July 22, 1999

Special Truth in Media Reports on NATO's Kosovo War and "Peace" S99-125, "Peace" 19

HEADLINES

Pristina                           1. Kosovo Lawlessness Continues Amid Finger-Pointing

                                           Between U.S. and U.N. Officials

Belgrade                         2. Yugoslavia Calls for Return of Its Army to Kosovo

London                            3. NATO Admits Its Air Campaign Failed

Dublin                             4. An Ugly Double Standard in Kosovo

San Francisco                 5. For the Cause of the Truth: Unveiling Similarities

                                           Between Anti-Serbism and Anti-Semitism

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1. Kosovo Lawlessness Continues Amid Finger-Pointing Between U.S. and U.N. Officials

PRISTINA, July 21 - Lawlessness, rapes and murders continue in Kosovo, amid the finger-pointing between the U.S. and U.N. officials. John Ruggie, Assistant Secretary General of the U.N., and a senior ranking American advisor to the U.S. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, lashed back at the Pentagon (which had earlier accused the U.N. of foot-dragging).

"If 35,000 heavily armed soldiers cannot restore peace and security in Kosovo, what will even the fully staffed 3,110-member lightly armed (U.N.) police force be able to do?", Ruggie asked rhetorically, according to today’s New York Times report, filed from New York.

Meanwhile, back on the ground in Kosovo, it’s an open season on the Serbs. Here’s a small sampling of the dispatches which we have received, mainly from the Serbian Orthodox Church sources there:

• “Milivoje and Julijana Ristic, who were killed yesterday (July 21) in the village of Maticane, were buried in Kosovo Polje today. After this crime, the last remaining Serbs have moved out of Maticane.

• Slavko Kojic, brother of the three priests from the Kojic family, was killed in Vrbovce village.

• Parish centre in Pristina has once again been attacked today, and a large number of Serbs has moved out of the town.

• Hieromonk Stefan, clergyman of Budisavci monastery, disappeared on Monday, July 19. Vujadin Vujevic, teacher from Budisavci who was teaching in Klina, was with him and disappeared too. Albanians had threatened both of them before. The two disappeared Monday on their way to the shop, where they intended to provide food for the monastery. There is one shady grove on that road, extending about 200 m, so it is very probable that both of them were kidnapped.

• An old Serb woman in Pristina, aged 61, was attacked and maltreated three times. The last time on July 19, when three young men with guns attacked her. They beat her first, and then ordered her to take off her clothes, and all three of them raped her. The old woman suffered enormously, going through physical and mental agony.”

• In addition, the Italian television RAI UNO (Channel 1) reported on Sunday (July 18) that four Christian Albanians had been discovered dead, and tortured within the Italian peacekeeping sector of Kosovo. The KLA claimed the individuals were killed by a group of Serbs. However, the Italian Military Police said that those found were casualties of a fight between Muslim and Christian Albanians.

• The Yugoslav state news agency Tanjug reported July 17 that the commander of the Italian KFOR sector, Brigadier General Mauro del Vecchio, said July 16 that a mass grave in the village of Ljubenic reported to contain over 350 bodies, contained only seven. Del Vecchio said that a full exhumation had been completed at the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, and that as a result the grave was not considered a mass grave.

• In Belgrade, the Yugoslav Army chief, Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic, said in a report that 62 Serb soldiers were killed by the KLA after the armistice was signed on June 10, as they were retreating from Kosovo. That’s about 10% of the total number of soldiers killed by NATO’s bombs during its 79-day air campaign. Yet, according to the terms of the "peace" agreement, KLA had agree not to attack the Yugoslav Army during the pullout, and to demilitarize afterward.

And so on, and so forth…

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2. Yugoslavia Calls for Return of Its Army to Kosovo

BELGRADE, July 20 - Given the widespread crimes against the remaining Serbs in Kosovo, we wondered in our Special TiM GW Bulletin "Peace" 17 (July 13):

"How about bringing back to Kosovo a few Yugoslav Army divisions instead? After all, it’s not the Serbs, but Clinton’s NATO, KFOR, KLA and a bunch of other state-terrorist acronyms that have breached the Kosovo ‘piss agreement,’ and are now murdering, or acquiescing to murder, of the Serb civilians. And who are destroying the nation’s most precious, centuries-old, cultural monuments - OF CHRISTIANITY, NOT ONLY OF SERBIA!"

By defending the Kosovo Serbs in this manner, the leaders of the Yugoslav Army would get rid of the thugs like Milosevic, Clinton et. al. once and for all. And MUCH FASTER than the Serb cowards and western quislings could even say Halfbright (such as Halfbright’s apostles, like Zoran Djindjic, Milo Djukanovic or Vuk Draskovic, not to mention that bio-biker charlatan, Milan Panic). Because they would have the support of the Serbian people, and that of the patriots world over behind them."

“Stupid is as stupid does” - remember the line from the “Forrest Gump” movie?

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3. NATO Admits Its Air Campaign Failed

LONDON, July 22 - NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia had almost no military effect on the regime of President Milosevic, which gave in only after Russia withdrew its diplomatic backing, the London Telegraph reported in a front page story today. This is the gloomy assessment of a private, preliminary review by NATO experts of the alliance's 78-day Operation Allied Force bombing campaign against Yugoslavia over Kosovo.

For the full Telegraph story, check out… http://www.telegraph.co.uk

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4. An Ugly Double Standard in Kosovo

DUBLIN, July 19 - We received the following comment from a TiM reader in Ireland who asked not to be identified for personal reasons:

"I have just read something in the Dutch De Telegraaf (July 16) that I want to bring to your attention. Dutch minister of Foreign Affairs Van Aartsen has made an agreement with the Greek minister Papandreu that only those cities in Serbia will receive oil who support the opposition against Milosevic. The newspaper mentions that MOST SERBS NEED OIL FOR HEATING OF THEIR HOUSES!

What is this, if it is not genocide? What kind of a ‘democratic’ measure is that by the ‘democratic’ western governments ‘fighting for human rights?’

Furthermore, the British Daily Mail, July the 14th, page 23, has the following charity advertisement:

"If people were treated like animals in Kosovo, what about the animals?

Starved. Shot at. Tied to their stalls and left to die.

Thousands of cattle and horses were abandoned when Kosovar refugees fled to the hills. Many animals starved to death, others were shot at by soldiers for revenge, suffering appalling injuries.

Some are still alive, maimed by bullets and in desperate need of veterinary treatment. At SPANA, we have just rushed 2 vets into Kosovo, with first-aid to help these animals. (There are only 3 remaining Albanian vets in the country.) They face an enormous task, without veterinary equipment and supplies, which were destroyed by the Serbs.

Please don't let these animals suffer one day longer than they need."

And then they solicit donation ranging from £15 to £250 or more...

The address of these "animals friends" who do not give a damn about the human beings in Kosovo, (such as the Serbs) who are STILL BEING TREATED WORSE THAN ANIMALS AT THIS VERY MOMENT BY ALBANIAN KLA! Is: SPANA, 15 Buckingham Gate, London, SW1E 6YY. Tel: +44-171-828-0997)

I've never seen a more appauling and cynical ad in my life. If I knew Bill Clinton and Maddy Halfbright's credit card numbers, I'd fill them in immediately!

My questions are:

1. What about Serbian and other civilians who are being murdered, kidnapped, raped and ‘ethnically cleansed’ at this very moment? Why not a word about them? Why is there no charity for them? Why no help for them? Are animals more important than children?

2. Why would soldiers shoot at animals for revenge? Perhaps SPANA's people are judging by Albanian KLA (as they are the only people they listen to!) who would kill anything in revenge - kill a cow for being a ‘Serbian cow?’

3. What happened to the Serbian veterinarians in this ‘liberated’ province? (Kosovo)

4. Why are they so sure that it is ‘the evil Serbs’ - and not their own dear NATO's bombs - that destroyed the veterinary equipment and supplies and maimed the animals? It seems to me to be highly more likely to receive a horrendous wound from a cluster bomb than from anything else!

This ad was a piece of disgusting, dirty propaganda of hatred, disguised under ‘love for animals’."

(name withheld, but known to TiM)

Dublin, Ireland

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5. For the Cause of the Truth: Unveiling Similarities Between Anti-Serbism and Anti-Semitism

SAN FRANCISCO, July 19 - In mid-June, three synagogues in Sacramento were firebombed. Some of the media at the time immediately jumped to conclusions that this may have been an act of revenge, related to NATO’s bombing of Serbia. Brad Blitz, assistant professor of political science at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR, and co-author of a forthcoming book on U.S. foreign policy in southeastern Europe, similarly slandered the Serbs in a recent OpEd piece, without offering any proof of his allegations.

Which, in turn, prompted some negative reactions by other Jews, who stood up for the cause of the truth. Here are some excerpts from a copy of the letter which Jared Israel originally addressed to the editor of the Northern California Jewish Bulletin of San Francisco, a paper which published Blitz’s OpEd piece:

"Last week, the Northern California Jewish Bulletin published an op-ed piece by one Brad Blitz which made outrageous charges against the Serbian people. I and other Jews see this as a campaign, vigorously pursued since the early 1990s, and unfortunately supported by powerful Jewish leaders, to turn Jews against the Serbs, historically our ally.

Below is my reply to Mr. Blitz, followed by his piece…

‘As a Jew and a progressive one (i.e., I'm on the left), I reject Brad Blitz's mix of innuendo and misinformation ("Unveiling connections between Sacramento, Kosovo," July 9, 1999) aimed at smearing (the) Serbs as fascists. Blitz simultaneously suggests and denies he is suggesting that (the) Serbs caused the racist bombing of California synagogues. The whole editorial reminds me of -- anti-Semitism.

To justify NATO's nine year policy of dismembering Yugoslavia and its 78-day obliteration of places of worship, schools, factories, markets and other civilian facilities, as well as the use of antipersonnel weapons (cluster bombs), openly justified as an attempt to pressure (terrorize) the Serbs into submission, and to obscure the current wholesale assault on multiethnic life in Kosovo, the press has engaged in massive Serbophobia. Lying through use of rumors, unconfirmed reports, reliable evidence, ludicrously illogical conclusions, suppression of counter evidence, the uncritical reporting of NATO-instigated fabrications and the silencing of critical opposition views, the media remakes the Serbian people: Fascists.

Blitz says Serbia wants have ‘renounced [ethnic] inclusion]...and crushed minorities.’ Nonsense. Serbia's pride is its 26 national groups with schools and media in their own languages, funded by the government. Nine languages are mandatory in Court proceedings. It is Albanian secessionist organizers who enforced an Albanian boycott of schools, hospitals, courts, etc., in their language during the '90s. […]

The KLA is rooted in a long-standing racist, secessionist movement. As far back as 1982, the New York Times described the secessionist program as:

‘…first to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic [in Kosovo] and then the merger with Albania to form a greater Albania.’ (NY Times, July 12, 1982.)

Alas, the pro-Nazi Kosovo Albanian organizations in WW II were mass-based. These men (women are largely excluded from leadership among the secessionists) and their sons formed the secessionist movement when the Partisans drove them from power at the end of W.W.II and they first ‘popularized’ the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ to describe what they wanted in Kosovo.

Now, while NATO troops watch ‘helplessly,’ the KLA expresses its program in action, murderously purging Kosovo of Serbs, Roma (‘Gypsies’), Goran (Slavic Muslims), Turks, and especially ethnic Albanians who support multiethnic Serbia. All documented. The secessionists' ‘greater Albania’ existed only under fascist and Nazi rule, during WW II, when their forebearers' regime slaughtered and evicted Serbs, Jews, Roma, leftists, etc. This Greater (?) Albania is being recreated under NATO protection today. […]

Yugoslav Jews are virtually unanimous in condemning our media's ‘unrestrained anti-Serbian propaganda, raging during all this war, following the Nazi model, but much more efficient means and in a much more sophisticated and more expensive way’ (see the letter from Danon Cadik, Chief Rabbi of Yugoslavia, at http://www.emperors-clothes.com).

The Serbs, who lost 750,000 to Holocaust extermination camps because they refused to help Hitler round up the Jews during WW II, are justifiably appalled that some Jewish organizations have helped demonize them. Amazingly, this has not yet produced widespread anti-Semitism. […]

The Chief Rabbi of Yugoslavia said: ‘Even American Jews were not able to withstand this propagandistic poison, although they were especially expected to resist. Unfortunately, they did not recognize the Nazi and racist nature of the Serbophobic dogma. They did not identify Serbophobia as a twin sister of anti-Semitism, this being not unknown in the United States.’

Mr. Blitz' notion that neo-Nazi's are pro-Serbian is nonsense. There have been several groups of non-Army foreigners fighting in the Balkans. The documented evidence: Israelis, Russians and Bulgarians have fought on the Serbian side in Kosovo. German neo-Nazis and Islamic Fundamentalists (including bin Laden's boys) have helped the Bosnian Fundamentalist government and the KLA. […].

One of the monuments NATO bombed (in Novi Sad) consisted of a line of Orthodox crosses met by a line of Stars of David in a park near the spot where the Nazis forced 3,000 Jews and Serbs onto the Danube ice, then broke the ice. Jews and Serbs died in one another's arms. Until the monument was destroyed by NATO bombing, it was common to see Serbs sitting at this spot and weeping. And indeed, there is much about which to weep.

Mr. Blitz is totally misinformed, or he is an awful liar. Would he care to debate? Any time, any place. Respectfully yours,"

Jared Israel, California

Also, check out... Truth in Media Statement on the Kosovo War, "Wither Dayton, Sprout New War?", "On the Brink of Madness", "Tragic Deja Vu's," "Seven U.S. Senators Suggest Ouster of Milosevic", "Biting the Hand That Feeds You", "A Balkan Affairs Potpourri", "Put the U.N. Justice on Trial", "International Justice 'Progresses' from Kidnapping to Murder", "Milosevic: 'A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery'...", "Kosovo Lie Allowed to Stand", "New World Order's Inquisition in Bosnia", "Kosovo Heating Up", "Decani Monastery Under Siege?", "Murder on Wall Street",  "Kosovo: 'Bosnia II', Serbia's Aztlan",  "What If the Shoe Were on the Other Foot?", "Serb WW II General Exhonerated by British Archives," "Green Interstate - Not Worth American Lives", "An American Hero or Actor of the Year?" (A June '95 TiM story) and/or "Clinton arme secrètement les musulmans bosniaques", "Kocevje: Tito's Greatest Crime?", "Perfidious Albion Strikes Again, Aided by Uncle Sam"

Or Djurdjevic's WASHINGTON TIMES columns: "Chinese Dragon Wagging Macedonian Tail,"  "An Ugly Double Standard in Kosovo Conflict?", "NATO's Bullyboys", "Kosovo: Why Are We Involved?", and "Ginning Up Another Crisis"

Or Djurdjevic's NEW DAWN magazine columns: "Washington's Crisis Factory,"  and "A New Iron Curtain Over Europe"