Montana Minister visits Kosovo says Media (and Clinton)lie - Interview from 1998

Center for Peace in the Balkans ^ | Nov. 23, 1998 | Bill Dorich

[vooch]

Back Phoney Refugee Camps Found in Kosovo By William Dorich Note: Rev. Bigler made numerous attempts to meet with Albanian officials in Kosovo but Albanians thwarted these attempts. He took video footage of his entire visit and numerous photographs. November 23, 1998-The week before NATO was prepared to bomb the Kosovo Serbs, I had a lengthy conversation with Rev. Robert Bigler, a pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Butte, Montana. He had read some of my recent articles about Kosovo including my attack against Pastor Craig Barnes, National President of the Presbyterian Church who used their Washington DC cathedral for a Bosnian Task Force Symposium on December 6th, 1997, in which Serbs were ostracized and vilified from inside the sanctuary of this Christian church. That presentation was nationally televised on C-Span. "The truth," said Rev. Bigler, "seems to be going down a black hole-just like it did in Vietnam." At the beginning of my interview, Pastor Bigler said he wanted to clear the air that he did not go to Kosovo in the interest of the Serbian people of Butte or for any side. "Besides, Bigler added, I am the interim pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Butte, I am from Idaho Falls, Idaho, and I have only been in Butte since February 9th of this year-I barely know these Butte people. Rev. Bigler is a former Army chaplain and medical specialist who served this country in Vietnam. He is no stranger to warfare and its victims, nor is he distracted by those who manipulate the facts in war to serve a political agenda. "For the sake of the integrity of my own church, I went to Kosovo to investigate the truth personally. I stopped relying on the nightly news and the media driven version of Kosovo, remember, I had firsthand experience in Vietnam, and when I read about some of the battles I witnessed with my own eyes, the news accounts were pure fiction, why should Bosnia or Kosovo be any different?" I told Rev. Bigler that I, too, was interested in what he discovered in Kosovo, regardless if it went against my belief system and the Serbs whom I have defended for several years. I assured him that regardless of his findings, I would print his story in the American Srbobran. I am not happy that the news he brings back from Kosovo confirms my worst fears, that this is a Jihad, a religious war to create a Muslim state in Europe, regardless of how small, or at what human sacrifice. I was granted this interview, three weeks after Rev. Bigler returned from Kosovo. I discovered an all together different Presbyterian minister than the one I had previously spoken with a month earlier. He had become a man with a cause who discovered the truth and was then victimized by the news media as we Serbs have been victimized for the past 6 years. He now refused to let the media mock what he knows to be the truth. His own local newspaper, The Montana Standard, conducted a two hour interview, promising the pastor front page headlines and a truthful presentation of what he had discovered in the Balkans. However, the article was postponed for two weeks, obviously until after the public interest in the Kosovo story had diminish and disappeared from the front pages of America's newspapers. The article written by Lorie Hutson, was an opinion piece about Kosovo peppered with enough of Bigler's remarks that it could technically qualify as an interview. Q: What was your initial impression of Kosovo? A: "I saw people in the fields harvesting their fall crops. I did not see refugees, homeless people, starving children, or wounded victims, the usual human suffering associated with war. Instead, I witnessed a building boom unseen in Idaho or Montana in 4 decades. This Kosovo building boom was not a few hundred Albanian homes being rebuilt because of war, these were thousands of expensive houses unseen in this part of the world. Homes costing $125,000 to $150,000 to build in what the world is being told is the poorest region of Europe and the poorest in the Balkans mocked the truth of what is really going on in Kosovo. It struck me of how successfully the American public has been hoodwinked by the media and special interest groups." Bigler went on to disclose, "All of these structures were Albanian in architecture with high walls surrounding them-not out in the open like the houses of the Serbs and other ethnic minorities in Kosovo. In Pristina, a city of about 400,000, nearly all of the apartments in the 10-12 story range had satellite dishes pointing toward Albania. Where is the money coming for all of this I asked myself?" Bigler also discovered another revelation, "By contrast, I did not find any building whatsoever taking place in the Serbian areas I had passed through or visited. In fact, Richard Holbrooke was staying at the Hyatt Hotel in Belgrade. Nearby the Hyatt are four unfinished hotels contemplated to be as large as the Hyatt, stopped in mid-construction by American sponsored sanctions, unemployment in Serbia is rampant with nearly 75% of the population out of work. How in God's name do you create peace under such deplorable conditions?" What Rev. Bigler discovered is that the money for this building boom in Kosovo is coming from illegal activities-gun running, drugs, prostitution and the sale of arsenals stolen from the Albanian government last year, being resold to Albanian terrorists. Rev. Bigler also discovered that the 3% tax imposed by the illegal (shadow) government of Kosovo headquartered in Ulm, Germany, was no state secret. Those same Albanians in Kosovo refuse to pay their share of taxes to the Serbian government of whose nation they are citizens. Q: Could you confirm the alleged oppression of Albanians by the Serbian government? A: "What oppression? Serbian state owned printing companies print Albanian language, newspapers, who is oppressing whom?" ... "I heard numerous radio stations in the Albanian language the week I was in Kosovo. Some of the hostile language that I heard directed at Serbs indicates that free speech is also alive and well in Kosovo. I saw Albanian children going to school and being instructed in their own Albanian language. People were dressed in clean clothes and were freshly bathed. The Serbs and Albanians with whom I spoke seemed to be equally concerned about the safety and welfare of their neighbors-I wondered aloud why Americans are being fed a daily diet of disinformation about Kosovo and why?" Q: Did you read the Albanian newspapers in Kosovo? A: "Indeed, and in one of those articles the week I was there, it openly stated the Albanian plan for a Jihad, (holy war) to take Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia and then finally northern Greece. I was particularly surprised that one of those Albanian newspapers had a weather map openly entitled 'Greater Albania.' The map encompassed Kosovo territory. I thought to myself, imagine how Serbs, Greeks and Macedonian citizens of Kosovo must feel when their Albanian neighbors are so blatantly open about creating a 'Greater Albania.' I remembered how the Serbs were demonized in the international press for allegedly harboring thoughts of a 'Greater Serbia' as the cause of the Bosnian war and I saw for myself why the Serbs are so outraged at our American double standards." Q: Could you confirm that Albanians represent 1.8 million in Kosovo? A: "This is an arrogant media deception. The gypsy population is as apparent in Kosovo as is the Albanian. There were far more Greeks, Macedonian and Turkish people than I expected, I remembered it made an impression on me. After all, I went to Kosovo believing that Albanians are 90% of the population. That simply is not true. Coming from such small cities as Idaho Falls or Butte I did not get a sense that there were 2 million people in Kosovo as Americans have been led to believe. I kept asking myself, why the distortions? Pristina seemed no more populated than down town Butte on a busy Saturday. I am curious why the facts are withheld from the American taxpayers, why our officials never mention these details and why the media continues to omit these facts from every article?" Q: Did you stop people at random and speak with them? A: "Yes, and what I discovered was that both Serbs and Albanians knew exactly what was going on. My reaction was that these people are not as oppressed and frightened by the Belgrade government, as they are of Albanian terrorists. I asked several people what they thought of President Clinton, a number of them replied, 'the best president money can buy, and it's no different in Belgrade, Zagreb or Sarajevo.'" Q: Are the Serbs in Kosovo suffering in this war? A: "Yes, they are the silent victims that the international community simply ignores. I was surprised to see many Serbian homes selectively burned. I asked why only Serbian houses were burned in some of these villages and I was told, 'Albanian terrorists burned out Serb families to provoke a Serb military response.' It was not until the Serbian army came to these villages and began ridding them of Albanian terrorists that CNN found these events newsworthy." Q: Did the Serbian government give you complete access to the people of Kosovo? A: "Absolutely, they also provided me with six body guards and two cars and told me I could go wherever I wished, talk with whomever I wanted and to ask people any questions I felt compelled to ask. I believe I am astute enough to know when things are being staged for me, or not, and there was no attempt to do that whatsoever. I had the same kind of protection in Zurich, Switzerland where the Counsel General supplied me with body guards. With the large illegal Albanian population in that city he was concerned for my safety, too." Q: Tell me about the phoney refugee camps. A: "While in Pristina, I spoke to several foreign journalists staying at the Grand Hotel who told me that refugee camps were being staged for the media, especially for CNN cameras. Several of the journalists confirmed that on numerous occasions, they actually saw villagers being brought into the forest where these fictitious refugee camps were set up. Once the photographs and interviews were over the villagers went back to their homes. I was told by Serbian army officials that helicopter units had photographed villagers going in and out of the forest for television interviews. This leads me to believe that several foreign journalists were accomplices to this fraud as many of them have been in Kosovo for weeks at a time." Q: Was there an apparent shortage of food? A: "No, in fact, food was everywhere. In Pristina I met with international humanitarian aid workers who shared with me their lists of recipients. The vast majority of names on these lists were Albanian names. According to these aid workers and Ms. Anka Knezevic from a Serbian humanitarian organization, nearly half of the food going into Kosovo to help Albanians was provided by the Serbian government, a fact that is never disclosed in the international press. So if we are to believe the stories about ethnic cleansing in Kosovo we are no doubt manipulated into believing that the Serbian government is both the 'aggressor' and the hand of mercy. An absurd concept considering the brutality of Balkan wars in this century. Bosnia and Kosovo were no exceptions." Q: We hear about the KLA walking around with weapons, what can you tell us about this? A: "Weapons are everywhere, you can buy a hand grenade for the equivalent of 60 cents. Kalashnikov rifles for $80 dollars and anti-tank rocket launchers for a few hundred dollars. This very weekend Reuter has reported 3 Serb police and their car were attacked with a rocket launcher in Kosovo. Interesting isn't it, how silent Gen. Wesley Clarke has been? I also saw autopsy reports of how non-Albanians were killed. Many were killed with German and American-made weapons. I was told by foreign journalists that mercenaries in Pristina were from such countries as Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Turkey, it is obvious that Kosovo has been internationalized as an Islamic crusade." Q: Did you feel safe? A: "The only time I was scared was when my driver took me from the Serbian Monastery of Pec to Pristina. We drove over 100 miles per hour. Keep in mind these are not Montana highways as you and I know them. The reason given was that it is much more difficult for snipers to get a good shot when you are traveling at such a high rate of speed. Notice that none of the media stories dwell on the number of Serb and Albanian victims that were killed by snipers." Q: I understand that you were on Belgrade television? A: "Yes, several times. People stopped me in the street to thank me for coming and for doing independent investigations. They were grateful that I was a Christian minister. On one occasion, we were having dinner with a group of humanitarian aid workers and the owner of the Serbian restaurant recognized me from the television interviews and refused to present my table with a final bill, it was his way of thanking me. I found the Serbian people to be warm and loving, just as I have found them in Butte. Much to my surprise, they were not as bitter toward Americans as I expected, however they were quite vocal at how their allies in two world wars have again betrayed them just as they betrayed them to communism fifty years ago. They are insulted that the international media has succeeded in demonizing all Serbs for the alleged crimes of a few." Q: Did you meet with the Serbian Patriarch? A: "Yes, and what a rich experience. He reminded me that 'Abel had a right to defend himself against Kane.' He also reminded me that the Serbian people have a right to defend their nation against terrorists. He is dismayed that the diplomatic community has ignored and isolated the Serbian Orthodox church, much like Tito did under communism. He does not understand why the major powers have failed to include him in important decisions when the Pope has been given ample access to express his views on Balkan matters. I also discovered that Patriarch Paul led the first and many demonstrations through the streets of Belgrade to protest against the Milosevich government. He also reminded me that in 1989 when he was the Bishop of Kosovo, he was a victim of a beating by Albanian youths." Q: Who in the Serbian government did you meet? A: "On my arrival on October 8th, I had a meeting with the Director of the Public Relations Department of the MFA, Mr. Rade Drobac. That same day I met with the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Fr. of Yugoslavia, Zivadin Jovanovic. Later that day I met with a high-ranking officer of the Yugoslav Army, Col. Milan Petkovic. The following day I met with Counselor and Head of the Cabinet of the Minister for Religious Affairs of the Republic of Serbia, Mr. Dragan Novakovic and Minister of Religions, Milovan Radovanovic. Later that morning I met with Dr. Milorad Ekmedzic, academician and professor of history. This was prior to my departure to Kosovo. While in Pristina I also met with Radovan Urosevic, director of the Pristina Media Center at the Grand Hotel." When I arrived in Kosovo I had a meeting with high governmental officials in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija, Zoran Andjelovic, President of the Provisional Executive Council of Kosovo and members of the provincial council which consisted of two Albanians and one Turkish representative, I apologize for not remembering their names, most of the people I met gave me business cards. I also had meetings with Veljko Odalovic, head of the district of Kosovo and Metohija and Bosko Drobnjak, Provincial Information Secretary. On my return to Belgrade I met with Dr. Miroljub Jeftic, eminent expert in the field of Islam at the faculty of Political Sciences followed by a meeting with the Minister for National Minority Affairs of the Republic of Serbia, Mr. Ivan Sedlak. I also met with Tatjana Lenard, Chief Editor for Foreign Affairs for Radio/Television, Serbia, Belgrade. An interesting side note, on my return to Butte from Kosovo I was greeted with a telephone call from the Lasiewicz Foundation of Los Angeles who then sent me 17 pages on my fax machine in an attempt to convince me that what I saw with my own eyes in Kosovo was a mirage and therefore I was encouraged to believe her propaganda. Thank you, Mr. Dorich, for informing me that she has never been to Bosnia or Kosovo and that what little humanitarian aid her foundation gave to Bosnian victims went only to non-Serbs. I believe I sensed that from her need to belittle Serbs in our conversation. I have now come to realize that the forces of Islam and the enormous resources being spent in media manipulation is behind this farce to rob the Serbian nation and her people of what is rightfully theirs." Q: Did you meet with any foreign diplomats? A: "Yes, and one of the most impressive was a high-ranking official from India. He told me 'there are one billion Indians and 2 billion Chinese which accounts for two-thirds of the world's population, and that all of them, plus the Russians, are totally against what NATO and the major powers are doing in Serbia.' I asked this high ranking diplomat, who I am sure would not appreciate being identified, if India would respond to a bombing of Serbia, he said, 'you can count on it.!'" Q: Now that you have been to Kosovo what do you think is behind this NATO driven policy? A: "What I discovered on this trip was that the coal reserves in the Kosovo region are considered one of the largest in Europe. Recent findings indicate that the oil reserves under Kosovo could be potentially as big as those in the Caspian Sea. This does not include the other minerals that permeate this region, estimated at some $3 trillion. I am convinced that multi-national corporations in a marriage with the military are behind this drive to totally destroy the Serbian nation, even if it means violating the Helsinki Accords on the sovereignty of Serbia. Richard Holbrooke last week boasted on international television that NATO was victorious over Kosovo proving NATO's superiority over the sovereignty of nations when the allies' interest is at stake. Even Gen. Wesley Clarke recently said, 'Serbian sovereignty be damned" indicating what little respect we have for the international treaties we sign in our quest for what we openly redefine as our interest. Such arrogance will surely lead us into another World War. In my opinion, we seem determined to decided for the Serbian people who is qualified to run their government, then shove that decision down their throats. After we have succeeded in destroying their economy we now offer them IMF loans as the carrot at the end of our stick, knowing full well the Serbian people are no longer capable of repaying such loans in this life time or the next. Then, like we are currently doing in Brazil, we will ride in on our white horse and help them survive by buying as many of their national assets as we can get our hands on ... at 20 cents on the dollar, of course. This is truly the tail wagging the dog in our foreign policy. We have allowed the media and special interest groups to distort the truth and to portray the Serbian people as Nazis in order to steal their natural resources. I do not support the Milosevich regime, but, I am totally against achieving political goals by starving a nation of people into submission while denying them medicine and food. That, Mr. Dorich, is genocide by sanctions, and it's just as ugly as anything that was done in this war. The Serbian government has nearly a billion dollars in frozen assets outside of their country, $600 million in the United States. My goal is to unfreeze these assets and allow the people of Serbia the human dignity of proper medical care. Before this war, Yugoslavia ranked 3rd in medical care in Europe, today they rank at the level of a 3rd world country. Serbian children have died from a simple lack of antibiotics while our elected officials preached self-determination and democracy. For the last seven years, 95% of the Serbian people have received no medical care whatsoever. As a medical specialist, I can assure you that the Serbian people suffer from the same percentage per capita of cancer, heart disease and diabetes in their population as the population in the United States. Withholding medicine and medical care from this population for seven years has increased the rate of death from these diseases in Serbia by as much as 20%. Those who have died have suffered inconceivable deaths without traditional pain-killing drugs. This is inhuman, unacceptable and damned unchristian. Serbian children have already been doomed to a shortened life span that may not be reversible. It is therefore my goal to organize humanitarian aid through the Presbyterian church and through other organizations to distribute aid directly into Belgrade if I have to fly the airplanes myself. I was told by numerous people in the medical system in Serbia that the limited assistance that was attempted to reach the Serbian people during the Bosnian war was pilfered at Serbia's borders by Serbia's neighbors as the United Nations and world looked away. As a Christian minister I refuse to allow people to become complacent or silence, or worse, to seek vengeance believing that Serbs deserve this kind of punishment. No society, especially the American society, can subvert our dedication to human rights by a willful lack of conscience." Note: Rev. Bigler made numerous attempts to meet with Albanian officials in Kosovo but Albanians thwarted these attempts. He took video footage of his entire visit and numerous photographs.

[Kate22]

A'Brit' you are so out-classed here it is becoming humorous (but also boring). Witnessing you clumsily insult the people on this board and generally trying to communicate with them is like watching 'Kevin the Teenager' battle with Steinbeck.

You are citing old and tired reports from the pro-Nato media and other Nato-friendly sources which we all saw at the time. Including your beloved 'Kosova Press'. Do you know how racist the KLA is, by the way? They would not only like to kill every non-Albanian but also every Albanian who doesn't support them. What do you think of that?

Reports during the bombing were made (except for a few exceptions which you certainly haven't read) when propaganda was very much a tool of Nato. Even some of these reports couldn't avoid revealing 'awkward' facts, such as the start of the refugee flow after the start of the bombing. You pointed us to reports which are, frankly, useless and outdated. Why don't you quote sources after the bombing, after the 'liberation', and after the hysteria?

I can find 20 Campbell-sponsored features in the British press during the attack and immediately after. There is no research involved in that. I can also find plenty of photos of dead people, including those from all groups murdered after the 'liberation'.

If you'd been on FR for the past 3 years you would have seen lengthy discussions about most of them (except Beano level tabloid 'newspaper' reports which aren't even worth comment). In most cases they were superseded by other reports which made them irrelevant even to the source itself! Notice how none of the mainstream media are referring back to their own 'exclusive mass murder' etc. stories from 1999.

Do you know how visibly Albanian you have become over your past few posts?
You have 'visited Yugoslavia' and yet not met any Serbs?
You cite 'Kosova' sources and you (as a 'Brit') give a damn about Albanian independence??
Strangely not a word about the thousands murdered by the KLA from all ethnic groups.
Strange again that you seem to want a mono-ethnic Kosovo.

By the way, do not flame us with your rubbish. If you want to respond then do it in one or two posts, not 5 or 10 which is just being disruptive. If you want to post new items, then start a new thread.

And please don't besmirch the name of British people even further. Do you know, by the way, that the Yugoslavian monarchy is related to the British monarchy through Queen Victoria? As A 'Brit' you may even share some blood with the 'many Serbs' who you believe to be 'war criminals'. Wouldn't that be ironic?

[Re. the question of Milosevic and Communism: The Western media is not an authority on who is and isn't a Communist. I said that it was 'widely recognised' that Milosevic is not a Communist (but that his wife arguably is). This is because his philosophy has veered way off course from Communism over the years. This is not the sort of discussion to be answered with 'well CNN/BBC said he was, so there!'. I would enter into a proper discussion about this with you, but I am intimidated by your intense intellect and wit!]

[ABrit]

From the Swiss Article:

"It was obviously not Wm Walker who pulled the strings on this operation," said one of the 1,400 verification monitors who wished to remain anonymous."

Not another interview from an anonymous source, posted on a website with impeccable unbiased credentials.International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic

[ABrit]

Methinks something here smells fishy,......Kate,...is that you.

Got to go now, another time, another place.

[Kate22]

Hopefully you're off to play on the hard shoulder of the M25...

If you return you can actually answer my question about your 'visit to Yugoslavia' when you failed to meet a single Serbian person. Or why you as 'A'Brit' are so concerned to support the KLA? Simple questions x 2.

Take a deep breath and reach deep into your imagination... I really do want to know where that place was and why a 'British' person would be pro Albanian independence even now?

??x2 ;o)

[joan]

“Show me, from a reliable source, one word of complaint by the Kosovo Albanians, about the NATO bombing.”

No complaint is necessary, you can see the visible grief in the photos – not faked: Convoys of Kosovo Albanians bombed; 85 dead

[Hoplite]

Been here, done this.

Don't confuse futility with a lack of resolve and resourcefulness on your part - once you've made your points, don't feel you need to respond unless there's some merit in the rebuttals, else you'll just go round and round in circles with this bunch.

At the end of the day, Milosevic is in the Hague, his party is out of power, all his territorial gains have been reversed and Serb Nationalism has been defanged. The fact that you cannot convince the remaining detritus of his defenders of his culpability for his current straights is irrelevant.

[Kate22]

As you know fine well, many of us here have no interest in defending Milosevic; just breaking down the lies about Nato's attack on Serbia (unfortunately he has been turned into an anti-hero by the careerists at The Hague... smart move!).

Hoplite, you and I disagree about virtually all of this, but you know that this joker who says that it's okay to murder 'Serbs' in 'retribution'; that anyone who was against the bombing is a 'holocaust denier'; that he's 'visited Yugoslavia' but not met any Serbs; who quotes The Daily Mirror (UK) from during the bombing as his source material... this is all way beneath you as well (I would hope).

[vooch]

sigh.....Hoplite there you go again defending might makes right. You confuse raw power with morality.....It seems to be a HumWarrior trait.

[Hoplite]

Kate, as soon as we can agree upon a rough history of Kosovo and the Former FRY, we can start talking about the issues which occured in that common framework.

Until that time, however, we're better off just agreeing to disagree while we continue to research the issues independently, regardless of the continual bumping of heads that will ensue.

I don't know ABrit, nor have I sounded him out on any of these issues - but it appears that we subscribe to the same "rough history", ergo, I merely point out that equal and opposite forces are no different than a brick wall, as far as one's head is concerned.

Ultimately, like the mystery of the Katyn Forest, time will reveal who did what. We've placed our bets - and may we be smart enough to fold a losing hand rather than continuing to bluff after all the cards are face up on the table.