FROM BELGRADE, SERBIA -- CAPITAL OF THE FREE WORLD

[Paja Patak]

FROM BELGRADE, SERBIA -- CAPITAL OF THE FREE WORLD
Apr. 20, 1999; 2:00AM GMT - DAY 28, UPDATE 1
HEADLINES
Belgrade 1. A Slice of Life in Wartime Serb Capital
Belgrade 2. Four NATO Planes Shot Down on Sunday; NATO
Losses Detailed by Russian Sources
Milan 3. Italian Nobel Laureate Protests Against NATO
Bonn 4. A German Insider's View of Kosovo Conflict
Jerusalem 5. Some Washington Jews Behind Kosovo Conflict Are
Not "Real Jews" (By Barry Chamish, plus a reader reaction)
--------------------
1. A Slice of Life in Wartime Serb Capital
BELGRADE, Apr. 20 - For a city that's been under aerial attack for four
weeks now by the world's most powerful military alliance, life in Belgrade
seems surprisingly normal these days. During daylight hours, streets are
full of people. Traffic is lighter than before, due to gasoline rationing,
but there are still occasional traffic jams.
Taxi drivers are allotted 150 liters (about 35 gallons) of gasoline per
month. "That's enough for me to eke out a living," one cabbie said, "but not
enough to pay the taxes."
"Maybe they'll defer or forgive the taxes in wartime economy?" I suggested.
"That'll be the day," the driver replied skeptically.
The stores are also full. You can buy just about anything - from imports, to
locally produced goods. Long gone are the days of the U.N. sanctions which
emptied the store shelves and peoples' tummies in 1993-1994.
In fact, the Serb defiance has also been complemented by bustling
entrepreneurship. There are hundreds of street vendors selling newly
produced TARGET or other anti-NATO T-shirts, buttons, records or other
graphical designs.
Daily concerts at the Freedom Square in downtown Belgrade are continuing.
They usually start at noon and last till 4PM. Yesterday (Sunday), a group of
young dancers, all girls - probably under the age of 10 - delighted the
crowd to the tune of rock music. But Las Vegas recruiters had better not
rush to sign them up. For, these young stars' performance was a part of the
protest against, not compliance with, the glitzy part of the "American
culture."
One thing this writer noticed, however, was that some people in the crowd at
the Freedom Square carried photos of Slobodan Milosevic. To foreigners who
have not spoken to as many Serbs as this writer has during the last five
days, this might have implied that the Serbian people are defying NATO in
support of their "Saddam."
Nothing could be further from the truth. After all, just over two years ago,
hundreds of thousands of these same people demonstrated for democracy and
against Milosevic for over three months - in the dead of winter! Most Serbs
I spoke to expressed their outrage that a few Socialist Party members have
brought to the protests pictures of their leader, at a time when all other
parties had set aside their ideological differences for the sake of national
defense.
And the peoples' message seems to be getting through. When this writer spent
some time at the Freedom Square today, shortly after noon, there were no
Milosevic photos in sight; only Serb flags and other national symbols.
So is there anything abnormal about life in the Serb capital, besides the
nightly explosions and AAA fire? Plenty…
Schools and universities are closed. They have been closed since the war
started on Mar. 24. There is some talk now about opening the universities
later this week. But elementary, junior high, and high schools will remain
closed for the rest of the school year.
The reasons are obvious. NATO has already hit (however inadvertently, if one
is to believe their spokespeople) dozens of schools across Serbia. Had there
been children and teachers in them, the casualties would have been much
higher than they are.
Another anomaly is that the stores are told by the authorities to close at
4PM. Most seem to heed that suggestion. But private convenience stores stay
open till all hours of the night, just like back home in the States; some
even right through air raids. Last night, for example, this writer bought a
piece of bread and a sausage at a convenience store near Brankov's bridge at
close to 10PM.
There are also long lines at some points in downtown Belgrade, but they are
not what you think if you listened to some of the western media reports. I
was told (I have not seen or heard it myself), that the western media have
shown pictures of these long lines with commentaries suggesting that these
people are now having to line up for their daily bread.
When I first saw one of these long lines which snaked around a little park
in front of Radio Belgrade building for several hundred yards, I asked a
colleague, a local journalist, what this was about.
"Cigarettes," he replied.
"You're putting me on."
"No, I'm not."
I still wasn't buying his explanation. So I walked up to some of the people
in the line and asked them: "What are you lining up for?"
"For cigarettes," one woman replied.
"And all these people (hundreds of them!) are smokers waiting to get their
daily fix?", I said, with an obvious look of incredulity on my face.
The woman returned a look full of disdain, implying silently: "It's easy for
you to make fun of us when you're obviously not a smoker."
Turning to my journalist-friend, I said: "Hurray! NATO is finally doing
something beneficial for Serbian people. Forcing the nation to cut back ,or
give up, smoking!"
There is another good thing that NATO's bombing has also done. It has weaned
the Serbs off the American junk food. Both McDonald's restaurants in
downtown Belgrade are closed, with anti-NATO graffiti sprayed all over them.
Yet the McDonald's management posted some lame message about how it was
supposedly closing down the restaurants in solidarity with its Yugoslav
customers.
A walk up and down Belgrade's main streets and avenues also reveals that
most NATO embassies have been trashed, with graffiti, often vulgar,
testifying as to extreme anger of the local population. The German embassy,
for example, has the German flag still flying on a mast above the door. But
the flag has a NATO crest-shaped swastika in the middle.
Perhaps the worst for wear is the Canadian embassy. The newest among the
western embassies, it has a modern design. It also used to have a lot of
windows.
The American and French cultural centers in downtown Belgrade have also been
demolished. By contrast, however, embassies of other western countries not
involved in the conflict are intact. This morning, for example, this writer
walked passed the Australian and Argentinean embassies, which are a stone
throw away from the destroyed American and French cultural centers. Both
embassies were intact, with ambassadors still on board.
(this writer has taken many photos which we will post to the Web site as
soon as they are developed).
--------------
2. Four NATO Planes Shot Down on Sunday; NATO Losses Detailed by Russian
Sources
BELGRADE, Apr. 19 - The Tanjug newswire reported today that four NATO planes
were shot down during the night of Apr. 18. Two of them were hit in the
Pristina area of Kosovo at about 4PM local time. Another was shot down at
about 7PM.
Another NATO plane was hit over northern Serbia, whose burning parts
showered the village of Sisatovac near Mt. Fruska Gora. Eyewitnesses saw the
pilot trying to navigate his damaged aircraft toward Croatia, which is only
40 miles away, with thick black smoke billowing behind.
Although the above news item appeared in today's state-controlled daily,
POLITIKA, this writer can confirm the last eyewitness report independently.
For, some fragments of the NATO aircraft which fell to the ground also
damaged a monastery near Sisatovac, according to our independent sources.
Meanwhile, the Voice of Russia radio program reported on Apr. 18 that NATO
had lost over 40 planes and 90 airmen between March 24 and April 15. The
report said Yugoslav and Russian military sources said NATO had also lost
120 cruise missiles to Yugoslav defenses.
The Ekho Moskvy radio in Moscow cited an RIA-Novosti news agency report that
NATO has delivered thousands of coffins to a British military base in Cyprus
today. The reports suggests NATO is preparing for a ground attack, and
expects heavy losses.
-------------
3. Italian Nobel Laureate Protests Against NATO
MILAN, Apr. 18 - The Italian Nobel laureate for literature, Dario Fo, is
staging his own protest against NATO's attack on Serbia. The site of Fo's
protest is a gallery near Duomo, where this Italian writer is collecting
signatures of his fellow-citizens who also want to protest Italy's
participation in NATO's aggression on Yugoslavia. Fo termed the Italian
prime minister, Massimo D'Allema, "spineless", and his decision for Italy to
participate in the attack on a sovereign country, "unconstitutional."
-------------
4. A German Insider's View of Kosovo Conflict
BONN, Apr. 17 - The following report, which TiM has now received from a
multitude of sources, has been attributed to a "German insider." Since we
normally don't publish articles from sources which we cannot authenticate,
we have sat on this text for several days now.
But not only have some credible sources from the international intelligence
community also forwarded the same report to us, but it has now also been
passed on by Jürgen Reents, Press-spokesman of PDS at the German parliament.
The original text, posted at the German, can be found at the PDS site:
http://www2.pds-online.de/bt/themen/99041303.htm
And so, without further ado, here's a "German insider's" story about what
the "Kosovo Crisis" is all about…
"PLOTTING THE WAR AGAINST SERBIA: AN INSIDER'S STORY
1. Personal Preliminary Remarks
2. About the current lies told by [Chancellor] Schroeder, [Defense Minister]
Scharping, and [Foreign Minister] Fischer
3. CIA covert action aimed at dismembering Yugoslavia
Personal 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, examinable and verifiable.
Both the entire NATO propaganda staff as well as the Infernal Trio,
Schroeder, Scharping and Fischer, here in Germany are unabashedly lying to
the public with nearly every "fact" they present about the Balkans War,
while a willing media pack is keenly spreading these lies, unverified, as
gospel truth.
About the current situation:
The Federal Government knows the true reasons why the people are fleeing and
is cynically playing with the calculated misery of the refugees in the
border regions of Kosovo, in order to maintain an image comparable to WW II
deportations and "ethnic cleansing".
Neither the military intelligence arm of the Bundeswehr nor that of the NATO
have at their disposal photographic evidence, intelligence knowledge,
indications and proof leading to the conclusion that there is systematic
expulsion or deportation of refugees by the Yugoslav special forces, army or
police. According to internal acknowledgement of the defense ministry the
reasons for flight are more or less equally distributed:
(1) Excess on the part of Yugoslav soldiers and police force, often
triggered in part by KLA attacks carried out under cover of Kosovo-Albanian
civilians. Information is on hand that Yugoslav soldiers caught looting are
summarily court-martialed;
(2) The results of the NATO bombing, such as the lack of potable water in
nearly all cities of Kosovo and general devastation;
(3)Understandable fear of getting caught in the crossfire between the KLA,
the Yugoslav military, and NATO attacks;
(4) Constant spreading of panic and horror stories in the broadcasts of
dozens of small KLA, NATO or Albanian shortwave radio stations located in
the mountains, alongside the propaganda broadcasts of the KLA over Radio
Tirana;
(5) Pillaging bands of the Albanian mafia, who with their weapons stolen
during the Albanian civil war, extort money, search abandoned houses for
anything of value and then burn the houses down to create political effect;
(6) KLA irregular troops, who have declared a "general mobilization" and are
forcing every available man into their military service. Those objecting are
submitted to grave physical abuse and released only upon paying a ransom,
and having sworn under threat of vendetta, not to tell the truth but to tell
family and the media that they had been mishandled by Serbs.
(7) The announcement by the KLA that NATO will inevitably have to carry out
a ground attack and that this attack is imminent.
Some sectors of NATO welcome the mass exodus of refugees. The military in
Germany favorably greeted the Pentagon's April 5, [1999] commentary to the
effect that when all had fled, Kosovo could be carpet bombed with no
restraint.
The German government knows that there are no concentration camps, that no
houses where marked with "S" by Serbs. This, as well as the news that people
are not being detained in a stadium in Pristina, was reported by
representatives of the catholic church in Pristina in a direct telephone
conversation with employees of the German government. Still Scharping is
spreading these lies.
The German government is also aware that on the borders American and
European private media are offering up to US $200,000 for video footage of
massacres - real or posed.
NATO and the German army are logistically supporting the KLA. Food, uniforms
and instructors are furnished mainly by the Bundeswehr as well as the USA.
All KLA commanders are in constant radio contact with NATO.
NATO ground forces are already operating doing reconnaissance inside Kosovo.
They are German and US units whose task is to detect and give the
coordinates of ground targets. Furthermore, NATO officers are functioning as
liaison commandos for the KLA. The contacts that were necessary for this
mission were established by US and German officers, in violation of their
mission as OSCE observers, preceding NATO-attacks. Here the German
parliament is being as much taken for a fool as the general public.
With the deployment of German Tornado aircraft, our Defense Minister has
chosen to premeditatedly violate the Geneva Convention and other
international laws of warfare. This applies to the targeting and destruction
of the military hospital in Belgrade, as well as the attacks carried out
against the Danube bridges and among other things, the
disturbance/interruption of the continuation of international traffic on the
Danube between Regensburg and the Black Sea, which also Germany as a
bordering state to the Danube has guaranteed under international law to
protect.
The Chancellor and Foreign Minister knew from the outset that no Yugoslav
government could ever sign the occupation statute, as it appeared in
articles 6, 8 and 10 of Annex B of the Rambouillet Treaty. Both understood
clearly that this would mean the end of Yugoslavia as a sovereign state. War
was therefore inevitable.
Experts of the Justice Ministry poked fun at these passages, these clauses
NATO would give NATO the rights of a medieval robber-knight throughout the
whole of Yugoslavia. Furthermore, according to Filippo di Robilant, the
Italian legal advisor at Rambouillet to Rugova, the moderate
Kosovo-Albanian, Rugova only signed after he was given assurance by Robin
Cook, that NATO would attack exclusively military targets and that measures
would be taken to safeguard the civilian population in the whole of
Yugoslavia.
Code named "Roots" - a covert action under which the CIA prepared the war -
the objective is the destruction of Yugoslavia though loss of Kosovo,
Montenegro and Vojvodina.
Under the "Roots" operations, the USA has since the beginning of the first
term of Clinton's Administration been working - in close collaboration with
Germany - on this covert action of the CIA and the DIA, and supported by the
German secret service. The objective of "Roots" is the military and ethnic
destabilization of Yugoslavia, the last bastion of resistance in the
Balkans.
The objective of "Roots'" is the dissociation of Kosovo as the principal
source of raw materials for Yugoslavia though a comprehensive autonomy, by
Albanian annexation or total independence; the secession of Montenegro, its
the only remaining access to the Adriatic, and the dislocation of Vojvodina
the "bread basket," and another source of raw materials for Yugoslavia
leading to the total collapse of Yugoslavia as a viable, industrial state.
Behind this action is Germany's and the USA's fear that Yugoslavia will ally
itself with Russia and other former Soviet states once Yeltsin is replaced
by communist and nationalist forces in the near future. [ ... ]
-------------
5. Some Washington Jews Behind Kosovo Conflict Are Not "Real Jews" (By Barry
Chamish, reaction by Dexter Peabody)
JERUSALEM, Apr. 19 - We received the following article today from Barry
Chamish, an Israeli journalist, whose work should be familiar to old-time
TiM readers. Following his original piece, we also bring you some
interesting reactions:
"The American team behind the Yugoslav War have Jewish names and look very
Jewish. This is a sad and humiliating fact... and it shouldn't take the
anti-Semites long to make a few associations and call the bloodletting in
the Balkans a Jewish plot. However, if a plot exists, it is being managed by
the very antithesis of Judaism, those who have abandoned Judaism for good.
Let us look at the core of the VISIBLE team:
William Cohen- Secretary Of Defense- Longtime member of the Council On
Foreign Relations. Headed the notorious 1997 CFR Task Force On The Middle
East, which called for Israel's withdrawal to 1948 lines and the division of
Jerusalem, until replaced later by Henry Seigman. Though he has a Jewish
father, Cohen was raised as Protestant and maintains no Jewish religious
ties whatsoever.
Mad Madeleine Albright- Secretary Of State- Longtime member of the CFR. Her
story is absolutely surreal. Born and raised Jewish in Czechoslovakia, she
escaped the Holocaust and was cared for by Jewish relatives in London. Yet,
over the years she forgot her entire childhood and adolescence, claiming
she's always been a Christian. Her memory was jarred only when the
Washington Post printed her true biography during the very week she was
appointed Secretary of State. The woman did not simply disavow her Jewish
roots, for fifty years she pretended they didn't exist. And for much of her
term in office, she has been obsessed with pressing Israel to withdraw to
suicidal borders.
James Rubin- State Department Spokesman- Member of the CFR. Recently married
CNN Kosovo reporter Christiane Amanpour in a church. Has adopted
Christianity. While longtime CFR member Ted Turner's CNN grinds out the New
World Order vision through Amanpour, Rubin coordinates the illusion as
Alberight's supercilious mouthpiece.
This trio is hiding behind the bloodshed they are fomenting with a curtain
woven of humanitarian goodness for the Kosovo refugees. Never mind that the
refugees would not have been there to cover their deeds without the NATO
bombing of Yugoslavia. So far the facade is holding up but the curtain will
eventually fall and when it does, thanks to this triumvirate of evil, Jews
are going to be left holding the bag.
When that day comes, let all so inclined to see the Jewish hand in NWO
machinations recall that this war is in the hands of people who found the
deep morality of Judaism not to their liking. They abandoned Judaism, and
while Yugoslavia is their current target for destruction, Israel is next on
their list."
Barry Chamish, an Israeli journalist from Jerusalem
---
A P.S. by Mr. Chamish:
My above article on the non-Jews behind Kosovo has stirred some controversy.
One objection raised was that although Albright, Cohen and Rubin have
abandoned Judaism, others like Richard Holbrooke and Sandy Berger had not. I
answered that Prof. Paul Eidelberg contends in an article released this
week, that Berger betrayed Israel in 1982 by releasing Israel's operational
plans for the Lebanon War to the American media, thus sabotaging the war and
resulting in the loss of hundreds of young Israeli lives. As for Holbrooke,
reliable reports say Washington wants him to replace Special Middle Advisor
Dennis Ross, to squeeze the final Israeli concessions out of the "peace"
process. They may call themselves Jews but their allegiances are not to
Judaism nor to Israel's survival.
The next objection was that Rubin, Albright and Cohen have allied themselves
with Christianity. The implication to some is they chose a faith closer to
their own wicked hearts. I would never imply such a thing. No true Christian
as I understand the religion, would be a member of the CFR, let alone be a
part of the murderous travesty taking place in the Balkans.
Yet, I stress, no Jew who has an ounce of Jewish morality in his soul would
lend his services to the New World Order. The NWO hates all religions
equally, viewing them as a roadblock to domination. Both Christians and Jews
have been recruited to the cabal of evil and the vast majority of people
from both faiths are their victims.
---
Here's a reader's reaction to the above Barry Chamish article:
The American team behind the Yugoslav war isn't Albright, Berger, Cohen, and
Rubin. The American team behind the Yugoslav war is the Council on Foreign
Relations. The inner circle of CFR members responsible for the planning are
the 300 or more CFR members in the Clinton administration and CFR members
working for CFR think-tanks such as the Paul Nitze School of Advanced
International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Rand Institute, and the
Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Making a few people with Jewish surnames the "spokesmen" for the war is part
of a well-planned psycho-political operation to use racism to help confuse
the issue. If you take a good look at the CFR roster you will find that
about 300 out of the 3000 members have Jewish surnames. None of the members
of the Council on Foreign Relations including Berger, Tisch, Gejdenson,
Kissinger, etc. are any more Jewish then Albright, Cohen, or Rubin. None of
the members of the CFR are people of faith. The Council on Foreign Relations
operates by creating tension and hate. They do so by breaking every code of
ethical conduct and every one of the ten commandments. No person of faith
could belong to an organization that consciously and methodically goes about
destroying faith.
All religions are based on ethical codes of conduct. All religions are based
on rules and guidelines for acting intelligently. These rules include the
Ten Commandments, the Teachings of Buddha and the laws of Mohammed. The
simplest and most elegant rule and guideline for acting intelligently is the
Golden Rule. The Golden Rule was discovered and taught by at least three
human beings. Confucius and Mohammed taught, "Don't do to others that which
you wouldn't have others do to you." Christ, taught "Do unto others that
which you would have others do unto you." Acting intelligently is analyzing
a problem to determine what has to be done, designing different solutions to
solve the problem, and evaluating the different solutions to choose the best
one. Acting intelligently is acting in ones own best interest, while at the
same time, acting in the best interest of all. If you use the Golden Rule to
drive your decisions you can make life better for everyone, including
yourself. You will have a past you can be proud of and a future to look
forward to free from guilt resulting from poor decisions made in the past. A
future in which those around you have less problems caused by your poor
decisions and can therefore think more clearly, making it less likely they
will make poor decisions that will cause problems for you. No creature in
the universe can simplify the Golden Rule, making human beings among the
wisest, most intelligent creatures in the Universe.
John Dewey, the philosopher and educator, provides a good description of the
type of men who belong to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Royal
Institute of International Affairs, and their branch organizations in other
nations:
"Meantime there are certain "practical" men who combine thought and habit
and who are effectual. Their thought is about their own advantage; and their
habits correspond. They dominate the actual situation. They encourage
routine in others, and they also subsidize such thought and learning as are
kept remote from affairs. This they call sustaining the standard of the
ideal. Subjection they praise as team-spirit, loyalty, devotion, obedience,
industry, law-and-order. But they temper respect for law - by which they
mean the order of the existing status - on the part of others with most
skillful and thoughtful manipulation of it in behalf of their own ends.
While they denounce as subversive anarchy signs of independent thought, of
thinking for themselves, on the part of others least such thought disturb
the conditions by which they profit, they think quite literally for
themselves, that is, of themselves. This is the eternal game of the
practical men. Hence it is only by accident that the separate and endowed
"thought" of professional thinkers leaks out into action and affects
custom."
Council on Foreign Relations members all claim a faith, not because they
live by the rules and guidelines that guide their faith, but because of what
they can "get out" of belonging to such a group. The adulterous liar Clinton
is a good example. Clinton used every Sunday as a photo-opportunity, while
cheating on the family that sat next to him in a house of worship. Indeed,
by "embracing" a faith, betraying that faith, yet maintaining a position of
power, and influence, in spite of doing wrong, the members of the CFR are
able to weaken and erode the beliefs of the truly faithful.
Read the article 2X2L on the Roundtable website
[http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2807/2x2l.html]. It explains
howattacking a people's faith is a psychological warfare technique used to
demoralize the "enemy."
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