Article originally published in the New English Review
By Ares Demertzis (Feb. 2009)
I: A Brief Synopsis.
- Part 1:
- (i) Covert Exploits; Encouraging Islamic Jihad.
- (ii) Catholic Croatia; Operation Storm.
- (iii) Rambouillet
- Part 2:
- (iv) The “Air Campaign.”
- (v) The Catholic Croatians.
- (vi) The Muslims
- Part 3:
- (vii) Genocide
- (viii) Disinformation & Misinformation.
- (ix) The Breadline Massacre, The Market Massacres & Racak
- Part 4:
- (x) Iconic Images.
- (xi) On Trial.
- (xii) Follow the Money
II: Links, plus
- Czechoslovak Documentary (Video):
- “Stolen Kosovo.”
- International Criminal Tribunal (Video):
- “Milosevic On Trial.”
- “The Hague Tribunal”
- “Slobodan Milosevic vs. New World Order”
“The breakup of Yugoslavia provided the fodder for what may have been the most misrepresented series of major events over the past twenty years. The journalistic and historical narratives that were imposed upon these wars have systematically distorted their nature, and were deeply prejudicial, downplaying the external factors that drove Yugoslavia’s breakup while selectively exaggerating and misrepresenting the internal factors.
Perhaps no civil wars…have ever been harvested as cynically by foreign powers to establish legal precedents and new categories of international duties and norms. Nor have any other civil wars been turned into such a proving ground for the related notions of “humanitarian intervention” and the “right (or responsibility) to protect.”
Yugoslavia’s conflicts were not so much mediated by foreign powers as they were inflamed and exploited by them to advance policy goals. The result was a tsunami of lies and misrepresentations in whose wake the world is still reeling.”
–Edward S. Herman and David Peterson
I: A BRIEF SYNOPSIS.
(Note: For those readers who entertain a certain confusion concerning the adversaries in the Yugoslav conflict, encouraged in large measure by a media reluctant to explicitly identify the contenders for reasons not relevant to this paper, be advised that references to “Kosovo,” or “Kosovar,” signifies Muslims, and “Croat” or “Croatian,” Roman Catholics – unless preceded by “Serb,” or the individual designation “Serb,” which in all cases connotes Orthodox Christians).
(i) Covert Exploits; Encouraging Islamic Jihad.
I suspect that when historians analyze the successful revival of Islam in the twentieth century, they will without doubt harshly judge the enigmatic contribution of three recent Presidents of the United States who have emerged as unexpected supporters of a Muslim ideology dedicated to the annihilation of a despised Western civilization, thereby accommodating the consequent universal supremacy of Islam. The most respected and venerated Muslim political and religious leaders publicly express a Global Caliphate as their goal; Western governments and the accredited media paradoxically encourage their success. The twenty-first century may well evolve into the much dreaded, tyrannical “Muslim Century.”
One of those injudicious American supporters of supremacist Islamic ideologues is President Jimmy Carter, who was reportedly considered the worst President of the United States until George Walker Bush seriously disputed the title. It was Jimmy who allowed the overthrow of a Westernized Iranian regime because he felt uncomfortable that the Shah was a dictator, replacing him with a man of faith in whom he could deposit his confidence – the Ayatollah Khomeini, who promptly instituted an oppressive, authoritarian anti-American Islamic theocracy.
The second President was William Clinton who instigated a clandestine undertaking against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia although there was no national security threat – not even the vituperative, pernicious rhetoric of loutish, braggart bluffers such as Kim Jong-il, Castro, Ahmadinejad, Chavez, or Saddam. Clinton´s imprudent exploit was in violation of the United Nations Charter which provides for non-interference in the internal affairs of member states and obliges respect for each other’s sovereignty, political independence, and territorial integrity. George W. Bush enjoyed more international authority, granted by the United Nations, for his invasion of Iraq and subsequent annihilation of Saddam Hussein. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights accuse the United States, and consequently the Clinton Administration of violating international law. Furthermore, Clinton´s illegal and imprudent hostile undertaking, conceived with calculated and premeditated deliberation, irresponsibly provided Islam with a Muslim state in the heart of Europe, strategically poised for the projected creation of what Bat Ye’or incisively described as “Eurabia.”
BBC Online, July 6, 1999: “President Clinton has authorised an all-out campaign to topple Slobodan Milosevic, according to sources close to the US Government. Earlier this spring, Mr. Clinton signed a secret presidential ‘finding’ giving the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) the green light to try to bring down the Yugoslav president, said sources quoted in the US news-magazine Time.”
The Observer (U.K.), March 11, 2001: “The United States secretly supported the ethnic Albanian (Muslim) extremists now behind insurgencies in Macedonia and southern Serbia. The CIA encouraged former Kosovo Liberation (Muslim) Army (KLA) fighters to launch a rebellion in southern Serbia in an effort to undermine the then Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, according to senior European officers who served with the international peace-keeping force in Kosovo (K-For), as well as leading Macedonian and US sources…European officers are furious that the Americans have allowed guerrilla armies in its sector to train, smuggle arms, and launch attacks across two international borders.”
“One European K-For battalion commander told The Observer yesterday: “The CIA has been allowed to run riot in Kosovo with a private army designed to overthrow Slobodan Milosevic. Now he’s gone the US State Department seems incapable of reining in its bastard army.” He added: “Most of last year, there was a growing frustration with US support for the radical (Muslim) Albanians.”
Republican Policy Committee (RPC) of the U.S. Senate, March 31, 1999: “… the (Muslim) KLA is closely involved with Terrorist organizations motivated by the ideology of radical Islam, including assets of Iran and of the notorious Osama bin-Ladin.”
Washington Post, Sept 22, 1996. Congressional Press Release: “(The) Republican Party Committee (RPC) accused the Clinton administration of having “helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base” leading to the recruitment through the so-called “Militant Islamic Network,” of thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim world”
“Perhaps most threatening…is the unwillingness of the Clinton Administration to come clean with the Congress and with the American people about its complicity in the delivery of weapons from Iran to the Muslim government in Sarajevo. That policy, personally approved by Bill Clinton in April 1994 at the urging of CIA Director-designate (and then-NSC chief) Anthony Lake and the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, has, according to the Los Angeles Times (citing classified intelligence community sources), “played a central role in the dramatic increase in Iranian influence in Bosnia.”
“Further, according to the Times, in September 1996 National Security Agency analysts contradicted Clinton Administration claims of declining Iranian influence…it is irresponsible in the extreme for the Clinton Administration to gloss over the extent to which its policies have put American personnel in an increasingly vulnerable position while performing an increasingly questionable mission. In short, the Clinton Administration’s policy of facilitating the delivery of arms to the Bosnian Muslims made it the de facto partner of an ongoing international network of governments and organizations pursuing their own agenda in Bosnia: the promotion of Islamic revolution in Europe.”
“The Administration repeatedly deceived the American people about its Iranian green light policy…two Clinton Administration officials bear particular responsibility: Ambassador Galbraith and then-NSC Director Anthony Lake, against both of whom the House of Representatives has referred criminal charges to the Justice Department. Mr. Lake, who personally presented the proposal to Bill Clinton for approval, “played a central role in preventing the responsible congressional committees from knowing about the Administration’s fateful decision to acquiesce in radical Islamic Iran’s effort to penetrate the European continent through arms shipments and military cooperation…There is evidence that Ambassador Galbraith may have engaged in activities that could be characterized as unauthorized covert action.” –Republican Policy Committee report (1997)
BBC Video: “The scope of these activities included bugging UN Commanders and diplomats.”
Former UN Commander in Bosnia General Sir Michael Rose was aware that the Americans were secretly bugging his office. “We were always very careful in what we said in that office. And if we did say something, it was with deliberate intent.” Two Clinton Administration officials bear particular responsibility: Ambassador Galbraith and then-NSC Director Anthony Lake, against both of whom the House of Representatives has referred criminal charges to the Justice Department.”
“Senior European negotiators believe that with US backing, the war could have ended two years earlier, but US desire to see the (Orthodox Christian) Serbs punished meant that they instead encouraged the (Muslim) Bosnian Government to continue fighting.”
“The price in human terms? Over 15,000 dead and nearly 600,000 refugees.”
”For some time it has been an open secret that the American government planned and initiated a confrontational strategy aimed at dismembering Yugoslavia, the only state in the Balkans that had failed to acquiesce to United States pressure in the headlong rush to extend Western domination to the borders of Russia.”
The Guardian (U.K.) April 22, 2002: “The official Dutch inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, released last week, contains one of the most sensational reports on western intelligence ever published. Officials have been staggered by its findings and the Dutch government has resigned.”
“One of its many volumes is devoted to clandestine activities during the Bosnian war of the early 1990s. His findings are set out in “Intelligence and the war in Bosnia, 1992-1995.” It includes remarkable material on covert operations, signals interception, human agents and double-crossing by dozens of agencies in one of dirtiest wars of the new world disorder. Now we have the full story of the secret alliance between the Pentagon and radical Islamist groups from the Middle East designed to assist the Bosnian Muslims – some of the same groups that the Pentagon is now fighting in “the war against terrorism”.
“In the 1980s Washington’s secret services had assisted Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran. Then, in 1990, the US fought him in the Gulf. In both Afghanistan and the Gulf, the Pentagon had incurred debts to Islamist groups and their Middle Eastern sponsors. By 1993 these groups, many supported by Iran and Saudi Arabia, were anxious to help Bosnian Muslims fighting in the former Yugoslavia and called in their debts with the Americans.”
“Bill Clinton and the Pentagon were keen to be seen as creditworthy and repaid in the form of an Iran-Contra style operation – in flagrant violation of the UN Security Council arms embargo against all combatants in the former Yugoslavia.”
“The result was a vast secret conduit of weapons smuggling though Croatia. This was arranged by the clandestine agencies of the US, Turkey and Iran, together with a range of radical Islamist groups, including Afghan mojahedin and the pro-Iranian Hizbullah.”
“Rather than the CIA, the Pentagon’s own secret service was the hidden force behind these operations. The UN protection force, UNPROFOR, was dependent on its troop-contributing nations for intelligence, and above all on the sophisticated monitoring capabilities of the US to police the arms embargo. This gave the Pentagon the ability to manipulate the embargo at will: ensuring that American AWACS aircraft covered crucial areas and were able to turn a blind eye to the frequent nighttime comings and goings at Tuzla.”
Weapons flown in during the spring of 1995 were to turn up only a fortnight later in the besieged and demilitarised enclave at Srebrenica. When these shipments were noticed, Americans pressured UNPROFOR to rewrite reports, and when Norwegian officials protested about the flights, they were reportedly threatened into silence.”
It is an uncomfortable experience to watch videos of the Kosovo Liberation (Muslim) Army (KLA) soldiers parading while singing in Arabic the U.S. Marine marching songs they were taught by their American military instructors. We can expect in future armed conflicts with Islam that these mujahedeen will see to it that this effective and costly training facilitates the premature return of American military personnel to the “green, green grass of home.” In body bags.
In the “Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States” (W.W. Norton & Co. 2004), at least two of the 9/11 terrorists Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar, had fought as mujahedeen in Bosnia. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the “mastermind of the planes operation,” had also participated in the Bosnian Islamic jihad.
Unreported by America´s elite media which consistently shielded the Clinton Administration from negative reporting (excluding the internet), was that President Clinton had secretly armed and trained Muslim mujahedeen in Yugoslavia with the deliberate intent of provoking a civil war that would splinter Yugoslavia into geographically smaller, politically less significant, more manageable, independent states; in the process overthrowing (Serb) President Slobodan Milosevic whose government was clinging to what was considered by the United States as an obsolete socialist economic doctrine.
When the mujahedeen proved unable to effectively complete their mission, impeded by an unexpectedly effective Yugoslav government (Serb) military response (cleverly promoted by the West as “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” of non-Serbs), the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, and the indispensable regime change required the support of a major, albeit overt U.S. intervention. This arrived in the form of a brutally lethal bombing campaign that included disinformation as an essential component to validate the military assault against a sovereign state accredited with international legitimacy.
Also see: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/KLA-drugs.html
http://www.brasscheck.com/yugoslavia/directory/62399a.html
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=7042
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/10/terrorism.politics
(ii) Catholic Croatia; Operation Storm.
Proof of Milosevic´s intent to ethnically cleanse non-Serbs is contained in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) “Milosevic Trial Transcript” of February 12, 2002. Prosecutor Geoffrey Nice told the court that Milosevic “had broken the taboo of (Tito) against invoking nationalism by saying: “No one should beat you,” to the (Orthodox Christian) Serbs gathered at the Hall of Culture in Pristina in April 1987.
My interpretation of Milosevic´s admonition to his Serb audience is that it was a reference to the Croatian Holocaust (see section (v) below) rather than its opportunistic and expedient interpretation by Prosecutor Nice as a call to genocide.
In the same transcript referred to above, on June 26, 2003, the (Catholic) Croatian President, Franjo Tudjman is quoted as having instructed his generals to “inflict such a blow on the Serbs that they should virtually disappear.” Days after this exhortation, “Operation Storm,” a clandestine American supported military maneuver virtually eliminated the presence of 200,000 Serbian civilians, a majority population in the Croatian province of Krajina.
It is estimated that more civilians were killed in Krajina than Srebrenica, but this consequence was virtually ignored by the Western media and never regarded, as was Srebrenica, a genocide.
“More than two hundred thousand Serbs, virtually the entire population of Krajina, fled their homes, and 14,000 Serbian civilians lost their lives…According to a UN official, “Almost the only people remaining were the dead and the dying”…The roads were clogged with refugees, and Croatian aircraft bombed and strafed refugee columns…A UN spokesman said, “The windows of almost every vehicle were smashed and almost every person was bleeding from being hit by some object.” Serbian refugees were pulled from their vehicles and beaten. Bosnian Muslim troops crossed the border and cut off Serbian escape routes. Trapped refugees were massacred as they were pounded by Croatian and Muslim artillery. Nearly 1,700 refugees simply vanished. While Croatian and Muslim troops burned Serbian villages, President Clinton expressed his understanding for the invasion, and Warren Christopher said events “could work to our advantage.”
“Croatian assembly deputy Mate Mestrovic also claimed that the “United States gave us the green light to do whatever had to be done.”
Newsweek, August 21, 2001: “Americans in military uniform, operating from a cream-colored trailer near the runway, directed the GNAT-750 drone to photograph Serb troop positions and weapons emplacements. The images were transmitted back to base, analyzed and then passed on to the Pentagon. According to top Croat intelligence officials, copies were also sent to the headquarters of the Croatian general in command of “Operation Storm (Ante Gotovina).”
“Now a Newsweek investigation has shown that U.S. intelligence cooperation with Croatia went far deeper than Washington has ever acknowledged. According to Miro Tudjman, son of the late president Franjo Tudjman and head of the Croatian counterpart to the CIA in the mid-1990s, the United States provided encryption gear to each of Croatia’s regular Army brigades. He says the CIA also spent at least $10 million on Croatian listening posts to intercept telephone calls in Bosnia and Serbia. “All our [electronic] intelligence in Croatia went online in real time to the National Security Agency in Washington,” says Tudjman. “We had a de facto partnership.”
“Last month prosecutors (at The Hague Tribunal) announced the indictment of General Gotovina for atrocities committed during and after Operation Storm, including the murder of 150 Krajina Serbs, the forced displacement of as many as 200,000 others and the torching of thousands of homes. Yet he has refused to surrender to the tribunal, complaining that he would have to spend years in jail awaiting trial. Gotovina’s Chicago-based lawyer, Luka Misetic, argues that…”He was in the chain of command, but there was this other set of eyes and ears watching this operation,” says Misetic. “No one there [in the CIA] saw there was a problem with war crimes or a crime against humanity.” Neither did the pleased officers at the Pentagon, nor a comfortable President Clinton at the White House, all observing the slaughter relayed to them by the GNAT-750 in real time.
“I always said that the only people in Croatia who know everything are the Americans,” says Markica Rebic, the former head of military intelligence. When Gotovina stands trial, some of those Americans may be asked to testify about their country’s role in an ugly conflict.
HRVATSKI SVJETSKI KONGRES (CROATIAN WORLD CONGRESS)
PRESS RELEASE CONTACT: PROF. DR. SIMUN SITO CORIC
+41-32-62-19202. THE HAGUE JULY 4, 2002:
“The Croatian World Congress today submitted to Carla Del Ponte, Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, a formal request to open a criminal investigation against senior U.S. officials for aiding and abetting indicted Croatian General Ante Gotovina in a 1995 Croatian military operation known as “Operation Storm.”
“Specifically named in the complaint are former President William Jefferson Clinton, former National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, former Deputy National Security Advisor Samuel Berger, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith.”
“The complaint filed today alleges that the US officials aided Gen. Gotovina and the Croatian Army in Operation Storm by violating a UN arms embargo and allowing Croatia to obtain weapons.”
“Furthermore, the US officials established a CIA base inside of Gen. Gotovina’s military base which provided the US officials with real-time video footage of events transpiring on the ground during Operation Storm (and thus imputing to them knowledge of events on the ground), but also from which they could provide such intelligence data to General Gotovina to assist him in conducting Operation Storm.”
“If General Gotovina carried out a pre-planned campaign to deport 150,000 to 200,000 Croatian Serb civilians, then the CIA base was not only used to provide knowledge to US officials of such a plan and course of conduct on the part of General Gotovina, but was also used to assist General Gotovina in achieving the goals of his alleged plan.”
“The US officials gave the green light for the Operation and provided diplomatic and political support for it. The US officials at all times had the ability to halt the military operation.”
“Accordingly, the US officials named in the complaint should be indicted for having aided and abetted General Gotovina. The Croatian World Congress reiterates, however, that it believes the most just outcome would be to withdraw the indictment against General Gotovina.”
Washington Post, September 21, 2005: “The chief prosecutor for the U.N. tribunal for Balkans war crimes has said that a Roman Catholic monastery in Croatia is sheltering a fugitive Croatian general (Ante Gotovina) charged with atrocities against Serb civilians and that the Vatican has refused pleas to help find him. Carla Del Ponte of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia told Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper that…”he is accused of overseeing the murders of at least 150 Serbs and the forced expulsion of tens of thousands near the end of the 1991-95 civil war.”
“Del Ponte said…”I have taken this up with the Vatican and the Vatican refuses totally to cooperate with us…The Catholic Church is protecting him. Del Ponte told the British daily that she visited the Vatican this summer and asked the foreign minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, for help in flushing Gotovina out of one of 80 monasteries in Croatia where he might be hiding. “Msgr. Lajolo said to me: ‘Let me know in which monastery Gotovina is hiding,’ “Del Ponte said in the Daily Telegraph interview. “I said, if I knew, I would not be here in Rome.”
“Del Ponte said Vatican officials “said they have no intelligence, and I don’t believe that,” adding that she believes the Vatican could find Gotovina “in a few days” if it chose to.”
Balkan Insight, June 24, 2008: “A former US ambassador to (Catholic) Croatia has accused Zagreb of plotting and sanctioning the exodus of (Orthodox Christian) Serbs in 1995 to create an “ethnically clean” country. Peter Galbraith told The Hague war crimes trial of three Croatian generals, that the leadership headed by late President Franjo Tudjman used ‘Operation Storm’ to ‘cleanse’ Croatia of Serbs.”
“Croatian authorities either ordered or allowed a mass destruction of the Serb property in former (Serb-held region of) Krajina to prevent the return of the population. I consider that to have been a thought through policy. His testimony came as a surprise, since when he testified at the trial of late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2003, Galbraith said Croatia was not responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Serbs.”
“On Monday he said he was sorry for saying that because it was understood as his justification for the Croatian army’s actions, which had not been his intention.”
Amnesty International: “…regarding the killings which took place after Operation Storm, it is important to note other human rights violations which took place at the time. Some of the (Serb) women who remained behind, including the elderly, were raped by Croatian soldiers, police or uncontrolled civilians.”
“The widespread and deliberate destruction of (Serb) houses and other buildings throughout the Krajina is the most visible evidence remaining of the gross human rights violations committed after Operation Storm…House destruction is an effective means of ensuring that a population which has fled has nowhere to return. Indeed, the deliberate destruction of property continues to be an effective means of making Croatian (Orthodox Christian) Serbs who wish to return to Croatia change their minds.”
“While the Croatian authorities are eager to facilitate the resolution of cases of “disappearance” when the victims are of Croatian nationality, are vigorous in pursuing the prosecution of Croatian Serbs and others accused of committing war crimes against Croatian victims, and are facilitating the return of displaced Croatians to their homes within Croatia, the authorities have done little to address violations committed by its own side…no attention has been given to the continuing impunity for the human rights violations suffered by the Croatian Serbs who did not leave Croatia in 1995. Crimes remain unacknowledged, uninvestigated, and the perpetrators unpunished.”
“The Croatian authorities’ initial reaction to the reports which emerged about killing, torture, house destruction and other human rights violations and acts of violence was denial, or else they claimed that all the victims had been engaged in military activity. As more cases continued to emerge, however, the authorities’ reactions shifted to admitting that some crimes had been committed, but that they were the acts of uncontrollable individuals, or else were committed by civilians dressed in military uniform.”
The United States was actively involved in the secret preparation, launching and monitoring of the Croatian offensive “Operation Storm.” Personally approved by President Clinton, the Croat military, trained and armed by the United States, attacked and ethnically cleansed the resident non-combatant, civilian Serb majority inhabitants. The operation was transmitted in real time directly to the Pentagon in Washington D.C. Where was the ethically uncompromising, morally offended, confrontational and belligerent, raucous multitude? Why was no one chanting: “Willy lied; people died!”
See also: http://www.thenation.com/doc/19990621/cockburn
(iii) Rambouillet
The President of the United States, William Clinton, exposed his magnanimity for global appreciation at Rambouillet, but only after assuring that the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague (ICTY), had formally indicted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and his government for war crimes. Rambouillet was to be the final, altruistically charitable attempt by a United States government reluctant to escalate the dispute with Yugoslavia into a full scale military assault.
In an interview with L´Unita, reported in ANP English News Bulletin on July 27, 1995, ICTY president Antonio Cassese openly acknowledged that indictments were a politically motivated endeavor of the Tribunal: “The indictment means that these gentlemen will not be able to participate in peace negotiations. Let us see who will sit down at the negotiating table now with a man accused of genocide.”
The ICTY chief prosecutor Louise Arbour, in a press conference in May, 1999, admitted that Milosevic was primarily indicted in order to eliminate the possibility of his participation in peace negotiations: “evidence upon which this indictment was confirmed raises the serious questions about their suitability to be guarantors of any deal, let alone a peace agreement.”
“Milosevic had accepted the Rambouillet agreement which provided for the immediate withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from Kosovo and the return of Kosova autonomy. However, Rambouillet did not provide for a UN presence in Kosovo, instead insisting on NATO military occupation of the entire country.”
“Appendix B, paragraph 8, reads: “NATO personnel shall enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels, aircraft and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and access throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, including associated airspace and territorial waters.” Milosevic accepted all stipulations of Rambouillet except this last demand. No sovereign nation would agree to such outright capitulation.”
The general-secretary of Milosevic’s Socialist Party, Gorica Gajevic: “We are not accepting foreign military troops on our territory under any excuse and at any price, even at the price of bombing.”
On July 23, 1914, an ostentatious Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire delivered a ten demand ultimatum to Serbia after the Sarajevo assassination. The militarily inconsequential Serbian government submissively consented to all but one of the demands: Austrians on Serbian soil. Serbia was invaded; allies entered the conflict on both sides and World War I commenced. The fatuous Austro-Hungarian Empire was destroyed.
World War II also had a diffident beginning; Hitler accused Czechoslovakia of “atrocities” against ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland and demanded self-determination. Ethnic Germans and the Sudeten Nazi Party initiated worker strikes and riots; the Czechs responded with military force. Newsreels showed “evidence” of the violence; journalists hyped the situation.
Hitler threatened to invade, and at Munich on September 29 1938, the Sudetenland was ceded to Germany. “Peace for our time!” boasted a pusillanimous Chamberlain to the cheering crowd, claiming that the Fuhrer was “a man who can be relied upon.” Scarcely a year later, on September 2, 1939, World War II began.
Are we to trust that the Muslims of Bosnia and Kosovo will remain content with presiding over their Islamic states and not obey the Koranic injunction for world domination, commencing with Western Europe? Can we realistically believe that the Serbs, given their spirited history, will meekly accept the U.S. imposed humiliation?
At Rambouillet, President Clinton´s tenuous grasp of history was showing; there are those who believe in a future resurrection of the conflict. In a future Vidovdan, “The Day When We Shall See.” In the Balkans, no one forgets; no one forgives. The region will once again be engulfed in the flames of vengeance.
Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague (ICTY) Tribunal: “A similar situation under Turkish occupation lasted for all of 500 years. This one won’t last that long, and in the very moment it ends, Kosovo will again be completely under Serbian control, and here we are talking not only about Kosovo, but of Serbia as well, since Serbia too will be ruled again, and soon, by patriots. Patriots will rule in other countries as well, instead of this scheme of new colonialism and the establishing of various puppet governments.”
Global Policy Forum: “Rambouillet was never about negotiations. It was about presenting the Serbs with an ultimatum precisely designed to provide the pretext for NATO bombing. Rambouillet was a tragic farce, a low point in the history of diplomacy.”
The New Statesman (U.K.), December 13, 2004: “The trigger for the bombing of Yugoslavia was, according to NATO, the failure of the Serbian delegation to sign up to the Rambouillet peace conference. What went mostly unreported was that the Rambouillet accord had a secret Annex B, which Madeleine Albright’s delegation had inserted on the last day. This demanded the military occupation of the whole of Yugoslavia…As the Foreign Office minister Lord Gilbert later conceded to a Commons defence select committee, Annex B was planted deliberately to provoke rejection.”
“Equally revealing was a chapter dealing exclusively with the Kosovan economy. This called for a “free-market economy” and the privatisation of all government assets. As the Balkans writer Neil Clark has pointed out: “The rump Yugoslavia . . . was the last economy in central-southern Europe to be uncolonised by western capital. ‘Socially owned enterprises’, the form of worker self-management pioneered under Tito, still predominated. Yugoslavia had publicly owned petroleum, mining, car and tobacco industries.”
Congressman Dennis Kucinich: “On February 6, talks began in Rambouillet, France. The Administration billed the talks as a promise to arrive at a peaceful resolution. Details that emerged weeks later about Appendix ‘B’ to the agreement — which gave NATO the right to go anywhere in Yugoslavia — mark Rambouillet as the start of the war, not the beginning of a peace.”
“Madeleine Albright issued a series of nonnegotiable demands to ensure that the only solution was to be bombing.”
The Progressive, Vol 63, No.8, August 1999
Not surprisingly, a persistently obfuscating President Clinton (“I never inhaled;” “I never had sex with that woman;” “It all depends on what your definition of is, is”) repeatedly and hypocritically described Rambouillet as an honest and humane attempt to negotiate a settlement acceptable to all those interested in peace.
Henry Kissinger disagrees: “Several fateful decisions were taken in those now seemingly far-off days in February, when other options were still open. The first was the demand that 30,000 NATO troops enter Yugoslavia, a country with which NATO was not at war, and administer a province that had emotional significance as the origin of Serbia’s independence. The second was to use the foreseeable refusal as justification for starting the bombing…Rambouillet was not a negotiation – as is often claimed – but an ultimatum.”
The International Crisis Group, a private organization founded by former U.S. Senate Majority leader George Mitchell, (a) Washington and Brussels-based group, which is funded by the European Union and the U.S. government, interpreted the events at Rambouillet in a theoretically unbiased report titled, “Reality Demands: Documenting Violations of International Humanitarian Law in Kosovo 1999”: “…a conference was convened at Rambouillet, in France, at the beginning of February. Serbian and Kosovar Albanian leaders met over a period of two weeks to discuss the terms of settlement that had been put together by representatives of the Contact Group countries. However, these terms ultimately proved unacceptable to the Serbian government representatives and it became evident they were simply using the negotiations as a diversion.” (p 67)
See also:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/projectcensored/ackerman2317new.html
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/printer_3497.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-muEj_E0PY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo1jJkIfWbc