HEADLINES

Phoenix                     1. The Other Side of the Coin

Prague                      2. Sex Slaves for NATO/KFOR Troops

London                     3. British Troops to Sue over "Balkans War Syndrome"

Berlin                       4. German Defense Minister: British Army Full of Convicts

Belgrade                  5. U.S. Army Colonel Volunteers for Yugoslav Army Service - 

                                      One Year Too Late?  

Belgrade                  6. NATO's Premeditated KillingsMay 22, 2000 

Moscow                   7. No Russian Invitation for Serb Opposition Leaders? May 22, 2000 

Ottawa                     8. Canadian Commanders Admit Their Pilots Killed Civilians May 22, 2000 

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1. The Other Side of the Coin

PHOENIX, May 22 – To read the TiM editor’s reaction to the Toronto Star’s Sunday editorial, “Offensive Visitor” (May 21), click here or on the above title.  “The Other Side of the Coin” throws this Canadian paper’s editorial right back into its editor’s face.

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2. Sex Slaves for NATO/KFOR Troops

PRAGUE, May 19 - We’ve reported in several of our prior TiM Bulletins that drug use and trade were blossoming in NATO-“liberated” Kosovo, with KFOR troops, especially American and British soldiers, being the main targets for the Kosovo Albanian drug pushers (see “Drugs and Prostitution Blossom within KFOR”).  This “Standstill at the Bondstill” (name of the large American base in Kosovo) should come as no surprise, given the longtime ties between the CIA and the KLA (see “CIA’s Ties to the KLA”). 

Well, add to it now the trade in sex slaves, especially with women from Eastern Europe.  That’s another example of “progress” that the “international community” has also brought into this Serbian province, along with its KFOR troops.  Nor is this a new phenomenon.  It merely follows the pattern established four years ago, when the NATO troops similarly occupied Bosnia.

Here’s an excerpt from a May 19 report by the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the TiM received from Prague:

“Sex-slave trade in Eastern European women -- one of the major crime scourges of post-communist Europe -- is becoming a serious problem in Kosovo.  As a former war zone, Kosovo is a prime location for the burgeoning trafficking trade. Porous borders, the presence of a large clientele in the form of international troops and aid workers, and the lack of a working criminal justice system offer excellent conditions for the sex-slave trade.

East European women make up much of the “work force” in Kosovo's underground brothels. Their native countries are close by and are home to well-established organized-crime networks.

In the past six months, United Nations peacekeepers and police have rescued women from Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Albania. The police say that most of these women and girls -- some as young as 15 -- were transported from their home countries to Macedonia, which borders Kosovo to the south. There, they were held in motels and sold at auction to ethnic Albanian pimps for $1,000 to $2,500.

The women were stripped of their passports and held in unsanitary conditions in bars or motels. They were then forced to engage in unprotected sex with local police and international peacekeepers for no payment. They were told that before they could keep any of their earnings, they first had to pay the pimps for their purchase price and the cost of their travel. If the women resisted, they were beaten.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, has provided support for women victims released from brothels by UN police and NATO-led peacekeepers. Rolf Welberts, the OSCE's human-rights director in Kosovo, says his organization has assisted some 50 women. He believes the number of women still held in bondage is much higher: "We're talking about women from Eastern Europe who are brought into Kosovo to serve as prostitutes, or when they arrive they're submitted to conditions that they didn't know about -- meaning passports taken away, money withheld, and so on. It is a form of slave trade."

Welberts says that "internationals" -- foreign (KFOR) soldiers and aid workers -- are very often brothel patrons. The same phenomenon also exists in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the presence of peacekeepers and aid workers initiated a major trade in trafficked women from Eastern Europe that continues to thrive today.

Human Rights Watch -- an international monitoring organization -- documented that women from Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, and Albania were lured into Bosnia by promises of legal work and safe passage. When they arrived, brothel owners seized their passports and subjected them to slave-like practices. They were often sold from one brothel owner to another, with the women forced to work without wages.

Human Rights Watch says that international officials were aware of the (sex) trafficking problem in Bosnia, but did little to combat it. The organization says that some officials were actively complicit in the abuses, participating in the forced prostitution of the women or patronizing the brothels.

Jill Thompson -- an adviser on trafficking issues for the OSCE's Warsaw-based human-rights office -- estimates the number of trafficked women throughout the former Yugoslavia in the tens of thousands.”

For the full RFE/RL report, check out http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/05/F.RU.000519123012.html .

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TiM Ed.: And just where are now all those "Amazing UN Amazon Women," such as Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and others, when these Eastern European female sex slaves of the New World Order need them to defend their human rights?  By contrast, check out a story about the Russian prostitutes who refused to provide their services to NATO sailors in April 1997 on patriotic grounds.

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3. British Troops to Sue over "Balkans War Syndrome"

LONDON, Apr. 16 - Twelve British troops who served in the former Yugoslavia are planning to sue the Defense Ministry after suffering "Balkans war syndrome" health problems, the London Times reported on Apr. 16.  A report in the Sunday paper said doctors had linked the symptoms to exposure to depleted uranium in anti-tank missiles used during the conflict.

The Times said research has shown the heavy metals caused health problems leading to cancer, neurological and immune system defects and reproductive system damage.

The move follows similar action by veterans of the 1991 Gulf War who have complained of chronic health problems they say were caused by a cocktail of vaccines designed to protect them from biological warfare.

Around 10,500 Britons were sent to Kosovo last year to help in peacekeeping missions following the NATO air bombardment of Serbia. 

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TiM Ed.: And whom will the local civilian survivors of the NATO bombing sue if they get afflicted by the “Balkan War Syndrome?”

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4. German Defense Minister: British Army Full of Convicts

BERLIN, May 20 - The German Defense Minister has triggered a diplomatic row by alleging that the British Army is full of convicts recruited from the nation's jails, the London Telegraph reported in its Sunday edition (May 21).  Rudolf Scharping said that it was an official British Army policy to offer criminals the chance to sign up as an alternative to prison.

A Ministry of Defense spokesman said yesterday (May 20): "The man is talking absolute rubbish." Nevertheless, the claims have been widely reported in Germany, leaving many with the impression that large numbers of British servicemen and women are crooks.

Mr. Scharping was speaking to the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in advance of Tuesday's publication of plans for restructuring Germany's armed forces. He said: "Everyone will ask themselves whether we should oblige ourselves to repeat the bad experiences of other countries with professional armies. Should we do the same as Britain and give criminal offenders the option to serve in the army rather than go to prison?"

Brigadier Brian Isbell, the British defense attaché to Germany, wrote to the newspaper pointing out that Mr. Scharping was mistaken. He said: "The British Army does not recruit inmates from the prisons to serve as soldiers." It was merely standard prison-service policy to inform ex-prisoners of military career opportunities after their release.

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TiM Ed.: Gee… If he were not British and male, this brigadier, as “Isabella,” might have made a dandy attorney for Bill Clinton - the man who also tried to convince the nation that he “did not have sex with that woman.”

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Last year, The Telegraph revealed that the Army had started allowing convicts to apply as recruits while in jail. But it will accept only those who have been sentenced to two years or less, and it bars anyone convicted of racial, sexual or drugs offences. Crucially, offenders can join up only after serving their sentences.

Mr. Scharping also took a sideswipe at the Spanish army, The Telegraph reported, suggesting that it was full of idiots because senior officers had reduced the intelligence quotient to attract recruits.

Mr. Scharping, who was appointed defence minister in Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrat-led government 18 months ago, was seeking to defend the principle of conscription in Germany's armed forces against plans to switch to a more British-style professional army.

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TiM Ed.: In that case, stand by for more drug abusers (and customers) if the Germans adopt the Tony Blair-style army practices, and then posts the recruits to Kosovo.  As we reported in March, a number of British members of KFOR were sent home for drug abuse (see “Drugs and Prostitution Blossom within KFOR”).  Here’s an excerpt:

“British headquarters were forced to speak up about it when seven members of the British paratroopers' elite squad, who have already served in Kosovo and Metohija, were expelled from the British Army as junkies. During a routine narco-test, seven "naughty guys" were discovered to have been using heavy narcotics - heroin, LSD and cocaine.

It was a great humiliation for this British elite squad, the British press pointed out.  Drug-addiction among the paratroopers leads to questions of their effectiveness of work within the KFOR, since it has long been known that the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo and Metohija are Europe's greatest drug-traffickers.”

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5. U.S. Army Colonel Volunteers for Yugoslav Army Service - One Year Too Late?

BELGRADE, Apr. 26 - A retired lieutenant-colonel of the U.S. armed forces, Harold Raffe, recently sent a letter to the Serb president Slobodan Milosevic, the prime minister Momir Bulatovic, the defense minister Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic, and chief of general staff Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, seeking permission to be admitted to serve in the Yugoslav Army, the state-owned Yugoslav news agency, Tanjug, reported on Apr. 26. 

Col. Raffe said he wanted to contribute to Yugoslavia's defense against unjustified attacks by NATO countries through the media, or in any other way.  He said that he was certain the knowledge and skills which he had acquired during his 20-year career as a professional soldier (serving in Germany, South Korea, Egypt, Jordan) could serve the Yugoslav defense forces well, especially at the present time, when United Nations forces (KFOR) are deployed in Kosovo and Metohija, forces which have not managed to realize a single of the proclaimed goals of their peace mission.

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TiM Ed.: We don’t know who this alleged retired U.S. officer is (he is not a TiM reader as far as we know), but it seems to us that his clock is off by a year.  We’ve also had a number of Americans write to us during NATO’s bombing of Serbia, offering themselves as volunteers (see the “Kosovo War & Peace” series of Special TiM Bulletins).

But now, almost a year after the bombing had stopped, it seems to us that the best way for Americans who want to help Serbia to do it is by helping that country rebuild after the tremendous devastation caused by NATO’s savage attacks on Serbia’s civilian infrastructure.  Or better still, by getting rid of the New World Order government stooges, both Democratic and Republican, who ordered it.  And who are also riding herd on the U.S. taxpayers, not just enslaving distant nations.

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6. NATO's Premeditated Killings May 22, 2000

BELGRADE, May 22 - Serbian daily newspaper, Novosti, published in today's edition an exhaustive report about the TiM editor's comments made on the anniversary of NATO's attack on Serbia (see "In Memoriam"-English) or "In Memoriam" - Serbian).  To read the Serbian only (!) version of today's Novosti article, click here or on the above headline of this story.

7. No Russian Invitation for Serb Opposition Leaders? May 22, 2000

MOSCOW, May 22 - Ever since the Milosevic regime cracked down on what some observers call the "NATO media in Serbia," the would-be western vassals among the Serb opposition (e.g., Zoran Djindjic and Vuk Draskovic) have been talking about an invitation that they had supposedly received from Moscow to meet either with the Russian president Vladimir Putin, or with his new prime minister.  

The gullible (or complicitous?) western media (e.g., the New York Times, May 20) lapped up and played up such stories to the hilt, trying to add extra importance to these Serb western vassals. 

As it turns out, Djindjic, Draskovic and their western bosses must have been either dreaming about an invitation from Moscow, or must have gotten it from some bored Russian security guard doing a graveyard shift at the Ministry of Irrelevance. For no one in the official (daytime) Moscow knows anything about it.

This evening, for example, one of the two official Russian government news agencies, the RIA Novosti (www.rian.ru), reported that Moscow was "puzzled," since "nobody here knows anything about any invitation," nor about whom the Serb "opposition had contacted." 

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TiM Ed.: The implication that the new Russian heads of state would dignify these two pro-western Serb quislings even with a visa, let alone a personal audience, was a stretch even on first blush.  Now, the only people who ought to be blushing in embarrassment are Djindjic and Draskovic.  Alas, don't figure on that. Not anymore than one should count on their idol, Bill Clinton, to blush and be remorseful for his lying or other transgressions.

Meanwhile, here's that short piece in which a Serb writer puts things straight as to what sort of the Serb media was shut down last week and why:

by Andrej Tisma, writing from Serbia (5-18-00) for Emperors-clothes (www.tenc.net)

"I don't understand how can anybody have an illusion that media paid by NATO (U. S. A. State Department) can be "independent" and "free". Those media are just instruments in the proven NATO hegemonic, interventionism and fabrication of conflicts. One of the first things NATO did for "democratization" of media in Yugoslavia was the bombing of state TV and radio stations and transmitters, while the Western media were all visible in "totalitarian" Yugoslavia.

The Yugoslav "independent" and "free" media are openly sponsored by NATO and just transmitted the NATO propaganda before and during the bombing of Yugoslavia. They broadcasted uncritically the Jamie Shea type of lies, disinformation and propaganda, the same lies we could see in CNN, BBC, Sky News, Free Europe etc. They shamelessly broadcast NATO threats before the bombing aiming to induce panic in our people and Army. Also during the bombing they gave false numbers of casualties and effects of bombing. 

Do you still remember the "free", "independent" and "truthful" information about 100,000 killed Albanian civilians, about "Racak massacre", about 200 destroyed Serb tanks, etc.? By repeating this stuff, the "free" Yugoslav media took part in the NATO aggression. But they were still left in existence by the Yugoslav "authoritarian" regime till now. 

Now when those media started to call on Yugoslav people for an "uprising", "armed resistance", killing of democratically elected state leaders and violent change of political system, they had to be shut down. Everything is clear if we know that Studio B was led by the Serbian Renewal Movement and its leader Vuk Draskovic, who after the criminal and disastrous bombing of Yugoslavia kissed the bloody hands of Madeleine Albright. NATO couldn't conquer Serbia militarily, and it wants now to destroy it from inside, through such instrumental mercenaries. It is obvious that the call for uprising by Draskovic and Studio B is the continuation of NATO aggression on Serbia and its system, and that Studio B and other likely "free" media were just NATO's instruments to provoke inner conflicts and civil war in Serbia.

That is why they had to be shut down. They were shut down according to Yugoslav Constitution, where nobody has right to call publicly for violence and civil war, and no media can transmit such a call uncritically and repeatedly from day to day, as Studio B did."

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8. Canadian Commanders Admit Their Pilots Killed CiviliansMay 22, 2000 

OTTAWA, May 22 - A TiM reader from Canada has sent us a clip from today's story in the Canadian national daily newspaper, Globe and Mail.  Unlike the earlier reports what were boastful of the supposed Canadian pilots' "heroism" during NATO's 79-day bombing campaign against Serbia, this report offers a somber assessment by some senior Canadian military commanders who have now admitted that "their pilots probably killed innocent civilians during the Kosovo air war."  

Here's an excerpt from this story:

"Despite (precautionary) those measures, the commanders say, the odds are that Canadian bombs caused unintended damage, injury and death. 

In evidence presented recently to a parliamentary committee, the government acknowledged that 28 per cent of the laser-guided "smart" bombs dropped by Canadian pilots missed their targets. That means about 100 of the 361 laser-guided bombs exploded somewhere other than on a military target.

"I do believe we caused collateral damage. I'm certain that we did," air force Colonel Dwight Davies, the Canadian task force commander for most of the Kosovo campaign, said. 

"Some civilian structures were knocked down that we didn't intend to. There is a distinct possibility that some civilians were killed that we never intended to," Col. Davies, now wing commander at the fighter base at Bagotville, Que., said in a recent interview. "But to my knowledge, I can't tell you when or which mission that it might have occurred on."

Rear Admiral Bruce MacLean, the director of security policy for the Canadian Forces, told the parliamentary committee that "conflict is and always will be very dirty and very ugly and there will always be accidents and there will always be miscues, but that's the nature of the business."

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has never identified Canadian pilots with any of the high-profile mistakes, such as the bombing of a passenger train south of Belgrade three weeks into the war."

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TiM Ed.: But we did.  The two pilots (McIntosh and Stewart), who killed at least 14 civilians on that train, were from the Cold Lake Squadron in Alberta, according to our sources, who provided that information to TiM on condition of anonymity.  The two Canadian pilots were sent home shortly after the Grdelica bombing… (see TiM Editor's letter to Mclean's).

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Only five of the 18 NATO countries dropped bombs on Yugoslavia: the United States, Britain, France, Spain and Canada. Ambassadors from all 18 countries set the strategy for the campaign at meetings of the North Atlantic Council in Brussels.

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TiM Ed.: Interesting. Last we heard, there were 19 members of the NATO alliance. Wonder which country had quit NATO while the going's still good?  Or is it just a Globe and Mail factual faux pas?

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It was rare, but pilots sometimes made mistakes identifying targets. They might release their bombs and then realize, "Oh my God, this is not the target. This is something else. This is a farm," Col. Davies said. But the smart-bomb technology allowed the pilots to point the laser target "designator" in another direction and steer the bomb off into a field or some other safe place. This happened 1 or 2 per cent of the time, Col. Davies estimated."

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TiM Ed.: Wonder how many civilian lives, including children's, were snuffed out by the "1 or 2 per cent" of the 23,000 bombs and missiles NATO had dropped? 

For the full Globe and Mail story, check out - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/gam/National/20000522/UBOMBM.html 

Also see... Artemije: Naive Lamb or Wolf in Sheep's Clothing? 

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Also, check out... 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"