovo "freedom fighters" (as Sen. Joe Lieberman once called them) are equally grateful for Western support. In one of the al-Qaida camps overrun in Afghanistan, Americans found an entry application from a Kosovo Albanian that read, "I have Kosovo Liberation Army combat experience against Serb forces. ... I recommend suicide operations against parks like Disney."

After the subjugation of Kosovo, Muslims moved on Macedonia. Despite a NATO-brokered cease-fire, on Nov. 11 terrorists killed three Macedonian policemen who were trying to guard a mass grave said to hold the remains of civilians killed by the guerrillas.

Is the Albanian area of Macedonia destined to become Europe's third Islamic republic?

The circus surrounding Milosevic's trial is meant to distract us from the reality of our Balkans misadventure – when we went to war not against terrorism, but in its behalf.

Don't mean to be boring but here are some questions on the SFRY to reflect on.

1: Why was Serbia the only republic within the SFRY to be subdivided with the autonomous regions (of varying degrees) in 1964(?) and 1972 revisions of the SFRY consitution?

2: Why are the Serbs such a small minority in Kosovo?

3: Why did the IMF demand that the SFRY stop subisdizing Kosovo with loaned money in 1986 and why does anyone rarely highlight the extreme North-South economic disparities within the history of SFRY and the important role this played in lead up to conflict?

4: Out of which of the former leaders of the various parts of the SFRY was not imprisoned by Tito for formeting separatism and rewriting what happend in World War II.

5: What particular personalities and past events would make the Serbs of Bosnia extremely reluctant to trust their slavic brothers?

6: How is it that under the classic UN rules on the indicitment of 'war criminals' where such cases are to be based on specific 'incidents', are not Mladic & Karadzic expressly accused of the various market massacres in 1992, 1994 and 1995 when there were thorough investigations and reports (still classified) made?

7: How is it that a supposedly 'besieged' city of one of a number of parties that is subject to a total arms embargo is able to launch a 200,000 man offensive in the Spring 1995?

8: How can the Serbs be responsible for genocide when their main ally in Bosnia was Fikret Abdic, (winner of the SDA elections for president in 1992 who ceded his place to Izetbegovic) who with tens of thousands of Bosnian Moslems fought with the Bosnian Serbs against the Bosnian Moslem government forces of Alija Izetbegovic and suffered no harm at the Serbs hands? (FYI, at the end of 1995, when elections were initially announced, the Bosnian Moslem 'government' declared the still very popular Fikret Abidic (a guest of the Croatian government) a war criminal which was given substance by the ICTY in the Hague and therefore diqualified him for running for the new joint presidency. He has now been deported by the Croatian government and is 'safe' in a jail in Sarajevo).

9: How is it that much of the testimony written about by peacekeepers and generals about the war conflicts with the spoon-fed percieved wisdom?

I'm sure that you know at least some of the answers to these questions but anyone who does not condemn the Serbs are irretrivably evil is put in the same catagory. Sources of information from the Serbs is immediately dismissed and have to scrabble around for non-Serb sources whilst the other parties have faced no such restrictions.

Some journalists (of which I know a few) have had their reports butchered by their 'editors' to the point that there is little resemblence or objectivity as it was originally written, have had their reports completely suppressed (still happening), threatend with death if they continued to report, are accused of being pro-Serb because they try to retain a semblance of objectivity have found that employment was much harder to comeby and worst of all, when are sucessful in publishing something that challenges precieved wisdom are immediately accuse of being Serb, related to, or having Serb contacts. Even the BBC managed to loose a fist thick document heavily detailing camps run by Croat and Moslem forces that was sent to them mid-war.

I also know personally of non-Albanians who were burnt out of their homes and intimidated into leaving Kosovo as far back as the 1960s. I won't even go into the media's socialist realist views of the SFRY's past.

Valuable sources of information, namely former militayr serving officers have their testimonies dismissed out of hand because they drank slivovitz with Senoir Serb officers. Such people ignore the fact that they did exactly the same with generals on the other sides. The concept of 'intelligence gathering' on the parties and the necessary evils and political limits in operating in the zone of civil conflict is not even comprehended.

None of this is an excuse for war crimes that were committed, but it's not a crime to challenge vague stories that are born amidst a war in such huge quantities of mis-information and propaganda.

Regs

VRN

Actually, many of the crimes perpetrated by Muslims and Croats were falsely assigned to Serbs. There are even some good admissions and confessions by the Muslims and the Croats of how their crimes were trumpeted as Serb crimes - again and again! The media greatly helped in this to demonize the Serbs by reporting many of the lies and false rumors over and over again - writing up emotional stories too.

Read the following and wonder: how many of the snippings by the Muslim groups such as "Seve" were blamed on the Serbs? I already know - and you'd find it if you go to the link - that deaths of the "Romeo and Juliet" couple of Sarajevo, a Muslim woman and Serb man in their mid-twenties who were engaged to be married, and were shot down by snippers around a bridge, were blamed on the Serbs. But it was a Croat, Dragan Bozic, who fought for the Muslim-Croat Federation that killed them. Why don't they clear this up in the news today, and perhaps give it 25% of the coverage as they did of the initial incident?

Bosnian Muslim Intelligence Targeted Sarajevo Civilians, Operative Admits

…Nedzad Herenda, one of the most active members of Seve [seva means lark], a notorious paramilitary unit, with the goal of getting a confession about the activities of the unit from him. By the way, Seve were acting under the auspices of the top Bosniak political leadership…
Did he reveal the chain of command that controlled Sevas?
He said that the chain of command always went in the direction of Ugljen, Alispahic, Dautbasic, and all the way to the top political leadership including Izetbegovic. Since we are discussing these facts, not only did we find out everything we were looking for but in some cases Herenda provided so much detail that he said some horrific things.
What in particular?
For example, at one moment he talked about the training they received in Metkovic. Later they went to the Pogorelice camp [near Fojnica], after which, according to Herenda, they regularly practiced sharp shooting. "Herenda. How did you practice that?" I asked him and he replied that they would climb hilltops or building tops and then shoot at Serbs in Grbavica. "How did you pick your targets?" We would shoot at anyone, said Herenda. For example, they would pick out a woman, an elderly woman and then they would shoot at her. One of them would follow her movement and the other one shoot. When I asked him how he could be certain that the woman was not for example a Bosniak woman who by chance stayed in Grbavica, he replied that they watched for that. For example they made sure that their targets were wearing black [custom among elderly Christian women in rural areas of Bosnia and elsewhere in the Balkans]. That indicates Herenda's truly criminal character.
These sharp shooters... Were they professionals, people from abroad?
They had several trained sharp shooters from outside, while others went through training and practiced in the manner described by Herenda. Therefore they did not care whether they were shooting civilians, women, children, elderly... They did not care whether there would be a reaction to their activities.

Serbs blamed, even convicted of crimes that did not do - including convicting and/or blaming them of killing people who just happen to be alive and well long after they were supposedly killed. People alive today, that were said to be killed by Serbs. These sort of false claims against the Serbs have been very common in the Balkan wars. They even said that the Serbs had killed Rugova when NATO was bombing, yet there he was on TV - talking with Milosevic.

media watch

SERB CONVICTED OF MURDERS DEMANDING RETRIAL AFTER 2 "VICTIMS" FOUND ALIVE
Jonathan C. Randal, The Washington Post, March 15 1997
SARAJEVO, Bosnia - Sretko Damjanovic, a Serb soldier in the Bosnian civil war, was convicted of genocide four years ago for the murders of five unarmed people, several rapes and various other crimes. Now two of his victims have turned up alive, casting doubt on the testimony that led to his conviction and spurring his lawyer to demand a retrial.
The highly charged case was tried before a military tribunal run by the predominantly Muslim Bosnian government during the dark hours of 1993, when Sarajevo was enduring a long siege under Bosnian Serb artillery. Damjanovic and a friend, Borislav Herak, were convicted together and condemned to death by firing squad, a sentence later reduced to life imprisonment.

Take a look at how the media twisted the truth in the following examples – often using SERBIAN VICTIMS of the OTHERS to falsely blame and frame the Serbs!!!

http://198.247.200.10/backgrounders/Archives-OtherTopics/bosnia%20croatia%20cleansing.html

Excerpts from this article -

5. Dateline Yugoslavia: THE PARTISAN PRESS by Peter Brock

Published in: "FOREIGN POLICY", Number 93, Winter 1993-94, pages 152 - 172.

- The 1992 BBC filming of an ailing, elderly "Bosnian Muslim prisoner-of-war in a Serb concentration camp" resulted in his later identification by relatives as retired Yugoslav army officer Branko Velec, a Bosnian Serb held in a Muslim detention camp.
- Among wounded "Muslim toddlers and infants" aboard a Sarajevo bus hit by sniper fire in August 1992 were a number of Serb children - a fact revealed much later. One of the children who died in the incident was identified at the funeral as Muslim by television reporters. But the unmistakable Serbian Orthodox funeral ritual told a different story.
- In its January 4, 1993, issue, "Newsweek" published a photo of several bodies with an accompanying story that began: "Is there any way to stop Serbian atrocities in Bosnia?" The photo was actually of Serb victims, including one clearly recognizable man wearing a red coat. The photo, with the same man in his red coat is identical to a scene in television footage from Vukovar a year earlier.
- CNN aired reports in March and may 1993 from the scenes of massacres of 14 Muslims and then 10 Muslims who were supposedly killed by Serbs. The victims later turned out to be Serbs. There was no correction.

- In early August 1993, a photo caption in "the New York Times" described a Croat woman from Posusje grieving for a son killed in recent Serb attacks. In fact, the Croat village of Posusje, in Bosnia near the Dalmatian coast, had been the scene of bloody fighting between Muslims and Croats that had caused 34 Bosnian Croat deaths, including the son of the woman in the photo.

Croat admittance to ethnic slaughter policy

VALENTIC: President, as you know, there are many mixed marriages in Gospic; several civilians and old ladies are in Senj, where there is a certain concentration camp, and that is where we should take those that we captured at Citluk and Pocitelj. We should place them there in an acceptable way and then show them off and say a few things. Because I know this for sure - because they asked me to intervene, a granddaughter of one of these is married to my cousin - that in Senj there is a concentration area where you have these refugees from Citluk, Divoselo, and Pocitelj. Then we show them that we do it in this fashion.
PRESIDENT: That would be very good, very good.
VALENTIC: And then when we display them, we pretty them up, wash them, etc…
PRESIDENT: Gentlemen, to conclude, I have another obligation. Three things: no military actions from our side now and no provocations; prepare to swallow, because now things are being solved in the United Nations and it is important to know whether the Croats are for a peaceful solution or not. Therefore, continue the conversations with Serbs on all levels. That is one thing. Second, Mate [Granic], in Bosnia and Herzegovina under all circumstances carry through the agreements [with the Bosnians], particularly everything that we did there - concentration camps, etc., etc.

See, the Croat officials were discussing a concentration camp of Serbs in Croatia, and their concentration camps in Bosnia back in 1993!

Did you ever know this? This just shows you that you can’t rely on the media for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

In the Balkan wars they’ve practically murdered the truth in many cases.

The fact is, before the Croat-Muslim war – during which Croats and Muslims threw each other in concentration camps – they cooperated together in rounding up Serbs for each others' and the joint concentration camps they ran.

Check out the following from a signed confession of a Bosnian Muslim. Not only did he and his partners rape Serb women and slit Serb parents’ throats, kidnapped Serb women and sent them to brothels in Croatia for the Croat army – these were the days of Croat-Muslim cooperation, see – but he also admits to he and his homies raping three Moslem girls, Z. J., J.C., and E.C. , too.

Alija’s confession

Extracts from the confession by [a Muslim] Alija Selimagic of the crimes committed in the villages around Bosanski Brod with a facsimile of the part containing his signature…
Some three days thereafter I went with the same group of people to Sijekovac [Bosnia]. Before we set off, Enes Havic [a Muslim] and Becir Hodzic [also a Muslim] told us that we were going to abduct Serbian girls. We came to Sijekovac in a van and Havic's car. Once there, we started from the "Zidic" store and the bus station in direction of Derventa raiding houses. A number of girls, i.e. younger women, were raped in the houses in which they were found and, as far as I remember, 28 Serbian women were kidnapped and taken to Slavonski Brod [Croatia] in the van.
I was the first to break into a house with Enes Havic, Becir Hodzic and Sead Mujcin (Aga), where we found a man and a woman (both about 50 years old) and their 23-year-old daughter. First, we tied her father and mother and then began to rape their daughter. I was the first to rape her, assisted by Becir Hodzic and Enes Havic. After me, she was raped by the other three and we raped her mother too. Thereafter, I cut her mother's throat and Enes Havic did the same to her father.
We took the girl to the van. Becir Hodzic drove the girl off while we continued raiding other houses. When Hodzic came back and rejoined the group, he told us that the van was crowded and that the girls had been driven to Slavonski Brod. When the van came back again, my group abducted six or seven more girls who, too, were driven to Slavonski Brod. I do not know their names or the families they belong to. Where we found the girls' parents or relatives, we tied and left them in their homes. I do not know if and how many relatives of the abducted girls the people from other groups killed. When the action was completed, Becir Hodzic told us that the girls were taken to Slavonski Brod [Croatia] and placed in the brothels to cater for the needs of the Croatian army. I remember very well that in the end I, Hodzic, Havic and Mujcin kidnapped a girl for each of us and took them to Gornje Kolibe. We kidnapped a Serbian girl, M.M., who worked at a shop in Gornje Kolibe and three Moslem girls, Z.J., J.C. and E.C. We caught them in the street. We took them to Kolibe in the van driven by Enes Havic. I took Z.J. to my home, where I held her for three or four days. At first, she refused to have intercourse with me and I threatened to kill her, whereupon she consented. Thereafter, I let her go home at her request.

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