Posted on 03/30/2002 2:37:53 AM PST by vooch
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Phoney Refugee Camps Found in KosovoBy 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?
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?
Q: Did you read the Albanian newspapers in Kosovo?
Q: Could you confirm that Albanians represent 1.8 million in Kosovo?
Q: Did you stop people at random and speak with them? Q: Are the Serbs in Kosovo suffering in this war?
Q: Did the Serbian government give you complete access to the people of Kosovo?
Q: Tell me about the phoney refugee camps.
Q: Was there an apparent shortage of food?
Q: We hear about the KLA walking around with weapons, what can you tell us about this?
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?
Q: Did you meet with the Serbian Patriarch? Q: Who in the Serbian government did you meet?
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?
Q: Now that you have been to Kosovo what do you think is behind this NATO driven policy?
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.
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Overdue thanks for posting those OSCE observer comments on the other thread. There were a number that I had not seen before.
People like you are resposible for the deaths, torture, and rape of many, you who chose to turn a blind eye, to wash your hands, just as those who ignored and denied the holocaust.
You are responsible because you did nothing and encouraged others to do nothing.
GENEVA (CNN) -- The U.N. refugee agency said Friday the mass exodus of ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo has reached "nightmare proportions," as thousands of people kept crossing into Albania, Macedonia and the Yugoslav province of Montenegro.
"The situation is absolutely dramatic, it's reaching nightmare proportions," said Judith Kumin, spokeswoman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
The UNHCR estimated that, over the past 10 days, more than 220,000 people have fled or have been expelled from the Serb province.
Thousands of refugees were transported to the Macedonian border by train or were put aboard buses and driven close to the Albanian border and then made to walk.
Some refugees told CNN correspondents they had been walking for days, with no possessions except what they could carry with them or put on a tractor-pulled carts.
The European Union's humanitarian affairs commissioner Emma Bonino, who visited the region to coordinate aid efforts, expressed shock at the "mass deportations."
"We are faced with mass deportations. These pictures of trains arriving...they are pictures straight out of 'Schindler's List'," she told a news conference in Brussels Wednesday.
Bonino also said that, "all the witness reports we do receive suggest that there are massacres going on, that people are being eliminated, that there is ethnic cleansing going on."
The Yugoslav government of President Slobodan Milosevic has denied these allegations, saying the ethnic Albanian refugees are fleeing the fighting between government troops and the Kosovo Liberation Army, or are killed in cross fire.
According to the UNHCR, at least 120,000 refugees have fled to Albania, 70,000 to Macedonia and 31,000 to Montenegro.
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| Thousands of refugees have fled to Macedonia | |
The Albanian government on Friday described the situation at the main border crossing of Morina and the main reception center in Kukes as dramatic.
"In Kukes district, the situation has become absolutely critical," Information Minister Musa Ulqini said on television.
"During the night and up to now, the influx of Albanians in need of help arriving from Kosovo has been extraordinary. The situation is rapidly getting worse," Ulqini said.
Prime Minister Pandeli Majko is in contact with other countries, urging that a relief operation launched several days ago be accelerated.
Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro are among the poorest regions in Europe and have all repeatedly appealed for international aid.
CNN Correspondent Chris Burns reported Friday that thousands more refugees had crossed the border at the Morina crossing in the past hours.
Just across the border, blue smoke from a fire could be seen. Refugees said that this fire was the Serb authorities burning passports and identity documents that had been confiscated from ethnic Albanian refugees.
One refugee told CNN he was forced to leave his two sons behind, and a woman said she saw her sons shot and killed by Yugoslav troops.
The UNHCR said two women and two children died on arrival at another crossing point into Albania. The organization said the deaths were likely caused by exhaustion and exposure.
At Morina, nuns were handing loaves of bread to the refugees as they came across the crossing point.
The UNHCR said it and other aid agencies were distributing blankets, bread, water and juice to the masses at the Macedonian border during the night.
Thousands of refugee gathered in the Macedonian village of Blace, next to the border post, waiting for help, trying to understand what had happened to them, and where to go from here.
A total of seven trains have arrived in Blace from the Kosovo capital of Pristina in the past days, according to the UNHCR. It said one train was made up of 30 cars, packed with thousands of people who were made to walk the last few miles across the border.
While international aid is being flown in from all over the world, aid operations and their coordination will be further addressed at two international meetings involving several European nations and all major humanitarian aid organizations next week.
As for your statements regarding Draza Mihailovic and Yugoslavia as a communist country I would recommend a book called "The Rape of Serbia: The British Role in Tito's Grab for Power 1943-1944" by Michael Lees, a British Special Forces Officer who served in the Balkans during WWII. I would also suggest you view "Yugoslavia, the Avoidable War" for an objective look at the propaganda war against Yugoslavia that led to a drastic escalation of the breakup of Yugoslavia.
You have previously mentioned that the constituent republics of Yugoslavia voted to secede and therefore since this is what they wanted they were justified in simply breaking away. It's very interesting that you don't say anything about Serbs having the same rights in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia where Serbs who are still alive have experienced genocide being practiced against them. If you had done a bit of research you would find that the Yugoslav constitution had provisions for secession but rather than follow them Croatia and Slovenia unilateraly declared independence, assured of Germany's support. Not only would Serbs in Croatia and later Bosnia-Hercegovina be cut off from Yugoslavia with no say in the matter, Yugoslavia, consisting of only Serbia and Montenegro, as B-H and Macedonia seceded, would have been stuck with the debts of ALL the constituent republics.
You can continue to insist on presenting the comic book view of history but you'll have to present something more credible than international court indictments.
This court is run by the United Nations, and is as impartial as you will get in this world. ICTY Key Figures
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| Update: 15 March 2002 | Not an official document |
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Your faith in the UN court is touching, especially when it categorically refused to investigate NATO's actions in attacking Yugoslavia in contravention of international law and NATO's own charter. Rather than accepting the awful truth of being manipulated by CNN and their ilk you rely on the trappings of the kangaroo court known as the ICTY which itself was not formed according to the UN's own rules.
AMERICA = SERBIA; AMERICANS = SERBS
"KOSOVA" = AZTLAN; "KOSOVARS" = SEPARATIST HISPANICS
Nobody has the right to destroy anyone's country. Serbia is the home of the Serbs. Albania is the home of the Albanians. If they don't like it in Serbia (Kosovo & Metohia) they are free to go wherever they want.
Some basic considerations for you:
Even for those who do take the ICTY seriously (Tony Blaaair, Hashim Thaci, Del Ponte and yourself) indictees are not presumed guilty before their trial (by the way, there will be plenty of KLA 'fighters' on their way there soon as a result of the recent moves in Belgrade);
For such a 'humanitarian' why have you not mentioned a word about the millions of people to have suffered as a result of Nato's actions and the KLA? Not just Serbians (who you seem to class as non-human), but also Albanians, Roma, Jews, Turks, Egyptians...;
As Banat asked: what exactly is a 'Kosovar'? Don't you mean a 'Kosovarian'?!
"People like you are resposible for the deaths, torture, and rape of many, you who chose to turn a blind eye, to wash your hands, just as those who ignored and denied the holocaust."
Very big accusations for a little person to make. I would love for you to say such a thing to my face. Is that the best that you can do in the way of 'argument'? New Labour type accusations? It doesn't work against facts, especially nowadays.
Why do you have such an interest in Albanian independence, A'Brit'? I meet British people with whom I dispute what happened in Kosovo to one extent or another, but none of them are still following the 1999 spin. (And none of them would have spoken so glibly about Britain and England.)
By the way, when you redirect people to the ICTY as 'evidence' of what happened make sure of your facts. The charge of genocide in Kosovo was disproved by the UN and removed from the Milosevic indictment. Just another hysterical tabloid piece of sensationalism.
He definetly has more than passing interest in all this. I doubt he is of British origin. Most probably Albanian with British passport, or of Albaninan heritage.
I don't mind him being Albanian and defending his position, but why is he trying to decieve us by being a Brit?
Moscow Trials 1936, Court Proceedings, Content
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THE CASE OF THE TROTSKYITE-ZINOVIEVITE Heard Before the MILITARY COLLEGIUM OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE U.S.S.R. Moscow, August 19-24, 1936 In re Charged under Articles 588, 19 and 588, 5811 Published by the PEOPLE'S COMMISSARIAT OF JUSTICE OF THE U.S.S.R. MOSCOW 1936 Contents
(Read also Gudrun Persson's article about the show trials, "And they all confessed ..." [ENG]; "Bolsjeviker bekänner sin skuld" [SWE].) The following links will open a new window with text, so you can easily return to the table of contents by closing or moving the new window. August 19 (morning session) August 19 (evening session)
August 20 (morning session)
August 20 (evening session)
August 21 (morning session)
August 21 (evening session)
August 22 (morning session)
August 22 (evening session) August 23 (morning session) August 23 (evening session) |
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to bring to justice persons allegedly responsible for violations of international humanitarian law
