Free Republic

Those who have asked questions about the Srebrenica numbers over the last ten years have invariably been treated with withering scorn. At best they have been characterised as would-be revisionists; at worst, deniers of a modern-day holocaust. Yet no serious analysis of events in and around Srebrenica in the summer of 1995 could be complete without detailed examination of the numbers. From the outset the numbers were used and abused, for a variety of political and other purposes, to conceal the fundamental truth of what had happened.Origins of the massacre allegationsOver the years it has been held to be highly...

The US "fabricated evidence" against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic during clashes between Serbia and Bosnia in the mid-1990s, according to a prominent and experienced international peacekeeping official who served there.Retired Swedish Brigadier General Bo Pellnas, who was head of UN Military Observers (UNMOs) in Croatia, now says that the US should not be trusted. Pellnas says that he learned to distrust US-provided evidence during peacekeeping service in the former Yugoslavia.Pellnas's misgivings are described in an article from the Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet. Here is an English-language translation of this article: In an interview with Sweden's leading news-wire TT, retired...

One of the most surprising results of the September 11 terrorist attacks is the sharp increase in the number of Americans who now trust the federal government. According to a Washington Post poll released on September 27, 64 percent of Americans now "trust the government in Washington to do what is right" either "just about always" or "most of the time." The number of people who trust the government to do the right thing has doubled since last year -- and is now more than three times higher than in 1994. The Washington Post interviewed a 26-year-old New Jersey high-school ...

BELGRADE, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Last month's suicide attacks on the United States have highlighted persistent ethnic divisions in the Balkans and raised questions about the future of U.S. involvement in the volatile region. In a reversal of the trend seen in many places elsewhere, Kosovo Albanian and Bosnian Muslims lit candles for the dead and expressed solidarity with the United States while many Serbs and Macedonians, Orthodox Christians, were decidedly ambivalent. Western-leaning reformers have run Serbia for nearly a year but memories of U.S.-led NATO bombing over Belgrade's policy in Kosovo are still fresh. Serbia was one of the ...

Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the message seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as soon as someone can construct a credible account of who was actually responsible. Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, ...

TIRANA, Albania, Sept. 10 (UPI) -- The U.N. Mission in Kosovo has set up a Serb Protection Force Unit to monitor the Serb parts of the Yugoslav province, officials said Monday."It will be a Serbian unit, but it is not a parallel unit," said Susan Manuel, a UNMIK spokeswoman in Pristina. She said the unit will be under the command of Gen. Agim Ceku, the head of the Kosovo protection force. The Kosovo Information Center said the Serb Protection Force Unit would have 500 troops. The KPF was founded in 1999, a few months after the end of the ...

Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in KosovoRambouillet talks 'designed to fail' Ramboulleit revisited: The State of the Press and the Press of the State DepartmentRambouillet - Imperialism in DisguiseTHE RAMBOUILLET ACCORD: A DECLARATION OF WAR DISGUISED AS A PEACE AGREEMENTWhy Kosovo? The Anatomy of a Needless War (part III)

THE "RACAK MASSACRE" QUESTIONED BY FRENCH MEDIASorting Through the Lies of the Racak Massacre and other Myths of Kosovo Meet Mr. MassacreComplete Analysis of the Incident at Racak on Jan. 15, 1999 Finnish Experts Find No Massacre at Racak Full Text of Finnish Forensic Report Published on Racak - No Massacre MEDIA ADVISORY: AN UPDATE ON RACAK Archive: The Racak Killings, A Massacre?French Reporters Were Deceived by KLA on Who Massacred Whom at Racak Press report casts doubt on Kosovo massacre claim (Italian paper) The facts behind the "massacre" in the village of Racak in KosovoDiving Into the Kosovo Quagmire ...

BUJANOVAC, Yugoslavia (AP) - Yugoslav's army sent tanks and reinforcements near the NATO-patrolled boundary with Kosovo on Sunday, one day before Yugoslavia's deadline for NATO to crack down on ethnic Albanian militants whose attacks have inflamed the region. Kosovo is a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's main republic, but it has been under international control since last year and many residents want full independence. In the three-mile buffer zone between central Serbia and Kosovo, attacks by independence-minded militants last week left at least four Serb policemen dead. Yugoslav authorities set a Monday afternoon deadline for NATO to clear out the militants ...

Could the violent break up of Yugoslavia have been avoided? What role did Western interventions play in the tragedy that consumed the multi-ethnic country? "Yugoslavia - The Avoidable War," a two hour and forty-five minute film, addresses theese questions in a well-documented, powerful indictment of misguided intervention in the region. An updated version, including the NATO intervention in Kosovo, recently debuted at the Raindance Film Festival in London on October 20.The documentary, which took five years to produce, investigates how serious errors and misjudgments made by Western powers - particularly Germany and the United States - helped spark the violent ...

Belgrade, October 2 - Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic addressed Monday the nation over the Serbian radio and television. "Honored citizens, In the expectation of the second round of election, I take the opportunity to explain to you my views on the electoral and political situation in our country, especially in Serbia. As you know, efforts have been underway for a whole decade to place the entire Balkan Peninsula under the control of some Western powers. A big part of that job was done by establishing puppet governments in some countries, by transforming them into countries with limited sovereignty or even ...

The United States is wondering what could be worse than Milosevic winning the Yugoslav elections. Why of course, Milosevic losing! ***With the approach of elections in Yugoslavia, and Vojislav Kostunica¹s strong lead in all polls, it seems that Slobodan Milosevic will lose the elections he unexpectedly and inexplicably called one year before they were due. Having amended the Constitution of Yugoslavia in a way that both subjected his position to a popular vote and sooner than his mandate actually expired, Milosevic did his opponents at home and abroad a gigantic favor. Or so it would seem. The Serbian opposition, made ...

BELGRADE, Aug 29 (Reuters) - A Belgrade prosecutor charged 14 Western leaders on Tuesday for crimes allegedly committed during NATO"s air war against Yugoslavia in 1999, the state news agency Tanjug reported. The list of accused included U.S. President Bill Clinton, former NATO secretary general Javier Solana and leaders of Britain, France and Germany, the agency said. The charges followed investigations begun by Serbian authorities last year. Tanjug quoted Serbian state prosecutor Dragisa Krsmanovic as saying the charges included the attempted assassination of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, instigation of an aggressive war, war crimes against the civilian population and the ...

PLOTTING THE WAR AGAINST SERBIA: AN INSIDER'S STORYPersonal Preliminary Remarks:This text I am giving to a Catholic priest, who is a member of the Order for Peace [Ordensleute für den Frieden] here in Germany. I am doing so while maintaining confessional confidentiality, and divulging no information as to my identity. He will transmit this text on my behalf to those who need to know the truth. I hold a high-security post in the government apparatus in Bonn, and for reasons of conscience can no longer remain silent. The facts that I am about to divulge are, for the better informed, ...

ZVECAN, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Seeking to soothe the outrage of local Serbs, Kosovo's chief U.N. administrator said Wednesday that NATO's takeover of a lead smelter was to their advantage and not a plot to help the province's ethnic Albanians. "This community will have to understand that we will work for the benefit of all Kosovo and Serbs as well," Bernard Kouchner said as he toured the smelter. "We aAbout 1,500 Serbs protested the closure Wednesday, a day after up to 3,000 of them marched through the streets in their part of Kosovska Mitrovica, divided into Serb and ethnic Albanian sections ...