Kosova's Growing War by Eric Margolis
Barry S. Marjanovich
KOSOVA'S GROWING WAR
EVEN AFTER ADMITTING ITS ERRORS IN BOSNIA, THE WORLD COMMUNITY REFUSES
TO TAKE THE FIRM ACTION THAT WOULD PREVENT THE WAR IN KOSOVA FROM
SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL AND PREVENT A BLOODBATH
By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Toronto Sun - The growing war in Kosova reached
a new level of intensity, and a new low of cynicism and hypocrisy,
this week. NATO, which had owed to prevent a repeat of Bosnia's
genocide, gave Serbia a green light to unleash a major offensive
against Albanian civilians and independence fighters.
Six months ago, after a decade of brutal repression, widespread
torture, and massive human rights violations by Serb authorities,
small bands of Albanian guerrillas, known as the Kosova Liberation
Army (KLA) begin fighting to liberate the province from brutal Serb
control.
Savage massacres and reprisals by Serb security forces caused the
tiny rebellion to spread rapidly. But neither the U.S. nor Europe
would accept independence for Kosova, though 92% of its people are
ethnic Albanians who clearly want freedom from Serb oppression.
According to the UN, Serb ethnic cleansing has turned 107,000
Albanians into refugees within Kosova over the past six months;
another 38,000 have fled to neighboring Macedonia and Albania. Thus,
12.5% of Kosova's total population is now homeless. Sources in Albania
put the total refugee figure at 250,000 and growing. That was as of
last week.
On July 5, a day after America celebrated its war of independence
from Britain, a State Department spokesman announced, with unconscious
irony, that the U.S. would not accept independence for Kosova "won by
force of arms." Don't threaten "stability" -- i.e. the status quo --
Europe and the US warned Albanians. They also cautioned Serbia not to
use force against the Albanian population, and warned air attacks
would be the response to renewed Serb ethnic cleansing.
But over the three ensuing weeks, the KLA made substantial gains,
wresting control of 40% of the region from Serb security forces.
Kosovars, outraged by Serb murder, rape and looting, flocked to join
the guerillas. The KLA obtained funds from the worldwide Albanian
diaspora, and light weapons from neighboring Albania and
Macedonia (where Albanains make up 33-40% of the population). Croatia
also provided some arms and allowed Albanian veterans of Croatia's war
of liberation from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia to go to Kosova.
NATO grew alarmed the KLA might actually succeed in liberating
Kosova. If this happened, Macedonia's Albanians could seek to join
them. Greece and Bulgaria might then go to war over disintegrating
Macedonia, a sharp bone of contention between the two old foes since
1912. The U.S. keeps a battalion of 'peacekeeeping' troops stationed
in Macedonia to guard its borders.
However, this week, Bulgaria's head of state, President Peter
Stoyanov, personally assured me his nation, which has strong historic
claims to Macedonia, had no irredentist territorial ambitions there -
even if it broke up.
No matter. Having first threatened Serbia with bombing, Washington
made a 180 degree turn, and decided the KLA was a bigger threat. The
US and Europe declared they would never accept an independent Kosova -
in effect, becoming publicly declared allies of Serbia, goal was
precisely the same. Cementing the new alliance, Washington called off
NATO's hunt for Serb war criminals in Bosnia.
The KLA had to be forced to accept a return to phony 'autonomy'
within Serbia - in other words, give up the liberation struggle and
surrender to the tender mercies of Serb rule. The plan was to have the
scholarly, ineffectual Albanian `leader' of Kosova, Ibrahim Rugova,
run a nominally autonomous government that would take orders from
Washington and Belgrade. Washington threatened to attack KLA supply
lines and choke off the flow of money from the Albanian Diaspora by
putting the KLA on its list of `terrorists.'
As before in Bosnia, the victims had become villains.
Serbia's communist ruler, Slobodan Milosevic, the man Washington once
branded a "war criminal," was encouraged by Washington to "take the
KLA down a peg," as an American diplomat nicely put it. Milosevic had
been restraining his forces, fearing air attacks by NATO.
Serb forces immediately embarked on a ferocious scorched earth
campaign, employing artillery, tank cannon and 20mm guns to destroy
Albanian villages, farms, and domestic animals across central and
southwestern Kosova. Village and after village went up in flames.
Thousands of terrified former residents cowered in fields and hills.
Guerillas of the Albanian Kosova Liberation Army were driven out of
their strongholds around Malisevo and Orahovac, suffering serious
casualties, and forced back into rough terrain. Serb mechanized forces
reopened major roads linking the Kosova capital, Prishtina, with Pec
and the southwest region along the Albanian border.
Once again, the wily Milosevic outfoxed Washington. Instead of giving
the KLA a "bloody nose" and forcing it to the negotiating table, as
Washington hoped, Milosevic's men drove 25,000 more Albanian civilians
from their homes this week, and unleashed a full-scale offensive by
the Serbian Army against the KLA. In other words, precisely the ethnic
cleansing and brutal repression seen in Bosnia that NATO vowed it
would never permit to recur in Kosova.
The Kosova Liberation Army also committed serious blunders. Its
amateur leaders mistook previous Serb military inaction for retreat.
The KLA dug in around villages and set up blocking positions along
roads. Instead of fighting a war of movement and attrition,
lightly-armed KLA units battled Serb armor and heavy artillery. When
the Serb Army was unleashed, the KLA was routed.
Guerrillas have no business fighting set-piece battles. The KLA lacks
sufficient anti-tank, ant-aircraft weapons, radios, and supplies. The
Albanian guerillas are brave, but have poor, inexperienced leadership
and, as always with Albanians, bad communications, bitter personal
rivalries, and total lack of coordination or cooperation, either
political or military.
The KLA should only be waging a hit and run war designed to disrupt
Serb road, rail, and electronic communications. The Albanian Diaspora
has ample money to hire veteran professional soldiers -- like
ex-members of Britain's elite Special Air Service. Even a handful of
such skilled warriors would be able to severely punish the Serbs, and
make their continued military occupation of Kosova prohibitively
expensive and painful. Luckily for the Serbs, Albanians are too
headstrong to take such good advice, preferring to throw away their
lives in hopeless battles, rather than fight intelligently.
Meanwhile, the neo-communist regime that now runs Albania is actually
sabotaging the KLA's efforts in Kosova, thanks to some heavy bribes
from Italy and the U.S. The Communist Party, part of Italy's governing
coalition, is financing Albanian's resurgent Stalinists, and is bent
on helping old communist Milosevic. Europe has shamefully put
Albania's pre-1992 Stalinist leaders -- at best collaborators, at
worst criminals -- back into power in the name of Balkan 'stability,'
and commercial self-interest.
All this Balkan double-dealing points to more war, increased ethnic
cleansing, and ongoing misery for the suffering people of Kosova. As
in Bosnia, the west could have snuffed out this ugly war six months
ago by decisive political and military action. Instead, the Clinton
Administration's constant changes of policy, Europe's double-dealing,
and Milosevic's relentless aggression, have turned Kosova into another
quagmire.
As in Chechnya, the U.S. is again trying to deny freedom to a small,
savagely oppressed people for the sake of the cozy status quo.
The U.S. and Europe are badly mistaken to believe they can bully
Albanians into accepting continued Serb misrule. Albanians are
backward and poor, but they are also a stubborn warrior people,
accustomed to battling against impossible odds, and afraid of no one.
They will fight on.
_________________________________________________________________
Barry S. Marjanovich
December, 1994
President Clinton's October 15th deadline to the Serbs came and went
without comment. Apparently, Clinton feels the "will and conscience of the
international community" has not been "defied" enough to use military
force that he so clearly annunciated in his inaugural address.
Instead, Clinton opted to dance to the Contact Group's tune of continuing
the arms embargo, even though it is contrary to the wish of the majority
in the American Congress.
After deviating from a just peace to just any peace, the Contact Group,
comprised of France, England and Russia, gave up all pretense of honoring
the sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Interestingly, these are the same
countries that asked United States for the tools to stop the Fascist
juggernaut during World War II, but deny the same to Bosnia.
The Contact Group, added a new dimension to the Vance-Owen plan. Aside
from placing the Bosnian Muslims into widely separated ghettos, they
shamelessly want to merge the territory seized in Croatia and Bosnia to be
contiguous with Serbia and place Sarajevo and Mostar under United Nations
control. Paradoxically, they eased sanctions on Serbia at a time the Serbs
escalated ethnic cleansing.
Since the onset of hostilities, after separating rhetoric from what has
happened on the ground, almost every Western gesture abetted the Serbian
agenda. Lord David Owen and Cyrus Vance, ingenuously fueled the conflict
and provoked the rift between the Bosnian Croats and Muslims with a
Machiavellian stroke. They bypassed Stjepan Kljuic, an elected Bosnian
Croat who espoused an indivisible Bosnia, with Mate Boban, a politician
with no legitimacy that epitomized a Croatian Bosnia merger with Croatia.
When the Yugoslav Army "withdrew" from Bosnia in May 1992 it left behind
85% of its troops and equipment to the Bosnian Serbs. The West smugly
accepted this gesture a victory of their negotiating.
The West consistently responded to the Serbian carnage in ways acceptable
to the Serbs. The UN ignore its own Resolution 836 - which reafirms full
sovereignity, territorial integrity in recognizing preexisting borders,
and mandates those displaced to return to their homes in peace. Nor did
they chastise Russia's flaunting the sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia.
According to Jane's Defence Weekly, Russia exported 4 billion dollars of
military ordinance to Yugoslavia in 1992. In January 1993 they agreed to
sell T55 tanks, anti-aircraft missiles and anti-missile missiles that have
capability of destroying targets 375 miles away.
The UN, masters at flexibility in interpreting deadlines, always gave the
benefit of a doubt to the Serbs that showed nothing but contempt for UN
Security Council resolutions, NATO intervention, and world opinion. It is
not surprising that the Serbs ignored every accord, since Western
responses signaled that they would be no intervention.
After the media started casting Serbia in a villainous role, the U.S. had
Milan Panich appointed president of Yugoslavia to blunt and relieve the
pressure on Serbia. During Panich's tenure, Serb aggression increased,
Serbs captured more territory, its airforce flew with impunity, ethnic
cleansing and concentration camps continued operating without abatement.
Panich never confronted Milosevic about the atrocities.
In the last days of Bush's administration Vance secured a promise
from Secretary Eagleburger not to allow Bosnia's President Alija
Izetbegovic, to meet with the Bush administration to present his case.
Only after the "gentlemen's agreement" became known publically,
Eagleburger allowed the meeting to take place.
Canadian General Lewis MacKenzie, while serving as the highest ranking UN
officer in Bosnia vehemently opposed flying humanitarian aid into
Sarajevo's airport and France's President Francois Mitterand's visit to
the Bosnian capital. MacKenzie persistently berated the Croatians and
Bosnian Muslims for defending themselves and wanting to take back their
homes. Later he was accused by the Bosnian government of sexually
exploiting Muslim women prisoners brought to his quarters. When he
espoused opinions to Congress, media, and think tanks he disingenuously
never mentioned he was on the payroll of SERBNET, a Serbian lobyying firm.
So much for honor.
When the initial French contingency of troops arrived in Sarajevo they
were fired upon. Without scintilla of evidence the French commander
scathingly accused the Bosnian Muslims. Later investigation revealed the
Serbs were to blame. While under the protection of the same UN troops in
the UN "protected" zone, Hakija Turajlic, Bosnia's deputy premier, was
brutally murdered by the Serbs. In another example of UN cooperating with
Serbians' ideals, Jean-Claude Concoloto, Head Liason Officer for UN
Refugees said: "...The UN were not only creating refugees but becoming a
partner in Serbia's ethnic cleansing."
Despite fulfilling every criteria of the definition for genocide,
Washington has strenuously avoided the word. The West has elected to treat
genocide with same standard it applied to Stalin's murdering over 20
million Russians, Poles, Balts, and others. It too, with time, will be
questioned if it really happened. Hitler and Stalin used identical methods
- mass murder and concentration camps - Stalin managed to kill twice as
many. Yet, Stalin sat at the negotiating table as a man of honor in much
the same way those responsible for the same sort of crimes in Bosnia now
sit.
The West should not be surprised when the next generation - if there is
one - become terrorists. Seeded by the West's failure, and despite Bosnian
Muslims being the most secularized in the Muslim world, the ghettos will
become fertile ground for Islamic fundamentalism. Muslims are painfully
aware that the West's concern for human rights is verbiage. The West,
while berating the Muslims to respect minorities, shamelessly refuses to
protect the largest Muslim community in Europe. If Christians were the
ones facing annihilation, we know in our marrow how we would react. But
Muslims are not our sort of people.
The Muslim children surviving in the twilight zone, forgotten by the rest
of the world, will not forget the 250,000 dead. Nor will they soon forget
those in the West who watched as their fathers were maimed or killed and
their mothers and sister raped. If history teaches us anything, a
settlement based on deeply felt injustices is by no means a settlement;
rather, it is the source of even bigger and wider conflict. Victims
suffer, but never from amnesia.
Jerry Blaskovich, M.D., M.A.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
kirill
>
RETARDED DRIVEL snipped
>
Poor Croatia, poor BiH. They didn't get enough, they wanted it all.
NATO support didn't achieve 100% ethnic cleansing of Serbs (except
in "Croatia" where it was 98%).
They got arms, they didn't get any sanctions for their genocide
against Serbs. Poor things, they are so deprived of what is
rightfully theirs.
What a bunch of freaking pussy whiners. Do it all yourself
you condoms instead of running to others to do it for you.
peterpan
AND WHAT YOU GOT OUT OF IT IS REPUBLIKA SMRTSKA AND REPUBLIKA RUMP (ARSE
OF A COW), SO THAT EVERY TIME YOU SEE A PRAIRIE OYSTER, KIRIL, YOU MUST
REMEMBER THAT YOU BELONG TO REPUBLIKA RUMP!
peterpan
>
> Barry S. Marjanovich wrote:
> >
> RETARDED DRIVEL snipped
> >
>
> Poor Croatia, poor BiH. They didn't get enough, they wanted it all.
> NATO support didn't achieve 100% ethnic cleansing of Serbs (except
> in "Croatia" where it was 98%).
>
> They got arms, they didn't get any sanctions for their genocide
> against Serbs. Poor things, they are so deprived of what is
> rightfully theirs.
>
> What a bunch of freaking pussy whiners. Do it all yourself
> you condoms instead of running to others to do it for you.
and republika smrtska and republika rump (arse of a cow) is all you got
you filthy uncivilized bastard
Barry S. Marjanovich
_________________________________________________________________
06 August 1998 Thursday 12 Rabi-us-Saani 1419
_________________________________________________________________
West winks at Serbian atrocities in Kosovo
By Fred Abrahams
NEW YORK: Serious human rights violations are being tolerated in
Kosovo in favour of short-term geopolitical interests in the Balkans.
Serbian police and the Yugoslav army have launched their largest
offensives to date against the ethnic Albanian uprising. They appear
to have used disproportionate force, attacking civilians and
systematically destroying villages. At least 100,000 people are
internally displaced, many hiding in canyons and forests, and 20,000
have fled the region altogether.
Despite this, NATO is now further from taking action than it was a few
months ago. The US government has expressed only mild criticism,
mostly because the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has become an annoying
threat that it could not control.
Diplomats in Kosovo are telling journalists that the West has turned a
blind eye to the abuses in order to force the KLA to the negotiating
table.
The US position is presented by Secretary of Defence William Cohen,
who recently said that NATO "does not want to see" Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic's troops attacking civilians or using
disproportionate force, but also does not want to take action that
"could be construed as lending support, either moral or military, to
those seeking independence".
Such a position spells disaster for the people in Kosovo and the
region. Mr Milosevic's troops are committing serious abuses, and there
is no indication that the atrocities will stop.
Human rights groups name five villages where summary executions have
taken place since February. Hundreds of people have been arrested and
abused; many villages have been destroyed. Many civilians must have
died from indiscriminate artillery fire.
Where is the threshold? At what point will the Clinton administration
decide that it has seen enough?
Understandably, Washington is concerned about the destabilizing
effects that an independent Kosovo might have on neighbouring
Macedonia, with its sizable ethnic Albanian population, and on the
fragile peace in Bosnia, where 20,000 US soldiers are still on the
ground. But unchecked atrocities, and the predictable KLA response,
will feed a refugee outflow that could ignite an increasingly radical
Albanian community in Macedonia.
Washington is missing the fundamental point that there will be no
stability in the Balkans as long as Mr Milosevic stays in power.
Despite past atrocities in Croatia and Bosnia, American officials
still regard him as the man who can stop the fighting. The "man with
the reins" argument was used by Richard Holbrooke when Mr Milosevic
signed the 1995 Dayton accords, which stopped the fighting in Bosnia.
But the international community's failure to punish Mr Milosevic for
crimes in Croatia and Bosnia sent the message that he would be allowed
to get away with such crimes again.
The man who started these conflicts cannot be trusted to stop them.
There will be no lasting peace as long as Yugoslavia remains an
undemocratic state with Mr Milosevic at the helm.
Even if the Albanians agree to autonomy, as the US government is
pressing them to do, there is no guarantee that Mr Milosevic would end
his repressive rule in Kosovo, or that he would not again revoke
Kosovo's status at some point in the future. An abusive government in
Belgrade will be a constant threat to the region.
The first priority for US policy should be his indictment.
A second is continued cultivation of democratic alternatives within
Serbia and Montenegro, with an emphasis on building institutions like
independent courts and de-politicized police. Independent media should
be supported.
All options for Kosovo's political status should be considered, as
long as they include guarantees for the rights of both Albanians and
Serbs.
Admittedly, strong action against Mr Milosevic is a bad message to
send to militants around the world. But equally bad is the current
message to Mr Milosevic and other aggressive dictators that their
violence will be tolerated by the international community in the name
of territorial integrity.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Garcia
fight, spying and intimidating was carried out by Nato. Poor things, the
croat-balija federation and croatia actaully think that they won some
battles.
kirill <kir...@chinook.physics.utoronto.ca> wrote in article
<35C8EB...@chinook.physics.utoronto.ca>...
Barry S. Marjanovich
**********************************************
By Eric Margolis 25 June 1998
`No second Bosnia,' solemnly chorus NATO leaders, as they watch Serb
forces in Kosova use tanks, gunships and heavy artillery to ethnically
cleanse 100,000 Albanians. `We won't tolerate it.'
Like Bosnia, the west again calls on victims of Serb savagery to `be
reasonable,' and negotiate with their tormentors. Translation:
Albanians, don't disturb us, or the status quo. Please die quietly.'
US envoy Richard Holbrooke, who colluded with Serb strongman Slobodan
Milosevic to sell out Bosnia, seems to be repeating similar double-dealing
in Kosova. Again, Washington turns to Milosevic, creator of the Balkan
bloodbath, as its silent partner. `He can deliver,' assures
realpolitik-meister Holbrooke.
Yesterday, NATO Secretary General Xavier Solana proclaimed independence
for Kosova 's Albanians - 92% of population - would NOT be tolerated.
This now makes NATO, which has been threatening to punish Serbia, a de
facto ally of Milosevic! NATO and Milosevic have identical strategy:
keep Kosova under Serb rule.
Completing this fiesta of duplicity and hypocrisy, Canada and France
sanctimoniously announced they would agree to military action to stop
the slaughter in Kosova ONLY if authorized by the UN Security Council.
Both alliance weak sisters are clearly counting on Russia, Serbia's ally,
to veto any resolution calling for force.
France is historically pro-Serb. Canada pretends to be part of NATO,
but has resorted to smary subterfuges to avoid ,or delay, any actual
military action in Kosova. Ottawa is repeating its disgraceful behavior
in Bosnia, when it single - handedly vetoed air attacks by NATO - which
could have saved tens of thousands civilian lives - preposterously
claiming armed intervention would `endanger' peacekeeping. Canada got
peace, all right, a peace of the dead.
More deja vu. As divided NATO debates military strikes, critics
assert stopping ethnic cleansing in Kosova will require `hundreds of
thousands of troops.' Serb anti-aircraft defenses are deadly; Serbs will
fight ferociously; you can't fight in mountains. You can't win a war from
the air!
We heard exactly the same nonsense in Bosnia. Remember claims by
pro-Serb general, Lewis Mackenzie, that stopping the war in Bosnia would
require hundreds of thousands of troops? Warnings Bosnia would become
Vietnam II?
It took only a few days of precision air strikes to stop the Serbs, and
end their massacres. The same applies to Kosova. If NATO really wants
to stop war and ethnic cleansing, then it should:
* Destroy Serb's 70's vintage Soviet AA missile systems and radars using
cluster-warhead Tomahawk land-attack missiles, showers of HARM
anti-radiation misisiles, jamming and information warfare to wreck enemy
computer systems. The F-117 Stealth fighter is designed for this job.
Use it.
* Take out Serb communications networks and command headquaretrs(C3).
Destruction of Serb commo in Bosnia proved decisive.
* Attack all major concentrations of armor, artillery, armored vehicles,
and their logistic trains, using wide-area cluster munitions and ATACMS
and MLRS rocket batteries firing from northern Albania. They proved
devastating against Iraqi vehicles and guns in the Gulf War. Destroy
Serb munitions depots.
* Use missile and air strikes to cripple Serbia's 150-warplane air force,
all but 15 of which are obsolete, and to crater runways.
If Serbia still refuses to halt the Kosova slaughter: shut Serbia's sole
egress to the sea through Montenegro; cut off its oil; bomb power plants,
as in Iraq; destroy key rail and road bridges.
NATO does not lack targets, or ways of forcing Serbia into civilized
behavior - only the political will, and courage.
Milosevic is a brilliant man - until it comes to his murderous,
self-serving nationalism. He has played on NATO's using Mao's strategy:
`the enemy advances, we retreat; he retreats, we advance.' But he can't
retreat too far over Kosova: as a dictator, his prestige - and thus power
- are at stake.
Defeat in Kosova would mean the end of Milosevic and his Yugo-nazis.
NATO should think hard about this.
Copyright eric margolis 1998
==============================================================================
Barry S. Marjanovich
An American physician's first-hand encounter with the realities of the war
in Croatia.
ISBN 0-935016-24-4, New York; Dunhill Publishing: 1997. Hard cover $22.95.
Publish date: March, 1997
Reviewed by C. MICHAEL MCADAMS
University of San Francisco
Dr. Jerry Blaskovich is a physician at the University of Southern
California. Although he is a Croatian-American who studied medicine at the
University of Zagreb in the 1960s, he considered himself to be apolitical
and most of his information about events in the former Yugoslavia came
from newspapers, magazines and the electronic media. Like most Americans,
he believed that the news media was generally fair and accurate in
reporting events around the world. He was thus unprepared for the
magnitude and savagery of the Yugoslav People's Army attack on unarmed and
unprepared Croatia in 1991. In forty-four hours he was transformed from a
comfortable southern California dermatologist to a front-line combat
pathologist and criminal medical examiner. That transformation is
recounted in the first chapter of ANATOMY OF DECEIT titled "My rude
awakening: December 15, 1991." Blaskovich went to Croatia looking for
evidence of poison gas attacks. He found none. What he did find,
widespread massacres, mutilation, and murder, bothered him more.
Some parts of this book will no doubt bother many readers, less for the
gruesome subject matter than the coldly clinical descriptions that only a
trained medical professional can give. With him at the site of a
particularly horrible massacre was U.S. Congressman McCloskey who became
one of the first and most vocal critics of the Serbian aggression against
Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia. Blaskovich's details come not from research
or rumor, but from first hand experience. One entire chapter is dedicated
to postmortems on the victims of that aggression. Many of the conclusions
about genocide and mass murder that were reached in the early 1990s by
Blaskovich are only now being confirmed by the United Nations and other
authorities.
He recounted the heroics of the devastation of the city of Osijek and the
complete destruction of Vukovar. Osijek's main hospital was 80% destroyed
by rockets and heavy artillery, yet treated 4,545 war victims between May
2, 1991 and November 1, 1992 in addition to such "mundane diseases like
heart attacks, ulcers or diabetes." During the siege of Vukovar, 1,500
ill-equipped untrained Croatian defenders held off 25,000 Serbs with
tanks, artillery and aircraft. Only after the Croatians ran out of
ammunition did Vukovar fall.
Blaskovich recounted the story of one of the war's real heros. Dr. Vesna
Bosanac who kept the Vukovar hospital open and operational through the
siege without electricity and under constant bombing. During October 1991,
the staff of Vukovar Hospital performed almost one thousand surgeries in
three unheated underground operating theaters. When Vukovar fell Dr.
Bosanac was arrested and sent to a Serb concentration camp. Her 259
surviving patients were tortured and executed. Only in late 1996 was the
massacre and mass burial confirmed by the United Nations.
Upon his return to America, Blaskovich attempted to set the record
straight in speeches and lectures. He returned to Croatia frequently to
lead other examiners and to get updated information and visited hospitals
throughout Croatia. Despite the obvious aggression against Croatia and
Bosnia, Blaskovich soon learned that much of what was reported in the
Western press was based upon the legend-induced paranoia of the Serbs and
the body of mythology that they had created about Croatia.
He explores the Serbs' morbid fascination and obsession with history,
usually more in legend than in fact. The history of Croatia, the
development of the Krajina region, World War II, the postwar massacres of
non-Serbs, and the Serbian use of propaganda to pull Jews and Israel
toward the Serbian position are also described.
Augmenting his personal experinces, Blaskovich presents a precise
chronology of the post World War II era and the events that took place in
the former Yugoslavia that led to its disintegration. The role of the Bush
administration and Secretary of State "Lawrence of Serbia" Eagleburger
makes it clear that the United States invited war when it abandoned the
linchpin of US policy, destabilization of communism, because of an
inordinate devotion to geopolitical stability. The Bush administration was
willing to abandon democracy, free elections and human rights under the
Serbian dictator Milosevic in order to insure stability in a centralized,
communist Yugoslavia.
As American foreign policy fueled the fighting spirits of the Serbs,
Germany, for the first time in the postwar era, stepped in to fill the
leadership vaccum caused by Western, European Community, and United
Nations inaction. Contrary to the most recent mythology, it was not the
strong will of NATO that finally brought Serbia to the negotiating table.
The swift-moving Croatian Army had driven Serbian forces from 90% of the
occupied Croatian territories and was in a position to do the same in
Bosnia in late 1995. After four years of attempting to conquer all of
Bosnia, Milosevic was suddenly willing to settle for one-half of Bosnia as
a reward for aggression. The Clinton administration was happy to oblige as
long as it could maintain that in fact Bosnia had been saved in a foreign
policy coup. The Dayton Partition may well insure instability and warfare
in the region well into the next century.
When Croatia took its first steps toward independence, it was not prepared
on the battlefield or in the press and lost badly on both fronts. The
Croatian government not only had no organized press liason, but many
Croatian officials were openly untrusting of the media, often with good
cause. HINA, the official news agency, was looked upon by many in the
Western press as self-serving and lacking in credibility. When North
American exile organizations attempted to come to the public relations
rescue, squabbles broke out within the Croatian exile community over
direction and connections to the Croatian government.
Virtually all Serbs of any generation, either in Serbia or abroad,
consider themselves to be, first and foremost, Serbian. Croatians in
Australia, Canada and the United States arrived in many waves over a
century and a half. Many considered themselves to be simply "Slavs" or
even "Austrian" since their parents entered the country with an Austrian
passport. Post World War II immigrants might consider themselves to be
Croatian although to choose that label was "proof" of fascist leanings
under communism.
Many Croatians chose the term "Yugoslav" which was politically correct and
often reflected the legitimate desire of many Croatians to live in peace
with her "Yugoslav" neighbors. Gaining the support of these diverse
factions proved nearly impossible for Croatia while Serbs throughout the
world stood as one in support of Serbia.
One group of Croatians, from Croatia and abroad, became "leaders by
default". Lawyers, politicians, military and police officials could not
always be trusted by the new government as all were former communists. But
physicians were considered neutral and apolitical. Croatia sent doctors to
high diplomatic posts around the world and the Croatian Minister of Health
Dr. Andrija Hebrang organized a state medical infrastructure to handle
mounting casualties. Again, because of the Serbian domination of communist
Yugoslavia, only 17 of 500 military surgeons were Croatians. Few had any
training in war trauma.
Having explored the causes and results of the war, Blaskovich explores the
role of the Western media in aiding and abetting Serbian aggression with
specific examples of half-truths and outright lies that passed for "news"
throughout most of the war. Today, no less than yesterday or a decade ago,
truth is the first casualty of war. Blaskovich confronts the myths that
were created by a largely uneducated (about Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia)
media with the reality that only one with first-hand experience could
know.
Unlike so many books that have been written over the past five years about
the war in the former Yugoslavia, ANATOMY OF DECEIT is not the work of an
armchair "expert" or that of a journalist-turned-historian who paid a
brief visit to the region. ANATOMY OF DECEIT is the product of a lifetime
of education, a knowledge of the language and cultures of Croatia and
Bosnia, and the product of one who has been on the front lines, in refugee
camps, in the hospitals, and in the morgues and makeshift burial grounds.
His story is at once informative, sickening, and riveting. It is a true
personal chronicle of one man's transformation and the world's
transformation into the grim realities of the "New World Order."
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Barry S. Marjanovich
by Dr. Philip J. Cohen delivered to Bill Clinton on Dec. 17, 1992:
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It is abundantly clear that Serbia and Serbian forces bear the
overwhelming responsibility for the violence and atrocities which have
characterized this one-sided aggression.
This war could have been prevented if the international community from
the beginning had given clear support to the aspiring democracies, rather
than favoring the communist regime, which sought to repress them.
Instead, incompetent international maneuvering by the EC and the US has
had the net effect of encouraging Serbian aggression and weakening
Serbia's victims.
By freezing the military imbalance in favor of the aggressor,
the ill-conceived arms embargo imposed on all of what was once
Yugoslavia undoubtedly has had its greatest impact on Serbia's victims,
Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Most incomprehensibly, the embargo has been retained on the victims,
even after their independence and sovereignty was internationally recognized,
in mockery of the UN charter.
The slow and ineffectual response to Serbia's aggression, coming only
months after the highly coordinated response to Iraq's aggression, has
mocked the concept of a New World Order in which "aggression will not
stand." Thus, the Islamic world, horrified by the systematic
extermination and expulsion of Bosnian Muslims under the watch of the US,
EC, and UN, finds itself skeptical of Western principles of justice.
The challenge remains to stop Serbia's aggression to prevent a larger
international conflict and to affirm the West's commitment to the rule of
international law.
Former Yugoslavia is not Vietnam, not Lebanon, not Northern Ireland.
The more appropriate analogy is Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein: a ruthless
aggressor is seeking territorial aggrandizement and employing genocide to
accomplish its end.
The crisis in former Yugoslavia has epitomized the choice between the
paths of Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill. The Churchillian path
has thus far been avoided, to the disgrace and shame of those who have
presumed to lead.
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peterpan
SERB ECONOMY STAYS AFLOAT WITH THE HELP OF CRIMINAL NETWORK:
GANGS OF SMUGGLERS, THIEVES ROAM EUROPE, KEEPING SHOPS IN BELGRADE FULL:
A SOURCE OF HARD CURRENCYby Roger Thurow
/Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal/
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- The Serbs, it would seem, have pulled off the
economic miracle of the ages.
Inflation, which at the beginning of the year was doubling every
several hours, is now down next to nothing. The dinar, as worthless
as old gum wrappers a few months ago, is now pegged by the government
to equal the German mark. And stores, once barren, now offer a
dazzling array of imports, from Pampers to Air Jordans. All this
in a country supposedly ravaged by three years of war in neighboring
Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and an international trade embargo.
"How do we do it?" asks the Yugoslav central bank director, Dragoslav
Avramovic. "It's 90 percent luck, 10 percent wits."
And a whole lot of help from an international criminal underworld.
ARMY OF PICKPOCKETSAlthough the government has restrained spending and
stopped
round-the-clock printing of money, its newfound fiscal discipline
is being propped up by a veritable army of pickpockets, drug dealers,
smugglers, extortionists and gangsters at work throughout Europe.
In essence, the gangs generate the cash and commodities needed
to keep this Serb-dominated country and its war effort in Bosniaafloat.
The thievery and scams provide a constant flow of foreign
currency into the country that is vital to the government's effort
to support the dinar. And the smuggling of everything from
oil and weapons to cigarettes and pork chops has relieved the
government of having to finance sanctions-busting imports, an
activity that originally helped pusah inflation to dizzyingheights.
All of this has, up to now, blunted the sting of United Nations
sanctions and created an illusion of plenty in an otherwise
impoverished land, allowing President Slobodan Milosevic to
stave off social unrest and remain all-powerful despite
deafening international condemnation.
Government ministers indignantly reject the suspicions of
Western police and diplomats that the government is in cahoots
with the criminals, who the ministers say are controlled by
paramilitary leaders or mobsters. Mirko Marjanovic, the new
prime minister. says he is a crusader against what he calls
"war profiteers." Yet as he speaks, he proudly offers a visitor
smuggled Kent cigarettes and his secretary pours a glass of
scotch. "Twelve-year-old Chivas Regal," Mr Marjanovic says.
"You can buy it here in the stores."SUBVERSIVE LEGACY
The emergence of a criminal underworld, allegedly operating
at least tacitly in tandem with the government, is one of
the more subversive legacies of the war over the breakup of
Yugoslavia, which now consists only of Serbia and its smaller
ally, Montenegro. (Several other republics, including Croatia
and Bosnia have declared independence.)
European law-enforcement officers worry that Yugoslavia
may remain a haven for the underworld long after the war is
over. They say that the country, starved for foreign currency,
has become a handy laundromat for "dirty" money from criminals
throughout Europe. And, they add, rampant smuggling also has
become an attractive cover for drug traffic moving from Turkey
and the Middle East into Europe.
In Vienna, for instance, Austrian police and Interpol agents
recently announced the arrests of 35 Yugoslavs who, they claim,
are part of a Europe-wide "currency creation scheme" that
employs pickpockets and petty thieves to steal cash, traveler's
checks and credit cards and to rob banks and houses. In Austria
alone, they reckon, the ring has accumulated more than $10 million
in cash. And with Austria being the smallest country stung by the
scam, investigators say the total -- including loot from Italy,
France and Germany -- is much higher.
The police are still following the money trail, but they believe
the cash is either taken directly to Belgrade or used to buy goods
that are smuggled into Yugoslavia. The arrested Yugoslavs, who
would from time to time retreat to Belgrade when the police trail
in Western Europe got too hot, "couldn't eat or drink all the money
themselves," says Walter Pretzner, director of the organized-crime
division of the Austrian police. "It's a huge money siphon and
there's no money there. So you ask yourself, what happened to it?
Where did it all go?"
If not Belgrade, then, most likely to Timisoara, Romania. This
ancient and decrepit city near the Serbian border is now a center
of sanctions-busting. It is teeming with Serbs, smugglers and
shadowy businesses run by, among other characters, former officers
of Romania's Securitate, the dreaded security force of executed
dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
Piles of money, rarely seen in Romania, are now appearing as if
by magic. One day last August, a Syrian businessman whose company
reportedly trades with Serbia walked into a Timisoara bank carrying
two leather briefcases stuffed with 800,000 marks in cash (about
$500,000 under current exchange rates). The next day he returned
with two bodyguards and $1 million in U.S. dollars.
The 30-mile stretch between Timisoara (pronouced Ti-mee-SCHWAR-a)
and the Serbian border is a porous crossing where, smugglers say,
Romanian and Serbian customs agents are easily bribed and
sanctions-monitors appear only sporadically. It is there that
everything from guns to glass makes its way to and from Yugoslavia
in violation of the two-year old U.N. embargo, which bans all trade
except for medicine, food and humanitarian aid. Highway E70 has
also become an oil and gasoline pipeline.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
More recently, on 11 April 1995, the United Nations announced that
Russian
Major General Alexander Perelyakin had been dismissed from his post as a
UN
peacekeeping commander in a Serbian-held sector of Croatia.(128)
Perelyakin's dismissal followed continuing complaints from a Belgian
battalion under his "Sector East" command, which also contained a
Russian
battalion. The complaints centered on Russian smuggling, profiteering,
corruption, negligence, and collaboration with local Serb militias. A
former
Russian commander of the sector, Colonel Viktor Loginov, remained in the
area and formed a "trading company" with a Serbian paramilitary leader
there.(129) This is a pattern familiar in other areas of Russian
military
deployment abroad.
http://leav-www.army.mil/fmso/fmsopubs/issues/mafia.htm
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